mind over matter

Valentine’s Week is over, but I’m keeping things lovey-dovey by posting an interview with a dear friend who has recently gotten engaged (aww). Catherine, you must tell me if I’m getting too personal - I forget that others have qualms about strangers peering into their personal lives (I guess it’s easy to be open when there’s little to report, eh?). 

For a class assignment, I had to interview someone (anyone) relevant to my blog topic, edit the Q&A way, way down, and post it here. Please click on the button below to listen to my interview with Catherine Ryan, an editorial assistant in the Happiness department of SELF magazine, and an all-around super person. After the cut, you’ll find a full transcript of the edited interview, which is a bit oxy-moronic, I know.

Six questions with Catherine Ryan

  Andrea Bartz: I’d like to have you describe your position and responsibilities in the Happiness Department at SELF. 

Catherine Ryan: I am an editorial assistant in the Happiness at SELF. The Happiness department is sort of the catch-all department of the magazine. It covers mental health, careers, relationships, friendships, stress, just kind of everything that doesn’t fit into the other sections of the magazine. But a lot of what we do is related to psychology.  What I do within the magazine is I do the reporting and the writing for the Happiness Flash page, which is about seven summaries of new studies in psychology and all those different regions, so I summarize those along with some sort of tip to the readers that they can take away. 

AB: Can you talk about some special considerations you have to take when turning studies into service? 

CR: I always start with the press release or article that’s about the story and I try to formulate some idea in my head of exactly what the study’s about and hopefully I get idea of some sort of service that I think you can take away from it. The next step is of course talking to the lead researcher and making sure first of all I understand correctly the gist of the findings, and then going into more detail with the researcher. Generally what I will do is give the researcher an open-ended question, saying, “If I were a person who were in this situation what might I do to get XY or Z outcome?” And generally the researcher will give some great tips or advice on ways to affect the outcome of whatever they were doing. Then, I will take that little bit of service and morph it into something that is directly applicable to SELF readers. 

AB: Is it ever the case that, for example, a study is telling you “Stress is bad, stress gives you heart disease,” but you would actually turn to a different source to come up with how you should be reducing your stress?

CR: Yeah, definitely, especially since sometimes the lead researcher will hesitate to offer service because they don’t have the direct evidence of, say, doing yoga reducing your risk of heart disease. So sometimes I will make the jump in logic myself. So I will say, “Okay, now I figured out from this researcher that stress leads to heart disease,” or whatever it might be, and then go to another expert, maybe somebody who teaches stress management, and say, “Okay, how can you reduce stress?” and use that as the little tip at the end.

AB: Another thing I wanted to talk to you about is what you find interesting about covering the field of psychology. 

CR: I really enjoy the psychology aspect in the happiness department, like I said it’s always something new every day. I get to interview these experts about their expertise in the field and really to talk to the person who’s doing the the top-of-the-line research who’s really intelligent and eloquent and really passionate about what they do. That definitely can be very contagious. Another thing I love about the topic is that it’s very relevant to our lives. It’s not something that’s very abstract or esoteric, it’s something you can apply to your everyday life.

AB: That was actually something I wanted to ask you, too: Has your new knowledge in the field and your reporting, has it affected your daily life outside of work?  

CR: It probably does in the background. It’s usually not a conscious decision thing where I read that X, Y and Z happened so I need to do A, B and C. I think to some extent I probably use some of the advice in my own life, even it’s the very least of being conscious of some of the things I read about, conscious of [the fact that] stress can affect your blood pressure, for example: even just knowing that, I can say, “Okay, I’m stressed out right now, I’ll just breathe deeply and take a moment to get my bearings.”

AB: You talked about how you get to speak with these foremost researchers so much, and I was hoping you could share some tips that you picked up on the job for interviewing a psychologist or perhaps even a researcher who’s very much engrossed in their research. 

CR: I start every interview by summarizing my understanding of their research. That seems to be a really good starting pt because I know we’re both on the same page. Usually they will add a nuance or will add a detail or will sometimes even correct me if I’m wrong. Beyond that I think, you know, using tips that you use anywhere: summarizing or I guess rephrasing whatever you understand to be a main point and saying, “Okay, so what you’re saying is blah blah blah.” That helps you get a better understanding of it and also lets them know that you’re following.

AB: Thanks again so much for taking the time to give me a little bit of other perspective from not a blogger but someone’s who’s actually doing this for a career. 

CR: Definitely, I’m more than happy to help! Good luck with your project.