Jayaraych's blog: "Research/Self Help"

Int J Psychophysiol. 1989 Mar;7(1):85-96.

40-Hz EEG asymmetry during recall of emotional events in waking and hypnosis: differences between low and high hypnotizables.

De Pascalis V, Marucci FS, Penna PM.

Department of Psychology, University of Rome, La Sapienza, Italy.

Sixteen high and thirteen low hypnotizable women, who had participated in our previous study (De Pascalis et al., 1987), were enrolled in a hypnotic session. After the hypnotic induction they were requested to recollect 2 positive and 2 negative personal life experiences. In our previous study subjects performed similar tasks in a waking-state. Hypnotizability was evaluated the first time with the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (Form A) and, a second time, individually, with the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (Form C). The State Trait Anxiety Inventory, Maudsley Personality Inventory, and Tellegen Absorption Scale were administered. Upper-trapezius electromyogram (EMG) and bilateral electroencephalogram (EEG) activities within the 35-45 Hz band were recorded. Self-report rating scores for vividness of visual imagery and emotional feeling of the material recalled were evaluated. The 40-Hz EMG amplitude and the left and right hemisphere 40-Hz EEG densities were obtained. The data collected in hypnosis were compared with those in the waking-state. High hypnotizables, with respect to the lows, displayed significantly lower 40-Hz EEG density in the rest condition. High hypnotizables, while they were in hypnosis, showed an increase of 40-Hz EEG density during emotional recall compared with rest periods. In contrast, low hypnotizables, after hypnotic induction, showed no density change during tasks compared to the rest conditions. Different hemispheric trends were found between groups. Highs showed an increase of 40-Hz EEG density over both hemisphere during positive emotions and a density increase in the right and a density reduction in the left during negative ones. This hemispheric trend was found in waking and hypnotic conditions although in the hypnotic condition more pronounced hemispheric patterns were observed. The Tellegen Absorption Scale was found positively related to hypnotizability and with the level of 40-Hz density increase on the right hemisphere during emotional tasks. High hypnotizables, with respect to the lows, were able to access affects more readily. They also showed a greater hemispheric specificity in waking and hypnotic conditions.

PMID: 2925468 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Most Empaths, find themselves at the center of almost any group, they are leaders, teachers, they make good speakers, and can do all these things and more, with considerable talent, however, there is a Dark side to empathy, that one must be aware of, especially in relationships. Some things to consider for any relationship, but doubly so, if one or both of you, are Empaths.

Moody:
Be prepared to be considered moody, and "emotional" by most partners. Because, quite frankly, we often are. But, realize, that most of the "moods" we find ourselves in, are very often, not our own. Even for those feelings that are our own, be aware, we tend to feel them much more intently than your average person. "It has been said that if the emotional depth of an Empath were suddenly dumped into the body of another, the other party, might well be institutionalized from the shock." For us, to love or to hate is not just a word, it can be an emotional storm, so expect more of a response, positive or negative, from almost any Empath.

What we hear is what we feel:
This is a tight wire we all walk. As we hear much more than just the words people say out of their mouths, we see into the depth of what they really mean. This can create major conflicts, as all too often, what our ears hear, is not what the mind feels. Polite social lies, don't go over very well with us, as we know them for the sham they are. We find hypocrisy a personal offense. Likewise, we have very finely tuned Bullpuckie detectors, going full blast, all the time, so trying to put one over on an Empath, is just asking for trouble.

The need to be with others and the problems it can create:
Most Empaths do not like being alone, yet conversely, we often crave solitude. Our need to have someone to share with, can create problems of its own however.

When one has a partner, disagreements are inevitable, however, to have an aurgment with an Empath is much more than just the words you toss at each other, it can be like being hit over the head, and assaulted to the Empath. If the other partner is not an Empath themselves, this reaction, often leaves the other mate confused, as they cannot understand how, whatever it was they said in the heat of anger, created such a powerful reaction.

The Empath is often accused of being "overtly sensitive" or "thin skinned". Understand, we do not react well to casual sarcasm, or "poking fun at", as generally to us, it's not at all funny, likewise, we do not deal well with insults. Any negativity in the middle of a conversation, can literly wipe out any positive aspects the conversation might have had, as the negative often takes on a much heavier weight than the positive statements.

Just as we can and do, feel and full fill a partners needs, we can also feel what you are really feeling, meaning we know when you are trying to evade. So absolute honesty on the part of the partner, is paramount, the typical side stepping of the real issues, or taking a cheap shot in anger, that commonly happens in many relationships, is not going to work well with an Empath.

Further, to the Empath, cut your partner a little slack here. Anyone who is used to the allowed "social lies", that are typical in day to day relationships, who suddenly finds their empathic partner in their face, flat demanding they "get real" and just say what's on their mind, will tend to duck and run for cover. This seemingly excessive reaction, often leads the non empath partner to wonder, what on earth did I do ?

The Empath must understand, your partner honestly may not know that they have any deeper issues, and may not be trying to lie to you or evade the real issue. Take the time to discuss it rationally and calmly, and perhaps help them to see the underlying issue, even if it's plain to you, it may not be .. to them.

We tend to scare people in relationships:
We do have a much deeper understanding and capacity for love generally speaking, its been said that we have "never met a stranger". We can, and often do short cut the time it would take most people, to get to know, and perhaps even fall in love with someone. We can do this in a matter of weeks, rather than months. This, unfortunately often scares the pants off of a prospective partner, as it seems like we are moving much too fast for them.

They simply cannot believe you mean it when you say .. "I love you" when to them, there has not been enough time to get to know them well enough to say that. Therefore, we are often accused of faking such feelings. ( Two empaths reaching out to each other can seem like a whirl wind, and create massive combustion, which can either make for a very tight bonding, or terrify both people, and make them both run off ) A wise Empath must understand, you may "know", but they may not, and to give them enough time to come to the same conclusion.

Setting Boundaries is a MUST:
A controlled Empath will generally create very clear boundaries on what they will, and will not tolerate, as well as, what they are responsible for, and will defend those boundaries with everything they have. Likewise, they will respect their mates boundaries, with just as much vigor, if those boundaries are made clear. Mutual agreement on these boundaries, is a must have, to be in a relationship with an Empath.

There is no room for playing the "blame game" in a relationship, as to who is responsible for what, or tromping all over the others turf, as in barging in and "taking over" their responsibilities. Likewise, you cannot just leave "your" responsibilities lying around for your mate to handle for you. There can be no confusion on what is "your" responsibility Vs "my" responsibility.
Be prepared to "do a little dance" if you want to " make a little love":

Not talking sexuality here, although it does apply in many ways, rather it has to do with how you deal with conflict. Typical action, you have had a fight, blown up all over each other, and your still angry. Now, what normally happens in such a case? The cold shoulder and avoidance is pretty common, right ? Well, to a point, a bit of distance after an unresolved dispute is wise, but there is a point of taking it too far, and doing it too often.

Empaths, as stated, need both companionship and solitude, but too much solitude, as typically happens when your mad at each other, can be the kiss of death to your relationship, if your doing it all the time, and not resolving the issues. This is easier to get into, than you might think.

If every time you approach X subject, it turns into a fight, you tend to avoid talking about it, that's human nature. Your reasons are honorable. You want to stay together, and you are afraid that if you fight, you might lose the other party. So you become afraid to talk about "that".

The only problem is, over time, the list of "things we don't talk about" tends to grow, to where you can get to a point, you no longer talk to each other, at all. You are totally detached from each other. Avoidance, has become a way of life. If you have reached a point of constant avoidance, rather than dealing with the issues, and are utterly ignoring your mate, for anything but mundane, day to day affairs, you are setting up your relationships death knell.

Empaths do not deal well with being ignored. We need intensity, we need and desire union and confirmation, and too much avoidance can mean you will wake up one morning, and find your empathic mate gone, and you will be standing there, wondering what the hell happened.

So it's a dance, a few steps forward and one step back, as needed to resolve issues, but never go too far away, or for too long, or you will find yourself with what you have inadvertently asked for ... you will be alone in truth.

Avoiding Toxic Relationships:
Given an Empaths capacity for love, it is startling to find it's very common for them, to have had a long history of bad or even toxic relationships. We tend to be drawn to people who "need" us, which can, unfortunately lead to an Empath being in the hands of an abusive person, unless great care is taken.

An abusive person, may well have empathy, contrary to what we normally think of, in what that term means, in that they can read the others feelings, but are completely detached from feeling them themselves, as otherwise they could not do such harm to another, and not suffer it themselves. But an Empath can be fooled into thinking, "this person is another Empath, they will understand", only to find themselves with someone who can indeed read them perfectly, but does so for the sole purpose of control, manipulation, and/or to cause fear and pain.

To counter this, we must develop our own emotional stability, that is totally unrelated to any partner, otherwise, we can be led into some very unhealthy co-dependent relationships and behaviors.

Signs of an Unbalanced Empath -- Red Flags:
As might be expected, the typical signs of and Empath who is out of balance, is one who doesn't appear to have any empathy. This is often a self defense mechanism. Since what we hear, and what we feel, very often don't match, we tend to try to focus only on the words, and ignore what we feel. This is typically a mistake, but one that often happens, as we try and avoid the conflict of feeling Vs words. More signs ...

Substance Abuse:
Empathy that is uncontrolled, can be overwhelming. Major depression, sadness and other symptoms can abound, and a common means to "deal" with this onslaught, is to drown it in substances that blunt feelings. This is not the answer to the problem of course, but it can easily happen, and any inclination to develop such unhealthy habits, should be avoided at all costs. So if your Empathic mate suddenly takes up such habits, it is a sign that there may be a need to figure out new ways of dealing with the conflicts that arise in any relationship.

Isolationism:
Due to lack of controlling the imput, we can and often do, become virtual prisoners. Like a turtle, we retreat into a rather hard shell, and hope the bad vibes just go the heck away ! This is pointless and self defeating of course, as it means the very next time we stick our head out, we are going to feel like someone just ran it over with a Mac truck. So avoidance is not an answer, we must become desensitized to the emotional wind out there, and not give in to the tendency to become a hermit. If your Empathic mate, is suddenly avoiding you, again it likely means you need to come up with some more constructive ways to deal with issues.

Major Mood Swings:
The thoughts of others can over amp a person. So we can vacillate back and forth in a near manic - depressive manner, without actually being bi polar. Empaths are emotionally sensitive to violence and chaos. We are not too fond of sudden loud noises either, suddenly blasting the TV or yelling around an Empath, will often bring nasty, and unexpected results. To come into a space, yelling and screaming, is liable to cause one of two reactions, you will either get your own rage thrown back at you, with interest ... or your mate might react in fear to your anger. Neither of these reactions is conductive to a healthy relationship.

The bulk of current day television, just tends to annoy most of us. Your favorite real life cop show for example, since it's happening to real people, is a horror flick to an Empath. ( oddly enough, we might like horror shows, but for us, the more unreal the plot, the better, the closer it comes to any possible "reality", ie it could really happen to real people, the more distressed we are likely to become )

Acts of cruelty and violent crime are incomprehensible to us. Showing things that depict violence done to real people to an Empath for example, could be setting them up for an emotional tail spin, that might take weeks to get over.

This is not to say we are, or should be unaware of such things, but forcing such violence on an Empath unexpectedly, is cruel and uncalled for. So don't be at all surprised if we don't want to watch the nine o'clock news with you, or that we become very distressed if we got an email today, that showed us the horror of our world in living color, out of the clear blue sky ( I have personally dropped a few friends, on account of them sending such horrors to my inbox on a regular basis ).

Later, on our own terms, we will keep in touch with the reality of the world, negativity and all, but only when we are ready for it. Forcing it on us, is just setting us up for depression. So if you like reality TV, expect to watch it ... alone.

Mental Health Issues:
While generally not a cause for mental health issues per se, out of control empathy can make any current mental issue, worse. ADD, agoraphobia or clinical depression are common mental issues that empaths often find themselves labeled with, weather or not they in fact, have such problems, and a little bit of thought about it, can tell you why.

Empaths are often erroneously labeled with ADD, especially children, as they often are picking up on so many emotional levels, at the same time, that it's hard to stay focused, Which is the most classic sign of ADD. Agoraphobia, goes back to the tendency to Isolationism, and depression ... is all too easy to come down with, as the world all around us contains enough emotional negative baggage to infect even "ordinary" people, much less an Empath.

Now, is everybody who has these problems an out of control Empath? No, but it is one to eliminate from possible causes.

Over Eating:
Comfort foods, we all enjoy them, but an Empath under assault, can be driven to the nearest source of comfort food, not out of hunger, but for emotional need. Having a spat with the mate for example, can lead to a chocolate binge, for the simple fact that chocolate raises serotonin in the blood stream, and calms the mind, and as with other substances, this can become habitual, and lead to health issues. So if you see your empathic mate, suddenly chowing down on major amounts of comfort foods, it's a very good sign there are some issues that need to be resolved.

 

http://themarknews.com/articles/103-cognitive-science-and-the-new-spirituality

John Vervaeke

Professor of psychology and cognitive science, University of Toronto.

5/5/09

There is an emerging framework for scientifically understanding how we fundamentally make sense of the world. Although there is much work to be done, there is now real promise that we are starting to understand how we understand – this promise creates opportunities that have profound existential, moral, and, for a lack of a better word, spiritual implications.

We are beginning to be able to explain how people can be intelligent beings (i.e. how they can sift through all the vast potential information available to them and zero in on what is relevant). Such relevance realization enables them to turn space into places, time into events, and causes into stories so that they can experience and think about their world. This enables them to size up situations, solve problems, and feel at home in the world.

Such fundamental framing enables them to realize patterns of relevance and thereby generate perspectives. The grasping of a perspective that enables one to see into a situation and solve problems is insight. Very often we (insightfully) realize, through a perspective, some purpose as relevant (i.e. we generate a role for ourselves). This is foresight. We can, most importantly, realize the relevance of one role to another and thus have the ability of mindsight. This is the ability to realize how the mental states of one’s self and others are relevant to each other. We create a sense of communion and communication (i.e. of communitas).

This recursive and self-organizing relevance realization (i.e. relevance realization within relevance realization within relevance realization), is probably what makes us intelligent and may even be an important part of what makes us conscious and self-aware beings.

This fundamental framing, however, will have great personal significance to people precisely because it is the process of creating personal significance and meaning. Such fundamental framing is what makes possible their world, their story, and their orientation to reality and sense of purpose. It makes possible their religio – their fundamental sense of connectedness to their world, their self, and to others. Such religio is distinct and deeper from the creedal, or "I believe," sense of religion.

It does connect up to some important ideas from the ancient Greek project of trying to cultivate wisdom and virtue. The Greeks had two terms for wisdom: sophia and phronesis. Sophia meant the grasping of deep principles (i.e. the ability to see deeply into reality and realize what is fundamental). Phronesis meant the ability to sense what is contextually appropriate and to act with finesse and grace in a current situation (i.e. to have insight into an on-going process and frame it well).

To cultivate wisdom was to cultivate sophia and phronesis and, most importantly, to cultivate their dynamic integration so that sophia was always helping to grow, enhance, and develop phronesis (which, in turn, was always helping to grow, enhance, and develop sophia). Wisdom involved not just learning new things and gaining knowledge, but acquiring new abilities to learn, realize relevance, and thereby realize principle within process. Wisdom therefore involves ekstasis – a sense of self-transcendence towards excellence of the self.

One way we can self-transcend is through mindsight (i.e. by creating resonance and co-ordination between minds so that they work together). This sense of communitas enables distributed cognition in which many minds are networked together so as to mutually enhance their overall problem solving abilities. Science itself is an example of communitas creating enormous problem solving abilities so as to tackle very complex and profound problems.

We are now in a position where such science is beginning to give us effective explanations of religio, sophia, phronesis, ekstasis, and communitas. So although science has deeply undermined the creedal aspects of most religions, it is beginning to provide us with ways to educate, cultivate, and enhance, wisdom, compassion, and a sense of connectedness and personal significance. Although we have lost the supernatural, we are beginning to see how we could become extraordinary.

We must not give up on the pursuit of the extraordinary, because we have seen through the illusion of the supernatural. Seeing through such illusion provides an opportunity for extraordinary insight, foresight, mindsight, for extraordinary rationality and self-transcendence, for extraordinary psychophysical co-ordination, for extraordinary self-awareness and self-control, for extraordinary wisdom, compassion, grace, and communitas.

We have the possibility of founding a religio that can grow with science and can realize an ataraxia (peace of mind and sense of harmony with one’s world) that is consonant with the growth of knowledge and understanding.

There are possibilities that such cultivations can be enhanced by neuro-feedback, biofeedback (both being therapy techniques that offer real-time feedback on brainwave activity), and cyber-enhancement, so that individuals have available to them opportunities for tremendous self-transformations in sophia, phronesis, ekstasis and communitas that could enhance the breadth and depth of their lives.

We will only wean people off magical thinking by giving them such profound meaning. We must glean, with respect and understanding, from the religions of the past their remaining functionality. We have a history of such respectful gleaning. We have secularized education, art, government, medicine, counseling, and social welfare, but in spite of all of this, religion persists. Some of this is due to irrationality, fear, and hatred. But some of it is due to the remaining functions of religio, viz, the cultivation of sophia, phronesis, ekstasis, and communitas, all present within religion. These functions must be gleaned from religion with a neuro-spirituality that is always in concert with our best cognitive and neuro-science, with our best social psychology and anthropology. This is our great hope.

This is a rational hope for a rational renewal of religio. This is a way that can be followed with open eyes and hearts by those who are awake to what is scientifically known and to what is philosophically plausible.

We must acknowledge and thank religion for what it cultivated. We must stop trying to refute religion, for this is a form of self-denial of our past and our potential. We must always challenge supernatural claims and super-epistemic beliefs. But we must realize that a belief in magic threatens not only science but is also a perversion of the quest for wisdom, and this perversion is the life-blood of the belief. We will only drain the life from magic if we give people the rationally extraordinary pursuit of sophia, phronesis, ekstasis, and communitas. We must demonstrate the courage and creativity of providing such a way to people if we are going to free the world from the perils of religion.

It is time that we realized and proclaimed the promise of a new spirituality – available to us if we but commit ourselves to this worthy task.

http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6698

 

New Haven, Conn. — Superior intelligence is no defense against the effects of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, Yale researchers have found.

About three of four ADHD individuals with an IQ of more than 120 – a score that ranks them in the top nine percent of the U.S. population – showed significant impairments in memory and cognitive tests when compared to people with similar IQ’s who do not suffer from the disorder, according to the researchers.

The report, to be published in the September print edition of the Journal of Attention Disorders, is now available online: http://jad.sagepub.com/pap.dtl

“Many of these people are told they can’t be suffering the loss of executive function (the ability to plan and carry out many day-to-day tasks) from ADHD because they are too smart,’’ said Thomas E. Brown, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study.

The high-IQ, ADHD group lacked self-management skills and the ability to focus. They tended to procrastinate and be forgetful and had difficulty in harnessing their talent to complete many daily tasks, the study found. In fact, 73 percent of the ADHD population showed significant deficits in five or more of the eight measures of executive function.

“Each of these individuals might be compared to a symphony orchestra of very talented musicians who cannot produce adequate symphonic music because the orchestra lacks an effective conductor,” the authors wrote.

Philipp C. Reichel and Donald M. Quinlan of Yale are co-authors of the paper.

WHAT IS POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO IT? An overview of the work of Dr. Judith Herman Lewis By Jim Spencley. Introduction: PTSD is not malingering, dependency, avoidance of responsibility, attention seeking or any of a number of ways of discounting and not believing the sufferer - it is a normal response to abnormal situations. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a relatively new diagnosis of a condition which has always been part of the human experience. This diagnosis first appeared in the fourth edition of the official bible of the American Psychiatric Association - The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV). Because of the identicy of symptoms of various previous diagnosis applied to different histories, but all sharing some form of traumatic experience, the American Psychiatric Association brought together service providers who had worked with traumatized people from many different social settings, including, political violence, hostage victims, combat veterans, accident victims and victims of domestic and sexual violation. Dr. Judith Herman Lewis was on this committee. She is now a professor of psychiatry at Harvard's Medical School, head of Cambridge's Center for the Treatment of Trauma and a chief trauma consultant for The United States' Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. In short she is currently considered to be a pre-eminent authourity on trauma, treatment and recovery. What follows are from of her work. The first is a summary of the introduction her book Trauma and Recovery (copy enclosed herein) and the second is a synopsis of her work, taken from the book, and various articles and interviews with her. I AN OVERVIEW OF THE SOCIAL RELATIONS OF PTSD (A summary of the introduction of the textbook Trauma and Recovery) The study of psychological trauma does not languish for lack of interest; in fact it has an abundant, and rich tradition but also a curious history - one of episodic amnesia. Periodically in the past century, similar lines of inquiry have been taken up, abruptly abandoned and forgotten only to be periodically rediscovered and reclaimed much later. This intermittent amnesia is not the result of the ordinary changes in fashion that affect any intellectual pursuit rather; the subject provokes such intense controversy that it periodically becomes anathema. To study psychological trauma means bearing witness to horrible events. It means to come face to face both with human vulnerability in the natural world and with the capacity for evil in human nature. When the events are natural disasters or "acts of God," those who bear witness sympathize readily with the victim. But when the traumatic events are of human design those who bear witness are led into realms of the unthinkable and caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. In this conflict it is morally impossible to remain neutral and the observer is forced to take sides. Consequentially the study of psychological trauma founders on fundamental questions of belief. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud and the ordinary response to such atrocities is to banish them from consciousness: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried because remembering and telling the truth about such events are the prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. Consequently, equally as powerful as the imperative to deny is the imperative that denial does not work. This conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma to which perpetrators, victims and witnesses are all subject. In order to escape accountability for his crimes the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals and impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalizations. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon them self; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail. Ranging from the effects of a single overwhelming event to the more complicated effects of prolonged and repeated abuse there is a spectrum of traumatic disorders. However, people who have endured horrible events suffer predictable psychological harm. The dialectic of trauma (the imperatives of silence and speaking out) is internalized in victims and evident in their psychological distress symptoms. It results in the protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about abuse. It gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called "doublethink,"" and which mental health professionals, searching for a calm precise language call "dissociation." This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. Thus the symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. Because the traumatic syndromes have basic features in common, the recovery process also follows a common pathway. The fundamental stages of recovery are establishing safety, reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the connection between survivors and their community. However people who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner which undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the victim is already devalued (a woman, a child, a psychiatric patient, etc.), they may find that the most traumatic events of their life take place outside the realm of socially validated reality. Her experience becomes unspeakable. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom. Because denial, repression and dissociation operate on social as well as an individual level witnesses as well as victims are subject to the dialectic of trauma. It is difficult for an observer to remain clearheaded and calm, to see more than a few fragments of the picture at one time, to retain all the pieces, and to fit them together. It is even more difficult to find a language that conveys fully and persuasively what one has seen. Those who attempt to describe the atrocities that they have witnessed also risk their own credibility. To speak publicly about one's knowledge of atrocities is to invite the stigma that attaches to victims. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain and demands action, engagement and remembering. The perpetrator's arguments prove irresistible when the bystander faces them in isolation. Without a supportive social environment, the bystander usually succumbs to the temptation to look the other way. The study of psychological trauma must constantly contend with this tendency to discredit and render the victim invisible. Throughout the history of the field, dispute has raged over whether patients with post traumatic conditions are entitled to care and respect or deserving of contempt, whether they are genuinely suffering or malingering, whether their histories are true or false and, if false, whether imagined or maliciously fabricated. In spite of a vast literature documenting the phenomena of psychological trauma, debate still centers on the basic question of whether these phenomena are credible. We find the two sides face to face; on one side the victims who perhaps wish to forget but cannot, and on the other all those with strong, often unconscious motives who very intensely both wish to forget and succeed in doing so. The contrast...is frequently very painful for both sides. The weakest one ... remains the losing party in this silent and unequal dialogue. " II SYNOPSIS The History of Research into PTSD Periods of active investigation of trauma have alternated with periods of oblivion this is because the history of psychological insight is related to the ferment of the times. The paying of attention, the selection of what it is that we're going to consider interesting and significant in human behavior and how we name it is formed by the social and political context that we're embedded in. That's particularly true about the emotions related to power and control, the emotions related to one's place in society, one's place in the family, and the emotions of shame, of resentment, of pride, of a sense of legitimacy or illegitimacy Three forms of trauma have come to light over the past century, and each time, the investigation of that trauma has flourished in affiliation with a political movement. In the first instance, Freud's work and that of others on hysteria came at a political moment in French history when there was a brief inclination to consider 'hysteria' as a possible manifestation of the isolated, politically powerless lives led by most Western women (an interpretation later dismissed in favor of Freudian reductionism). The second form of trauma to be studied was "shell shock" or combat neurosis, which became an issue in England and the United States after the First World War and which reached a peak after the Vietnam War. Here the political context was the growth of an antiwar movement and a re-thinking of the effects of armed combat in the modern world The most recent type of trauma to achieve widespread public awareness was sexual and domestic violence, spotlighted by the feminist movement as well as modern political advocacy to secure the human rights and protection of children. Trauma vs. Fear Traumatic experiences must be distinguished from fear inducing ones (no matter how threatening the latter may be) by one crucial difference. Fear is a complex biological, integrated system of reactions to danger, encompassing both body and mind which we share with other animals. A threat initially arouses the sympathetic nervous system, causing the person in danger to feel an adrenalin rush and go into a state of alert. In this state our attention becomes concentrated on the immediate situation, our ordinary perceptions of such things as hunger, fatigue, pain, etc., may alter such that we are able to disregard them and we feel intense feelings of fear and anger. These changes in arousal, attention, perception, and emotion are normal, adaptive reactions which mobilize the threatened person for strenuous action, either in battle or in flight. In short, in fear we perceive danger; we startle, look around, do a quick appraisal of the situation and figure out what to. That is, fear is a response to danger in which there is some control, choice or way out even if it is only to either fight or flee. Traumatic experiences are those fight or flight doesn't work action is of no avail and this instills helplessness and terror. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder There are two degrees of PTSD, Simple (sPTSD) and Complex (cPTSD). Simple Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (sPTSD) The public at large is most familiar with sPTSD through such things as the Vietnam veterans, Bosnian civilians, witnesses to schoolyard shootings [and most recently 9-11] Here the impact of a single or temporally discrete event in conditions of terror and helplessness results in trauma. Even so such experiences give rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness. When neither resistance nor escape is possible, the self-defense system becomes overwhelmed and disorganized. While we understand little about the psycho-biology it appears that some kind of biological rewiring seems to occur in people as well as animals. [Current research has shown that in animals which have been experimentally traumatized and in autopsies of humans who have died in violent incidents there are lesions in the amygdala, of the brain, believed to play a role in the processing of short-term memory into long term memory]. Traumatic events produce profound and lasting changes in physiological arousal, emotion, cognition and memory. After trauma each component of the ordinary response to danger (startle, alert, focused attention, non attendance to tertiary stimuli, anger, fear) these normally integrated functions become severed from each other, disconnected from their cause, take on a life of their own and persist in an altered and exaggerated state long after the actual danger is over. Thereafter the victim continues to respond to both specific reminders and to generally stressful and threatening situations as though this terrifying event were still occurring in the present. Clinically speaking the triad of sPTSD is hyper-arousal, re-experiencing and numbing. Hyper-arousal is activation of the fear system. Re-experiencing is the reliving of the trauma through flashbacks and nightmares as if the event were still occurring. And, numbing/withdrawal (which is poorly understood) where there is a general loss of interest, a sense that things aren't real, amnesia for some, more, or all of the event and a sense in the aftermath that one is just not really oneself. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD) Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD) is more difficult and less understood (both socially and medically) than sPTSD. Unlike the later, which is the result of accident, conflict, or 'act of God,' cPTSD is caused by one's fellow humans. CPTSD results from: 1. prolonged and repeated trauma, 2. in situations of captivity and coercive control, 3. where the perpetrator isn't content to just have external compliance, but wants the victim to adopt and endorse his worldview. CPTSD occurs in situations of: · domestic violence (towards women, children and dependent adults where the cycle goes on and on) · sexual abuse · religious cults · prolonged hostage situations · concentration camps and political prisoners In all these cases both the methods and the resultant mental processes they produce are the same. Oppression is oppression. Being the underdog is being the underdog. Being treated with contempt is being treated with contempt. Being treated violently is being treated violently. People do it and respond to it in the same ways. When you get right down to it, pain is pain. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a normal response to very abnormal experience. The 'singe cell family' of domestic abuse is not just the model for learning about the techniques of coercive control, torture and the transmission of this knowledge to the other contexts but the progenitor. That is, it is in isolated dysfunctional/abusive families that the spousal abuser, the pimp/child pornographer, the hostage taker, the political interrogator, etc., first experiences and learns these techniques and perhaps later develops them into a fine art. The abuse is done in the name of (not necessarily done by) the dominant authourity figure (primarily the father). The key elements in the development of cPTSD are: isolation; secrecy; splitting behaviour and betrayal (which destroy the relationships that would afford protection) withholding care and/ or affirmation or using or threatening to use care/affirmation as reward or punishment in order to undermine personal identity. Fear is further increased by the polar extremes of fawning love, inconsistent capricious enforcement of petty rules and unpredictable outbursts of violence. And while violence is a universal method of terror perpetrators don't have to resort to it in order to cause trauma and it may be used infrequently, as a last resort. Apparent conventionality and normality are the most consistent features of perpetrators of this kind of terror. The general stereotypes of the 'ignorant blue collar worker,' the bottom-line alcoholic and drug user, the lurking insular psychopath, etc., are the remote exceptions not the rule. Perpetrators of such abuse are extremely difficult to identify, until they are caught. They do not give warning signals. They do not perceive that anything is wrong with them, are convinced of their ultimate rightness, rationalize the abuse in heroic terms (i.e. for the good of...) and emphasize the deservedness of the victim - if only to bring them into line. They do not seek help and only rarely get into difficulties with the law. The profile of such abusers is that they are generally, charismatic, authoritarian, secretive, sometimes grandiose, and even paranoid. They seek out social and professional situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired. They are exquisitely sensitive to the realities of power and to social norms. They are usually economically successful and involved in their communities. Their demeanor and status provide excellent camouflage, for few people believe that such extraordinary crimes can be committed by persons of such conventional appearance and position. When exposed the public is shocked by how upstanding such people. Survivors of this kind of abuse have all the responses of sPTSD but only more so. Not only are there many more traumatic incidents where neither resistance nor escape is possible but the danger is in reality never over - Not only is the self-defense system overwhelmed and disorganized but repeatedly done so. As well, personal identity is repeatedly undermined through fawning love, capricious rules and violation or threats of violation - consequently there is no recourse a to previous sense of self to fall back on as is the case with sPTSD. The disintegration of the components of physiological arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory such that and each function takes on a life of its own is much more intense with cPTSD. The sufferer doesn't 'merely' experience intense emotion without clear memory of the events or remember everything in detail but without emotion, their thinking processes are themselves fragmented. On the one hand they continually relive intense flashbacks of fragmented pieces of various incidents which are more real than the here and now (not just of a single event) with either all the terror intact or complete numbness. And they experience intense anxiety and phobias unassociated with any present object. On the other hand they have an inability to remember discrete moments in current experience (fugues) and entire periods (up to years) are blocked from memory (long term amnesia) and not just of a single event. Relatedly, they often are aphasic - that is, their internal cognition remains intact but they are unable to take in new information and express their thoughts externally in meaningfully constructions. [It is akin to sitting in a concrete cell, communication with the outside world is imperative, a telephone is the only mode of communication with the outside world but there is a voice scrambler attached to it - what is said in either direction is undecipherable.] And, they experience 'pseudo' hallucinations - that is visual and auditory hallucinations with the awareness that they are hallucinations. To make this response even more difficult to comprehend is the fact that under conditions of coercive control and captivity consciousness divides. We don't understand unitary consciousness very well consequently when people have double consciousness, double reality, it is more challenging. Survivors experience living in a double reality of the present and the past co-existing in mind they go back and forth between the two and it is not clear which is more real. Even with the amnesia, people will describe simultaneously knowing and not knowing what happened -remembering and not remembering simultaneously and when people get their memories back, they will often describe it as simultaneously re-living the experience and being outside of it as though it happened to somebody else. Further they internalize and mentally co-exist with the perpetrator and the perpetrators way of seeing the world constantly unsure of which thoughts or feelings belong to them or the perpetrator. In this state of confusion and uncertainty they over-idealize the 'authourity' of the perpetrator and are in constant dialogue with him/her- either hopelessly trying to live up to unrealistic expectations or blaming themselves for not being able to do so - seeing oneself as bad, responsible for and deserving of what happened Weighted under these experiences the sufferer withdraws into isolation, paralysis, self-injury or explosive anger and frequent suicide attempts. This is the realm of apparent hopelessness and despair Features of hope and recovery and the road back. Sufferers of PTSD demonstrate a remarkable resilience. If given the right circumstances they really do get better, make new lives for themselves and in so doing re-instill hope for other victims. Disintegration, in all probability at a biological level, of the normally integrated functions of fear, where those functions become dissociated from their source and take on a 'life of their own,' under conditions where the survival mechanisms of flight or flight are overwhelmed and no recourse is possible, is the defining cause of PTSD. This disintegration extends beyond the biological and includes the perceptual, psychological and social realms. Such traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. With cPTSD the destruction of these bonds and imposition of their interpretation of reality is the goal of the perpetrator and cause of the disorder. On the biological level, it is highly probable that both the symptomlogy (the continual reliving of the events, the isolation) and the continued imposition of the perpetrators world view do not allow the healing process to take place. Traumatically victimized people cannot recover in isolation. They need other people and they need to take action in affiliation with others. Elements of survival and recovery The means of recovery is by working back through these disintegrated elements and reintegrating through the social, personal and ultimately allowing the biological to heal. Those who have survived, who have recovered their sense of self, of worth, of humanity learn that the only way back from severe psychological trauma depends upon re-establishing connectedness with others. The 3 interconnected conditions of recovery are: 1. providing a zone of safety with other victims and survivors 2. remembering and feeling 3. telling and listening to others (reconnect elements of this safety support for telling the story) This kind of work cannot be done by a single therapist. Nor can a therapist do this kind of therapeutic work alone. Therapists if they believe their clients have empathic reactions to what they hear. They have nightmares, fragmented thinking, visual flashes, etc., of the horror that they bear witness to. When they are isolated they lose perspective, burn out, give in to despair and resort to attempting to manage or control behaviour. Further damage can be incurred when therapy attempts to control the symptoms of cPTSD. This is especially true when the victim is characterized as a person with problem behaviors who must experience aversive "treatments" as a "medical necessity," and when the perpetrator seems both pleasant and reasonable. Those who are without speech, whose ability to produce the needed words 'on demand' is unreliable, or whose words are discounted, are more vulnerable to experiences of intense frustration, helplessness, and entrapment in no-win situations. Treatments, services, and living facilities which not only fail to help the person accomplish what they need to do, but make their quality of life contingent on their successful accomplishment of what someone else wishes them to do establish situations of intense threat from which neither victory nor escape are perceived as possible. As a common feature of post-traumatic stress syndrome is the flashback in which a person acts as if a memory is present reality, every time they are put in situations of such threat they recall their previous maltreatment and unless their panic and rage are recognized as a function of this stress, they are likely to be further stigmatized as 'impossible to serve' and subjected to more intensive aversive control thus aggravating the problem. The experience of being hurt in the name of this kind of 'treatment' is no different than being hurt in familial, sexual and cult abuse. Consequently the emphasis must be on community, a community of therapists, victims and survivors. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group recreates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. The group provides a place where one's experience can be safely told without fear of invalidation, challenge or re-interpretation. A context of empathy allows a re-association of memory and feeling - a very painful process which may have to be done time and time again but which allows the victim to eventually affirm the reality and feel the appropriate emotions for the abuse and reconnect and learn to hear the pain of others (thus recognizing that they are not alone in their suffering). Those who recover most successfully are those who discover some meaning in their experience that transcends the limits of their own personal tragedy. This is what it means to say that psychological insight cannot be separated from political insight and action. It means hearing other people's stories, it means mentoring in the context of a tragedy and working with others in social action such as joining organizations that change the laws about what the criminal justice system says is a violation of human rights. New researchers lack a passionate intellectual and social commitment they do not see the essential interconnection between the biological, psychological, social, and political dimensions of trauma. The interesting questions lie in values but this is a murky confusing, emotionally laden area we don't understand and which is riddled with controversy. People write dissertations and apply for research money from drug companies who are seeking to get approval for their drugs for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and if you want to get research funding, you probably should stay away from this murky, messy, social issue 'stuff.' You can just do a nice psycho-biological study and you can randomly assign people to eight sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy or eight sessions of a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, or a combination of the two, or a placebo, and see what works best. But if you want to really figure out how the mind works or how society works, you have to look at the broader society and asking question about relationships of power authourity and sanctioned perception. Ultimately if you're talking about horrible abuses of power, you're talking about the atrocious things that one person does to another person. Here you are dealing with very profound questions of human evil, human cruelty, human sadism and the abuse of power and authority. The antidote to that is the solidarity of resistance. Nobody can do that alone. Under conditions of abuse of power and authority much of what people say about relationships of sex, parenthood, society, authourity, etc., depends on what one thinks or has been told to think is legitimate to express - what ought to be said and felt as opposed to what one actually feels. That is unless one has a support system that says, "Forget what everybody else thinks you ought to be feeling, what you ought to be saying. Get down to it, tell the truth."

HOW MANY OF THE FOLLOWING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS ARE PRESENT IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS??? 1. COMMUNICATION is open and SPONTANEOUS (including LISTENING) 2. RULES/BOUNDARIES are clear and explicit, yet allows flexibility 3. INDIVIDUALITY, FREEDOM, and PERSONAL IDENTITY is ENHANCED!!!! 4. Each enjoys doing things for SELF, as well as for the OTHER 5. PLAY, HUMOR, and HAVING FUN is common place 6. Each does not attempt to "FIX" or control the other 7. ACCEPTANCE of self and other (for REAL selves) 8. ASSERTIVENESS: feelings and needs are expressed 9. HUMILITY: able to let go of need to "BE RIGHT" 10.. SELF-CONFIDENCE and SECURITY in own worth 11. CONFLICT is faced directly and resolved 12. OPENNESS to constructive feedback 13. EACH is trustful of the other 14. BALANCE of giving and receiving 15. NEGOTIATIONS are fair and democratic 16. TOLERANCE: forgiveness of self and others 17. Mistakes are accepted and LEARNED from 18. WILLINGNESS TO TAKE RISKS AND BE VULNERABLE!!!!!!!!!!! 19. Other meaningful relationships and interests exist 20. Each can enjoy being ALONE and PRIVACY is respected! 21. PERSONAL GROWTH, CHANGE and EXPLORATION is encouraged 22. CONTINUITY and CONSISTENCY is present in the Commitment 23. BALANCE of oneness (closeness) and SEPARATION from each other 24. RESPONSIBILITY for own behaviors and happiness (NOT BLAMING OTHER). All comments are welcomed and encouraged on this blog and others as well.