Workings of the Mind: 2012

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Evolution and Social Needs

Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 has a brilliant 10 minute start. In these few minutes we watch a troop of primates in the somewhat early history of the planet (presumably, before the advent of homo sapiens) foraging. The camera cuts to night fall and we see the primates sleeping in a cave, all but one. This lone figure sits outside the cave, awake and alert. In this darkness we hear the sound of predators in the night. Kubrick has crystallized in a short imaginary scene, one of the adaptive advantages of being a social animal. The needs for connection, for belonging, are built into are genes because in the long trek of evolution the genetic makeup which pushes for social groups is more successful. The problems evoked in connections whether pairs, small groups or larger social entities cannot be worked through without accepting and owning that each of us has a set of social needs.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Weight and Corporate Capitalism

Sometime in the late 70's Americans began losing their "shape".
It is estimated that over fifty percent of our countrymen and women are overweight. What happened and what is going on. The food industry, trying to maximize profits, started researching the question of how do we sell more product - obviously they noted, we get people to eat more of our product. Through extensive research they found a set of formulas which increased eating. Essentially, the food industry and especially the fast food industry found that basic food stuff could be treated as a delivery system. The researchers found that levels of fat, sugar and salt can be adjusted to profoundly influence the opioid receptors in the brain. By increasing the fat, sugar, and/or salt to optimal high levels the person would in essence become "addicted" to the food product. As these addiction formulas were being fine tuned, a second major development was underway. In simplest terms, two income families became necessary and the norm. Working more to keep up, the family meal became more difficult to create.
Marketing stepped into the struggle and showed us images of happy folk eating fast food and processed food. Fast food in particular is the apex of the "food as a delivery system for an addictive combination".
These addictions often are experienced as "urges" to eat and most of us are quite susceptible to them.
Often after responding to the urges we find ourselves wondering about "how come we did that".

So, what to do about these urges which are an expression of the addiction. One method is to redefine these addictive foods, think and speak of them as if they are cigarettes, as a product put forward by calculating, indifferent "fat cats" who are messing with your brain. At the same time accept that we are vulnerable humans and that we will at times fail to stop an urge. Get up after a relapse and continue your efforts to see these food delivery systems as corporate capitalism's indifferent misuse of us.

For recent research check Science News the October 6, 2012 issue, the article, "Tricks Foods Play"
www.sciencenews.org
recently an article in NYT -http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/are-junk-food-makers-worse-than-tobacco-industry-giants--how-fritos--coke-and-lunchables-vie-for-addicts--210753546.html

Friday, August 17, 2012

Aging and Mortality

Sometime in one's 60s the events of consciousness begin to change. At the center of consciousness is the subjective "I" sort of looking out at the outer world and attending to the inner world. The shift in mentation which I am pointing at has to do with the arrival of "things" from the inner world. Simply said, the arrival of thoughts, physical sensations, images, and other mental representations will more frequently have a footnote - the footnote being, "does this mean I am on a short path to my ending".
At first this query can send a silent shudder through one's mind. After surviving the fear the challenge becomes how to make use of these warning signals. Am I right now living the life I want? How do I get there? We each have the gift of life, we each get a certain number of heart beats, am I using these moments the way I want or am I wasting my heart beats.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

"You're too sensitive"

When someone hears this declaration directed at his/her self, initially he/she will feel confused, misunderstood, and/or shamed. The person asserting the "you're too sensitive", is trying to erase what the accused is pointing at - the messages the other may have been sending. Usually, the person trying to erase is trying to cut off dialogue, to stall an inquiry into the possible messages being sent. Often, this scenario takes place in childhood. A major consequence of this kind of scenario is for the child to turn away from using his/her mind to articulate the complexities of human interaction and process. Often this will mean the child will give up trying to understand what his/her tears are saying. Yet, unconsciously the person often continues to sense meanings implicit in their interactions with others. He/she is then left in a kind of haze and fog about the "real" and "fantasy".

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The Push of Sexuality

Our Media is filled with headlines regarding sexual behavior. From heads of state to sexual predators the push of sexuality exerts its presence. From married couples to single persons our lives are swayed and altered by sexuality. There are many things we could say about the sexual life of humans. Sexual differentiation is the propulsive force for evolution. The first organisms to reproduce sexually were related to the blue green algae. For our species sexuality has a tremendous push/pull in our mental life and our behavior. Each of us has to learn to integrate this force in our lives. How to recognize its influence and many faces. Many times the push of sexuality, especially for males, overtakes their conscious self and leads to sexual experiences which have terrible consequences for their lives. This alienated sexual state/moment subordinates the future and relationships for the immediate. One task of therapy is to help undue this alienation, to bring thought and understanding to the push so that informed choice can happen.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

leonard cohen 77 and going strong

Just like Leonard to continue to touch are minds and hearts.
His new record, "Old Ideas", go to Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQlLWnbco_I

THE THERAPY PROCESS

Therapy is about talking, thinking, feeling and caring. In essence therapy is an inquiry into experience; yet, it is much more. It is about folks deciding to solve the real problems in their lives so it is about courage and love. Therapy consists of the participants creating a special kind of dialogue. The therapist asks the patient (or client) what hurts, what isn't working, what happened as a starting point. The patient begins to try to speak to the question. Sometimes he/she is clear about a specific fear or hurt or frustration, sometimes he/she is describing more a feeling or mood of despair and helplessness. These beginning answers are rooted in things we have "learned" growing up and painful experiences we have suffered along the way. Just like how the small child learns not to touch the hot plate, we learn to avoid painful "things". Learning guided by avoidance and fear and shame is the most ineffective way to learn; this kind of learning handicaps us in creating a decent life. These handicaps especially get in the way in creating realistic, loving relationships. So what does this "special kind of dialogue" sound and look like? The client often talks about "what I felt", "what I did", "what I thought", "what I said or expressed", and usually "what the other did" and "what the other said or expressed". These words are guided by the "I", the conscious self. Some New Things need to be added to this dialogue for growth to occur because guidance by the conscious "I" has lead to the problems. How to get something new added to the dialogue becomes the framework for the therapy. First, for "I" to consider something outside of "my"own thoughts requires the "I" to feel safe. Second, the "I" has to find a way to accept at least tentatively, that there is "more" to me than my conscious, focused self. And that the arrival of non-intended thoughts, memories, images, and feelings are important to share with the therapist. So, what does the therapist do to create this special dialogue. The therapist asks the patient to give voice to additional thoughts and feelings that are in the background or that arrive without having searched for them or intended them consciously. The therapist must listen and absorb what the client is expressing. Sometimes the therapist can facilitate the patient's communicating by asking questions such as "what was in your mind when you said that?" The therapist via empathy opens himself up to the kinds of interactions the patient is communicating. This empathy generates an internal presentation of experiences from the therapist's own life (these allow the therapist to "get" what the patient is describing) and also the arrival of prior articulations by the client (as the patient and therapist get to know each other these "arrivals" help to link things together to provide a sharper and better picture of the problem). The dialogue will begin to be organized by the client's unintended thoughts, feelings, images, memories, and sensations; and a sensitive sharing by the therapist of his/her empathic responses to these. Out of this inquiry into experience, the client begins to see and feel how he/she interprets the world, feels the wishes and yearnings present in the background, senses the presence and the absences of needs, and feels the propulsive forces effecting his/her choices. Through the creation of this kind of talking together, the patient gains new ways of feeling and thinking and the opportunity of choosing a different life.

A Framework for talking about the Workings of the Mind

Each of us looks out upon the world. We are centers of experience. Our "I" and "me" bring together perceptions, sensations, auditory and visual images, memories, feelings, associations and the self definitions others put out to us about who we are. The "I" and "me" are the core referents of the self . Our whole "Being" surrounds, carries, and bears the self. So our whole being is more than our conscious self. In a way this blog is an attempt to talk about the relationships between Self and Being and Actuality.

Medications

Since the 80's and especially in the 21 century, psychiatry and the the medical community have emphasized that psychological disturbance and pain are to be approached from the point of view of juggling the brain chemistry of the individual to get it to function "better". Although there is some merit in accepting that the brain's chemical functioning is somehow related to experience, as a psychotherapist I find it very inadequate and often misleading.

I will try to outline my criticism of the medical model of treatment in developing this blog.

Initially though, the reader may find value in an article written by Marcia Angell in the New York Review of Books. She has a two part article called "The Illusions of Psychiatry" see: http://www.nybooks.com/issues/2011/jul/14/

Workings of the Mind

THERAPY