On Surgery for High Blood Pressure

ON SURGERY FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

The well known surgeon dr. Mehmet Oz, writes in Time magazine (jan. 9/12) of a new therapy for high blood pressure. He believes it is a major departure from serious surgery, only it is also an invasive treatment. It is a catheter inserted into the femoral artery which the doctors help wend its way to the precise spot where key and relevant nerves are lying. Then a jolt of electricity and basta, it is all over.

Remember my warning about any therapy without a “why” in it. It can never be curative because it neglects generating causes; origins and memories. It treats the current symptom as THE problem, hence manipulating the patient away from sources. It bothers me that this is found in august journals with high level scientists behind it. Where is their curiosity? Do they ever wonder why it is there? Or is the symptom just taken as a “given” and the doctors go on from there.

If we could all finally agree that memory is imprinted; that it is done so, partially, through the process of methylation and acetylation and that it can endure for a lifetime, and begins not long after conception, that is drives later act-outs and symptoms without cease and is the energy source behind the continuation of the problem , then we would not make the mistake ad nauseam of forgetting about “why” in illness and personality problems. And all of us doctors and scientists would no ignore and neglect originating causes. Isn’t that simply and logical? Why is it ignored? Because doctors ignore their own deep-lying feelings and cannot imagine what is down there. It is simply not put into question.

We have treated blood pressure for 45 years with great success. We have achieved a lowering of 24 points in the hypertensive (high blood pressure) group. We watch causes as we observe patients reliving their historic memories and see how when they get to childhood pains there is an elevation of blood pressure, but when the patient gets down to first line, gestation and birth trauma there is an even greater rise. We don’t have to theorize; we see it, and moreover, at the end of the session there is a drop of pressure to below baseline or beginning session values. And over one year there is a continuous and permanent drop in blood pressure. Because we also create one degree less in body temperature after one year of therapy we have good reason to think we are prolonging life. There is slower metabolism, the body is working less hard and less internal pressure as measure by our blood pressure cuff. We have seen confirmation of all this when we put a permanent cuff on a patient during a session and see the volatility of blood pressure. In those who are parasympaths their tendency is for a drop in pressure, but for the great majority of patients the blood pressure goes up. And then goes down and normalizes.

We see the difference between abreaction, crying and screaming without context and a real Primal because with a connected feeling, going back to the generating sources, there is nearly always a drop in blood pressure below baseline which is not the case in abreaction. And might I add that nearly every clinic and professional out there proclaiming to do our therapy what they get is pure abreaction. They too, do not ask why and take the symptom for the disease.

We have seen some remarkable cases with extremely high blood pressure drop into the normal range after several months of therapy; here it is life-saving.

Now here is the problem with all this: you are zapping an outlet, a place for release of the pressure; then the system has to find another outlet, and it will. It can then become fatal because there is no longer a “biologic” outlet. The pressure builds until we crumble or cave in. We must always ask “WHY?” It is not different from the symptom of smoking. If I smack you in the head every time you pick up a cigarette, sooner or later you will stop and the symptom is “cured.” Well it is the same if we get inside and mess around with the mechanics of the outlet. In this way we don’t let the nerve circuits react as they should in their defensive maneuvers. We block the ability to react properly (maybe “normally?) and reroute the system including the brain system. We must know that a symptom often means that the system is reacting properly to a damaging input, an input that begins with our life in the womb. And this input causes dislocation of function; our brain circuits get rerouted. We want to be careful to take that away. Just like a presidential candidate wants to stop homosexuality by all kinds of tortuous methods. She doesn’t ask how the behavior comes about; through her prejudices and strong bias against it she wants to stamp it out completely. The idea is that it will no longer show; therefore it must have been “cured.”

Even a smart doctor as Dr.Oz has overlooked the “why”, and because of that we will never be able to say, “because.”

On Surgery for High Blood Pressure

Statement by Harvard Professor Richard J.McNally Concerning Repressed Memories

Background:


The journal Child Maltreatment is published by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). They published an often-cited article by Dr. David Corwin, co-founder of APSAC, which supports memory repression. Using documents in the public record, Dr Elizabeth Loftus and Dr. Mel Guyer independently studied the material on which Corwin's article was based. They published their conclusions in Skeptical Inquirer (SI) magazine. 1,2 Dr. Carol Tavris also published an article in SI which discussed research difficulties that Loftus and Guyer experienced in their study. 3
Although they carefully preserved the anonymity of the subject of the case study as "Jane Doe," the actual client initiated a lawsuit against Loftus, Guyer, Skeptical Inquirer and Tavris arguing invasion of privacy and defamation of character.
The following Amicus Curiae (Friend of the Court) brief was submitted by Richard J. McNally in support of the defendants, Elizabeth Loftus et al. on 2005-JUN-03. 4 It gives an excellent overview of the current status of recovered memory.

______________________________________________________________

Honorable Ronald M. George, Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the California Supreme Court
350 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102-4797


RE: Nicole Taus vs. Elizabeth Loftus et al.
(1st D.C.A. Civ No. A104689, Solano County Superior Court
No. FCS02A557)


Dear Chief Justice George and Associate Justices:


I am Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. I have 250 publications, many in the field of traumatic stress and memory, including the book Remembering Trauma (2003, Harvard University Press). My research, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, includes laboratory studies on cognitive functioning in adults who report having been sexually abused as children. I served on the American Psychiatric Association’s committee for revising the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and I am among the approximately 260 psychologists and psychiatrists identified by the Institute for Scientific Information as “highly cited” (i.e., top one half of one percent of all published psychologists and psychiatrists worldwide in terms of citation impact). Accordingly, I am deeply familiar with the scientific issues involved in the Taus vs. Loftus et al. case. I respectfully request that you accept the Petition for Review in the above-cited case.


Statement of Interest:


How victims remember trauma is the most controversial issue confronting psychology and psychiatry today. Clinical researchers capable of understanding the relevant science realize that traumatic events -- those experienced as overwhelmingly terrifying and life-threatening -- are remembered all too well. Informed clinicians and scientists realize that emotional arousal enhances memory for trauma; it does not result in blocked memory for trauma. Indeed, people who develop PTSD are haunted by intrusive memories of horrors that they cannot forget.


Yet some clinicians claim that the mind protects itself by banishing memories of trauma, making it difficult for victims to recall their most terrifying experiences until safe to do so years later. These clinicians believe that a significant minority of victims, perhaps as many as 30%, are incapable of remembering their most terrifying experiences. They believe that victims repress, dissociate, or block out these memories precisely because the memories are so upsetting.


As I and others have shown, there is no convincing evidence for the claim that victims repress and recover memories of traumatic events. To be sure, some victims may not think about disturbing events for many years, if the events were not experienced as traumatic -- terrifying and life-threatening -- at the time of their occurrence. But not thinking about something for a long time is not the same thing as being unable to remember it, and it is inability to remember that lies at the heart of repression theory.


For example, a child exposed to an episode of nonviolent sexual abuse (e.g., being inappropriately touched by a stepfather) and who fails to understand the experience as abuse, may experience confusion, anxiety, and disgust, but not traumatizing terror. Such a child may not think about the event, only to be reminded of it years later. But this would not constitute repression, nor would it constitute a recovered traumatic memory because the event was neither understood as abuse nor experienced as terrifying at the time of its occurrence.


The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for “recovered memory therapy” -- the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era.


The case of Jane Doe has assumed extraordinary significance in the fierce debate over the reality of repressed and recovered memories of trauma. Videotapes of Dr. Corwin’s interviews have been shown at professional conferences, and the case has routinely been cited as proof that horrific memories can be blocked and then recovered. Accordingly, the investigation done by Loftus and Guyer has profound scientific, clinical, legal, and public significance because it reveals that this case is far more complicated than repression theorists have led us to believe. More specifically, it is not at all clear that Jane Doe was ever actually abused, and the second videotape may depict her recollection of the accusation of abuse, not of any abuse itself. Needless to say, repression advocates have vigorously attempted to frighten clinical scientists from discovering the truth about cases regarding alleged repressed and recovered memories of trauma. Legal action against Loftus et al. appears to be little more than an attempt to squelch inquiry into matters of profound social significance. Accordingly, I urge the Court to grant the defendants’ Petition for Review and to reverse the Appellate Court’s decision.


Sincerely,


Richard J. McNally, Ph.D.
Professor
Director of Clinical Training

Statement by Harvard Professor Richard J.McNally Concerning Repressed Memories