It is those deep and remote imprints that set up a background of pain that need quieting. But until we understand early imprints we can never find a cure for deep addiction. Let’s say it again: stress in the carrying mother is passed on to the baby in the womb. The stress receptors undergo serious change and helps produce the platform for the baby’s latent stress/anxiety level; all because of bickering over time between the parents. And chronically high stress levels not only decrease immune function but increase the possibility of tumor growth (in animal studies). So when we come down with cancer at thirty we need to change our diet and exercise more, stop smoking, etc. etc., but most importantly, we need to see if the carrying mother was under stress; was there spousal fighting or was there a war going on? Was the mother depressed? These are the factors that count so much. These are the intangibles that create so much tangible wreckage. Reuter’s Health (Aug. 21, 20012) reports that mothers who smoked while pregnant gave birth to children with a much greater risk of asthma.(See )
Speaking of serious disease--cancer, there are many studies extant correlating parental abuse with later cancer. A study (“Children abused by parents face increased cancer risk.” Purdue University, Science Daily, July 17,20012, see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120717121922.htm ) from Purdue University found that adults who were emotionally and physically abused as children had a much greater likelihood of cancer as adults. The more intense the abuse, the more likely the cancer. Imagine now if we have left out of the mix one of the greatest risks of all: constant abuse while in the womb—a drugged mother, a depressed one, someone who is chronically anxious or tense and angry. Add that to it all and you have one of the great causes of later cancer. Mind you, that the critical period for so many functions lies in gestation. It is a time when the imprints that are laid down are engraved into the system and almost impossible to eradicate. The damage sticks and has lifelong effects. We carry that primal burden every minute of our lives and there is no escaping it. It is the appointment in Samarra again. In the old tale, someone fears that death is coming to get him and moves to a remote city (Samarra) to escape him, only to find that death has changed his plans and will be coming to Samarra. There is no escape from primal pain, and yet many of us spend our lives running from it.
It is clear that if we want cure, we need to descend to the lower depths, the zone of the interior to read the notes from the underground. Those notes have a most painful message, can only be read a bit at a time. An example of delving deep: below so much of depression lies hopelessness (I have written extensively on this). If we could relive current hopelessness we would still be dogged by a memory where mother smoked or drank and endangered the life of the fetus. In short, depression would persist because of preverbal experiences that were never resolved. It would be deep and unexplained depressions, a seeming mystery because it comes from so deep and such remote places. We would alleviate the depression when we addressed some of it (hopelessness) in current life but it never would be cure. If you do not believe in imprints then all is lost and you will never arrive at the generating sources of an affliction or symptom.
Let’s be more explicit. When we are depressed there are biochemical elements involved in addition to the psychological symptoms. Those same elements in inchoate form exist in the womb so that when the mother smokes incessantly or drinks, the baby cannot escape: the biochemistry kicks in and there is the starting basis for depression. It is that aspect of depression/hopelessness that resonates when one feels depressed in the present. When the fetus is in an inescapable situation and feels helpless and hopeless, as when he is suffused with smoke that reduces oxygen supply that the elements of depression occur. It is not called that in a six month old fetus but he now is beginning to have the building blocks for it later on when we can give it a name…depression. It is repression raised to a higher level, due to the tremendous force of the original imprint. And what can happen when the fetus is overwhelmed with the inescapable input is that the brain does what it can to combat that deleterious input; sometimes the brain is pushed to such a limit that the seeds of serious mental illness are set down. The brain is awash in the massive imprint, which does not go away. It starts with ADD when the child is young and deteriorates later on into mental illness. And when he goes to a doctor to see what is wrong…..heredity can be the only answer……because no one can imagine the imprint and its effects. And no one can imagine the epigenetic effects of how memories are sealed in early on. One way is through methylation (adding part of a methyl group to an imprint). This changes how the genes are expressed or not, and that leads us to claiming something is hereditary when it results from experience that changes how heredity is expressed. But more on cure in a moment.
There is not a great deal of difference here between physical and emotional pain. When someone feels lonely or rejected she hurts just as if she were burned. Part of the limbic system is critical in both kinds of hurts (the anterior cingulate cortex lights up in both). Being rejected in high school (possibly a critical period in some) can leave a residue of that feeling for the decades to come. It leaves an actual mark so that in a recent study those with chronic feelings of rejection died much sooner than controls who did not feel that way. (see: “Childhood Trauma Leaves a Mark on the brain.” Translational Psychiatry, January 15, 2013. Carmen Sandi et al; see http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-childhood-trauma-brain.html ). Loneliness can be traced all the way back to just after birth when a child must be held and caressed. If he is not held, then he hurts for a lifetime and dies sooner. Pain and repression kill. Neurotics die earlier. It turns out that chronically lonely people are more likely to suffer Alzheimers and Parkinson disease. Wherever we look we find the same thing: early trauma has terrible effects later in life. (see: Social Science and Medicine. Vol 74) What is most important from my perspective is that when the brain is marked by trauma, it helps deplete serotonin supplies; and when that happens we have what I call “leaky gates’ for a lifetime. We are then less effective in our efforts to repress. Pain roils the brain. We are disturbed and cannot concentrate or learn. This was found in a study in Quebec, Canada (June, 2012. European Neuro-pharmacology; see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22257439 ). Traumas around birth showed lower serotonin in the hippocampus. (lower C-AMT trapping). Here the study reports that limbic pathways were impaired during birth trauma and there was a greater vulnerability for psychiatric disorders later on. Here we see that birth trauma can affect us for most of our lives, and that happens when serotonin is so weakened that it cannot do its job of repression. The gates are leaky. And what do we prescribe for this condition? Something that makes up for what was impaired at birth……serotonin. Prozac is exactly that drug that boosts missing supplies. And why does serotonin play such a role? Because it is largely a “gate-keeper.” It provides the defenses we need against pain. It is the missing molecule depleted when traumatic birth occurred. It is making up for what is missing. We take it to try to feel normal; to normalize. We have to keep on doing it until we go back to the original trauma and relive it, making the connection that is integrating and resolving. Then we don’t need pills every day. We no longer try to replace missing parts; we re-establish harmony and change what is missing. Our studies showed that. Patients low in serotonin at the start of therapy came up to normal at the end (Imipramine Binding, Paris, 1982). What this shows is “cure”; levels become normal due to primal/reliving. It was more than an amelioration and more permanent. Here is what cure is about: making permanent change, not trying this or that to see what works. We need a theory to achieve cure in psychology.
Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can really hurt me.
Recently, they have found a specific neurosis associated with a birth trauma: namely obsessive-compulsive disorder. Thus, children with OCD are much more likely to suffer a birth trauma than controls. (J. Adol. Psychopharmacology. 2008, August; 18 -4- 373-9, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935829/ ). And the question is, why does this reaction get imprinted and lasts so long? Because it is essential for survival that we remember what is dangerous and how to react to it. We need to have the capacity to feel terror and get galvanized to react immediately. Survival is rarely a leisure activity. Part of this is that the secretion of nor-adrenaline affects the amygdala and elements of the brainstem, which are mobilized. We become hyper-alert and ready for action, and this alertness interacts with the memory system to direct our efforts.
By the way, the same has been found for bi-polar disorder. Not a surprise, and I have written about this for 45 years.
It turns out that there are signs of oncoming panic. (Scientific American, Aug. 3, 2011) The subject is usually not aware of dizziness, trembling, agitation, that form the precursor of panic attacks. It is as though the pain/terror is on the rise and we are not aware of it until it is full-blown. Because the terror is set down so early, in the beginning months of gestation and imprinted so deep in the brain, we have no idea where it comes from. Terror surely begins its life in the brainstem and in archaic parts of the limbic system (amygdala). It is only when the gates falter and the terror bursts through that we become aware of it. Being aware is only half the job; then the work begins……getting to the source and reliving it.
Part 1
ReplyDelete"All because of bickering over time between Parents"
So what about Dr Brazelton's filming of young Mothers holding their babies in exactly the same way that they were held. Thus Mothering is learned and not instinctual in many ways. Thus a Mother who is left to cry out as a baby will leave her own baby to cry out so she can carry on believing she was loved. A Mother who beats her toddler to make it good does so because she was beaten. A Mother who experienced her own Mother's anxiety in the womb passes anxiety onto her unborn baby. I know many men who look on helplessly as their wives pass on trauma. These women do this out of ignorance and a misbelief that what they are doing is right. It is a distorted version of the truth. A loved Mother will know what is best, so a hurt Mother thinks she does too. Mum’s start to subconsciously remember how they were treated as babies when they are pregnant so they can be Mum’s. Isn’t postnatal depression simply the repression of the sad truth of a lack of love as a baby for that Mum? My sister was as high as kite while pregnant as she probably felt loved. Then she crashed and burned as she became aware of how awful her early life was. How did she deal with it. Became someone who needed the best table in a restaurant. She became for all intents and purposes partially physcopathic I think. No empathy, no kindness, no feelings except for her own narcissistic needs. It blew our family apart. Who had caused this. Primarily my Mother who never listens to anyone. Who caused her problems. Mostly a violent abusive Mother who used various household items to beat my Mother with. Who caused that. A great Grandmother who worked in service and who was violent. Back and back and back. History repeats itself because no-one listens especially frightened abused Mothers. Yes there are also many violent abusive men. Alice Miller describes that many abusive men take out anger on women, other men and in wars. Violent women take out anger on their children. Neither sex is off the hook.
Some Mum's hurt their kids and don't think they are. They do it because they think they are loving them. To avoid this basic tenant is to avoid one of the core dysfunctional aspects of our society. Alice Miller described this and upset a lot of feminists. To confront this also confronts a Mother's power and how many people are brave enough to do that. My family has cut me off because in some ways I did that. I am surrounded by families where women rule the roost and the men keep their heads down for an easy life. The men go down the pub and have a drink, go onto anti-depressants or go to anger management coarses. Perhaps if they had a bit of power at home they wouldn't need to. Numerous friends describe how their wives scream at them. This seems to be very common. That is emotional blackmail, dysfunctional and irresponsible of the women. The men shrug their shoulders and say "Give them what they want, it's easier". Many of these women are proud of their so called strength. Bossing men about and keeping them under control is seen as a good thing. A young couple I know went to a baby birthing class and the women were told to treat their husbands with respect and not scream at them as they need them. Many men I know hang on in there for the kids but deep down are miserable and depressed, drink and lose confidence so the wives grumble about what a waste of space they are. Maybe this is because I come from a family full of depression, anxiety, suicide attempts, religious delusion etc. Maybe thus I associate with similar people who have family members with drug problems etc etc. Maybe I haven't met the responsible women who don't need to gang up and ostracize someone who stands up to their bullying.
Hi planespotter, part 1.
DeleteI first started questioning my complete loyalty to feminist principles when I got into a tangle with the social services regarding the foster care of my 3 sons and step son 19years ago.
To cut a long and messy story short it seemed to me that the predominantly female social workers would be duped every time by the manipulations of my children's mother, who would lie to get her own way. But this 'way' that she got, put her children, our children in foster care and not into my care.
I was continually reminded (by the social services) that the law states that as long as the mother is not a class 1 offender and remains 'legally' the 'primary carer' then unless the mother signs a legal document to put the children into the care of the father then regardless of how dysfunctional the mother is the state must put the children into care, or return the children to the mother.
OR. . . I would have had to take the mother to court. . . This, I was advised would be seen as 'Adversarial' and not in the best interest of the children. Basically I was doing much of the child care (with 'family support' workers). I was holding down part time building work and had nowhere to live because I could no longer stand her bringing junkies and ragamuffins into the family home. I had left.
I could not then get a council house because I was not a primary carer, I was a man, not a mother.
So, I had to agree for the children to go into care, well I didn't have a choice and worse, having been sent off to boarding school myself I sort of found myself awakening to the most appalling dilemma . . . You see, the poor mother started out in a foster home herself.
Every one concerned including the senior social worker commented that this was a recurring problem in our society. The female senior social worker reminded me that this is the consequences of having sex with a dysfunctional woman (ie: it must be my fault).
It was as if the children and the father (me) were being collectively punished for having sex with a dysfunctional woman.
All the child care forms are written as if you are a woman.
To my horror I discovered that it is not only women who 'protract' this recurrence but also the men. The senior male social worker who was called in to sort the mess out concluded I was too stressed to be a good father. . .(after the mother had 7 detoxifications which all failed and the children were pumped backwards and forwards in and out of care with me doing all the taxi driving, and 'actual' social work when the 'workers' went home to their private lives or their offices to write up reports).
In the end my barrister refused to represent me in court when eventually the social services recommended their recommendations unless I agree with what the social services recommended.
Part 2 follows.
Hi, part 2:
DeleteThey recommended that 2 of my children be permanently adopted and the other one reside with me.
People would say but why?
They asked: "How come you got the one and not the other two"?
Well you see, I kept on having these angry outbursts. . . You know, the ones that tend to fall out of your mouth when some-one who is paid four to five times what you get on the breadline to decide the fate of your children is telling you, you can't be a good enough man to look after your children because you are too highly strung and prone to stress. . . IE: I was not good enough to look after three children.
Which is like punching some-one in the face and accusing them of violence isn't it?
I calculated the authorities spent £250,000 on legal fees and a further £100,000 on hospital/ rehab and social services. I think I got £35 in travel expenses. When eventually the mother died from self prescribing abuse she had wangled a really good council house, was still getting the child benefit for all the children and was able to abduct the one child I did get with the help of the police who refused to believe my court order document. When I went to the police station to complain that they had just returned my son to a lying abuser they threatened to throw me in the cells if I didn't get out of the police station. Most people think I'm making this stuff up. . . But I reckon planespotter you can read between the lines can't you?
Anyway, there does seem to be a collusion between men and women to keep the childcare in the hands of the woman and the wage packet in the hands of the man. As soon as one steps outside of that 'equation' one is faced with prejudice you just would not believe. Well, planespotter, maybe you would.
Free Will ?
The illusion of free will is best secured by having a highly paid job in the 'caring professions'. . . Then you can prescribe whatever you like to the plebs beneath you. Not every-one in the caring professions is like that but I get to meet ex social services workers who say that the 'industry' doesn't know how to retain the 'good ones'. They all leave in disgust. One of the 'good ones' said to me; "Oh yes, many social workers are 'in competition with the victim' ".
How true.
Paul G.
Hi, as short a conclusion as I possibly can:
DeleteWithin a month of the mother dying (about 2006) my partner (mother of my then 4yr old daughter) started becoming really mean with my son, I sort of joined in because there was a lot of sibling rivalry kicking off. . . I partially realised I was 'under the influence' but of what I could not quite tell. I went to his school to talk about my son's poor performance and the school psychiatrist said it looks like my partner had 'transferred' her hate of the now dead mother onto that mother's son , my son , her step son.
Previously to this she had been incredibly supportive. But, and now I can say "BUT" what I realise is that the dysfunctional mother had become her scapegoat (and mine). . . She had dragged us through court another 4 times before she died. We were overwhelmed by the way the state would keep funding her legal aid to make our lives hell and the court order said we had to maintain contact (because she had not been classified as a class 1 offender).
When my ex partner went into therapy with her feminist (Ms) therapist a year later she got worse. My partner's cognensi friends would say things like "well Paul, you should be glad your son's mother is dead, you hated her anyway". . . By the time my son was pushed out of our home and got his girlfriend pregnant there was no communication with him at all. I was in Scotland then working my arse off to pay debts.
I was beside myself when my partner dumped me because I could see that she had done so on the instructions of her feminist (Ms) therapist. This therapist lived right beside the high rise my son lives in and every Tuesday my son could see his step mum, my (now) ex, cycling past his window to see the (Ms) therapist. My ex never called in to see her step son, not once in 6 months. She offered no support at all. My ex even had the audacity to accuse me of "bad-mouthing" her to him when I explained to her this outrageously dismissive behaviour. She could not understand that she had done it all by herself. Recently she has started 'inviting him over for lunch', no doubt because she eventually realised she had to keep up appearances. . . I mean we can't be having Mothers Looking Like the Bastards that their Ex Husbands Are, can we"?
Listen planespotter, whatever you do, don't recommend your partner see a therapist outside of the Primal Centre in Santa Monica. Because she's likely to see a feminist cognitivist and before you know it you'll find yourself to blame for everything in a way that is surely half true. . . The worst lies are the half lies and the half lies of a political movement are seriously damaging. Feminism is a political movement and does not benefit recovery from neurosis, it deepens it. It deepens it by allowing the 'wounded girl' to 'rise above' her (projected) perpetrator and elect herself superior with none of the responsibility but all the benefits. . . .
It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Keep your head down, show no emotion and hide. Look at 'Father's for Justice'. For every member of that 'Anti Feminist' movement there are a thousand other Dads who do not dare or want to 'rebel' or fight because they know their children will get caught in the cross fire.
Linda Nielsen has much to say about this and really I don't want to say any more outside of a therapy room in Santa Monica. It's just too painful, too scary and too true. Art, whether you publish this or not, I promise I will say no more on the subject. Enough!
Paul G.
Paul
DeleteEverybody is different. Not ALL women therapists outside the Primal Centre are man hating feminists as you presume. There is possibly a difference between trying to protect womens rights, ie: freedom to earn at all after the 2nd world war if they were married and to simply IMPROVE conditions for women. Hating men didnt come into their minds or their incentives!Hating all women or all men I surmise is making a primal memory generalised so you dont have to really face or feel the pain. the why of it.All women is simply mum or a sister or women in the your family or a or some women in your life who caused such terrible pain. I saw a male therapist outside the primal centre who was a violent reichian who beat me up for falling in love with him! He certainly was NO feminist!!!!!!!!!! So come on Paul enough's enough. I am sure you have plenty reasons to hate my sex but to make a whole big 'political' theoretical philosophy seems like a no go to me.As Andrew Atkine said to planespotter, you can't blame you can only recognise its a human condition and learn from that. Something like this.
Hi Anonymous,
DeleteI'm sorry your therapist beat you up. That's disgusting and if I could offer more than words I would but words are all I've got here.
What I said was very challenging but it has nothing to do with hate or blame. I dislike feminist politics and the way it has ruined my families future. It was feminist politics that put my twins up for adoption. It is feminist politics that has isolated my poor single parent son. It is feminist politics that has turned my male and female friends and partner against me. It's feminist politics that keeps me permanently in debt because I have to spend so much money on relating to my children, I see them 2 days a fortnight and that costs me my whole income and all the money I saved for therapy. You see, I have to live some where, I no longer have a council house. It is not men or women who do this to me; it is their politics. Many men have this feminist politics as a defence against their Primal truth; I was one of them, that lasted 28years. I now no longer want politics to stop me getting to the centre.
I have to face my pain every day. It's not all abreaction either.
I'm sorry I aroused you so much but I know my truth. I don't think you really listened to that truth. Perhaps you heard my pain through the filter of your politics. Yes, I am mother bound but I do not hate any women. I see feminist politics as a shroud that covers the eyes of both men and women.
I hope my truth gets me to the centre. Maybe I deceive myself.
Paul G.
Part 1
DeleteBloody Hell Paul!!!!! You have real staying power and determination. I am lucky that my wife is a very brave and courageous women. She has stuck by me and gone through a lot of abuse from my family. I think she has grown herself and learned a lot. It’s been tough for her and I love her for it.
Anonymous I think you slightly misinterpret what both Paul and I are saying. By saying that Paul hates your sex I feel that you are falling into the trap that many people do and thinking because a person is angry with some women (or men) then they must hate the whole sex. In essence I feel you are punishing him by saying this and I will deal with this later. There is this society wide belief that women are above things like hatred or abuse and that they are in some way superior to the base personality of men. Such arrogance. In the 60's and 70's one of the more extreme feminist mantra's was "All men are Bastards" which is patently not true. I recently heard a well known feminist on Radio 4 laughing at the idea of a program where men talk about their feelings. I was yelling at the radio at the hubris of this woman. That was about power and the abuse of power and the protection of that abusive power.
I don't hate women. I hate the deluded belief that SOME women hold that they have a God given right to see themselves above and better than men. This makes them no better than the Patriarchs they fought against for decades.
Quite obviously Paul has been through an emotional car crusher. He is the victim of societies view that ALL women are kind loving creatures who would not hurt a fly which is total bollocks and is only just being addressed. Quite obviously many social workers see different, but the media is years behind and I think Alice Miller found herself ostracised by some feminists because she questioned their approach. What she did was challenge their power and power corrupts and absolute corrupts absolutely. This is what we are dealing with and what Art and his team deal with every day. Dysfunctional power and it’s effects on the growing Brain. The same society that says it is rightly wrong for men to slap women and yet sanction the regular spectacle of women slapping men round the face in the media, films, TV series etc and us tough guys should just accept it. I DON'T. Sheer hypocrisy. It is only now that women are being seen as abusive as men in terms of sexual abuse for example. My life was wrecked by societies denial of this abuse. I sat in tears recently while I listened to Woman's Hour as they described how it is now no longer accepted that any female abuser is coerced by a man. They do it on their own. That 10 minute item left me in shock for the rest of the day. I felt huge relief in hearing this.
Part 2
DeleteIn my teens my Mother slapped me round the head so hard my ears rang and I felt stunned. I wish I had hit her back. If I, as a grown man (or teenager) had hit her as hard as she hit me as a little Boy I would have been done for GBH. I did not stand up to a Bully and many do not now and they don’t even realise it. My sister recently had a party and there was not a single man from the family there except her husband or so I heard. All the men have gone and been driven off by a group of women who tell each other how wonderful, loving and caring they are. No they are not. They all turned up at her party in sisterly support and I am sure us blokes were well and truly eviscerated for our abandonment of them. They are hurt and were hurt by the previous generation of women. This is very common.
I believe in the equality of the sexes. For true equality both sexes need to give up some power. It is far easier to blame the opposite sex than face one’s own sexes faults and delusions which is what they are. For women to gain true equality they need to really understand themselves as they so often and rightly expect us men to do. I don’t think they do (or some of them don’t). They are too scared too. When a woman has a baby she crosses a phycological Rubicon and there is no going back. The longer any attempt to rectify any hurt they may have experienced as children is left after that, the tougher it is due to them having to deal with the hurt they have visited on their own children. I am sure this is why Art has found it so hard to be heard over the years. Guilt and Fear and the denial of it. In his book Life Before Birth he says that he was warned not to alienate his readership by his publishers.
I am rather non plussed by your enough is enough comment which came across as rather Matriarchal. Now Boys calm down! A little patronising perhaps? I will not calm down. I spent my whole bloody childhood calming down. I am rather enjoying being an argumentative, stubborn opinionated middle aged man. :-)
Not all men are Bastards and nor are all women Bitches! Some men are and some women are! It’s down to the rest of us to help them see the error of their ways.
Part 3
DeleteSo long as one sex always takes the view that when the other is having a grumble about some of the opposite sex they hate the whole sex then they can always use this as a weapon to beat the grumbling sex with. That is bullying and a lie. It is emotional blackmail. It uses the innate fear of the Mother that many have, as a means of mind control and repression. Obviously there is also the innate fear of the Father for some too. That is the reason why so many Father’s feel powerless in the face of a society trying to support feminism whilst not seeing some of the destructive and dysfunctional aspects of the extreme ends of any political movement.That is for the more moderate part of the movement to address. It is society fulfilling it’s role in the continuation of trauma and the related Stockholm syndrome many continue to call love.
Women rightly wish equality in the workplace while many retain total power in the home. How many times does one hear a man say on the TV that he always does what his wife wants in the home. That is wrong. Is it any wonder that many Boys are falling behind Girls at school. On the whole they are treated more harshly than girls (to toughen them up (God help us!)) and then find themselves living for 18 years in a female dominated home. Is it any wonder so many of them subconsciously hold women back in the work place. Early experience causes them not to trust women or like them and that is sad especially for women. There is no getting away from the fact that women bare the children and are the primary carers. Care for a child badly as Art says and the world reaps the consequences. I think that many writers run shy of ever challenging this situation. It is rightly about responsibility and not blame which I have said many times.
Men are on the whole not so good at talking about feelings as women. Obviously this is not always the case. Many women are desperate for their men to be able to do so. However there is a dysfunctional aspect of this situation too. Feelings are power, even faux neurotic ones. How many women have these neurotic feelings and see them as real and reasonable and society backs them up in that belief. This lack of men’s ability to express feelings can be used against them by the less scrupulous members of the opposite sex. It can be used to shut us up. Men are meant to doers, and wimps and wusses if we try to express our feelings. If we don’t show our feelings we are uncaring lumpen Bastards and if we do we are effeminate Nancy boys. Women rightly hate the fact that some men expect them to be pre-orgasmic sex machines with perfect breasts, no cellulite or greasy hair and yet how many men also have to fight such stereotyping. The tough guy who also gets in touch with his feelings and is loving and caring. What bit of the tightrope are we supposed to walk on? We are here all around you. We are your Son’s suckling at your breast. You are only hiring us for the next generation. Treat us and our Fathers with respect and don’t control us in a deluded bid to make us respect you and your sisters daughters will reap the rewards.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
Hi planespotter, thanks. . .
DeleteWhat continues to hurt me now is the spectre of my ex partner's separatist brainwashing hurting and repressing her, not me, HER. She's not getting better. She's just as cranky and depressed. The only good thing about it for me (and I suppose our daughter) is that what she says and does no longer hurts me because what she says and does is so predictable, as if she is reading it from an instruction manual. So I no longer react.
I hear women say this about us men too, we are all surely soooo predictable sometimes.
I was far from a normal partner for her and her life was made hell by the state's 'intervention' with my kids. She was also the victim of 'systemic abuse' whilst all that silly malarkey went on. All that compounded her traumas from her childhood abuse at the hands of her neglectful parents too.
You know, I sometimes think that any political ideas are the poison spread by psychos to exploit disadvantaged people. I mean the sexual antagonism (and it's never going to go away entirely) is exploited by both sexes for personal gain, personal protection and personal image building. I mean I know some really misogynist women and really misanderist men. Politics, any politics becomes a universal ammunition; you can pick up any make, any calibre, any 'tip' and the ordinance will fit, somehow the target of your projections. Load it up and throw it at a presumed opponent to score. To score what?
Gender politics like party politics goes in pendulum swings and we have to ask what spring is pushing the pendulum? What clock 'needs' such a mechanism? Who is winding it up all the time? What time is being told on the face? Who's reading it?
Paul G.
Off topic again
ReplyDeleteThe British Stiff Upper Lip stops people going to the Doctor with symptoms. Or maybe it causes the Cancer in the first place. After all we Brits have some of the worst cancer survival rates in the world.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/stiff-upper-lip-ups-cancer-risk-8471982.html
Hi planespotter,
Deletedid you see Paul Merton's "History of the British Stiff Upper Lip"?
Can't remember what channel it was on. You might find it on I player or 4OD. It was on when you were at the clinic and when I saw it I thought of you, well, and me, and my ex, and her mother, and her father and various others !
Anyway, it makes for interesting viewing. . .
Personally I think it all began with the introduction of rationalism and the new 'education' in the 18th C. There is a place for 'reserve', for 'tact' and for 'cool headedness' but when this 'rationalism' becomes the mainstay of science and education you very quickly end up with passionless automatons seething with anger and grief below the surface. . . There's English for you !
Paul G.
An email comment:
ReplyDelete"Many, many years I taught students with 'emotional and behavioural difficulties' and as I was working towards my teaching qualification at the same time, decided to
research into their early background. They'd all been to 'special' school and had very real problems in learning.
As my college was fairly small and responsive to its community in north London it wasn't too difficult for me to conduct in-depth interviews with the parents of these students. Without exception every one of the students had experienced some life threatening illness within their first year of life.
I couldn't say this was due to birth trauma or not - my study was of some dozen students - but I often wondered if this was a generality with life long impacts on learning and educational progress."
And my answer: I would always lean to very early life experience to explain so much about it. art
DeleteThank you, Art, for this wonderful post!
ReplyDeleteMy story is different than the one of planespotter, but there are so many shades, so many possibilities.
My parents were quarrelling all the time since I can remember. My mother, always hesitating, driven by the opinion of all the others, still very soft and kind. At the opposite, my father acting like a dictator, and despite his "good intentions" is harming everyone around. It was often question of divorce because of the sudden awful screamings of my father, but my mother never dared, she just kept crying. When she got pregnant with me, she probably resigned and got depressed, seldom has she spoken about it.
As a child I could not really feel the joy of life, I had soft periods of depression with no apparent reason, it worsened over time. What I find interesting is that I'm having exactly the same clinical symptoms as my mother has, same illness type, only that for me it's coming about 15 years earlier than it reached her. Generally it's low blood pressure, poor liver, gastritis, osteoarthritis, skin issues, etc., and all of them nervous related. As soon as I'm down, something is hurting in the body - I'm 33 and this has started in my 20's.
Anna: May I suggest my LIFE BEFORE BIRTH to help you understand your ailments. Etes vous francaise? salut, art
DeleteSalut Art,
DeleteThank you so much! Thank you for the knoledge you share with us, for your books, for everything you do for us! Your books have kept me company during the last 8 month and my life is changing slowly ever since. For the first time I start to feel and to gradually know myself. I must be at the very beginning because the more I feel, the more I see how long is the way in front of me. But it doesn't really matter because life is getting a meaning and this despite the rollercoaster of the mood. So, I just wanted to thank you in the name of those people all over the world, who find their own answers in your writings.
PS: Just ordered the books you were counseling, waiting to read them. Je suis Roumaine, mais je vis en France depuis un bon moment. Bien à vous, et encore Merci!
Anna: Salut je suis tres content de ta lettre. Ca m'chauffe le coeur. art. I love getting letters like yours: it is why I write, to make life better and more understandable for everyone.
DeleteThe text below is something that still is my entrance to my feelings... feelings as my dad would surely have killed me for if I had not stifled my need of him!
ReplyDeleteI remember when my fear of dark was so horrifying that I could not breathe when I passed places that "attracted" my memories... fatal memories without I knew what they were about. Something I did not manage to vent for my needs to others... others as of "moral grounds" affected me with their negative perception of being afraid of the dark.
My cognitive activity to fit in was total... but without myself being able to consign my symptoms from affecting me. My fear of dark was relegated to the "happy hunting grounds"... and became something I saw myself as weak for.
The source of cause and effect to life-threatening experience was relegated to continue in symptomatic reactions in all its repressed existence.
The above case is what the primal center offers us security about... a peace of mind... the security to experience what all of symptoms is about... to recognize ourselves… without being childish... but well the child we once where when it all happen.
Frank
Frank: Right you are. art
DeleteWhat sets panic in motion?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that panic is a deffence.
Confusion to the extreme.
crisis of outside awareness in the moment of waking up from some place
Exreemly confused cortex is in alarm state!!!
And maybe a small peace of total terror from real
and remote context is there.
no avoid!! feeling
or no avoid!! confusion
or both.
Vuko: I wrote 50 pages on panic and anxiety in LIFE BEFORE BIRTH. You can read it and then you won't have to guess. art
Deletecontinued...
ReplyDeleteThe Difficulty of Translating Principles into Practical Applications. 2.
It is a privilege to take part of and understand what overwhelming physical and emotional pain eventually leads to, when it has worked, repressed long enough in, our organisms. This experience, however, is not only positive. There is an element of powerlessness. Why? Because so incredible many, (60 million Americans only in mental illness sector according to PhRMA), suffer from the effects you are describing. The majority of these cases can only expect a temporary help to mask their symptoms. The latter fact is causing my mixed feelings of hope and despair. I have, painfully experienced the degrading and serious aspect of how repressed pain developed, and I have, successfully and liberatingly, been through, with PT’s help to peel off my repressive feelings back in time. So I know there is a cure.
To change the current treatment methodology is a practically complicated process. The predominant method, which represents the current treatment paradigm, continues the evolutionary repression method of pain being too overwhelming (for at fetus or a baby), at a given moment, to be assimilated. The current treatment paradigm is certainly not perfect, but it is interwoven with the economic /political / value system we all depend on, which still gives priority to short-term solutions that are reasonable controllable / steerable, and which we can conclude that there is if not sympathy, so still majority for within our society.
Hopefully, it is a matter of time before the bubble we have built up around a neurotically functioning society starts to waver. The example of the 60 million Americans who depend on psychophfarmaceuticals shows how pitiful our old treatment paradigm is and how needed a new one is. Most of the future treatment paradigm, to which The Primal Principals belongs, already exists. However, the individual inhibitions / repressions we experience, we share with our closest circles i.e. family, relatives, friends, organizations, societies etc. We find the major reason, why many patients fail, in the environment they depend on. They meet their Waterloo in their closest circles and cannot make changes and so they take the “easy” way out and continue their neurotic game with all its negative consequences. We must together dissolve our repressions in a coordinated way to function and be free.
Jan Johnsson
to be continued...
continued...
ReplyDeleteWithout conducting therapy, and only by talking about my experiences of re-lived pain / feelings, which have gone further and further back in my life and demystified my neurotic life patterns and my epilepsy, I have experienced how 4-5 friends spontaneously have become more open and have started to dissolve repressed feelings. They have got and transmitted a deeper vision of themselves. A common experience / discovery has been the deep prejudices that exist in our respective circles (representing a broad spectrum of contemporary society) regarding problems of mental and emotional character. Was this not, after all, a necessary evil and a price we had to pay? The more we have become comfortable with talking about feelings, the convinced we become that quality of life in all contexts is reduced by all the hanky-panky and by the prevailing prejudices.
History can teach us a lot. Man realized early on that it was hard to pull single individuals out of their environment so that they would be able to absorb new knowledge, adopt a new attitude and create new habits. They therefor developed a principle to form groups, cells and small congregations where the members gave each other mutual support and security when they adopted new ideas that deviated from what had been common practice. The method has been successful (and often abused) in all human activity and has been effective in religious, political, economic and educational contexts. As well Freud as Darwin understood spreading their revolutionary new paradigms by forming cells of Freudians and Darwinists.
Who will be the first to establish, free unbound circles for spreading the importance of the natural process (including “Life Before Birth”) that is necessary for all people to have a more just emotional start in life. So that future generations may be able to solve and prioritize that mental pain is derived and cured when it occurs. When more people have assimilated the required knowledge, we hope that all types of harmful effects that many fetuses and toddlers are exposed to by ignorance and neglect, historically, will be regarded as an immunized “mental virus” that we exposed to each other by ignorance.
Jan Johnsson
The rise and fall for science!
ReplyDeleteWhy do we seeking to "understand" about life instead of living it? That... because we have a defense in neocortex that "eases" visual pain as are in the limbick systemsystem. We are thinking ourselves "free" from suffering instead of feeling the pain that gives life.
This the human dilemma and reason why those who undergone Primal Therapy escaping the senen. They who would be a "messiah" for further human life... this about the "cult" primal peoplel are... man in his true sense... sense of love to his family for survival.
Frank
Off Topic:
ReplyDeleteHey guess what, ya'all. Here's an article that explains (or suggests, maybe) why old shrinks just can't get Primal Theory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-willing-but-too-full-for-new-memories.html?ref=science&_r=1&
It's not that they're stupid--that is, can't form new connections--but that they're (neurologically) incapable of "wiping the slate clean"...or "going back to highschool", as I have put it before.
Basically, they may be too consumed with yesterday's conversation, so they just can't drop it. I think you've said something about this yourself, Art. I.e, So busy cogitating (or whatever word it was you used) that they [the shrinks you were lecturing to] eventually 'understood nothing'.
Moral of the story? Lay well thy foundation!
Hi Jan,
ReplyDeleteI find your posts helpful. Nevertheless:
-"They meet their Waterloo in their closest circles and cannot make changes and so they take the “easy” way out and continue their neurotic game with all its negative consequences. We must together dissolve our repressions in a coordinated way to function and be free"-.
If only.
Paul G.
Hallo Plainspotter and Paul
ReplyDeleteIm not knocking men at ALL. I have been grossly misunderstood. I feel you have been very touchy about the issue. All I said was that I cannot help but notice how you and also Paul, whom I have often supported on these blog posts have ranted on and on about women and it has often been in a demeaning tone. All I did was notice and mention it because it is TRUE. I have not seen any women on the blogs raving against men. Yes, about the pain in their individual circumstances, ie; a violent or cruel father, to give a casual example, but not to go on and on about the same theme, so naturally I have presumed that there has been an element of misogyny in it. Whether I am a woman or a man I, like you, have a right to my feelings and opinion on the blogs, (I hope!) and I retain my original impression which I have received from what you have, Paul, posted on some of your blogs.I hope Dr Janov will allow me to speak as he has you boys.I too suffered from childhood pain but I did not generalise about it and go on and on about THE opposite sex because I know that the relative was one man, not All men!
Hallo Planespotter!
ReplyDeleteI have been somewhat misinterpreted by you and also possibly Paul. I agree with you and what you have said about power. Abuse and violence is bad which ever sex it comes from. I knew a man who was violent fo his little daughter for no reason almost every day and it escalated. The reason given? His mother was cruel to him and he possibly thought its how you treat children.Cruelty is cruelty whoever inflicts it on an innocent defenceless child. I dont think the sex is important but human beings are firstly individuals whatever sex they are. You know there was once an Englishman who hated people of another race, say filipinoes and every time he met one he treated them like shit and constantly humiliated them while telling everyone in his life how bad THEY were! He was inflicting the abuse, not they. It happens. I certainly havent said women are better than men. No way!
I certainly haven't victimised you or Paul whom I have often agreed with and supported on these great blogs.All I DID was mention what I have innocently observed, that there has shown a habit of woman blaming. I am not a feminist at all though if I raved against men as often as have seen a tendency sometimes to do this to women I would be absolutely scorned I am sure by both of you. Im sure you have both been through hell. We all suffered as children. No I dont think women are superior but I think I and other women have as much right to an honest opinion as either of you two.. sorry, not boys, but men. Best regards.
Hi Anonymous, part 1,
ReplyDeleteA whole month later.
Yes I have been touchy. Art, thanks for the platform, both of you, sorry I repeated myself.
I have compounded trauma (and so does my son) about women through the way old school feminist politics has shaped child protection policy. Our family was / are 'service users'. I am unpicking the tangled threads. I have particular insights worth sharing but they are a bit 'specialist'. It's hard to digest proof of Primal Theory from social science / care when the records show chronic extreme endemic prejudice by both sexes in order to keep the status quo. This does not reach the headlines and takes decades to filter back through to government "Think Tanks".
Who would notice this other than 'service users' trained to notice? I've been trained to notice and my later discovery of Primal only enhances the perception. I am so shocked by my findings I can hardly contain my evidence.
Nobody really wants to hear this. Service users get this policy whether it serves them or not.
I am convinced that most parent relational problems would subside with Primal but both sexes collude to avoid it and the 'agencies' we elect to sort out the mess perpetuate it by pitting mothers and fathers against each other in an adversarial legal system. This system has been hijacked in UK by old school feminist / lesbian politics.
Interestingly, the (theory / law) of social science now recognises that there has been endemic prejudice swinging from one sex to the other but fails to make any real changes because real changes are always only Primal and never Legal. Child protection workers I have spoken to share insights with me into how and why they are merely repeating dogma and not reality.
Thus Primal is confounded not only by the drug companies but also by the child protection law / policies of every so called 'advanced' nation in the biosphere. "We" advanced nations share the dogma and call it science.
Only people who have been through the 'care' system would comprehend this.
Perhaps Art and a few Primal Therapists get the gist of the significance of the situation I am in. A tight spot with my past history because of it's link with this 'prejudiced' service provision. Without 'erasing' that history I am stuck with the recurring consequences because the service providers still control our means of existence. The recurring consequences of having been a service user under the influence of extremely prejudiced 'intervention' never go away. It's chronic compounded trauma.
This is why I am willing to support Linda Neilsen and her "shared parenting bill" because it strikes at the the very root of adversity and therefore strikes at the very root of the conflict in our family as does Primal.
part 2 follows.