There are those who think I have taken an anti homosexual stance. So let me clarify. I have no “stance” about homosexuality. I only try to follow the science and not shy away from facts that are politically incorrect. That helps no one, especially those who want to change.
Can we cure it? Wait! Is it an illness, a deviation that needs curing? If you ask anyone whose defenses work and have always worked they would say, “Why would I need curing? And since I am not in the priesthood (most of all being Jewish) I don’t have any desire to cure anyone of anything if they don’t want and need it. But I do want to help those who suffer. Some suffer from being gay and others are very comfortable with it. Why would I or anyone want to treat them? I have no mission and never have had a mission to save the world. I have found a way, to me the scientific way, to help those who hurt, who are anxious and depressed, who can’t function and who are miserable. We don’t advertise and make outrageous claims about homosexuality or anything else. We have “cured” some homosexuality. We didn’t start out to cure anything but two or three of them came to me after some time in therapy and said, “My orientation has changed.” I said fine. If it makes them happy so much the better.
What causes it? That is a sticky wicket. I have the feeling that with all the new research there is a hormonal base to some of it since traumas in the womb can and do change the later sex hormone levels. That is not all. There has to be a familial configuration that deprives the child of fulfillment of need, somehow, somewhere. I do think heterosexuality is normal, given the need for survival of the species, to say nothing of how the parts fit together to make babies. I really don’t care if homosexuals think they are normal. That is their choice. I do not agree or disagree. I try to follow my experience for over fifty years of therapy and of all the new research, including brain changes in homosexuals.
There seems to be general agreement in late research that traumas while in the womb can predispose to homosexuality. This is certainly true in animals where females show mounting behavior. Yes, there are many animals who show homosexuality. I am sure and do not dispute that. But I am an expert in humans, not homosexuality. I don’t know who is. I have no spin whatsoever about this anymore than I know that gestation and birth trauma lead to migraines later on. If a migraine lobby tells me I am dead wrong, I can only indicate my experience over many decades with it. And since we have cured many migrainers I will stick to my story. Incidentally, my new book (manuscript) cites many of the studies I mentioned above. Let’s get off the posturing. If I can help those with epilepsy, migraine and high blood pressure there must be something to the theory. I do not know of any other psychotherapy that helps epilepsy nor deep depression. That is because they cannot go deep enough to make profound changes. What this means is that the causes and origins of many afflictions lie very deep in the brain. Therefore all therapies that use words to help people are talking to the wrong brain.
About being prejudiced. Members of my staff have been gay. I engage those who are competent, period. When I am in doubt about something I check with my homosexual friends. When I want to know more about high blood pressure I check with my patients. I do not have to be the repository of all wisdom.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
On Psychosis
Is psychosis a different malady from neurosis? Is it treatable? Curable? What causes it? Heredity? Epigenetics or just plain bad experience?
I wrote this recently about how we manufacture inhibitory/repressive chemicals such as serotonin.
“What is very important for us to realize was that a mouse fetus does not make her own serotonin until the third trimester. It seems like the mother supplies what is needed until the baby can take over. But when the mother is low on supplies, she cannot fulfill what the developing baby lacks. Therefore, the baby carries around a load of pain. Now if we apply that to humans, there seems to be a time in gestation when pain or noxious stimuli impinge, but we are not yet able to produce our own gating chemicals—ungated pain. This residue will continue and may lead to bouts of anxiety later on in life. It becomes free-floating fear or terror. This is not due to heredity but rather to experience in the womb. This is why we should never neglect womb-life when addressing neurosis.
Part of our in utero life, therefore, takes on hurt at a time when our system can do nothing about it. Nevertheless, it affects all later development. At thirty we may suffer from panic attacks that began its life in the very early months of our mother’s pregnancy. It is pristine and free-floating, ready to spring forth whenever we are vulnerable. No talk therapy can make a dent in it. It leaves us fragile for a lifetime so that any insult in infancy and childhood weakens us all the more.
It seems to me that there may be a genetic component to psychosis but equally if not more important is epigenetics; what happened very early on in gestation. My guess is that the earlier the trauma (mother smoking, drinking, high anxiety state or depression) the more we have the makings for psychosis. For the reasons cited above; the fetus takes on hurt before he can do anything about it. Worse, this alteration in the first months of gestation alters the set-points permanently so that the person is forever low in inhibition or repression. Of course, as an adult he will need the very chemicals he lacked in the womb; inter alia serotonin. And the heavy duty drugs we use on psychotics are enhancers of serotonin. Why? Because early trauma depressed its output and made the body think that was normal. Of course the body doesn’t think in words, but it does in chemicals. And that communication begins with the advent of the secretion of key chemicals while in the womb. It is just an accident that effective pills simply make up for what is missing in the person’s system? What pills do is supply the missing link, help out our physiology and try, therefore, to reestablish normality. So sometimes the mentally ill feels normal again. That is no surprise since we are artificially normalizing the person’s physiology. In Primal Therapy we normalize in the normal way; that is, we reestablish setpoints. That is why after one year of our therapy there are normal levels of serotonin.
What is the hallmark of psychosis? Usually it is hallucinations and delusions. Delusions are a later development than hallucinations. They indicate a more organized cerebral/thinking apparatus. But both manifestations are provoked by upsurging very, very early pain; usually there is no content to this pain other than pure agony.
Can they be treated? We have done so with some success but in-house therapy is needed. Otherwise there is too much stress out there for the mentally ill to adapt. There is evidence that when the psychotic hears voices there is an activation of the brain system where those voices originate. For delusions; there is usually the notion that someone “out there” is out to hurt him. The pain/hurt is already inside, and it is now rationalize as being out there. But the brain is reacting to the hurt. Since the person has no idea where that hurt comes from and how early it occurred, he has no choice but to project it out there: “They are plotting to hurt me.”
There are many ways to go crazy. The body does it with cancer, a cellular out-of-control event. The brain does it with ideas, but it is always the same pain they are dealing with. Psychosis merely means that the normal defense mechanisms do not work. The brain is stretched into wild and unreal ideas because there is no other way to get a handle on the pain. As we add pain killers to the psychotic the delusions lessen. Clearly, they are associated with pain. The great question is where does it come from? I think I know, but we will let research help out here.
I wrote this recently about how we manufacture inhibitory/repressive chemicals such as serotonin.
“What is very important for us to realize was that a mouse fetus does not make her own serotonin until the third trimester. It seems like the mother supplies what is needed until the baby can take over. But when the mother is low on supplies, she cannot fulfill what the developing baby lacks. Therefore, the baby carries around a load of pain. Now if we apply that to humans, there seems to be a time in gestation when pain or noxious stimuli impinge, but we are not yet able to produce our own gating chemicals—ungated pain. This residue will continue and may lead to bouts of anxiety later on in life. It becomes free-floating fear or terror. This is not due to heredity but rather to experience in the womb. This is why we should never neglect womb-life when addressing neurosis.
Part of our in utero life, therefore, takes on hurt at a time when our system can do nothing about it. Nevertheless, it affects all later development. At thirty we may suffer from panic attacks that began its life in the very early months of our mother’s pregnancy. It is pristine and free-floating, ready to spring forth whenever we are vulnerable. No talk therapy can make a dent in it. It leaves us fragile for a lifetime so that any insult in infancy and childhood weakens us all the more.
It seems to me that there may be a genetic component to psychosis but equally if not more important is epigenetics; what happened very early on in gestation. My guess is that the earlier the trauma (mother smoking, drinking, high anxiety state or depression) the more we have the makings for psychosis. For the reasons cited above; the fetus takes on hurt before he can do anything about it. Worse, this alteration in the first months of gestation alters the set-points permanently so that the person is forever low in inhibition or repression. Of course, as an adult he will need the very chemicals he lacked in the womb; inter alia serotonin. And the heavy duty drugs we use on psychotics are enhancers of serotonin. Why? Because early trauma depressed its output and made the body think that was normal. Of course the body doesn’t think in words, but it does in chemicals. And that communication begins with the advent of the secretion of key chemicals while in the womb. It is just an accident that effective pills simply make up for what is missing in the person’s system? What pills do is supply the missing link, help out our physiology and try, therefore, to reestablish normality. So sometimes the mentally ill feels normal again. That is no surprise since we are artificially normalizing the person’s physiology. In Primal Therapy we normalize in the normal way; that is, we reestablish setpoints. That is why after one year of our therapy there are normal levels of serotonin.
What is the hallmark of psychosis? Usually it is hallucinations and delusions. Delusions are a later development than hallucinations. They indicate a more organized cerebral/thinking apparatus. But both manifestations are provoked by upsurging very, very early pain; usually there is no content to this pain other than pure agony.
Can they be treated? We have done so with some success but in-house therapy is needed. Otherwise there is too much stress out there for the mentally ill to adapt. There is evidence that when the psychotic hears voices there is an activation of the brain system where those voices originate. For delusions; there is usually the notion that someone “out there” is out to hurt him. The pain/hurt is already inside, and it is now rationalize as being out there. But the brain is reacting to the hurt. Since the person has no idea where that hurt comes from and how early it occurred, he has no choice but to project it out there: “They are plotting to hurt me.”
There are many ways to go crazy. The body does it with cancer, a cellular out-of-control event. The brain does it with ideas, but it is always the same pain they are dealing with. Psychosis merely means that the normal defense mechanisms do not work. The brain is stretched into wild and unreal ideas because there is no other way to get a handle on the pain. As we add pain killers to the psychotic the delusions lessen. Clearly, they are associated with pain. The great question is where does it come from? I think I know, but we will let research help out here.
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