Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Let's Pay Attention to Evolution to Find Out Who We Are


I have been looking over some animal research on evolution.  There are literally thousands of studies but two stood out for me.  The first, done in the early twentieth century, and the second very recently.

In Russia, mid 20th century they took a group of wolves who generally remain wolves throughout their lives and do not change easily into pussy cats, and selected out those who were most gentle when approached.  They were raised with care and gentleness as you would a dog. Guess what happened in one lifetime?  They became dogs.  They had a different coat, many different colors and shades, their hormones and bone structure was different, their behavior tame and playful, and above all,  they looked like dogs with the same hair and faces.  They had changed biologically in every way.

Second research:  they took a group of fish and lowered the water level for them until they needed to walk rather than swim.  They became almost bipeds.  Their feet and bone structure changed and little by little they could live on land. They already had some capacity for breathing, however.  But in both cases we can see evolution at work, and at work rapidly.

Now let us look at us.  Early life in the womb begins to inform us about the world we live in, and more importantly, the world we can expect to live in.  And what do we do?  We begin to adapt; we change in every way.  If the mother is highly anxious and fearful, the boy can expect fear in his life and adapt to block  too much input.  He could be hyper to deal with that fear and danger and be wary and cautious at all times.  Other factors during that time will shape who he is.  If the mother who is carrying is highly depressed, the child may expect a sullen world, absent of joy and enthusiasm, who needs much stimulation to get going and seems motivation-less.  His physiology is low and slow, low body temp, blood pressure and heart rate.  He has been transformed into a biologic parasympath. (The parasympathetic nervous system will change its function and come to dominate). He will not be a self-starter; not because of heredity but because of what very early experience has done to change him.  It is the same principle with the fish and the wolves. Early experience does change us in many ways.  We become different.

Evolution should tell us that the same early experience that made wolves into dogs can make us into different kinds of human beings.  It governs our future behavior, our ideas and our possible illnesses.  Those rare humans reared in the jungle with no human contact do not learn to speak and react as we do.  We are pliable early on, so when the mother is a certain way while carrying, the child changes to adapt to this key early environment.  And that adaptation remains in force for life.  We are learning how to get along, how to live with others, whether to be afraid or suspicious, whether to approach or retreat.  We have learned what kind of world we can expect and be ready for it.  Only that may not be the way the world really is; only a different version of it. And so one maladapts, living out his past world in the present; also called “neurosis”. He misinterprets because his view of the world is very skewed.  And his physiology becomes neurotic too, to accommodate his early warped life.  Allergies, high blood pressure, migraines are some of the results we see; and we change when we return to those early months.  We don’t necessarily have an awareness of these depths but they are dredged up as we plunge deeply into the brain and its depths; a process known as resonance. Where each brain level is connected to a higher level, each level sharing information in its own "patois" to levels above.  That is how feelings become transformed into ideas.  Feelings await the development of the neo-cortex before provoking ideas, just as happened in ancient evolutionary times. Once ideas are in place that can be suffused and altered by feelings.  We don’t speak English, we speak feelings that long ago predated English.  We give those feelings a name.

My point in all this is that pain and healing are one.  We cannot have healing without the pain laid down very early in the development of consciousness. Those who have never had that experience, which is most of us, will never know who lies deep inside.  That means that those doing psychotherapy will never plumb the depths necessary for healing. If we want to be whole we must bring all levels of brain function, all levels of consciousness together.  I am not sure that we can make dogs into wolves again, but happily, we can go back and be what we were meant to be if we visit ancient times and ancient levels of consciousness.  Despite Mindfulness and other such nonsense, the neo-cortex alone can never get us there.  It wasn’t designed to reach deep into our biology.  Mental tricks are just that, tricks to fool our system. They do not endure  and make no permanent changes.  They are games perpetrated in lieu of proper scientific therapy.  It is not the memory of pain I am discussing, but the experience of it. That experience is deep inside us.  It will not come to us, except for the use of LSD; we need to meet it; to travel downward and feel what lies there waiting to get out and be liberated.  And the minute we experience it we at the same time liberate it.  What a relief!

 
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Saturday, April 4, 2015

Who Do We Lie To When We Tell Ourselves Not To Do It?


Who else?  The deprived and needy self who is incessant in her grasping, social climbing and wants.  “I tell myself I should stop eating so much, but I cannot seem to stop”.  The needy self cannot listen because it is heeding the needs from below.  It is all in the service of getting fulfilled symbolically.   And the lying self does not really want to lie but she needs and has no other choice.  Or someone I know cheated someone and said, “it is OK because I am straight with my God.”  Or, "I don’t discriminate but the new law tells me that If I declare I follow God then I can discriminate".  I assume that means, as it used to, “I don’t have to serve Blacks” for example.  So under God anything goes.  He dictates and I follow slavishly, and I am morally correct because I am not challenging God, I am his obedient servant.

But wait a minute, what about if I too follow God and he tells me to enter that store and be served? Now we have two Gods with contradictory messages.   Who to obey?  After all, no one person has a monopoly on religion.  Suppose my God is Allah?  Can I just obey him or is there only one God in the repertoire?  Does that support the constitution on freedom of religion?  No matter, he is my God and I listen to him no matter whom you listen to.  Can two Gods have different ideas? Which one says that it is OK not to serve gays.  What if the other God says it is OK?

Tricky territory with a very loose moral compass.  And some use only the one that suits their needs.  Why not get rid of the whole idea and serve all humans?  Because the governor has the ear of those bigots who want to legitimize  discrimination and make it all sound so religious and moral;  how to turn immorality into morality with the government’s help.   This is never to expand liberty but to deny it.  "I won’t serve gays because God told me not to".  Was it God who let you be immoral?  "I’m not immoral cause I am obeying God".  Isn’t that the same thing? God helps you discriminate, so it is not you, it is Him?  "God is letting me exercise my free will to keep gays and Blacks out".  Don’t forget that for many decades that is exactly what it meant:  “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”  So the government is saying I will be complicit in your hate so long  as you couch it in religio-moral terms.  Then it is not longer you; it is just your beliefs.  Oh no, that is not enough.  If you hate you need a moral cover; so it has to be my religious beliefs.  Since you can call anything your religious beliefs you are now free to do anything.  Charming.
 
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Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.
“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.
Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”
One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”
Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”
Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.
He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”
Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.
Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.
Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science
Washington State University

Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.
Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.
Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University


In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.
Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.
K.J.S. Anand, MBBS, D. Phil, FAACP, FCCM, FRCPCH, Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Senior Scholar, Center for Excellence in Faith and Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare System


A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.
Paula Thomson, PsyD, Associate Professor, California State University, Northridge & Professor Emeritus, York University

"I am enthralled.
Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate
PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,
this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and
downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."
Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH

His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.
One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.
In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.
After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.
“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.
Editor