Archive for year: 2019

The theory of war is, for me, like the theory of evolution. If you believe in the idea of ‘survival of the fittest’, then, war makes sense. If, on the other hand you believe in evolution through co-operation then, war becomes a meaningless act of stupidity. The human dilemma seems to be co-operation versus competition. When football players take to the pitch, each team with their own followers, it is like a mini war with the victors and the vanquished. The creation of the United Nations, the European Community, the Pan African Congress and so on are examples of co-operation. The same is true about families that are either at war or in co-operation. This is also true for corporations, companies, public utilities, institutions etc, not to mention religions. 

It seems that there are always wars or rumours of wars at any time somewhere in the world. Can we say that war is a natural state of being for human kind? Well it is once we abandon the concept of co-operation. Currently their are conflicts in Palestine, Israel, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Iraq, Kurdistan, Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Hong Kong, Yemen, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Nigeria, Sudan, Cameroon, Ukraine, Venezuela and they are only those that I am aware of. It would seem that us humans are potentially a violent and warlike lot.  

Of course other animals do have conflicts and fights. Troops of chimpanzees live in a territory that they will defend. They may also attempt to take away territory from a neighbouring troop and create a conflict between the troops. Primates steal, attack, mug, rape and assault just like humans. When do such acts, fights, conflicts, or battles become a war? 

War, as opposed to a conflict, involves an extended period of fighting between, ethnic groups, regions, countries or other groups of people. A war generally involves the use of serious weapons, with organised military or militia with planned intent and goals. This may include terrorist or guerrilla actions. War is when a nation, or a belief group, be they political or religious enforces its rights, beliefs or demands on others by use of force. The force or threat maybe implied or actual, just like in bullying or coercion. 

Sometime war is well intentioned. I am sure that when the knights of the crusade went off to fight in the ‘Holy Land’ they believed that they were enacting the will of God and that is was a ‘good’ thing to do. The  same is probably true for the members of ISIS or conflicts such as the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Island. When Britain declared war on the Nazis it was done to stop something not to gain something.  Wars of liberation seem to be different to wars of conflict, colonisation, greed or psychopathy. 

War, to me, is a stupid waste of time, money and energy that creates pain torment and suffering. However, war has driven great inventions and scientific breakthroughs that would never have happened otherwise. The drive to discover the science that created the atomic bomb led to power stations providing energy and radioactive treatments in medical science that are becoming ever more refined.

To me it is all about awake-ness. When people lack awareness and are consciously deep asleep conflict, war and violence make sense to them. That is how they get what they want. When people are more aware and awake communication, cooperation and resolution makes sense.  

I experience the deep asleep people to go for evolution through conflict, the survival of the fittest, while  the more awake people go for evolution through cooperation. Therefore the deep asleep people attempt to resolve their challenges through conflict while the more awake people attempt to resolve their conflicts through communication.

When people come together in cooperation and communication we create peace, harmony and wellbeing. When people move apart in disagreement or an inability to communicate and compromise we create instability, insecurity and distrust. Doesn’t say a lot for Brexit and our deep asleep politicians.

I am left with the idea that until human beings wake up enough to realise that mutual cooperation, happiness and prosperity are available to all of us, if we choose to accept it, then conflict and war will be our natural default position.

Take care, be happy and create love not war

Sean x

This week is UK national anti-bullying week. Schools have taken this up and have encouraged pupils to wear odd socks as a demonstration of individuality and uniqueness. This is a subject near to my heart because, as you may know, my father was a bully and I  was effected by his dysfunctional personality.

As a young child my father taught me to be a victim and that meant I was ideal material for the bullies at both infant and primary schools. By the time I got to the age of eleven I had, had enough. I began to fight back with my father, a strategy that led to me leaving home at the age of fifteen. From a school point of view I made the decision that when I entered secondary school I would no longer be bullied. 

On my first day at secondary school a boy took my school cap and ran off. He was a couple of years older than me but I thought it is now or never. When I finally caught up with him I hit him so hard across the head with my brief case that he needed to go to hospital to be stitched. I received three strokes of the cane from the deputy head which turned out to be no bad thing because no one ever bullied me again, though I did have to square up to a few people to show my point.

Throughout my working life in occupational health departments I have had to deal with bullies and the results of bullying. As you can imagine I get highly energised by such cases. Sadly, my experience is that from the Thatcherian era onwards bullying in the workplace has increased and in many organisations bullying by managers and colleagues can be common place, despite organisational bullying policies. Also those people that deal with the public directly will be aware that abuse and bullying by members of the public also seems to be on the increase.

Often bullying behaviour is learned by the bully in childhood. A learned bully can change their behaviour and often will do once they get beyond the playground. Change, after all, only takes time and willingness. However, the bullies that we have to be careful of are those that are on the psychopathic spectrum! A psychopath is someone who lacks both empathy and insight and therefore does not have any conscience or inhibition.

However, in general we, the majority, are only bullied with our permission. The population of the Philippines decided to remove their leaders, the dictators Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, who ran the country through martial law. The entire population took to the streets and peacefully asked them to leave. It took some time and despite the army and police force, in the end, that had to leave. In the UK we have the example of the population refusing to pay Thatcher’s poll tax. So many people stood up against this new law that parliament had to repeal the act. Currently we can see the people of Hong Kong attempting to stand up against the bully, in this case mainland China.

In many ways we get the politicians, leaders, bosses, and so on, that we choose to put up with. In the end it comes down to the fact that you can’t be bullied without your permission. It may not feel like that when you are feeling like a victim. But that is why we have police, unions, human resources and even occupational health services. 

Perhaps this is something that we should think about very carefully as we move into another general election and potential Brexit. 

Whatever does happen bullying should never be tolerated whether it is in the home, school, workplace or parliament. We all need to up stand up to bullies.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

What is memory for?

All sentient beings remember. Its primary function is that of safety. Memory tells us what is safe and what is a threat. When we are able to remember we are able to survive in safety. When our life goes wrong we can forget what is safe for us. It is then that we are in danger. We know that too much sugar is bad for us but when we go to the cake shop we forget this and we buy them any way. We know when things, people, or situations are bad for us but we conveniently forget it. This is also what happens with a hero in a dangerous situation. The hero runs towards the danger to save other people. Those that remember about danger are running away from it to save themselves.

Over time we lose memory 

In general psychologically we remember things because we are emotionally connected to events, people, things or situations. This means that the connection is relevant or important to us. When things or people cease to be relevant we forget who or what they are. This may seem difficult for the person who we forget, it may seem that they are now not important to us. Often the reason that we forget is overload and we have so much to remember that we forget who people are. 

Do you easily remember people’s names? I have an issue in the NHS. I have covered over 10,000 staff at any one time. They all know my name, there is only one of me, ‘hi Sean’. I look at them and `I can know the face and I can know their life story but their name escapes me. Praise the Lord for the identity badge.

However, sometimes when we lose memory it is because we have structural decay. This can be due to age, life style, illness or trauma. The white matter in the brain is the tissue that connects the grey matter, which is the hardware of the brain. Issues of dementia are when the structure of the brain is breaking down.

How far back can you remember?

What is your first memory? how old were you? Our earliest cognitive memories normally go back to around age 2 to 3 years old. Most of us can remember these early years. Prior to that age our memory is not cognitive it is emotional. We may not be able to remember what happened to us in a logical or visual sense but we can remember what it felt like at that time. This includes anxiety, anger, fear, happiness, security and so on. These memories create the foundation of our emotions and feelings later in life and our ability to attach and detach in our relationships. 

Often when we feel generally anxious, or angry, sad or happy and we say that is just the way that we are. Well it is not. It is simply what we learned to be when we were little, maybe in even this early phase before we could cognitively remember.

As we get older, once the cognitive mind gets going, it get organised. The structural memory of the cognitive mind is like an attic, that is full of boxes of memories. It is a repository of information. Just like a regular attic some people’s are neat and tidy others look like a junk pile. It is just like this inside of our minds.

When people start to cognitively decay the boxes in the attic can get turned over. There is confusion and the contents of the boxes can become mixed up. People may actually say things like “a leopard can’t change its stripes can it?”, or they start to call you the name of your mother, or some unknown person, this is confusion. 

Also some memories can get lost, they are in a box hidden at the back of the attic. This can be lost in the memory system or in some cases become false memory syndrome. Often we do not know whether what we are remembering is real or not, or was it a story that someone told us?.

Therapy and memory

Some therapies are good at releasing trapped or lost memories. Analytical hypnotherapy is the therapy that intervenes in memory most effectively. Aversive hypnotherapy is described as suggestive. What that means the therapy is putting something into a memory box in our attic. For example, if someone smokes cigarettes then perhaps we can include the memory of sweaty socks or burning tyres into the memory box, so that every time they put a cigarette in their mouth they experience that horrible taste in their mouth they are averted from smoking.

Analytical therapy is about taking stuff out of the memory boxes. If people have inappropriate associations. perhaps rice pudding has been included in their sex box. This means that there needs to be rice pudding involved for them to become eroticised, then the therapy is about taking the rice pudding out of the memory box. 

Unwanted memories happen as intrusive thoughts or flashbacks that can become problematical. Such emotional memories happen after trauma, post traumatic stress and if not resolved post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. In this case memory is visual and emotional. Therapy involves desensitisation or rewinding of the problematic memory.

Advertising and propaganda are about aversive and suggestive memory. They seek to change the memories of the population. Just now we are in the throws of an election that involves politicians attempting to get us to relive past memories, this is either nostalgia or fear. Or create future memories of their descriptions of a utopian future. This is hope, expectation and belief.

Ageing

In older age most people feel the loss of their memory to some extent. When people become demented this can become extreme. However even in dementia people do not lose their memory, we never lose our memory. What we lose is our a utility to recall. For many years I worked in an elderly mentally ill unit. Some of the patients were living in demented spaces for many years, unable to recall who they were, where they were or who anybody else was. To all intense and purpose their memory had been completely destroyed. Yet, in virtually every case, before each patient died they became fully aware of who the were, where they were and they knew all those around them. This could have been for a few days or a few hours before their end. This suggested to me that for each of these people their memory was completely intact. The problem that they had was their inability to recall anything.

We now know with neuropsychology and the neuroplasticity that you can maintain a good memory and a good brain if you look after it and if you service it well. It is the classic if you don’t use it you lose it. We need to exercise our brain through mental activity, tasks and things like reading or better still life long learning – ‘never, never, never, give up’.

The last point is that we are each able to create our future memories. Thoughts become things. When we wake everyday we decide how the day will be. We are creating it in advance. This is forward memory. If we decide that the day will be bad then we are right and it will be. Equally if we decide that the day will be wonderful we are also right. In creating forward memory “thoughts become things”. We have a choice.

You can decide if your life will be good or if your life will be bad and then do the things that let you play that out. 

Take care be happy and think positively about the day ahead…Thoughts become things!

Sean x 

 

We all need to be organised. We need to know where things are. We also know that what is inside is outside so that the state of our desk describes the state of our mind. But, to tell what is really going inside someone else’s head you need to understand them and to understand what it is that you are looking at. In that sense organisation is in the eye of the beholder. It makes sense to be organised. It does not make sense when the need for things to be tidy and organised becomes an obsession so that the person is unable to relax or stop. Organisation and obsession are different but they might appear to be similar.

To be organised is defined by the business dictionary as…

‘ …taking something that is messy, chaotic, or unordered and rearranging it logically, into a structured or coherent layout, or into specific and/or defined groups…’ 

We know that getting organised and de-cluttering can help us sort out our emotions and generally calm our mind. For myself the act of sorting out a cupboard or a drawer can be emotionally rewarding. The work of Maria Kondo, in showing people how to be organised and tidy, can reduce levels of anxiety allowing people to feel more emotionally and internally organised and at peace. However there is a point when positive need to be organised can become obsessive

Obsessions are thoughts, images, urges, worries or doubts that repeatedly appear in our mind so that we are then unable to stop or relax. Obsessions can lead to anxiety, worry and concern.  This may affect our ability to sleep, eat or interact with others. When obsession is repeated over time it can create compulsion. A compulsion is defined as need to  repeat an activity to reduce the level of anxiety that had been caused by the obsession. So that when we cannot relax because are having obsessive thoughts about something we experience the compulsion to act and do something about it.

While most obsessive behaviours are the result of stress or disorders thinking they can usually be solved through psychotherapeutic interventions such as mindfulness and talking therapies. In the extreme the obsessions and compulsions can move into psychiatry when they are considered a personality disorder. To be organised and to be tidy is normal behaviour. To develop obsessive compulsions and anxieties is abnormal.

Normal obsessive compulsive disorder can be moderated through regular mindfulness practice and developed self awareness.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

According to Kevin Loria depression may be our brain’s way of telling us to stop and solve a problem

There is a theory that suggests that rather than being a problem depression might be a specific behavioural strategy that we have evolved as a biological adaptation that serves a purpose. As Matthew Hutson explains in a Nautilus feature on the potential evolutionary roots of depression and suicidal behaviour , that the purpose of depressions might be to make us… 

…stop, understand, and deal with an important problem.

At this time of year people report symptoms of moderate to severe depression. It is the time of year when the sunlight fades and the levels of vitamin D start to drop and this reduces the level of serotonin in the brain. We are into depression season. 

Across the board in both the USA and Europe major depressive disorders are now so common that at as many as one in six people  will suffer from it.

So why does such a debilitating condition strike so many people? 

The traditional understanding is that depression is just a breakdown in the normal working of the brain. This is seen as a chemical imbalance that is treated by chemical medication designed to balance chemistry, change mood and create shifts in  behaviours.

Could depression have developed to help us?

Evolutionary psychologist Paul Andrews and psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson first elaborated on this idea, called the “analytical rumination hypothesis,” in an article published in Psychological Review in 2009.

Their idea is that what we think of as a disorder is actually a way for our brains to analyse and dwell on a problem in the hopes of coming up with a way to deal with it. The researchers suggest it’s possible that a difficult or complex problem triggers a “depressive” reaction in some people that sends them into a sort of analytical mode which then enables them to change behaviours, strategies and attitudes. It allows them to stop long enough to solve a problem.

This intrigues me greatly because in the Ayurvedic model, my original training, depression is also seen as a gift, as a way of our system telling us that something was wrong and giving us the chance to sort it out. This would explain the increased rumination that arising in depressive episodes. Along side this in and increase in dream sleep. The two phases of sleep are deep sleep (NREM) and dream sleep (REM). It is assumed that deep sleep is the resting phase concerned with repair of the body and dream sleep is an active phase concerned with processing experience and emotion. In depression the dream sleep eats into the deep sleep so that despite sleeping for long periods of time the person does not experience rest and may become progressively more tired.

The concept that depression might be an evolutionary adaptation rather than a mental disorder is not the main consensus of the mental health community. in reality it cannot be true for all depression. It would be true for there are always those that suffer a reactive depression in response to a trauma or traumatic stimulus. Even so this could still account for around 80% of depressive episodes.

The problem is that in most cases depression is not the cause it is the symptomatic response to the cause. In western medicine we tend to only treat the symptom and pay little or no attention to the cause. 

It could be that if we accepted depression as a gift and took the opportunity to undertake a self audit to enable us to get our lives back on track. Instead we treat depression negatively as a problem and medicate the symptoms and fail to deal with the cause. It would make sense that if alongside medication we engaged in mindful therapy we could speed up treatment and help to dissolve depressive episodes. While some people do get referred for cognitive behavioural therapy it is not always an effective way to deal with depression. It is the addition of mindfulness that makes the therapy really effective. 

MBCT

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is designed to deal with and overcome issue of reactive or repetitive depression. MBCT, is recommended by the United Kingdom’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) for the prevention of recurrent and reactive depression and has also been shown to be effective in treating the symptoms of anxiety.

If we can look at the challenges that we face in life as learning opportunities rather than problems then we can to stop long enough to grow and develop. So, perhaps depression is the thing that can make us stop long enough to get our life right.

Take care and be happy

Sean x