CHAPTER 2 OF THE BOOK CALLED, --- (UHB)

 CHAPTER 2

 

SIGMUND FREUD

The paradox of course is that you  can never have enough information.   But you cannot gather information forever.

(Priscilla Elfry)

author‘s note --- Ultimately you must act. 

    

Sigmund Freud is considered to be the father of the psychiatric profession.   His ideas about psychotherapy were certainly innovative.  While he was able to help many people, the actual manner in which he helped them was not fully understood by Sigmund Freud and unfortunately he made many wrong conclusions about how that help was achieved.    

The case history of one of his young patients named Hans, is an excellent example to prove the difference between what Sigmund thought was occurring and what actually occurred. 

Part of this story is derived from Dr. A.G. Forgione’s excellent book called, “Fear (learning to cope).”  This brilliant author came within an Ace of putting forward the ideas that I am writing about in this book and consequently, I consider his book to be one of the most important ones that I have ever read.  The text follows: 

“Little Hans had suffered a traumatic experience one day when he had seen a large horse stumble on a stone and fall.  The horse had been going at a very fast pace carrying a heavy loaded cart."

"The noise and confusion that followed were understandably frightening to the small boy and he later indicated that he was afraid that the horse might have been killed.  Later on when Hans began to be afraid of horses and carts and even rocks in the street, his family consulted Dr. Freud.”

“Applying his psychoanalytic techniques, Freud searched back into Hans’ unconscious mind to find the neuroses that caused these “irrational fears.” 

“The neuroses that Freud looked for generally had to do with such things as ones feelings about sex, relationships with ones parents and early toilet training.”

"Freud believed that these neuroses, which were tucked away inside the unconscious mind, somehow managed to attach themselves to symbolic objects in the real world.” 

“If little Hans could be made to see the chain of association by which he had attached his neuroses to horses, he would see the irrationality of it all and would thus be cured”.

“According to Freud, Hans was not really afraid of horses and carts, they were only representations of what was really bothering him.  Freud believed that the real problem was Hans’ concern about his mother being pregnant.”

“The heavily loaded cart was symbolic of pregnancy and the spilling of the cart’s contents on the street was symbolic of the delivery of the newborn child.  The obvious similarities, Freud claimed, made it quite natural for Hans to transfer his fear from one to the other”.         

“Similarly, Hans was not concerned about the horse being killed, it was his father’s death that he was afraid of.  In addition, Freud noted that heavily loaded horse-driven carts were quite naturally abhorrent to Hans because he made the “obvious” association with a body heavily loaded with feces and noted the striking resemblance between the manner in which carts pass through gates and feces leave the body”.

Except for the fact that Freud was talking about fears and how important they are in determining one’s behavior, we have come to understand that most of what Dr. Sigmund Freud talked about was nonsense.  Does this mean that I am unjustly ridiculing Dr. Freud’s work?  Absolutely not!!! 

On page 234 of my high school literature book called, “Argosy To Adventure”, which was written by C. Bennett & Lorne Pierce, appears the following beautiful words: --- “Why do searchers always seem to have to go into the jungle of the unknown blindfolded and backwards.” 

Up until Dr. Sigmund Freud’s time, the mentally ill were almost a complete mystery to the human race.  Human behavior could be minimally understood but always there was the specter of a vast unknown.

In comparison to Dr. Freud and others before me, it is much easier for me to tackle the still vast unknown of the human mind, for I have the benefit of all of their knowledge and even more importantly, their errors to learn from.  In my attempt to put forward new knowledge in the field of human behavior, I too will make many mistakes in this book. 

But the difference between the errors that I am making and the errors that some of today’s psychiatrists are making, will eventually allow a much higher majority of the members of the human race to live in an envelope of peace and harmony heretofore unknown on such a global scale.

From outer biographical sources, I have learned about some of the background social and psychological dynamics that were occurring in little Hans’ life. 

His parents had been constantly arguing with each other and he overheard his father talking about divorce.  We know that safety is paramount inside the human mind and we know that parental instability can cause fear and tension inside a child’s mind.

Seeing the danger that can occur in the outside world in the form of the capsized cart and the possible injury or death of the horse, added to Hans’ fear of the outside world.  We all use our imagination to visualize the future. 

What if the stone had been in front of me?  What if the horse had fallen on top of me?  What if the cart or the huge barrels had fallen on top of me? These concerns are all valid but they represent a level of uncertainty that all human beings must face in their desire to remain alive. 

How you react to these fears and how you increase your knowledge to successfully navigate through these fears and remain alive, determines the level of nervousness and/or the  level of confidence that you display as part of your always developing personality.

It would be rather easy to understand if Hans, at such a tender age, concluded that the world outside is a very dangerous place and if my parents divorce; I may have to live by myself in the horribly uncertain world outside, rather than the relatively safe world inside my parents home.   

Hans’ father did not have a good job.  Their economic status was below average.  He did not like the circle of friends that his wife had mostly nurtured and he wanted to be involved with more important people; get a better job and find more fulfillment in his life.

He had almost decided that only through divorce, could he achieve such a goal.  When they took their son to see Dr. Freud everything changed.  Dr. Freud had been groomed from early childhood to be somebody special. 

When Sigmund was a youngster, his sister’s piano playing interrupted his scholastic concentrations, his father ordered the daughter to stop playing the piano. Sigmund was determined to do something special in his lifetime.  Thank God that he did, --- he motivated others to study psychology.   

When Hans began to show some improvement, Sigmund decided to use Hans to show that his new ideas about how the human mind functions were correct.  

He began to invite Hans and his parents to social events at his home and elsewhere, where Hans would be used to show other eminent psychiatrists the value of Sigmund’s new found psychological understanding.  Freud hoped that other contemporary psychiatrists would begin to use his methods also.

For Hans’ father, here was the higher class of important friends that he wanted to meet.  If he announced that he was intending to divorce his wife, that would be a negative signal to the potential new friends that he was now in contact with. 

They might even be able to find him a better job.  Hans' father’s mental attitude changed dramatically and he became cheerful and excited about his future.  This translated into domestic happiness at home and a reduction in tension and fear inside Hans’ nerves and mind.

It is also quite possible that the power of suggestion could have helped Hans.  This large mature adult Doctor Freud says that he knows what made me nervous and that he has cured me. 

This perception inside a person’s mind, such as Hans, has the potential to instill positive feelings, instead of negative ones that lead to uncertainty and therefore nervous tension.

Hans was the center of attention at these social gatherings during the times that Sigmund was extolling his ideas to the other Psychiatrists.  The friendliness of these important people helped reduce Hans’ previous impression of the outside world as being a cold and threatening place. Furthermore, the probabilities of chance had not inflicted upon Hans any further catastrophes.  No horses, large or small, had stumbled and fallen. 

No other tragedies that could increase his original fears for his safety in the outside world had occurred.  In short, the outside world wasn’t quite as fearsome as he had previously imagined it to be.

Most of the fears that we experience in  childhood, or later in life also, are alleviated and minimized, or brought back to rational proportions by our continued experience of life and the millions of small achievements that we are constantly involved in.  They all usually combine to propel us towards more mature approaches to life.

Sometimes however, they conglomerate and we are on the road to nervous tension and perhaps even mental illness.  It has become my conviction that one of the predisposing conditions that must occur if one is to be labeled as having a mental illness, is the possession by the individual in question of --- a distorted fear of the feelings of fear itself.

All of the above psychological dynamics, and others that we can now, 100 years later, never be fully aware of, combined together to return Hans to the world of accepted mental behavior. 

From all future accounts, he went on to live a normal life.  His psychological journey through life was at all times negotiable.   Freud helped him, --- but not in ways that Freud understood.

“FREUD FAINTED” --- BY SAMUEL ROSENBERG

This is actually the title of a book by the above named author.  Sigmund Freud fainted twice, the following is an account of his second fainting spell which happened  in Jung’s presence.  On page 241 we are told that Freud and Carl Jung had a heated verbal confrontation. 

When Freud --- “Brushed aside the facade argument to reveal what was really on his mind.   His anger at the news that Jung and the Zurich group (of psychoanalyst) had omitted Freud’s name from their Swiss publications” ---  (He then fainted.”)

Neither Jung nor Freud, nor anyone else in the psychiatric profession, mentioned these fainting incidents until well after Freud’s death.  In 1953, an authorized biographer finally mentioned them in print.  In 1961 Carl Jung, “the alleged aggressor”, in the fainting incidents, acknowledged that the two fainting spells actually happened.

Perhaps they kept them quiet because they could not explain why they happened?  Perhaps they didn’t want to lose the facade of expertise that they were trying to build up for psychoanalysis and for themselves? 

Perhaps they knew that if they made them public, they might be the recipients of the age old expression --- “physician heal thyself.”  Among other explanations for the second fainting spell, the author gives the following reasons on pages 242 and 243:

(Item): “Freud fainted because he suddenly realized, traumatically, that his long-suppressed fears had been fulfilled: he had lost Jung, just as he had lost Jung’s predecessor Fliess, whom Freud had loved a decade earlier.”  

(Item):  “Freud fainted because he realized that in Jung he had lost the Joshua-like successor who would bring psychoanalysis to the “Promised Land.”  

(Item):  Perhaps the most important reason:   “Freud fainted because he suddenly had to face the enormity of his emotional and intellectual errors about Jung.” 

“Others present, especially Abraham (a psychoanalytic contemporary) had been right all along about Jung, while he, presumably the greatest of all analysts of men’s motives and behavior, had been dead wrong.”

These above motives are all very valuable and give great insight into Freud’s thinking processes at the time of the fainting spells.  Those psychoanalysts who actually saw these fainting spells, looked upon them as  an imaginary death for Freud and his ideas.   It certainly shows how important fear is in determining human behavior.

I believe that the fear of failure for his life’s work; the idea that his theories would be shown to be false; that he would lose his status as the preeminent psychoanalyst of his era.

All these fears combined to bring about a stupendous flow of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline in reaction to this fear.  It was so powerful that in order to protect his brain from such trauma, part of his nervous system was shut down and he fainted. 

While I believe that the reasons that I am giving for why Freud fainted are valid, that does not mean that they represent the definitive explanation.  Psychotherapists such as Dr. Joseph Glenmullen or Dr. Peter Breggin, could probably provide even deeper levels of understanding into this situation.

But that is the whole point of this book.  It is the communicative capacity and skills of inter-creating minds of many different individuals that ultimately combine together to bring new light into areas that formerly were engulfed in darkness. 

Never forget that the root cause of nervous tension and fear is uncertainty in the achievements, both real, imagined and/or anticipated, that the individual is directly involved in.  That is why my most important message in this book is a call --- for increased knowledge in the face of fear.

In fact, the above is the building block upon which our Creator constructed the human mind.  Our goal is not to eliminate fear, for such a goal is unattainable and I am glad that it is. 

Our goal is to use the motivation from fear to increase our knowledge and constantly build new platforms of knowledge from which succeeding generations can construct even higher platforms of knowledge. 

The above process is necessarily infinite in nature.  President Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant statement as the USA entered World War 2, must now be changed as follows: “We have nothing to fear except our lack of understanding about the total affects of fear itself.”  

Under no circumstances am I saying that all mental problems are fully negotiable.  At this time, we cannot demonstrably say what percentage of such problems are caused by physical or chemical abnormalities inside the human brain, which may or may not be caused by genetic flaws or damage.

With the above thoughts in mind, it is our responsibility to give each individual every possible chance to demonstrate that their problems belong in the category of psychological ones, rather than physical ones, which are amenable to change, and correction. 

Even though the above ideas about mental illness are extremely important, nevertheless, they pale in comparison to what they promise for the entire human race. 

This new knowledge about how fear deflects human behavior on a continuous spectrum means that those people who are considered to be mentally ill can be restored to a state of “normal” mental health. 

Those members of the human race who are considered to be “normal”, with proper teaching in the techniques necessary to overcome fear, and in combination with increased knowledge and experience; such people will be able to embrace even more achievements than they are capable of right now.           

And finally, those who are at the very pinnacle of human achievement, who sustain our upward journey towards more peace and harmony among all nations, will be capable of contributing even more.  All of this will be possible without unnecessarily damaging our physical, emotional and mental well being.

It is with more achievement, not only of a physical nature, but also in the area of interpersonal relations also, that our chances for greater harmony among all people and a greater level of happiness and fulfillment for more people on the face of the earth will become possible.

It would be wrong to conclude that I am proposing a Pollyannic existence for future generations of our race.  Each time a child is born, its first cry is symbolically a cry for more achievement. 

The more we learn to achieve, the more people are born and reach maturity on this earth.  In so doing, simply by existing, they make it necessary for more achievements to be embraced successfully.

The result then becomes an unending cycle of increased population and increased demands for more achievements and more new knowledge.  I could go further in this type of discussion but I think the reader is becoming aware that to do so would ultimately lead towards a discussion about infinity.  

Alas, that must wait for another time.  There are too many important achievements that must be made today and it would be counter-productive to spend ones time dreaming about the infinite future that may or may not lie in waiting for the human race itself.     

Therefore, it is my duty to add the following ideas: --- with all the emotion and empathy that I can bring to bear upon these words: --- with all the certitude and confidence that our Creator allows to us mere mortals.

With all the courage and conviction that I can invoke in an attempt to convince you of the authenticity of this message; --- I must tell you that the ideas being put forward in this book, represent a fundamental and deeper level of truth about how the human mind functions, that has been waiting to be discovered since the human race began. --- LET THE HEALING BEGIN IMMEDIATELY!!!

BIO-PSYCHIATRY

Sometimes the only way to reach a meeting of the minds is to bang a few heads together.

We cannot expect the bio-psychiatrists who have erroneously concluded that mental illness is genetically determined, or that it is caused by a chemical imbalance inside the human brain, to pack up their bags and go home.  In reality, we will still need their expertise and service although not on the level that is now occurring. 

They are not horrible people who set out to deceive the human race.  We are creatures of trial and error and their conclusions appeared to be credible with the level of knowledge that was available before this book was written and the ideas expressed herein became accepted.

They honestly believed that they were doing the right thing.  The pharmaceutical conglomerates have a vested interest in the continued use of neuroleptic drugs and in combination with the bio-psychiatric branch of this profession, they have most of the money.

The bio-psychiatrists are going to begin to fail at achievements that are important to them.  (Making a good living.  Looking after the economic well being of their families.  Being a well-respected member of their profession.) 

As a result, we can expect them to come out fighting for their continued success with both barrels blazing.  We must stand up for our beliefs and not back down.

Eventually, many of the fears, nervous tension, aggressive actions and depression for which they prescribed drugs to their patients, will become unwelcome intruders inside their own minds. 

If this psychic discomfort becomes unbearable,  at least they will have the following ideas in their favor. The behavioral psychiatrists and the cognitive behavioral therapists, who will add these knew ideas to their own base of knowledge, will only prescribe neuroleptic drugs on a temporary and/or emergency basis. 

Difficult and dangerous withdrawal symptoms of the drugs, and even brain damage from the long term use of such drugs, will not be foisted upon the bio-psychiatrists, the way it was perpetrated upon their former patients.                

Because I am predicting a veritable explosion of work for the existing behavior oriented psychiatrists, psychologists and a new branch of professionals that I would  call behavioral consultants, those bio-psychiatrists who are not traumatized by the fear of change, will be welcomed with open arms into the new branch of behavioral adjustment and correction.

Part of the reason that the bio-psychiatrists have attained such an eminent position, is not only because their approach seemed to be backed up by scientific evidence, but also because the success rate of other forms of behavioral correction, including psychotherapy, have not achieved the level of success that would warrant the elimination of the bio-psychiatric approach.

This is not to say that psychotherapy is not valuable, on the contrary, many important successes have been achieved in helping patients to move forward with their lives. 

Unfortunately however, without the basic understanding about how the human mind functions, their level of success has been sporadic and the amount of time required to achieve this correction is not only expensive, but in today’s world of quick fixes, it simply is not amenable to acceptance by the public at large.

At the same time, the recovery of their patients rested upon the variable understanding of the individual psychotherapist.  And also upon the capacity of the patient to understand and want to change a deluge of distorted reactions to fear in a large proportion of important achievements that the individual is either actually involved in, or is hoping to embrace in the near future.

With this new understanding of the importance of fear, we must construct a veritable 10-lane expressway from the perception of mental illness back to mature mental approaches to life. 

Unfortunately at this time, the road back to mental health has never been paved and it often leads into a dead end.  Then of course there is the biological approach that believes that no such 10-lane highway will ever exist.

It is indeed a tragedy of unfathomable proportions to know that millions of people have been medicated and left to wander aimlessly along the shoulder of life’s highway, while others have ended their lives under the influence of neuroleptic medication.

But that is the reality of life which unfortunately must occur while we are in an unending search for deeper levels of truth.  Never, ever forget, that this new understanding that I have to offer is merely a new platform from which others in the future must launch new attacks against the unknown.

We are creatures of trail and error.  We have done the best that we could with the partial knowledge that we had.  The behavioral consultants, or under whatever label they choose to call themselves, must become so successful at helping people with psychological problems, that new potential patients will simply refuse to visit a bio-psychiatrist, except of course for short term use of medication and emergency help.

To leave you with the impression that talk alone will solve the problem would be erroneous.  Talking must lead to action.  One schizophrenic woman that I know was so shy in school that she never asked any questions at all. 

In fact she tried to avoid anything that made her nervous.  In reality, the maturing process for her could be compared to the childhood achievement of learning to walk.   She stumbled and fell a number of times and gave up.

Her family could not be expected to have special insights into how the human mind functions and so they accepted the advice of well-meaning but misinformed members of the psychiatric profession, who prescribed medication for her condition and, to all extents and purposes, abandoned her to her own devices.

As was the case in my story about losing 5 pages of writing at the start of this book, this young woman must be given the right to make mistakes. She must begin to accumulate a series of successful achievements which necessarily would have to include learning skills which most of us acquired at school many years ago.

She must be shown how to overcome the fear of the feelings of fear itself, which was demonstrably self-evident in her desire to avoid any situation that made her nervous. 

In effect, she must begin the journey from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood that she robbed herself of in her journey through life.  And finally, those adults that she comes into contact with at this time in her life, must be psychologically skillful enough to help her successfully complete the journey.       

In response to a challenge that he did not talk enough to his patients, one bio-psychiatrist said that not only was talking useless, but it could actually make the patient worse. 

Perhaps without realizing it, he was proving that talking does affect the condition.  The question becomes, is the one doing the talking competent enough to be able to help, --- rather than hinder the patient?

Obviously, if the bio-psychiatrist’s basic premise concerning the cause of mental illness is wrong, any advice that he has to offer would, in most cases have little value, --- no value at all, --- or it would actually exacerbate the problem even further. 

He might mistakenly conclude that such a response from the patient proves that it is indeed a biological illness that required physical intervention, not just a bunch of words.

I do not expect these new ideas to be accepted overnight.  When it comes to change, far too many people must be led kicking and screaming into a new system of thought and action. 

Not until such people are overwhelmed with the success of new ideas, will the rejection of their old beliefs finally see them fade into the woodwork and let the new understanding have its way.

No matter how long it takes before these new ideas are accepted, there is one thing that I am sure of, --- I will never give up.  Part of the reason for writing this book is to ask you to join with me in the determined effort that will be necessary before these new ideas are accepted as fundamental truths. In this regard, we have time on our side, eventually the truth will prevail.  When a just cause reaches its ebb tide, it cannot be denied.

PSYCHOTHERAPY

If the human mind was simple to understand,

we would be to simple to understand it.

The time factor in psychotherapy must be addressed immediately so that a greater number of people can be helped in less time.  To a certain extent, it is this feature of psychotherapy that has prevented it from becoming as successful as it actually should be. 

To tell a story of ones life experiences, it is not necessary to tell everything that happened.  One must restrict oneself to telling everything that is important.

In this regard, even though it might seem to de-personalize the process, the use of computer technology to listen to the patient’s life story and then have the computer provide an analysis of the underlying fears and failures of the maturing process in the patient, would make the psychotherapist’s actual talking time with the patient much more productive.  

Of course not all psychological problems involve incomplete approaches to the maturing process. But as previously stated, the generalization theory of achievements applies here. 

So the question becomes, what are the individual’s necessary and voluntarily accepted achievements that are not being fulfilled to the satisfaction of the person seeking psychological help?

Another idea would see a classroom full of people with distorted fears of one kind or another, presided over by a competent behavioral psychologist or psychotherapist. 

Among other positives to be gained from such a situation would be the alleviation of isolation that is felt by people who are considered to be either mentally ill or suffering from some life limiting fear that such a person incorrectly presumes is almost unique to him or her alone.

Mr. John Modrow, who was himself diagnosed as being a schizophrenic, has written an intriguing book entitled, “ How To Become A Schizophrenic” (the case against Biological Psychiatry).   The forward to his book is written by Bertram P. Karon, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Psychology, at the Michigan State University.   Dr. Karon writes that:  

“Every study around the world that has followed schizophrenics for more than 25 years, shows that 35% of them recover fully and another 35% function independently and are self-supporting. This includes the findings from Switzerland where accurate records have been kept about this so-called illness since the year 1900.”

Here is where the biological model for this problem (schizophrenia) begins to embrace gymnastic type reasons to maintain their mistaken beliefs.  The symptoms come and go and who knows why?  The following represents my beliefs about this subject.

In response to new achievements that enter into a person’s life, the person does, --- or does not, overcome latent fears of failure.  He or she does --- or does not, increase his or her knowledge in response to increased nervous tension brought about in the process of trying to succeed in these new achievements.

The pendulum of nervous tension swings in either direction and few members of the psychiatric profession seem to know why the problem is happening. 

Even worse, some Doctors  decided that they did know why these problems were happening and blamed it on physical factors inside the human brain, including those brought about by hereditary factors, and consequently, they concluded that it was beyond the control of the “patient” themselves.

Read any account of relapse and you will find that some traumatic incident seemed to trigger the relapse.  The answer is relatively simple, the fears inside the person’s mind conglomerated.  He or she did not find a path leading to success and the fear of failure took command.

Another book whose title is, “Schizophrenia & Manic Depression Disorder”, written by E. Torrey Fuller, purported to definitively and completely prove the biological cause of mental illness.  The subject matter of this book concerned the landmark study of identical twins.          

At the start of the book, 4 pictures of identical twins are shown, each one of which has 1 twin remaining well and the other being labeled as mentally ill. 

This illness manifested itself some 15 to 30 years later in their lives.  The pictures and the ideas expressed in the above mentioned book, prove that the illness isn’t hereditary or chemical imbalance or lesions; it is conglomerated and distorted fears.

The assertion that mental illness is genetically determined is based on the premise that the condition does not express itself until later in life.  

This effect is certainly seen in other physical afflictions that are known to have a genetic origin. Yet, if this belief is accepted, how can one explain that one  twin succumbs to this genetic damage but the other one does not?  If indeed the condition is present at birth, how can it manifest itself in one twin but not the other?

To add to this confusion, it is also well known that if the so called mentally ill twin receives valuable psychological insights from a knowledgeable practitioner of this science, then, that person returns to a state of mental “normalcy.”

To maintain a belief in the physical model for mental illness, one would then have to accept the belief that words alone, leading to new actions by the individual in question, have the capacity to overcome genetic damage. 

In my not so humble opinion, it is far more reasonable to conclude that there was no physical damage inside the brain to begin with.  This conclusion must also inevitably establish that the so- called “affliction” is at all times negotiable.

I believe that the theory that the person so affected, robbed themselves of the maturing process through incorrect reactions to the emotion of fear, both distorted and conglomerated, represents a much more scientific and realistic evaluation of the forces involved in determining what we call --- mental illness.

The bio-psychiatrists can provide us with a huge volume of examples where the use of their drugs has brought about dramatic changes for the better in their patients. 

If the problem in the first place was nervous tension brought on by fear concerning a specific achievement, and the drug allows the person to relax and avoid the fear reactions and get involved in various achievements, then one of two different results can occur.

If the person experiences some kind of success and that success helps calm the person’s fears about being able to perform the achievement in question, then indeed his or her confidence level is increased and he or she begins to do better than they did before taking the medication.

But in the above situation, the drug did not solve the problem; it gave the person another chance to succeed at the achievement.  What about the people who tried again and failed? 

What help does a drug offer to a person who must realize that even if you do everything perfectly, random chance can still make you a failure?  Will a drug help you to learn how to accept such an occurrence without developing a negative self-image about yourself? 

Being able to differentiate between a failure that can provide a learning experience and a failure of pure chance that requires the individual to press on in spite of the failure, is one of the exquisite components of an expansive personality. 

If the person erroneously builds him or herself a negative self-image from a failure, which can be attributed to random chance alone, will a drug help them maintain a positive self-image about themselves? 

Will the failure to comprehend the fundamental importance of understanding fear, allow the individual in question to overcome his or her fears and live a normal life?   Not likely!!

If a person fails to understand this aspect of reality, do the bio-psychiatrists try to distance themselves from such failures which result in the person becoming violent towards other people or, sometimes sees them even committing suicide? 

The point is simply this, it is the new understanding and the successful approaches to the achievements in question that are the catalyst for change, --- not the drug itself.

In contrast to the claims for success of their drugs, how much are the bio-psychiatrists willing to talk about the long term and damaging side effects of these neuroleptic drugs? 

In some cases, even short term use is dangerous. How often do they talk about the wasted lives of people whose negotiable problems are never confronted? 

Once you know that the cause of the problem is distorted and conglomerated fears; --- once you know that they are all negotiable, --- such misguided theories about genetic damage and other errors of omission, should not only lose their place of eminence in this profession, but they should be swept into the garbage disposal area of misguided ideas where they so justifiably belong.

NEUROLEPTIC DRUGS

The cost of avoiding the truth is never fully paid.

(myself)

Bio-Psychiatrists have shown that people who are considered to be mentally ill or are suffering from acute stress disorders, do not have enough of the chemical serotonin in their brain metabolism. Prozac and other Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors have the capacity to increase the level of serotonin in the brain.

Although this would appear to validate the biological definition of mental illness, further examination is required.  Dr. Michael J. Norden, M.D., has authored an important book called, “Beyond Prozac.”  On page 176, the following quotation from Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz appears: 

“Psychological treatments clearly produce biological effects on the brain.   My colleagues and I have recently shown that, similar to  Prozac, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy is capable of correcting abnormalities in the brain metabolic rates of patients with obsessive compulsive behavior.”   

Giving someone a Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitor such as Prozac is similar to giving someone a fish for supper.  Giving someone beneficial psychological therapy, which would have to include knowledge about conglomerated fear, is similar to teaching someone how to fish.

If I have left you with the impression that I would like to see the use of neuroleptic drugs for the treatment of mental illness --- and/or for alleviating stress, eliminated from further use, then I have misled you. 

Just as we now use anesthetics to temporarily block out pain during medical operations, so also will we use these neuroleptic drugs to temporarily block the emotional pain for those whose conglomerated fears have become too severe to handle in any other way.

On page 167 of the above mentioned book called, “Beyond Prozac“, we find the following quote by Milton Rokeach: --- “To say that a particular psychiatric condition is incurable or irreversible, is to say more about the state of our psychological ignorance, than about the state of the patients mental health.”

Many of the subjects that are covered in this book, are done so in excellent fashion.  Especially those that involve alternative therapies to medication.  

But I must include one important reservation.  On page 199, he writes about Electro Convulsive Therapy.  The new improved method for administering Electro Shock Therapy.

I consider this to be one of the most bizarre procedures ever perpetrated against the unsuspecting and trusting patient.  It is a procedure, which unbelievably seems to be making a comeback. 

Although sedation and anti-convulsive medication appears to have made the actual procedure less traumatic, this reduction in trauma to the body is only superficial.  It still retains all of its potential to inflict serious damage upon the human brain and probably on the body also.

After damaging the brain with this procedure, the patient is too disoriented to concentrate on the thoughts and fears that are causing the problem. 

To mistake the above condition and the resultant loss of psychic tension while the body is repairing itself, for a positive affect on the patients psychological dilemma, is to admit that the therapist has no idea what is going on or how to help his or her patient.

The fear of another round of electro-shock therapy motivates the patient to accept the ideas put forward by the therapist, who then may mistakenly interpret this change in behavior as proof that the electro-shock therapy has value. 

Whether the therapist’s ideas have value or not, is a risk that the patient must endure, but since the therapist sees value in this bizarre procedure, the odds are heavily stacked against the patient.

After undergoing this type of treatment, some patients decide to do whatever is necessary to get out of the psychiatric hospital.  They decide that they might as well try to solve their problems themselves rather than be “tortured” by a misguided profession.  Their fear of the psychiatric profession becomes greater than the fears inherent in their illness.

The brilliant author Ernest Hemingway allowed himself to be given electro-shock therapy shortly before he committed suicide.  In reference to this form of treatment he wrote: 

“What good does it do to damage the memory and mental functions of a man who earns his living as a writer?   I went to them for help and they have only made my problems worse.”

In the process of trying to deal with the injurious and horribly invasive nature of electro convulsive therapy, the human brain increases the production of serotonin. 

This effect has the potential to seem to help the patient with the unrelenting depression or other mental problems that could not be helped in any other way.  However, the psychiatric profession readily admits that the benefits are temporary and relapses are higher than for medication therapy.

Knowing that electro-convulsive therapy increases serotonin is of little comfort to the aggrieved patient.  If a person were suffering from bone depletion, nobody would recommend breaking the person’s leg to bring into effect an increase in bone production.  

The more modern neuroleptic drugs may not damage the brain as violently as electro-shock therapy does, but with the passage of time; the huge litany of damaging side effects proves them to be extremely dangerous also. 

To a potential patient, NEVER, EVER AGREE TO ELECTRO CONVULSIVE (SHOCK) THERAPY.  Your brain is the most valuable gift that your Creator has given you.  Don’t you dare allow someone else to damage it! 

So if you, as a patient, have reached a point where you are being told that every other attempt to help you has failed and ECT is being offered to you as a last resort, what should you do? 

Ask to be put in touch with Dr. Joseph Glenmullen or Dr. Peter Breggin, or a cognitive behavioral therapist, or someone who agrees with, and practices psychiatry in a similar fashion to them.

In regard to Prozac and other such medications, be firm.  If necessary, agree to take them on a temporary basis only.  Ask the Doctor point blank, what he thinks is the cause of mental illness.  If he is convinced that it is a genetic problem and/or a chemical imbalance, --- say goodbye.

The above ideas are part and parcel of the expanding knowledge that is the expected result when an ever increasing population causes an increase in the level of fear reactions that inevitably must occur.  We prefer to call these reactions stress. 

As I state in other areas of this book, increased levels of fear which motivate us towards increased levels of knowledge, brought about by increased levels of the earth’s overall population, causes what I call intersecting lines of new discoveries to ultimately bring new knowledge into the human experience.

I am unequivocally convinced that it is not only our duty, but it is our God given right to progress to the deeper level of understanding concerning the manner in which the human mind functions that I am putting forward in this book.  I am persuaded that this deeper level of knowledge has been waiting to be discovered since the human race began.

It is my resolute conviction that the inevitable acceptance of the conglomerated fear hypothesis for mental illness, which also includes the variable stress related human problems of living that affect all of us who are considered to be mentally normal, represents a new level of truth that -- CANNOT BE DENIED.

 

 CHLORPROMAZINE

[CHEMICAL LOBOTOMY]

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Eldridge Cleaver)

The following quote is from John Modrow’s book entitled, “How To Become A Schizophrenic.”  Dr. Peter Sterling, a brain research expert from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, makes the following statement: 

“The blunting of consciousness, motivation, and the inability to solve problems under the influence of chlorpromazine resembles nothing so much as the effect of a frontal lobotomy.”

“Research has suggested that lobotomies and chemicals like chlorpromazine may cause their effects in the same way, by disrupting the neurochemical dopamine. At any rate, a Psychiatrist would be hard pressed to distinguish a lobotomized patient from one treated with chlorpromazine.”

It would be easy to accept the attitude that okay, chlorpromazine was a mistake but the psychiatric profession has learned from it and let’s move on, --- don’t beat a dead horse into the ground. 

But how many dead horses, and humans must this profession leave in its wake under the assumption that they have done the best that they could for the people they have tried to help?

Let’s begin to solve the patient’s problems with minimal intrusive procedures.  It is up to the Psychotherapists and the Cognitive Behavioral branch of Psychiatry to become so successful that the absurdity of any other course of action becomes self-evident.

HOW TO BECOME A SCHIZOPHRENIC

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

(Sir Winston Churchill)

John Modrow, who was told that he was a schizophrenic wrote the book with the above title.  On page 195 the following words appear:  “Many patients on neuroleptics have died as a result of being too drugged to recognize or report serious and painful illnesses.”

On page 196, John Modrow quotes Hans Selye as follows:  “If psychiatric researchers were to utilize my theory to explain the biochemistry of schizophrenia, they would have to conclude that schizophrenia represents a fundamental abnormality, not in  how the brain works, but rather, in how a normal brain reacts to all types of stress.”  

“Schizophrenia would then be seen as an emotional or mental disturbance which originates from the thought processes of the individual so afflicted and not from a physical abnormality of the brain.”

I think that the work involved in putting a book together and getting it published definitely qualifies the author as a person who can be included in the category of normal human behavior.  In many cases, it would place the author in the upper echelon of that category.

So what did John Modrow do to progress from being classified as a schizophrenic to becoming a successful author?   Did he redesign his genetic material to overcome the physical genetic damage that the bio-psychiatrists say is the cause of schizophrenia?   As Al Pacino said in one of the Godfather episodes: --- “Please, don’t insult my intelligence.”    

ANN LANDERS

People will do things differently, your instructions will probably be misunderstood. What you say is likely to be different from what they hear.

(Priscilla Elfrey)

This story appeared in Ann Landers column in the “Toronto Star” newspaper many years ago.  By spending so much time listening to, and trying to help other people, and  getting feedback from readers who disagreed with her, Ann Landers provided a very valuable service to her readers.  

It was interesting to note that she openly admitted that many of the basic truths that she was prepared to take to the bank earlier in her career, were later assigned to the trash can in favor of deeper levels of truth.  The story in this case was entitled:  --- Chronic Depression. 

  

“Dear Ann Landers:

I am 28 years old.  Seven years ago, I developed chronic depression.  After 4 years of agony I was given medication and I began to pull out of it.  My psychiatrist advised me not to return to my former occupation.  He claims that if I take on too much responsibility I will fall apart.

I am extremely shy.   I have an inferiority complex and hate the job that I have.  I have never felt loved by anyone.  My mother, father, sisters and brothers deserted me when I was ill.  

I asked my Psychiatrist to tell me the truth about my mental illness.  He said that if I avoid pressure situations and continue to take my medication faithfully, I may lead a fairly normal life.  Should I believe him Ann? Signed --- climbing out of darkness.”

Here is Ann Lander’s Answer:

“It sounds as if you are in the hands of a highly competent Doctor.  Listen to him.  Reach out for friendship.  I’m sure that you have a lot to give and there are so many folks like you who are lonely.  

Look in the phone book for Recovery Inc. (It is free.)  Attend the meetings.   Recovery’s members share problems similar to yours.  The emotional support they give is phenomenal.  Good luck and God Bless You.”

My response:

When you understand what distorted fear can do to the human mind, the above problems are far less complicated than one might expect.  To know that this young woman was probably never given the right advice as she journeyed through the maturing process, and that she may have been unduly relegated to the ranks of the mentally ill, leaves me with a sickening feeling as I write these words.

Suppose we took a 10-year old boy who was considered to be mentally, emotionally and physically well adjusted, and we locked him in a room where he obtained no outside stimulation except for the basic physical requirements to sustain life.

If then, at the age of 21, we released him into the outside world and he could not cope, or compete with his peers, we would not conclude that he was suffering from some form of mental illness.  We would know that he had been denied the opportunity to mature like the other people in his age group.

When the young girl in our Ann Lander’s story states that she is extremely shy and she has a massive inferiority complex, shouldn’t alarm bells ring inside the mind of the adults who should be nurturing this young mind?  Shouldn’t the Psychiatrist recognize these “symptoms” as a brilliantly lit microcosm of distorted fear reactions? 

Are they so preoccupied with the veracity of their psychological understanding that they fail to see the obvious?  Must this girl be shunted aside and told that she is useless when in fact the psychiatrist is acting like he is useless himself?

Shouldn’t it be obvious that this girl locked herself up in a voluntary prison designed to avoid fear reactions of embarrassment, guilt and failure?  A prison that was just as devastating to the maturing process as the  “prison” for the boy in our above imaginary story.

Like the young woman in this story, I also suffered from feelings of inferiority when I was trying to get through adolescence.  Once in high school when I was required to give a speech in front of the class, my voice and body shook quite openly.  That teacher never had any advice or encouragement to offer me. 

He probably thought that my nervous system was inferior to that of other students and there was nothing that he or I could do about it.  At the time, with no other advice to fall back on, I came to the same decision about myself also.

Thank God that nowadays, the teachers are more in tune with psychological matters, and such a student would be referred to the proper channels for psychological help.  How sad to think that a person’s lifestyle and potential lifetime career can be sidetracked so easily.

Did you know that Winston Churchill stuttered and stammered when he was a youngster and he only went on to become one of the world’s finest orators?  

Yes it is true that all of us have some such problems as we approach adult life and most of us overcome them.  But it should not be a hit and miss affair.                        

My performance in that classroom, and in many other interpersonal situations, should have earned me admission to a special class where psychological guidance would have helped me to change my incorrect approach to fear.  It is my fervent hope, that one of the by-products of this book will be the addition of such courses in every school in the entire world.

Returning to the letter in Ann Lander’s column, not only did the girl systematically lock herself out of the maturing process by her constant avoidance behavior, (shyness etc.), but she compounded the problem by telling herself that she was inferior to others.

The current level of psychological understanding that is being practiced by many in that profession has concluded that the girl in our story is suffering from physical or chemical damage inside her brain. 

They believe that this perceived damage is the reason for her extreme shyness and medication and avoiding too much responsibility is the best recommendation for such people. 

But if they were right, how could some people who were extremely shy when they were young, become absolute extroverts in later years?  The answer is that these conditions are all negotiable and can be corrected with the proper psychological help.  

What the girl in Ann Lander’s story really needed was a competent psychiatrist who understands what fear can do to the human mind. 

Who knows the value of empathic thinking on the part of a therapist, --- who could guide her in the hierarchal approach to overcoming fears, --- and who could gently persuade her, that her problems are all negotiable.

Her self-proclaimed inferiority complex tells us that she never was able to sustain any confidence about herself.  We need individuals who can assess this girl’s failure to experience specific and necessary maturing achievements and to motivate her to become involved in these experiences.

She has to give herself the right to make mistakes and fail.  Obviously you try not to make serious mistakes but she must at all times begin to learn from her mistakes.  This approach, systematically encouraged by others, has the potential to allow this girl to actively participate successfully in the adult world.

The advice that the psychiatrist gave this girl can no longer be justified.  His lack of understanding can no longer be used as a reason to set this girl’s life, and others like her, aside.  

Since her problems are all negotiable, she deserves the chance to embrace life with all the happiness and pride that a reasonable level of confidence and successful performance can potentially give to her.

Did her bio-psychiatrist ever ask her if she was afraid of the feelings of fear itself?  If she was, --- and I would be willing to bet on it, --- then, every time that she tried an achievement that activated the emotion of fear, she avoided it.  Obviously she can not take any pressure or adult stress, she hasn’t experienced the maturing process.

Can you remember the fear that you felt when you first tried to ride a bicycle?  If you never got past that fear, then you may never have learned to ride a bike.  

That wouldn’t prevent you from becoming a successful adult, but if you applied the same type of avoidance behavior to a conglomeration of achievements, then you would begin to accumulate enough failures of commission --- or omission,  to invalidate the maturing process.

So why does medication actually help some people?  Some of them act on the brain to make the person more relaxed and less susceptible to the emotion of fear reactions. 

In this state, some people can do things that they can’t do without the medication.  There is a disheartening parallel here to someone using alcohol to give himself a shot of bravery.  

Of course it doesn’t always have a positive result. One person, who could not speak in a conference setting at work, took medication to calm his nerves which worked fine except that the ideas that he expressed were disjointed and his audience wondered what was wrong with him. 

The point being that as long as you try something, even if you fail, there is the potential for you to learn from it and be better the next time.  If your fear makes you avoid the achievement, then no new learning is possible.

Another factor in determining that medication has helped a person concerns the power of suggestion. This brilliant psychiatrist, who knows what he is talking about, has told me that my brain is damaged. 

The neuroleptic drug or drugs that he is giving me allow me to function normally.  These positive thoughts can, for a variable period of time, alleviate the conglomerated fears that are actually causing the problems.

Ann Lander’s answer that the girl was in the hands of a competent Doctor was incorrect.  It is usually right to place ones confidence in those who have studied something all of their lives, but at the same time, the truth is not interested in how long you have studied a problem. 

If you are wrong in your assumptions, no amount of time can make them right.  Only increased knowledge can change a wrong, or false idea into a right one..

Ann’s further comments about self-help groups like Recovery Inc. are excellent.  But should these people be required to find their own way out of the quagmire when structured help should be available? 

There are thousands of competent psychiatrists that help these people out of their dilemmas.  It is the confused psychiatrists, who don’t know that they are confused, and the obtuse bio-psychiatrist’s that must change their incorrect beliefs.

Knowing that these problems are all negotiable, places a heavy burden upon me to finish this book and give these people a chance to be “recalled to life.”

I hope that this story from Ann Lander’s column from long ago helps to convince you that understanding fear equals understanding human behavior.

ASK AMY

On Friday Jan. 16/2015 on page 24 of the Toronto Sun newspaper, ASK AMY printed an article that she entitled, --- "Always dating Mr. Wrong."  Amy's advice to "Dear Looking" was at best ineffective and otherwise obtuse. 

Let me set it up for you in a different form because here on this blog [actually in this book], we don't have to conform to the limitations of space as one must do in a newspaper.  After all, advertising comes first.

First of all, the lady in question is in her early thirties and wants to find a man in response to her biological inner time clock that is in stress mode as she approaches her 40's.   These feelings are not only normal but they are exemplary also.

However, because she has waited so long, her choices are rather limited.   Her latest "loser" is already married with multiple children, a bad economic situation and a nasty temper and yet, in her words, he has found another woman to share his life with.   

He sent her a text message saying that she was too fast for him and that he was moving on.  "Still looking" is wasting her time blaming herself for this dilemma.   

What he really meant was that he was looking for someone who he could take advantage of and she wanted to get married and have a baby and that is what he was referring to when he said that she was "too fast" for him.

She should send him the following text message:

Hello to my Ex. 

Thank you for getting me out of a wasted relationship with you.  My concerns are for the poor woman who has accepted you under the false belief that you can help her with her situation when in reality you want to be able to lean on someone indefinitely.   Please do me the honour of never trying to get in touch with me again.  

Signed, "The Winner."  

Of course the other problem here is that the lady has waited too long to find a mate.  Perhaps she wanted to establish a good career and be economically stable before starting a marriage. Although the above thoughts have value they also carry burdens with them which this lady has been experiencing with her potential "boy friends."

My younger brother found the perfect girl for him and they were in their late thirties.  On a dare, she phoned him and suggested a date.  I believe you, [Dear Looking], have to consider such a bold move on your part also. 

If a man is still single in his thirties, among many reasons for this situation to occur, one of them could be a high level of shyness.  

Men in particular can be overcome by the fear of rejection and this can lead to a lack of confidence when it comes to asking an individual of the opposite sex to go out on a date with them.

It's time for a little bit of humour here.  This Russian comic was on stage doing his act when he informed his audience that he was going to get married in the near future.  

Someone in the audience called out: --- "Have you got a date."   The comic replied as follows:  "You know, this is what I like most about America.  Here I am about to get married and I'm allowed to bring a date with me to my wedding."

The next date you have young lady, let it be at your suggestion.  I think females can take rejection better than men but since I am only a man, perhaps I am wrong.

That leads me to this question.  If I think that I am good enough to give better advice than someone like, --- DEAR AMY, at least in this story anyway, why did I spend all those years driving a taxi?

Maybe I was wrong, maybe I should have got a better job, but I wanted to concentrate all of my skills on learning how the human mind functions so I could write a book that would give my fellow travelers through this life, a better chance at happiness and knowledge which in reality go hand in hand.  Thank you for your personal perseverance in your determination to read this elongated story.

 THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

The latest book that I am reading is called, --- Rebel Souls.  Its author is Justin Martin who had the book published in 2014.   It is an  autobiography of a group of people who were called Bohemians and its milieu occurs about 160 years ago just before, during  and after the American Civil War. 

One of the individuals is Walt Whitman and although I knew next to nothing about him, I was somewhat surprised to discover that he was a homosexual.   His most intense attachment was to a younger man named Peter Doyle. 

Eventually Whitman suffered a stroke that in all probability was brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder when he was volunteering as a nurse to wounded soldiers in a hospital in the capital city of Washington during the war.  

This left him vulnerable to further complications because of the end of his relationship with the aforementioned Peter Doyle after a considerable amount of time spent together.

Other important historical players in the story were the Booth brothers.  There were 3 of them but of course John Wilkes Booth turned out to be the uncontested infamous one of the three brothers. Obviously Abraham Lincoln’s story plays an important part in the book also. 

One of the most significant memories of Lincoln, besides his assassination, occurred when he introduced the Emancipation Proclamation to his close Cabinet members.   He called them together and began his speech rather circuitously in the following manner:

He began by reading from one of Artemus Ward's books on humor.  Ward is considered to be America’s first stand-up  comic although that term was not in use when Artemus was doing his touring around America and beyond.

Lincoln made the following statement:  “With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh; I would surely have died and you need this medicine as much as I do.” 

Lincoln then put down Ward’s book and began to read from his Emancipation Proclamation which was the first time that he had shared such thoughts with his cabinet members.

I stated earlier in this book that before the current drugs were available, some people with mental issues would laugh uncontrollably. In effect they were trying to self-medicate themselves. 

At another point in my book I quote Mohandas Gandhi as saying: --- “If I had not used humor, I would surely have gone insane.”  Both of these men, Gandhi and Lincoln were right.

A strange thing has happened to my impressions as a result of reading that book.  I must admit that the following thoughts were coalescing inside my mind prior to reading that book but this represents the first time that I have actually committed them to print.

It seemed to me for a certain amount of time that I was “gifted” in some miraculous way so that I would pick out books that helped to validate my ideas about the human mind.  

Now, I have corrected that wrong impression by realizing that since the conglomeration theory about distorted fears is universal in scope, therefore every book is a possible authenticator of my ideas and no such “miraculous gift” is at my beck and call. 

I include these thoughts so that those who are reading these words and understand the importance of them, do not come to the same wrong conclusion that I came to.  You do not have some “mystical gift.”    Your impressions are resonant with the authenticity of my ideas.

 PETER R. BREGGIN, M.D.

We are called to be architects

of our future, not victims of it.

Although you will not find any other book on psychology that will put forward the ultimate supremacy of the emotion of fear, in combination with the desire to be successful at the necessary and voluntary achievements that are important to any specific individual, as I have attempted to do in this book, nevertheless you can easily find thousands of books on both sides of the current dilemma in the field of psychological endeavor.

Namely, --- are mental illness and stress related problems, caused by physical and/or genetic factors, --- or are they caused by psychological factors that can be negotiated and therefore overcome? 

Of course a third option could be put forward which would conclude that it is a combination of both.  And in many, if not all cases, that would be exactly correct, because eventually, the thoughts that you embrace have a physical affect on your body as well as your mind. 

The other rather obvious fact that you would discover is that except for a few others, such as John Modrow and myself, all authors on this subject have either a Ph.D. or an M.D. after their names. 

Perhaps it takes an outsider, who has taken extensive advantage of our incredible library system, to take an unbiased look at both sides of this quandary.   

Or, of even more importance, a person who is not economically ensconced on one side or the other, but is free to follow the search for the truth wherever it may lead.  

With the above thoughts in mind, I emphatically believe that such a search on my part, has allowed me to find a modicum of order in a discipline that, at this time, appears to be a field littered with a plethora of chaos.

Without a doubt, bio-psychiatry with the most money, (read pharmaceutical backing), has the most books which tend to give credence to their understanding and beliefs.

These beliefs favor chemical imbalances and genetic factors as the cause of stress related problems and mental illness.  They have therefore concluded that such problems cannot be overcome by the sufferer without the use of the neuroleptic drugs that they have developed.  

One of the many giants who champion the cause for the use of psychological therapies is Dr. Peter R. Breggin and his wife Ginger.  Dr. Breggin has written a book called, --- “Toxic Psychiatry.” 

If you are a serious student in the field of psychology and in particular, psychiatry, you should definitely consider this book to be mandatory reading.

The following, harrowing story starts on page 105 of the above mentioned book.   It involves the Genain Quadruplets and I am quoting directly from Dr. Breggin’s book.  NIMH psychologist David Rosenthal is the editor of a book entitled --- The Genain Quadruplets: 

A study in Heredity and Environment in Schizophrenia (1963).  The book examines in detail, the lives of four young women, identical quadruplets, all of whom apparently became mad. Various investigators look at the lives of these children from every possible perspective.  

Rosenthal himself assumed that schizophrenia in four genetically identical females was prima facie evidence of a genetic cause, and he tells the reader that he named the family “Genain” by deriving it from the Greek words meaning “dire birth” or “dreadful gene.”   

Nonetheless, he assures the reader that “my position is one which considers both genetic and environmental factors important in such disorders.”   So, could something other than their genes have driven all four girls crazy?  

The father of these four twins is an alcoholic, subject to fits of paranoia.  He impregnates at least two women other than his wife during the time when the twins are young children and is notorious for his affairs. 

He beats his children and his wife, restricts them to the home, and allows them no outside contacts and no deviation from robotic regimentation.  When his wife threatens to leave, he tells her that he will follow her anywhere and murder her.

Obsessed with his family’s sexuality, he “plays sexual games ” with at least one of the girls, and “if his wife or daughter ate a piece of darkly toasted bread, he accused them of ‘trying to get sexually stimulated.’ “ When his preteen daughters are found masturbating, he puts acid on one of their genitals.

When that fails to stop them, he sends two of them to a sadistic surgeon who mutilates their genitals, severing nerves and cutting out substantial flesh. So notorious is the surgeon that he is driven out of private practice and goes to work in a  mental hospital. 

In the mother’s words, the father is “always so angry, hateful and mean.”   During sex, he frequently bites her face so badly that it bleeds and swells up. 

On one occasion the mother had to knock down her husband in self-defense in front of her brood of four young girls.   Once he banged two of the girl’s heads together to stop them from crying.

The mother. as  one can easily imagine, has her own problems.  When the children are young and in their formative years, she is despondent and suicidal. 

She also has bizarre ideas, participating in the use of acid and mutilating surgery on her children’s genitals and probably communicating her own fear that masturbation breeds madness.

When one of the girls develops the first hint of breasts, she explains that they are bruises and treats them with salve.  She takes one of the children to a psychiatric clinic to stop her from masturbating.  The psychiatrist describes the mother as “very inflexible and a very controlling kind of person.”

The mother doesn’t return when the psychiatrist cannot “magically” stop her daughter from touching herself.  When three of the girls are later sexually assaulted, she tells them to forget it and offers no sympathy. 

The mother participates in the creation of a home that “most” outsiders consider “fear ridden, devoid of fun and humor, and very restrictive .” There is a coldness in the house and the children “needed more warmth,” according to outside observers.

Indeed, their teachers feel sorry for them  because of their restrictive life.  The four girls are not allowed to participate in normal school activities and come to school “marching” like an army squad doing double time. 

It is no wonder that people describe the quadruplets as “passive, timid and unusually quiet children who showed little spontaneity or initiative.”    They show no curiosity in school and they do not have a “good childish laugh.”

Dr. Breggins words:

This is a heart-rending tale of extreme child abuse.  It chronicles the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of four female children who happen to be quadruplets. 

Yet this is not how Rosenthal presents the “cases.”   He presents them as a Scientific study of genetic and environmental influences on the development of the “disease” of schizophrenia. With heavy emphasis upon genetics, including elaborate reviews of presumably relevant genetic studies.

The book presents one of the most tragic chronicles of child abuse that has ever been recorded.  Yet at no time is the abuse discussed as such. 

At no  place in the book is it summarized.  The data is strewn throughout the six hundred pages in the reports of the various professionals who took part in the examination of these girls and their family make up. 

Much of the story is contained in footnotes.  The synopsis of which, as it appears above, has been put together by me, (Dr. Breggin) from these scattered observations.

This story leaves one overcome with pity.  Imagine what it was like for the quadruplets to have lived such lives?   For Rosenthal to suggest that the study supports a genetic theory of schizophrenia itself constitutes intellectual complicity with the child abuser.

To fail to underscore or to summarize the outrages perpetrated against the children constitutes intellectual complicity with the child abuser or abusers. 

To leave the reader to dig the abuse out of hundreds of pages is to invite the question, --- why wouldn’t this renowned NIMH geneticist face the facts directly?  

It comes as no surprise that Rosenthal’s most famous and influential accomplishment --- the Danish adoption study of schizophrenia ---- also was grossly oversold to the psychiatric profession and to the public at large. 

____________________________________

Those who favor a genetic factor for schizophrenia could say that both of the parents in this story were mentally ill from genetic damage and they passed it on to their children.  But if the genetic factor is so easily traced, why hasn’t it been demonstrated beyond a doubt?

It has been well documented that people who were at one time considered to be schizophrenic are now living normal lives with mature approaches to life’s necessary achievements and responsibilities.  Does that mean that such individuals, in some unknown manner, spontaneously corrected the “so called” genetic damage? 

On the other side of the coin, I believe that if you or I had been born into the family environment that these poor unfortunate girls were born into, there would have been a 90% chance that we too would have been ultimately labeled as being mentally ill in one specific classification or the other.   

I do not say 100% in this situation, because some children find the psychological power and resolve, to reject everything that they learn from their parents instead of being negatively influenced by it.  Where they derive such power and determination from is indeed a mystery to me. 

Those who are so inclined, and wish to cling to a belief that this “disease” is genetic in origin, as is postulated for other forms of mental illness also, owe it to themselves to look deeper into this problem. 

If they do so, I believe that it is impossible not to realize that overcoming conglomerated and distorted fears is the real answer to what otherwise appears to be an unsolvable riddle.

There are many other stories as thought provoking as this one in Dr. Breggin’s book, (Toxic Psychiatry), that convincingly portray the dilemma that is occurring in the psychological profession today.  The entire book is a virtual “library” of valuable information on this most important subject.     

On page 3 of Dr. Breggin’ book is this stunning quote:  "I am still more frightened by the fearless power in the eyes of my fellow psychiatrists than I am by the powerless fear in the eyes of their patients." --- R. D. Lang  (1985) 

The above quote represents one of the most concise messages that I have ever had the privilege of reading, which dramatically emphasizes the awesome power of understanding fear itself. 

Not as it is presently constituted, but rather, in its position of primary focus when one is trying to understand human behavior.

On page 15, under the title of psychiatrists in despair, is this quote among a litany of similar attitudes among many psychiatrists.  One of my psychiatric colleagues --- “a talking doctor like myself” --- tells me.   “I wouldn’t do it over again.   No, if I knew where psychiatry was going, I’d never have become a psychiatrist.” 

On page 293 is another interesting quote:  If a child has an attention disorder, then he (or she) has a chemical problem and needs Ritalin as much as a diabetic needs insulin.   (Pediatrician Martin Baren)  

That is a very interesting comparison.  Dr. Frederick Banting, who discovered Insulin, approached Professor J.J. MacLeod with his theory of how to attempt to find the “magic elixir” to prevent diabetes.  

The learned Professor asked Dr. Banting, who was only a General Practitioner, --- what made him think that he could solve this exasperating riddle when brilliant scientists, some of whom had spent their entire lives looking for a cure, had all failed to find it?

At first, Banting, who was only a country Doctor, lost his confidence and stumbled and stammered for words.  But finally he said, --- It could be that the learned scientists had not done the experiments that I am proposing to do.  He then asked Professor MacLeod if he had done such an experiment? 

After admitting that he had not, Professor MacLeod finally agreed to provide some laboratory space so that Dr. Banting and his colleague Dr. Best could try out their proposed experiment.   And as they say, --- the rest is history.

I think that pediatrician Martin Baren belongs in the category of the above type of scientists, who spent their entire lives looking for the truth about Insulin and never found it. 

Call me what ever you want to, but I see myself as the Banting of psychiatry with new ideas about how the human mind functions.  Interestingly enough, Banting and I were both born here in the province of Ontario in the nation of Canada.

Unfortunately, I can not come up with a magic injection or pill to prove that I am right.  What is needed is a host of cognitive behavioral therapists and psychotherapists, who are not so hide bound in their current beliefs, that they are too afraid to seek out a new solution to the problem about how to help their fellow travelers through life who need psychological assistance.  In reality of course, in various degrees, that means every one of us.           

It is impossible for me to overestimate the value of Dr. Breggin’s book.  Not only is my hat off to Dr. Breggin and his wife Ginger for writing this book, but literally speaking; I am throwing it high into the air to celebrate their empathy and devotion to the cause of truth and accuracy as they try to help all those people whose emotional problems have required them to seek help from the psychological community at large.