The Human Mind: THE HUMAN MIND.

Hello Everyone:

The following is a book that I have written that puts forward the belief that understanding fear equals understanding human behavior. If you have any questions about the contents of this book please feel free to copy the words that you want to refer to and ask any question that you feel is important to you. Yours with equanimity. --- Stephen Adams.

[First Edition Copyright as of 2006]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to every person who has worked in a library system throughout Canada and the United States of America. To every philanthropist who donated or bequeathed money to build and stock such libraries.

To the unending stream of authors, especially in the field of psychology who literally became my teachers in a life-long attempt on my part, --- (I am 77 years old) --- to understand why I could not control my nerves, which inevitably led to the writing of this book.

Many of those authors have been quoted in this book. Many others should also be acknowledged except that this writer did not keep adequate notes over the course of the last 30 or more years. As a result, some of the credit for this book goes to authors who are not personally recognized.

I have made a determined effort to trace all of the holders of copyright material that I have used in this book. I sincerely regret if I have made any inadvertent omissions. Hopefully, there will be further editions of this book which will allow me to rectify any such omissions.

Special acknowledgement must be made to the long deceased couple, Harry Overstreet and Bonaro Overstreet. Mr.Overstreet’s book called, --- About Ourselves ---, which was written in 1927, is one of the most influential ones that I have had the privilege of reading.

Here is an except from a letter that Mrs. Bonaro Overstreet sent to me dated February 16, 1972. “It is well established that many physical problems have a psychological origin.” [My story about Helen Irving, which appears later in this book, is a prime example of this very phenomena.]

The life’s work of Dr. Peter R. Breggin and Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, easily portrays them as two of the giants of their profession. It is from such Doctors, who exhibit an ultimate level of patience and empathy for those who need their help, that the future success of psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy resides so convincingly.

Perhaps the most important book was written by Dr. A. G. Forgione. He came within an Ace of putting forward the ideas that I am trying to get accepted today. I am only guessing but I think other Psychologists convinced him that although his ideas had value there was much more to it than he realized.

Although that is certainly true, it is also true that his ideas were more in keeping with reality than those which the psychological profession was preaching at that time [1978] and what they are preaching as the gospel truth today.

And finally, I wish to acknowledge the motivational power of the following question that I have asked myself over the last 40 years or more of my life: --- What have I done to thank my Creator for allowing me to experience the incredible miracle of life?

With the publication of this book and its hoped for acceptance and ultimately, the use of the ideas contained herein, it is my fervent hope that my answer to the above question will be as follows: --- “As much as I possibly could to help my fellow travelers through life today and --- for every day that the human race continues to exist.”

III

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Buck teeth, big ears, 6 ft. 2 inches tall and skinny as a rail, these physical features combined with other negative psychological components to construct a massive inferiority complex inside my mind as I entered my adolescent years.

I am now 77 years old, married and retired. Because my father answered almost all of my questions by saying, “that’s why”, he inadvertently motivated me to start going to libraries to find out the answers to my questions myself.

In this way, I was allowed to “get in touch” with many brilliant authors who poured out their hearts and the knowledge that they had acquired, into the books that they wrote and I was fortunate enough to be able to read.

I still vividly remember the moment in the analytical geometry

class in school when I realized that ax + by + c = 0, represented every possible line that one could draw. Suddenly I became aware that a world that seemed to be unregulated and at the whim of chance, might just have order and meaning behind its chaotic facade.

At the age of 33, and because my first marriage was not successful, and further, because my nerves were shot, I went to the library to find out how to control my nerves and handle stress.

This book is the culmination of a self-taught “University degree” in the discipline of how the human mind functions. I confidently predict that if you read this book, it will become a defining moment in your life. I can be reached at strarrow2@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION

Since the human race began, we have all been amateur psychologists trying to understand why human beings behave the way they do. Although we know that understanding fear is extremely important, we have failed to realize that it is actually at the very core of the question.

The ultimate purpose of this book is to set aside much of what the psychological profession now considers it to be the very bedrock of their understanding in their chosen field. Specifically, the accepted belief that most forms of mental illness are caused by either genetic damage or a chemical imbalance inside the human brain, --- will be shown to be false in many cases.

As a result of this book, many of those people who were told that they are mentally ill, will in the future be recognized as suffering from a conglomeration of distorted fears which manifest themselves in the adverse reactions and irrational behavior that such fears can cause to happen.

Numerous examples will be given to show that such distorted fears have succeeded in deflecting the individual’s behavior so drastically that a Psychiatrist has labelled the individual in question as being mentally ill.

This book will prove that at all times, these deflections are all negotiable and as a result, the individual in question can be successfully returned to an accepted level of behavior that the Psychiatric profession and the public at large has determined to be rational and normal.

If this was the extent of the value that this book has to offer to the human race, that in itself would be incredibly important; however the increased illumination that this book has to offer concerning the manner in which the human mind functions, will also allow those of us who are considered to be “normal”, to embrace life more abundantly than ever before.

With more than 6 billion people on the face of the earth, what is required more than anything else at this time, is more people who can involve themselves in more achievements without unnecessarily damaging their physical, emotional and mental well-being.

Although it would be tantalizing to believe that such incredible changes could be realized almost immediately, reality dictates otherwise. The collective fear of change inside the human mind is such that old ideas, no matter how archaic, continue to receive acclaim far beyond the time when they should have been discarded in favour of better and more realistic ideas.

The writing of this book and its subsequent publication, is in my confident opinion, one of many important steps that must be taken if a deeper level of understanding about how the human mind functions is ever to replace the partial understanding that now prevails.

Of course this new level of understanding that I wish to put forward is partial in nature also. Future generations may well look upon it as a miniscule step in our attempts to understand the incredible complexities of the human mind.

We are creatures of trial and error and as such we can develop distorted fears about making mistakes which cause us to fail at whatever we are trying to achieve. This is a perfectly natural and realistic fear for under certain conditions, a mistake could cost someone his or her life as well as others also.

This book with its new ideas will contain many mistakes. But the psychiatric profession is making millions of mistakes, many of which they are not even aware of. When the ideas in this book are accepted for the truth that they represent, it will result in a virtual “Recall To Life” for many people who have been unnecessarily set aside as being defective and dependent, rather than perfectly normal and productive.

The following paraphrased quote from Winston Churchill will appropriately bring this introduction to an end. “Let us therefore conduct ourselves in such a manner so that if the human race should continue to exist for another million years, men and women will still say --- this was their finest hour.”

CONTENTS

1. Acknowledgements

2. About the Author

3. Introduction

4. The Human Mind

5. Chapter 1

"THE “NORMAL” AREA OF THE BEHAVIORAL.SPECTRUM

Deflections

Mistakes

Stress

Adrenaline

Helen’s Hives

Stuttering Solved

Ulcers

6. Chapter 2

THE ABNORMAL AREA

OF THE BEHAVIORAL SPECTRUM

SIGMUND FREUD

BIO-PSYCHIATRY

PSYCHOTHERAPY

NEUROLEPTIC DRUGS

CHLORPROMAZINE

HOW TO BECOME
A SCHIZOPHRENIC

ANN LANDERS

DR. PETER BREGGIN

         7. Chapter 3

                       ON THE CUSP

                        DEPRESSION

                        STOP STUTTERING

THE KING'S SPEECH

GENETICS OR NOT

        MIGRAINE HEADACHES

                        ANGELA

                         SUPERMAN

                         HUMAN SEXUALITY

                         THE WOUNDS OF WAR

                       EMOTION

   ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

         8. Chapter 4

INTERCREATING MINDS

                             SYMPHONY OF LIFE

                    CHANGING ONE’S
                              PERSONALITY

                             BEHAVIORAL
                             CONSULTANTS

                 SOCIAL THERAPY

_______________________________________________

DEFLECTIONS

To a large extent, the manner in which you react

to fear determines the make up of your personality.

(Myself)

Have you been told that the genetic make up of your nervous system is not strong enough to cope with the complex responsibilities of our modern world? Have you been told to simplify your life --- to give up some of your most cherished dreams? If you have, or if you have come to such a decision on your own, then, by the time that you finish reading this book, you will know that such advice was --- wrong.

You will begin to stride forward confidently in areas that cause you concern or leave you on the verge of panic today. You will become expansive rather than restrictive. You will exude enthusiasm and energy rather than uncertainty and lethargy. You will learn to calm down and take small steps that will ultimately and unequivocally lead to bigger and better goals. --- Let’s get started.

He was 19 years old and a pivotal moment in his life was about to occur. He had been born into abject poverty in a small southern town near the Mississippi River. He had already experienced a high level of rejection in his chosen profession in another famous location and his fear of failure was robbing him of the confidence he needed.

He turned to the young entertainer that he had befriended and in total seriousness said, --- When it is my turn to go on stage, if I am too scared to do it; I want you to get behind me and push me through the stage curtain. This pivotal moment was occurring at the Louisiana Hayride. It was a local southern or western music concert.

The name of the entertainer who was asked to do the pushing if necessary was Jim Reeves; the nervous young entertainer was --- ELVIS PRESLEY. The previously mentioned rejection happened when Elvis appeared for the first time on the Grand Old Opry. It was something less than sensational and as he left the stage, the announcer sarcastically told him not to quit his day job, which was driving a truck.

If he had taken this advice, if his fears and nervous tension had prevented him from appearing on the Louisiana Hayride and going forward from there, he may have indeed lived his life as an itinerant worker rather than the incredible entertainer whose music and memory may live forever.

Of course one must have talent and in the case of a singer, good looks also. One only has to look at a program like American Idol on TV to realize that there are many people with the confidence to get out there on stage and perform, but whose level of talent is nowhere to be found.

If fear can deflect our behavior and our life itself so powerfully, --- obviously it is of paramount importance to understand fear as completely as possible. While we do understand the importance of fear, we have unfortunately, not realized how completely it can dominate our personality.

Every human being is affected by fear. If a lawyer does not overcome his fear of public speaking, he does not become a trial lawyer but chooses instead some other area of law to practice. In many cases this fear is never verbalized except to ones most intimate friends. This would be a perfect example of a negative response to fear.

Fear is not some horrible weakness that a cruel and callous Creator has inflicted upon his unsuspecting children which of course includes you and I. On the contrary, fear is our most prized possession when we must face the unknown and try to transfer that unknown into the plus side of our accumulating storehouse of knowledge.

For reasons known only to our Creator we were placed upon the face of this earth with less knowledge than is required for us to succeed. It is only through the emotion of fear that we can approach the unknown but still maintain a high potential to remain alive.

In the presence of fear, it is altogether right and proper that we should back off if possible from an achievement that scares us. But it

is also right and proper that we should act correctly to this fear. The following statement is the most important one that you will read in this book. If we react correctly to the emotion of fear, it will motivate us towards increased knowledge and understanding.

What is life all about? What are we, the human race as a whole, doing here? No definitive answer can be given to that question and any attempt to answer it must be partial in nature, but for our purposes, here in this book and in life itself, --- we are here to achieve.

Life is nothing more or less than an endless series of achievements, each one of which carries with it the potential for either success or failure. If the latter occurs, then the potential to develop distorted or even irrational fears about this failure can occur. And still further, the potential for fears to conglomerate and confuse the issue even further is also possible.

Since fears deflect human behavior, then, when a multitude of influences as described above are combined together, they have the potential to deflect ones behavior so drastically that a psychiatrist or even other human beings begin to label such a person as being mentally ill.

To overcome the feelings of fear in any situation, you must increase your knowledge about the achievement in question and then augment it with action. If life forces you to act first, then avoidance behavior, if possible, is the first option. If that is not a reasonable option, then you must act in accordance with the level of understanding that you can bring to bear on the situation. Unfortunately, this can lead to mistakes for some people.

It is absolutely paramount that we do not dictate to ourselves that we must be perfect. You must give yourself the right to fail so that in the process of such action, you can learn from your mistakes and be better prepared to be successful at whatever achievement that you have chosen to embrace.

Of course if you become involved in an achievement that demands perfection, then you must be able to shoulder the resulting stress and still remain as calm and confident as possible. That type of behavior in such a situation must find the person ready to learn as much as possible about every aspect of the achievement that he or she is trying to succeed at.

All of us carry fears inside our minds. Some people carry many more fears than others. There is so much work to be done in this world to try to maintain the level of civilization that we have achieved thus far, that even with the limitations to our effectiveness brought about by our fears, most of us are considered to be contributing and relatively successful members of the human race.

However, if our fears become conglomerated, if they become distorted, if you are not sharing them with others in a manner that would allow you to set aside those of your fears that prove to be unreasonable, your behavior could take you out of the so-called normal zone and into the so-called “abnormal” zone.

If all three of the above conditions are present, and in all probability, some others also, then you could find yourself exhibiting irrational behavior and be told that you are unable to handle the stress involved in everyday modern life. And of course, if that deflection is severe enough, you could be told by a psychiatrist that you are mentally ill.

Contained inside the above paragraph is the beautiful, unmistakable truth that what we now refer to as mental illness, is not caused by some genetic or chemical imbalance inside the human brain. On the contrary, it is caused by a conglomeration of improper reactions to fear and improper thinking, caused by distorted fears that are at all times negotiable.

Yes indeed, a certain percentage of mental illness is caused by actual physical damage. Some of that damage occurs as a result of the administration of neuroleptic drugs that are currently prescribed to people who are told that they cannot handle the stress in their lives or that they are mentally ill.

Thank goodness that such drugs have been developed because the methods used to help the mentally ill in the past were monstrous compared to these new drugs. But these drugs should only be used in short-term emergencies. They should never become life-long addictions.

MISTAKES

The person who does things makes many mistakes,

but they never make the biggest mistake of all,

which is --- to do nothing.

(Benjamin Franklin)

In one of my original writings for this book, the next five pages were to contain some of the most beautiful thoughts that I had ever written. However, I failed to use the draft copy feature on the word processor that I was using at the time and to my great regret, I mistakenly erased all five pages. It is all well and good for me to tell you not to demand perfection from yourself, but what about this ridiculous mistake that I have just admitted to you?

Yes, I was so disgusted with myself over this mistake, that I took the rest of the day off, but there I was the next day back at the word processor again. One of the many drawbacks to our continued increase in knowledge on a personal level and on a global level for the human race itself, is our fear of failure and of facing the truth.

No matter how inconvenient or how complicated the telling of the truth can make a situation, in the long run, your chances for success in whatever achievement that you are involved in are in direct proportion to your ability to face the truth. Unless of course, you are living a lie, or you are a criminal who must avoid the truth to continue to be successful.

I was so worried all day long whether or not I would be able to recall from memory the beautiful words (at least I thought they were beautiful) and ideas that I had lost in the morning. But for all I know, these ideas that I am expressing right now are far more important than those that I had lost the day before. How am I to know whether or not you --- as the reader, would tune out yesterday’s words, but retain forever what I am saying right now?

Perhaps by admitting my mistake, you have now made a determined decision not to be so hard on yourself for the mistakes that you make also. That could be a much greater message to give to my readers than any of the lost ideas that I was so impressed with.

In reality, none of those ideas were original. I had thought about them and written about them before. I cannot remember enunciating them as precisely as I did yesterday, but nevertheless, it is entirely possible that later in this book I will use those ideas and express them as fluently as, or even better than those which I have lost through my own bad habits.

How do you view the ideas expressed above? If you allow mistakes to rob you of your self-confidence, you will actually increase your chances of making more mistakes in the future. If you look at mistakes as a learning process and maintain a reasonable level of self-confidence, your chances of success in the future will be increased. Better for me to have lost 5 pages at the start of this book and learn from that mistake, then to lose 50 pages in the future with a similar error.

In the television movie called, “The Untouchables” with Kevin Costner, at one point in the story he rebukes a corrupt public official for trying to bribe him. The culprit warns Kevin that he will be sorry for his high handedness and that he is making a terrible mistake. Kevin’s response is, --- “Yeah, well I’m making a lot of mistakes lately and I’m beginning to enjoy them.”

When Winston Churchill was finally handed the reins of power in England during the second World War, a member of the previous government asked him: --- Aren’t you afraid that you will make the same mistakes that we made. Winston answered, --- “Not at all.” “We will make a brand new set of mistakes.”

Does this sound like a cavalier approach to a very serious problem? The unequivocal answer is --- absolutely not. The individual who has a distorted fear of failure actually increases his potential to fail. His focus is so completely on negative thoughts that he does not entertain the necessary positive thoughts that are required to be successful. The correct approach to any fear is to increase your knowledge of the achievement in question.

The shortest answer, as in that which Winston gave, is often the most powerful. Contained inside Winston’s apparently flippant remark is a veritable deluge of psychological maturity. First of all he is saying that he has learned from the mistakes that others have made and will do his very best not to repeat them.

He is also saying that he knows that he will make new mistakes but he does not intend to allow those mistakes to rob him of the confidence and action that must be taken in the future. Furthermore, he is implying that he does not have to be perfect. His archenemy Adolph Hitler must also make awesome decisions, which will cause him to make mistakes also. Winston’s job is not to be perfect, but to make fewer mistakes than his adversary does.

None of Adolph Hitler’s Generals could risk disagreeing with him on penalty of banishment from the high ranks of the nazi party, [read Hitler himself] or even death. In effect, Hitler robbed himself of the knowledge that the truth could have given him. Thank God that his dictatorial arrogance helped to dictate his ultimate defeat.

STRESS

We believe, incorrectly, that the word fear denotes weakness.

As a result, we use the word stress, when in reality, they are synonymous.

(Myself)

Another of Churchill’s brilliant comments occurred while his party was in opposition. One of the members of his party rose in Parliament to castigate the government for their inability to act and their total indecisiveness. Winston stood up and refuted his colleague. --- “It is not true that the members of government cannot make a decision”. “They have indeed reached a decision”. “They have decided to remain undecided.”

Sometime in the future, and I hope it is sooner rather than later, the expression mentally ill will be used sparingly if not at all. In its place we will refer to such people as suffering from conglomerated and distorted fears and who are in need of behavioral assistance to return to more realistic, confident and mature approaches to life.

As incredible as the above achievement seems to be, it is only part of what this new understanding holds forth for those who are considered to be normal. The correct approach to fear is going to allow the entire human race to embrace more achievements without unnecessarily damaging their physical, emotional and mental well being. The psychological necessities of life are as follows:

1. Safety

2. Approval

3. A sense of belonging.

4. The desire to experience action which of course includes sexual activity ultimately leading to procreation.

5. The desire to acquire knowledge.

All of our actions are directed towards success in the above areas. What is stress? Hans Selye first coined this expression to explain the feelings that occur inside our bodies when we are involved in one specific achievement, or many different achievements at the same time.

These feelings originate from the emotion of fear, but since this word seems to attach weakness to the person that it is directed to, we prefer to use the more acceptable word --- stress. In reality, they are actually synonyms. The level of stress that you feel will be in direct proportion to the potential for failure that is occurring inside your mind.

You can be involved in an achievement with total relaxation but if you make a mistake, then the next time you attempt to address the same achievement, your stress level will be higher because your expectations for success have been lowered.

The actual level of stress that you feel has many components. As well as the one listed above, the value that you place on the achievement is another. The level of success that you have been able to produce in the past also plays a part in determining how much stress you will feel. Stress is indeed a highly personal reaction.

One person’s stress can be another person’s source of confidence. If you are reacting correctly to this stress, you will increase your knowledge about the achievement in question and your chances for success in the future will be increased, which in turn will reduce your stress.

In this regard, it is better to be involved in small achievements and work your way up to larger achievements as you gain knowledge and experience. This is of course exactly how our Creator allows us to live our lives. We start out with small child-like achievements and progress to more mature adult achievements.

One of the accepted theories about stress is that our brains were programmed to handle fears that would occur when we were still cave men. This fight or flight response is supposedly inadequate and injurious to our physical and mental well being in the modern world. This is absolute nonsense and in my opinion, it represents a very low opinion of our Creator.

Let us say that a cave man was out hunting for food and he was confronted by a huge lion. The fear for his safety prepares the hunter for fight or flight. In those days, against a lion and before the invention of guns, the choice was either flight or hide, either one of which is avoidance behavior.

If the lion had recently killed some other prey and it was not the least bit hungry, it might not be interested in the man at all. Especially if it had picked up the scent of a receptive female lion in the area and it was rushing towards this “much more” important achievement.

After the lion had ignored the man and gone past him, the man’s heart would be pounding and he would be feeling the same kind of stress that you and I feel today. It is true that the extra daily physical activity that our ancestors were forced to perform in their search for food would help to use up the extra adrenalin that the above stressful situation would pour into his bloodstream but would not be used up immediately.

Certainly, modern man with his more sedentary life style must make a point of getting more exercise to use up any extra adrenalin that accumulates in his bloodstream and body during all of the achievements that he must become involved in during his or her day.

Obviously, those achievements are different than those that our ancestors faced, but the underlying necessity is the same. The need to provide food for himself and his family and all of the other necessities of life. Of course in our age that also includes achievements that we either volunteer to embrace, or we force ourselves to do, --- so that we can enhance our life experiences.

Indeed the modern world forces us to embrace far more complex achievements and though a hungry tiger or lion isn’t threatening our lives, those complex achievements are constantly threatening us with the potential for economic or interpersonal failure.

The modern world requires us to understand more completely than we did in the past, and more completely than we do at this time, --- how fear affects our minds and determines our behavior. We are failing to increase our knowledge in this area fast enough and as a result, too many people are being incorrectly told that they have some kind of genetic flaw, or chemical imbalance in their brain that is preventing them from being successful in the modern world.

It is my unshakeable belief that our Creator has constructed the human brain so that it could deal with the uncertainties and consequent fears that confronted us in the past, --- the present, --- and I truly believe, for all those years that will occur as far into the future as our imaginary powers can perceive.

When a child learns to walk, he or she stumbles and falls hundreds of times. Fortunately, their bones are not as brittle as those of older people and they can take the abuse. The child just keeps trying again and again until finally they are able to walk.

It’s a good thing that our Creator didn’t allow our brains to develop to the point where we can become aware of a sense of shame and embarrassment before we tried to learn to walk. Otherwise, some of us might have given up after 10 or 20 failures and never tried again.

That is how some humans conduct their lives in more complicated achievements as they get older. If a growing child uses avoidance behavior when he or she should be learning new maturing achievements, the child is in effect, --- failing to experience the maturing process.

Although shyness is relatively normal for a child, when it becomes all invasive, it must be looked upon as a warning signal to the adults who are involved in the child’s journey towards maturity, that psychological help is needed.

If a child does not receive the proper help along the way, when he or she enters the adolescent years, the new demands inside the mind and body of such a child, which are propelling him or her towards being a sexually active individual, will clash vehemently with a lifetime which was previously devoted to excessive avoidance behavior in too many different circumstances.

The fact that so called “mental illness”, first starts to manifest itself disproportionately between the ages of 15 and 25 is not a coincidence. In reality, it is one of the pillars upon which the theory of conglomerated and distorted fears, as a causative factor for mental illness, rests so convincingly.

Albert Einstein said, --- “Men of clarity and vision are few and far apart in anyone’s lifetime. What is preserved of their work is mankind’s most important property.” In this regard, I would like to thank all of the brilliant authors who poured out their knowledge and experience into the books that they wrote concerning the discipline of psychology and other fields also.

It was my good fortune to be able to come into contact with such giants because of the extensive and comprehensive library system that has been developed, not only here in my native Canada, but in the United States of America and around the entire world also. Please accept my heartfelt thanks to all those who are responsible in large and small ways for such a wonderful and impressive library system.

To those of you who are so inclined, I would highly recommend that you read the book called, “The Resilience Factor”, written by Karen Reivich, Ph. D, and by Andrew Shatte, Ph. D. It includes a seemingly endless series of successes for the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approach. On page 48, you will see the following words: --- “Feel free to skip this chapter if you like, and move on to Part 2 of the book.” --- DON’T YOU DARE DO IT!

That chapter (3), in my opinion, contains the most important information in the entire book. I consider this chapter, which the author’s have entitled: “Laying The Groundwork”, to be one of the most definitive statements concerning the past, present and future of the science of psychology, that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It contains the undeniable blueprint that I predict will eventually propel us into a safer and more dynamic future for the entire human race.

On page 54 of this book, the following words appear: “An enormous body of evidence demonstrates that cognitive (behavioral) therapy is a highly effective treatment for anxiety and depression. People can bring about real change in their lives --- if they focus on what really matters: ones beliefs, thoughts and emotions.” I enthusiastically salute both of its authors, Karen Revitch, Ph. D., and Andrew Shatte, Ph. D.

ADRENALINE

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.

(Henry J. Kaiser)

Adrenaline prepares the body for action and it also prepares the mind for total concentration and alertness. During the Korean War, autopsies were performed on many of the casualties of front-line action. Although these men were in their early 20’s, the Doctor’s were amazed to discover that many of them were suffering from a huge amount of plaque in their arteries. Hans Selye demonstrated many years ago that unrelenting stress, fear of injury or death, in laboratory animals can cause physical damage inside the body and the brain of the affected animals.

The Doctors said it looked the same as if these dead soldiers were 70-year-old heart patients. They also noted that it appeared entirely possible that the young soldiers could have died of this problem before the bullets actually killed them. These soldiers had to live with the fear of imminent death almost 24 hours of every day.

I believe that the adrenaline rush that is activated because of this fear, caused the excess plaque, which I postulate would be un-metabolized adrenaline still in their bloodstreams. Since bullets do not discriminate, we can also postulate that other “luckier” soldiers who were wounded instead of killed, also had excess plaque in their bloodstreams.

If they were removed from the killing zone because of their wounds, their bodies would have a chance to break down or use up the excess adrenaline. The appearance of their arteries would, with the passage of time and in accordance with the subjective nature of each individual’s reactions to fear, have the potential to return to a level which would be considered normal for their age group.

We can now use cat scans to prove that such remedial action does take place. With this knowledge, it is easier to see why some soldiers would use alcohol or recreational drugs or even neuroleptic drugs to try to anesthetize or shut down these unending fears that affected their internal body functions.

Since an inordinate number of surviving soldiers in their early 20’s did not die of natural causes, as the Doctors had predicted, then other factors must have entered into the equation to keep them alive. I believe that these other factors, and the factors thus described in the story, prove that the condition was negotiable.

I postulate that it was not caused by genetic factors that could not be negotiated or dietary factors either at that age. At the time, and in that book, nothing was said, or perhaps even known about the physical affects on the brain of these soldiers. However, now we know that the brain actually swells up when it is under constant, unrelenting stress that a soldier who must face the possibility of death on the front lines must endure in all out war.

The CBC up here in Canada made a TV movie, which they called, “Glory Enough For All.” It concerns the discovery of Insulin by Frederick Banting, right here in the city of Toronto. Dr. Bertrand Collup was brought in from the western province of Alberta to help purify the extract.

He was actually the first person to perform this task. However, in his excitement over his discovery, he failed to keep adequate notes and could not replicate his discovery. The search for purified Insulin had to be continued for another period of time before Insulin was finally purified once again.

I believe that the above story about autopsies in the Korean War holds a very important example to prove that my theories about distorted and conglomerated fears are correct. I feel a kinship with Dr. Collup because, although I have the quotations from the book, I failed to keep adequate notes so that I could refer the reader to the actual source of this story.

I believe that the book in question was written between 1955 and 1965. The topic that the book addressed itself to was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Korean story was not central to the book itself but was merely one of many different topics described therein.

I have made a considerable effort to find this book without success. If any of you who are reading these words can help in locating --- “The Korean story” book,; I would certainly appreciate hearing from you. My email address is strarrow2@gmail.com

Listen to the words of Jerome L. Jacobs M.D., who wrote the book which he called, “Interplay.” On page 96 and 97 --- “Thousands of Psychiatric casualties from the First World War were believed to have been shell-shocked, brain damaged, by concussive explosions when in reality, they were actually victims of fear.”

“It is simpler to comprehend that a metabolic malfunction in the brain may produce neuroses, psychoses and even criminality, and treat that disorder relatively cheaply with chemicals, than it is to spend considerable amounts of time with patients in psychotherapy trying to understand and sort out numerous variables in their developmental experiences which are actually responsible for their suffering.”

Since this knowledge about fear has been available for such a long period of time, why hasn’t the truth become totally accepted? The answer is, unfortunately, that the success rate for psychotherapy has not been good enough to bulldoze the bio-psychiatric model into a mass grave where it belongs.

It is interesting to note here, that the drugs that are now used for mental illness were originally brought into existence to help calm the nerves of hospitalized patients who were waiting for major surgery. These people were experiencing fears for their physical well being and in some cases, the fear of death itself.

If the drug temporarily damaged or dulled the brain, making it difficult to concentrate on ones fears and as a result, calmed down the patient waiting for surgery, isn’t it rather obvious that if it also helped the mentally ill person, that such people were also being negatively influenced by conglomerated fears?

Not necessarily fear for their physical well-being but fears associated with whatever achievements that they were involved in and which they felt they were failing at. Fears that in effect were robbing them of the maturing process at whatever age they were at. And still further, fears that were negatively affecting achievements that were important to them. And if you will allow me to inflict upon you the curse of repetition, --- fears that are at all time negotiable.

HELEN’S HIVES

An investment in knowledge pays the best dividend.

Helen Irving had a loving and compassionate childhood environment but her parents did not verbally express their love to their children. In her late 30’s, Helen had four children of her own and since she and her husband had split up, Helen was left to support her young family herself.

A colleague at work who had just came back from holidays, mentioned to Helen that her extended family held a family picnic get together each summer. Since Helen had moved some 100 miles away from her childhood home, she decided to set up the same kind of picnic for her family also.

The next year came and once again her colleague talked about a family reunion and Helen realized that she had not followed through with her plans. She made a promise to herself to make it happen the next year and this time, she followed through with the plans.

Two months before the family picnic was to occur, Helen’s mother died. Helen blamed herself for her procrastination. It was her fault that they never had the family reunion in time for her Mother to attend. For more than a year after her death, Helen found herself pretending that her Mother was still alive, as if to assuage her guilty feelings.

Helen broke out into hives and visited her family Doctor. After 1 or 2 months of trying to find a physical cause for the hives, her Doctor said, on her next visit, that she wasn’t leaving his office until they found out what was bothering her. He said that it didn’t necessarily have to be something that happened recently, it could be something from the past also.

Again they went through all of the possibilities for allergies and other physical causes, all to no avail. Helen said that she could not think of anything that was bothering her unless it had something to do with the fact that a year and a half ago her Mother --- she never got to finish the sentence. She broke down and cried for about 10 minutes. She apologized profusely for her behavior, telling the Doctor how she was sorry to waste his time while a room full of patients waited for his help.

Fortunately for Helen, she had one of the finest Doctors a person could ever hope to have. Never mind that he was not a psychiatrist, he had just performed a psychic miracle. He told her not to worry about his other patients; she was more important than any one else at that moment. He also told her to go ahead and cry until she released all of the built-up inner tension. Within two weeks the hives had disappeared.

Helen’s physical problem was psychic in nature. How could a pill, prescribed by a psychiatrist, or anyone else, --- solve this problem? Only by using the “talking therapy” could this problem be solved directly. What if a Doctor had given her a pill for her nerves and seen her for 10 minutes once every 3 months? The odds of him helping to unearth the real cause of the hives would, in all probability approach almost zero.

STUTTERING SOLVED

A problem that is well stated is half solved.

In reference to the inconclusive success rate for Psychotherapy on this subject, it is only necessary to review what some psychiatrists had to say about stuttering. --- “Stuttering is caused by the fear of the ego being overwhelmed by the all-powerful auto-eroticism. --- It is a form of gratification of the original oral libido, which continues as a postnatal gratification in talking.”

“Stuttering is a pre-genital conversion (hysterical) neurosis in that the early problems dealing with the retention and expulsion of the feces have been displaced upwards into the sphincters of the mouth”. And another gem reads like this: --- “Stuttering represents the act of nursing at an illusory nipple.”

The above quotes appear in Dr. Martin F. Schwartz’s book entitled, “Stuttering Solved.” He helps his patients overcome relevant fears and they were cured. None of the above nonsense has any value in the situation whatsoever.

Freud himself tried to treat stuttering and his misguided theories about how the human mind functions can be seen interwoven into the above nonsensical quotes. With this approach to other more serious fears and distorted behavior, including mental illness, it is a wonder that anybody was helped by such nonsense, which enjoyed an aura of authenticity that became attached to the words, --- psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Dr. Sigmund Freud’s case history of little Hans, which is reported on pages 31 and 32, of the book called, --- Fear [Learn ing to Cope], shows that although Sigmund correctly diagnosed that the boy was suffering from fear, what really happened to him psychologically and what Sigmund thought was happening, was entirely different.

No wonder that the success rate for psychoanalysis was minimal. No wonder that other avenues for dealing with mental illness, such as biological damage or genetic damage, gained prominence over such ill conceived, convoluted and confusing theories.

In the introduction to her book entitled, “Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure”, Dorothy Tennov, who is a consulting psychologist, discusses the hazards an unsuspecting patient may fall prey to. --- “Psychotherapists intent on “hooking” a patient on long term and expensive therapy; --- advice thoughtlessly given, ---careless misunderstanding and distortion of the patients true needs and wants. An insidious domination by the therapist until psychotherapy becomes the single ruling factor in the patient’s life.”

In Patricia Neal’s autobiographical book entitled, “As I Am”, on page 132, appears the following words: --- “I knew from the first session, that I was not going to like the Psychiatrist. He had an insinuating smile that said there’s something that you’re not telling me. But I was so convinced that I needed to talk to someone that I went back”.

“It would not have taken a genius to figure out why I was a wreck. I loved Gary (Cooper) but he would not make a commitment. No amount of probing my psyche was going to help. I told the Doctor that I wanted a family of my own. I wanted a house of my own. I wanted a husband of my own; and furthermore; I wanted to stop the sessions”. He smiled that smile and said, --- ‘But you haven’t mentioned masturbation.’ I jumped to my feet and ran for the door.”

Just exactly whose fear was the psychiatrist addressing when he made the above statement about masturbation? Using Patricia’s expression, it doesn’t take a genius to see that he was addressing his own fear. Not about masturbation, but about losing a wealthy, well-known actress as a client whom he had hoped to “hook” into a long-term analysis.

It was also entirely possible that he was looking forward to bragging about the high profile actress that he was able to attract. In all probability he was looking forward to other important clients that he could attract and in the process, make more money for himself and his family.

He was probably unprepared and maybe even shocked by Patricia’s decisive action. He wanted to make her think that he had some special insights to offer, to convince her not to reject him. He was trying to impress her by his out of the blue comment about masturbation.

What we have here is a psychiatrist whose first priority was his own financial success. If you really know what you are doing, and this applies to anyone in any profession, you don’t have to “hook” another person. Your success in helping such a person, that you come into contact with because of your work, will generate the necessary income you need to live comfortably.

Even though most of the psychiatric profession has a much better profile than the one encapsulated above, since, for the most part, it does not see reactions to fear at the core of the mental health problem; its success rate, as it is presently constituted, will never propel it to the place of eminence that it so rightly deserves and which it should have attained many years ago.

So much for the negative side of this problem. Now let’s take a look at trying to “solve” the problem. Stuttering goes to the very heart of who we are as human beings.

In her book, Katherine Preston agrees with one of the individuals that she has quoted who said that as a person who stutters, you don’t feel like you are part of the human race. You seem to have more of a kinship with lower animals whose ability to communicate is much less refined than is our own.

Our ability to communicate with each other as extensively as we can is one of the most important differences between us and all other forms of life on this planet.

The structure of our tongue and more importantly, our voice box, had to be such that we could make a multitude of different sounds so that eventually we could put together a language that I am using right now to write these words.

Before the written word could happen, the spoken word had to come first. It is the above thoughts that make the quest to understand stuttering so complex and seemingly beyond our ability to fully comprehend.

That conundrum is about to be dispersed with. Some traumatic event precedes almost all forms of stuttering. It is the building of the hierarchal approach to overcoming fear that is required. It is the accumulation of the individual steps for all fears that has eluded us thus far.

When Otis first demonstrated the elevator at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 18—, no one would get on his new found contraption. Their fear was realistic. If this new invention is so wonderful then let Otis show us that we are safe in using it. Let him get on the damn thing and if the cables snap, let us see what happens.

And so, that is exactly what Otis had to do to convince people to ride on his elevator. He got on the elevator himself and after being hoisted up to a certain height he had an assistant cut the cables under the elevator car.

If I am not mistaken, the original brake was a rather strong spring at the bottom that cushioned Otis’ fall and he emerged from the elevator car unharmed. Once he put his life on the line, and remained alive, others were more inclined to get onto his newfangled contraption.

So how do we construct a series of hierarchical programs that will ultimately tame the multitude of fears that constitutes what appears to be the confusing causes of stuttering.

Perhaps just one fear starts the stuttering process but then the existence of that stutter brings many more fears into existence inside the brain of the stuttering person.

In her book called, --- Out With It, --- Katherine Preston, through her determination and forbearance constructed most of those hierarchies and has become almost cured of stuttering.

As is the case with all of us she had to progress through the mindfield of adolescence. Because she was a girl and a beautiful one at that, her journey, for a stutterer was in many easier for her than for a less beautiful girl or for a shy boy.

A very curious choice of words at one point in her book, in my mind, explains the occurrence of the remaining stuttering that still afflicts her. She wanted to be different and she wanted to find the cure for stuttering.

Until she believes that such a cure exists and can see for herself that it does; it is my belief that the small amount of stuttering that still inflicts itself into her speech, will remain as it is.

However there is another way to look at this. As Katherine says, many people actually do overcome their stuttering without really knowing why. It is the construction of the hierarchical approach that these people have achieved through their own resources that has allowed them to achieve fluency. There is a real chance that Katherine has already reached this level and will remain stutter free.

Therefore, until the ideas that I am expressing, which go against the understanding of most of the brilliant researchers in this field, are accepted for the simple truth that they represent; Katherine may indeed remain fluent without really understanding why. I think that I have answered that question with the ideas that I have expressed throughout this book.

THE KING’S SPEECH

When you are 77 years old, you tend to believe that you have already seen the most entertaining and rewarding movie that you will ever see and yet the King's Speech comes along and suddenly it takes that title for itself.

Mainly because it verifies all of the ideas that I have put forward concerning the imminent importance of understanding the emotion of fear. If there ever was any doubt in my mind about the veracity of my ideas about fear, it was ended for all time when I had the unparalleled pleasure of watching that movie.

The most important point to be realized is that this approach to fear will not only work for people who stammer but for any achievement that any of us become involved in. This includes what I am trying to do right now, which is to put forward new knowledge about how the human mind functions on a deeper level than is understood at this particular time.

At one point in the movie Lionel Logge, the un-credentialed speech therapist who treated King George the 6th. says: "He is terrified of his own shadow." In other words, the King is overwhelmed with fear.

I believe that it all began with a Nanny who wanted to make herself so important that she would never lose her job with the royal family, which thankfully for George’s sake, she finally did.

At family dinners the Nanny would bring George to the table but she would secretly pinch him and make him cry. Then she would be asked to take George away from the table to "put up with him" by herself.

On these occasions she would then refuse to feed George for a certain period of time to scare him half to death. She must have also convinced him that if he tried to tell on her, that nobody would believe him and that she would make things even worse for him. At the age of 4, George was easily reduced to silence.

Whether the future King finally told someone or if someone else inadvertently saw the Nanny pinch George, was not disclosed in the movie, but in any event, the offensive maneuver lasted for 3 years before the Nanny was let go. During that time George became afraid of his own thoughts and the stammering began.

Compounding this problem was the epilepsy that plagued his younger brother Johnny who died at the age of 13. The royals never talked about Johnny and kept him secret from the public at large.

The fear that there was some kind of genetic flaw in the family entered George’s mind and probably the mind of his older brother David also. These thoughts also added to George's dilemma of keeping certain things quiet.

Certainly others who had to endure this secrecy also, did not start stuttering but that is part of the subjective nature of fear where some people react differently than others to the same kind of fear. This then becomes a challenge for those who will follow me in trying to determine why certain fears are displayed in certain ways and by whom.

Then the various swear words were added to George's tension. As part of the royal family it was expected that one did not use vulgar language in private as well as social settings. At more than one point in the movie, to try to cure George of this fear, Mr. Logge deliberately provoked the King into using such profanity in order to reduce the fear involved.

In another scene, Lionel Logge also provoked the King into forcefully declaring that he had a voice. This gave the King more confidence and became part, --- at that time, of an unknown hierarchy which helped the King overcome his fears and inevitably his stammer.

After giving his first speech about the war, Logge informed the King that he was still stammering on his w’s. The King replied in effect: “I wanted to reassure the public at large, that it was me speaking, not someone else who didn’t stammer.”

I am sure that Lionel Logge did not know about the hierarchical approach to overcoming fear but he instinctively knew that it was important if he was ever to relax the King and give him a chance to speak normally and/or fluently.

As an aside, it appears that the King’s older brother David used a convenient ploy to avoid facing the fears of being the King and as such the Titular leader of the free world. Breaking down like a child at his mother's shoulder when he knew that he must become the King is a tip-off to the level of fear that dominated his mind.

The ploy involved marrying Mrs. Wallace Simpson in order to give him an excuse to abdicate the throne and thereby avoid having to face his totally secret fear. This was done without him admitting to anyone else and perhaps even to himself that the above motives were in play when he decided to abdicate.

Didn't he sound wonderfully human when he gave it all up for the love of a woman?? What better way to disguise his real intention, which was to avoid facing the aforementioned fear. Did he ever admit this to himself or did he maintain until his death that his only motivation was the love he felt for Mrs Wallace Simpson?

Retuning to King George the 6th., the responsibilities involved in being a King, especially in the new age of radio, movies and television, which meant that the King had to be able to speak fluently, added another level of fear that helped solidify his stammering. Logge had to overcome all of these fears and many more in order to allow the King to speak fluently.

GENETICS OR NOT, --- THAT IS THE QUESTION???

Recently I asked a close acquaintance if he knew anyone who stuttered. After a brief hesitation he said that he himself stuttered when he was young. If he had not admitted it, I would never have known; he spoke with total fluency.

So how do those who believe that stuttering is genetic explain this situation? Invariably they say that if it was truly genetic, then he would still be stuttering right now but since he is not, --- it wasn’t genetic to begin with.

Then the question becomes, --- what was it that caused his stuttering? After all, if you are going to say that stuttering is genetic, shouldn’t you also know why it is not? Their answer is that the cause of stuttering is unknown and this example fits into this scenario.

Isn’t it more than likely that the cause is distorted fear? If in the future, the person achieves fluency, then they have, in their own way, overcome that fear, or the multitude of fears that stuttering can cause to happen inside the mind of a person who stutters.

In the case of the above mentioned person who stuttered, bullying by others while he was young was definitely a factor in developing the stutter. I am not sure how he developed the necessary hierarchal approach to fear that allowed him to overcome them. At least in regard to those fears that caused the stuttering to start in the first place.

However, I will take an educated guess. He told me that he did not read except perhaps the local newspapers now and then. I think this forced him to decide that either he would become fluent or he would not have any other pertinent form of communication to fall back on.

It also allowed him to avoid getting into discussions where he was less than confident about his response. Not reading gave him an “excuse” not to get too involved when he was in the stuttering stage.

It is my unequivocal belief that the above ideas are much closer to the truth than trying to invoke the genetic principle to explain this stuttering problem, or for that matter, stuttering in general. It is my hope that you will agree with me in this matter, which I believe should be considered self-evident.

MIGRAINE HEADACHES

Migraine headaches involve a conglomeration of thoughts about a situation where the individual cannot come up with a solution and cannot get those thoughts out of their mind.

For a perfect example of this phenomena you can find it in the book called, --- Clouds of Glory on page 1126 of the large print edition of that book.

Ulysses S. Grant had a massive migraine that immediately disappeared when he got a message from Robert E. Lee saying that he agreed to meet at Appomattox Court House to discuss the terms of surrender.

ULCERS

Anyone who thinks that there aren’t two sides

to every argument is probably in one.

(The cockle Bur)

All searchers for new levels of truth become aware that if they actually do find a new truth, it becomes readily apparent to them that the scope of the unknown is even greater than they understood it to be before. In fact such a feeling or conviction may simply be the human reaction when we come face to face with infinity. It is my unshakeable belief that the ultimate level of understanding that is possible for the human mind does indeed approach infinity.

A researcher has discovered that a certain bacteria causes stomach ulcers and that the age-old belief that nervous tension causes ulcers, is therefore proven to be false. But I contend that a more detailed look at this situation is required.

One of our Creator’s special miracles is the capacity of the human digestive system (and other life forms also), and in particular the stomach, to tear apart food that we eat, including meat, while at the same time protecting the “meat” which is part of our bodies.

This is accomplished by a miraculous mucous lining in our stomachs. Any tear or damage to this lining would allow the digestive juices to react with the physical entity, which is our stomach. The condition, which has the potential for this to happen, is called an ulcer.

I think it is reasonable to conclude that psychological factors, stress of one kind or another, as well as physical factors, including a bacteria, can both be causative agents to bring about an ulcer. To further compound the situation, a combination of both psychological factors and physical factors can be the causative agents in forming an ulcerous condition.

When researchers find differences inside the brain for those who are considered to be mentally ill, are they looking at genetic damage; or, are they looking at the side effects, or the physical manifestations that occur as a result of the thoughts that such a brain or mind is entertaining? Once again, we have the age-old dilemma, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

If an individual’s thoughts are embracing distorted fears, then the telltale physical signs inside the human brain can be interpreted two different ways. The physical differences are causing the aberrant behavior, or they are the result of the behavior, --- both are possible.

Since I believe that 90% of the time, mental illness is caused by distorted and conglomerated reactions to fear, it behooves us to try to correct this problem on an individual basis by behavioral adjustments. But before such action is started, the Doctor must do everything possible to rule out a physical cause for the existing problem. Even though the above criteria is met, it still does not mean that a psychological cause will be the determining factor causing the problem(s).

A perfect illustration of this dilemma is contained in the story about Carl and Lee, a Korean American couple who were having sexual problems in their new marriage. They were part of a culture that mystified sex and an extended number of therapy sessions were required to finally zero in on the problem. The couple was unable to consummate their marriage.

The complete story can be found in the book called, “The Pornographer’s Grief”, however, the name of the book has now been changed to --- “Sexual Secrets”, it was written by a brilliant Psychotherapist named Dr. Joseph Glenmullen.

Much time in therapy was spent overcoming cultural taboos and misguided personal diagnosis by both Carl and Lee, (Carl was impotent --- Lee was frigid), before Dr. Glenmullen finally came to realize that Lee was a virgin.

Their culture was such that a person never went to a Doctor unless they were sick. Consequently, Lee had never had a gynecological examination. Dr Glenmullen’s guess turned out to be right. Lee’s hymen was still in tact.

After a minor surgical operation to break the hymen, all of the physical and psychological “problems” disappeared and as Dr. Glenmullen so exquisitely noted, --- “When Carl and Lee arrived for their next therapy session, they were both beaming with joy and happiness.”

Other forms of therapy, not including the bio-psychiatric approach, must begin to help their patients much more quickly than they presently do. On the one hand, the large cost of procuring such help makes it a poor option for many potential customers who need psychological help.

On the other hand, today’s world sees the general public rushed for time and a pill that seems to solve their problems faster and just as good as “talking”, looks like a good choice to make. Especially when the profession is so positive about the genetic and chemical imbalance theory to explain mental illness and stress related tensions.

Making better use of a psychotherapist’s time is paramount to overcoming the incorrect use of extended medication. One cannot expect a Doctor such as Joseph Glenmullen to greet his new patients, such as Carl and Lee, by asking if the wife is a virgin and if her hymen is intact. But, questionnaires which are tailored to the reasons why a person is visiting a therapist could help to reduce the amount of “work up time” required before the therapist finally discovers what the real problem is.

Now we can talk about the concerns, or fears affecting the therapists. Some of them would say, I already am having trouble making a decent living in respect to my chosen profession, now you are telling me to make less money.

I’ll look like a loser and a fool to my other colleagues who will be making much more money than I will. I could be facetious here and say to them, don’t worry, if the tensions become too strong for you, we’ll put you on a Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitor. That way you can feel more in tune with your patients.

In reality, once the new understanding which is being put forward in this book is accepted, those therapists who already are functioning in a manner consistent with my theories, will find themselves so busy that the fear of not making a more than adequate living will be non existent.

This scenario is in keeping with my theory that reactions to fear represent a spectrum of behavioral patterns, which encompass both ends of such a spectrum. Mental illness, acceptable behavior considered to be normal, and behavior and achievements bordering on genius are simply different positions on the spectrum of human behavior that is negotiable.

Sigmund Freud was known to have fainted in the presence of eminent scientists in his field. Since we are not told that he fainted in other situations also, we can rule out physical causes alone for this problem. From his autobiographies, we know that he was acutely affected by critical reviews or alternative theories about psychology.

The fainting in my estimation, shows the extent of the psychological tension from the fear of failure, rejection and the fear of confrontation with other contemporary members of his profession that conglomerated inside Freud’s mind. It is a compilation of such concerns and fears that I believe led to the fainting spells.

Unfortunately, Sigmund ultimately died from smoking a pipe and also a cigar. One could say that this is a physical problem, but all activity originates in the mind. In his day, they were not sufficiently aware of the adverse effects of smoking on the human body and consequently, --- as is the case in far too many situations, we had to learn the hard way.

It has always seemed interesting to me to realize that if a bad idea receives acceptance, --- as the population increases and more people accept the bad idea, it then becomes more obvious that the idea leading to the behavior is wrong and it should be given up. However, as per usual with human habits, it takes society a long time to overcome them and accept change.

Recently, I read an article comparing Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds. Both of them were either alleged to, or proven to be doing things that were not considered to be positive role models for the younger generation. After half-heartedly defending his drinking and carousing; Babe Ruth tried to back off the reporter in one instance by saying: ---

“The next thing you’ll do is criticize me for being a spokesman for Chesterfield cigarettes. What’s wrong with having a relaxing smoke? They have already shown that it help’s to calm people’s nerves down.” Here is a perfect example of why it takes so long to change human behavior. Especially if it is a socially accepted one being endorsed by a celebrity figure. Maybe “the Babe” should have just stuck to hitting baseballs.

Charles Darwin endured a veritable lifetime of stress at a level that left him with many psychosomatic symptoms. However, while some would say that these symptoms are imaginary, I believe that they are not.

Our Creator gave us the potential to live approximately 100 years. When we experience somatic pains it can be compared to a small level of torture such as a drop of water falling on ones forehead. Eventually it feels like a 5 pound brick.

Our hearts don’t give out under stress until such time as the accumulation of such stress and the resulting “somatic” pain adds up to a full blown heart attack. In Charles Darwin’s case, that resulted in many difficult physical symptoms and finally after 72 years, his life came to an end.

One could then conclude that the above factors and, in all probability, a host of others also, combined together to shorten his potential life span by 28 years. Darwin could not endure the tension of public speaking and throughout most of his life he vomited, and endured much gastric distress. His life was such that he developed a distorted fear for his physical health and of death itself.

To be sure, such fears were reasonable under the circumstances that existed in his time, but a negative outlook on ones health, or for that matter on any achievement whatsoever, tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is not achieved in some mysterious unexplainable way; on the contrary, it is the manifestation, or the by-product of negative thinking in general.

What we have here are two recognized giants in their lifetime whose tensions shortened their life spans and intensified their stress levels in their everyday existence. They did not progress into mental illness but in today’s psychiatric environment, some kind of mind-altering drug such as Prozac or Paxil might easily have been prescribed for them.

On page 232 of Darwin’s biography written by Janet Browne, and called simply “Darwin”; we are treated to a virtual symposium of psychological components that led to his unending physical problems. He suffered serious bouts of retching that brought up bile and acidic digestive juices, but interestingly enough, he rarely if ever actually vomited up food. His fears for his health and potential death led him into a distorted fear that he would not have enough time to complete the work that was so important to him.

One could then say that such a fear should have compelled him to finish the book quickly but in reality, he ruminated over it for more than 30 years, compiling endless examples to prove his theory of evolution. This came about because of his distorted fear of failure, which manifested itself in a demand for perfection in the most minuet details.

On page 249, Darwin’s cousin Fox, came as close as possible to correctly labeling his uncle’s health problems with the following statement: “I suppose your destiny is to let your brain destroy your body.” Of course knowing what a problem is and correcting it is an entirely different matter.

In any event, not only do we owe a great level of gratitude to Charles Darwin for substantially adding to mankind’s storehouse of knowledge, but with the understanding that we now have, we know that he put up an heroic battle to entertain all of his many new discoveries in the face of such debilitating physical problems.

In everyone’s life there are moments when two fears collide. I believed that such occurrences forced a person to go through one of those fears. Unfortunately, when I tried to help a young woman in this manner, I found out that the person could avoid both fears and continue in the immature approach to life that they brought to the potential maturing process.

When such people avoid this high potential situation for new mature approaches to life, the resulting failures that such avoidance behavior causes, are then looked upon as a further sign that their brain or nervous system is not good enough to function in the modern complex world. In effect, instead of experiencing the potential for something positive, they add to the thoughts that fuel their own negative self-image.

On page 14 of the above-mentioned book, we have Charles Darwin opening a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace. In it he found a blow by blow description of natural selection almost identical to his own. The fear of being upstaged by Wallace; of seeing his 30 years of compiling the book all add up to nothing.

I believe that he also correctly realized that Wallace’s depiction of the forces behind evolution were not as compelling as his own. He correctly foresaw the high level of skepticism and anger that would occur when his evolutionary theories were put forward.

He probably concluded that his own potential book was far more capable of withstanding the tumultuous criticism that would be directed at his theory of evolution. If so, the future would prove him to be totally accurate. All these thoughts and probably many others combined together and as a result, Charles Darwin was experiencing the --- two fears colliding theory.

He went through the fear concerning the achievement that was the most important to him. He wrote at a greater rate than at any time before in his life. He finally ended his procrastination, which can be a fear of failure brought on by a distorted desire for perfection, --- and he completed the book.

Later he found out that each edition, and there were many, allowed him to refine his theories based on the constructive criticism of others because they had read the book. His desire for absolute perfection was not warranted and it almost became destructive.

To capsulate, Darwin experienced massive anxiety because of his fear of death, which would rob him of the time required to complete his achievement to bring new knowledge about evolutionary forces into existence. The above ideas and his perfectionist personality constantly activated his adrenal glands for the fight or flight response.

One has to keep in mind here that not only does the fear response prepare the individual for physical action; it also provides nor-adrenaline to bring the human mind to full alertness to meet the threat. This is the type of mental threat that Darwin was experiencing.

This fear reaction shuts down the digestive tract so that all of ones resources can be marshaled to meet the potential challenge, --- physical or mental. Hence, his myriad and extensive digestive disorders.

To a lesser extent, these symptoms affected most if not all of Darwin’s contemporary scientists and learned men in the Victorian era. One could say that since Darwin was entertaining the largest achievement of all of them, that his symptoms would necessarily be greater and more profound then those of his contemporaries.

Offsetting these concerns is the fact that Darwin avoided confrontation with others as much as possible. His good friend Huxley did most of his defense of evolutionary principles for him.

This avoidance behavior helped to keep Darwin alive longer than might have been the case if he had faced such confrontations without gaining the necessary psychological knowledge that is necessary to do so successfully.

Of course these types of assessments are not absolute. Each person develops reactions to stress differently and some people are more confident than others. Hence we find a spectrum of reactions to the same stimuli from any group of people. Looking at his health problems from our vantage point, we could make the following comments:

(a.) The fight or flight response to fear, although well known in the external world in Darwin’s time, was not, I believe, well understood in the internal world of the human body and in particular, inside the human mind.

(b) The release of adrenaline and especially nor-adrenaline was not specifically known.

(c) The fact that the digestive tract would be shut down under the influence of fear was not known definitively to the point where such symptoms as suffered by Charles Darwin, could be diagnosed as having psychological origins rather than physical ones.

As a result, as has been the case since time immemorial, Charles Darwin did what the entire human race does at one time or another; he experimented with trial and error. If we could use a time machine to bring Mr. Darwin back to life, in reference to his unending physical afflictions that affected him all of his life, we could offer him less error and much more help.

The purpose of this article is to show how the behavioral spectrum applies to geniuses who have the potential, because of limited psychological knowledge, of seeing their behavior manifest itself in physical symptoms of poor health or even placing them in the zone that their contemporaries would call mental illness. Then of course there are all manner of variations in this spectrum and shifts from one extreme to the other. The main thing to remember of course is that it is at all times --- negotiable.

In conclusion, to decide that certain behaviors are consistent with the theories put forward by bio-psychiatry and to consign many of those people to a lifetime of drugs can no longer be tolerated. Even worse, is to tell them that they cannot handle the everyday stress of modern day life like others with better genetic material are capable of doing.

To then assign such people to a position as a virtual spectator in the incredible game of life, when in reality, with the proper psychological help, they still retain all of the potential to be active participants thereof, is to rob them of the essence of life itself. Such a state of affairs is, --- in my not so humble opinion, --- an unacceptable tragedy.

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 eyelash 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 books 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 understandingly 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 ones 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 other biographical sources, I have learned of 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 desires 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 Frued 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 the two fainting spells.

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 pre-eminent 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 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, they at least will have the ideas contained in the next paragraph 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 skilled 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 his 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 a number of 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 do 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 earths 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.”

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 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 honor 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 and although these 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 humor 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, 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 the 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 this book. I must admit that the following thoughts were coalescing inside my mind prior to reading this 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 which 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 the 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.”

______________________________________

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 shizophrenia ---- 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.

CHAPTER 3

DEPRESSION

Chop your own wood and it will heat you twice.

(Henry Ford)

Depression is certainly a complicated subject to understand but if physical reasons can be ruled out, then the following ideas apply. Life is nothing more or less than an endless series of achievements. We all have a built-in desire to become successful at the achievements that are important to us. But at the same time, all of these achievements have the capacity to activate the emotion of fear. It is our reactions to this fear that determine the stress level that we will experience.

If you are succeeding at achievements that are important to you, you will be excited and happy. If you are failing, you will experience some form of mental agitation which, if reacted to correctly, should be viewed as a motivating force to increase your knowledge about the achievement in question.

If continued attempts to succeed only lead to more failure, --- if you do not learn from your mistakes, --- if you lose your motivation to keep trying; then, you have the potential to develop depression. The level of depression that you will experience will depend on the value that you place upon the achievement that you are failing at.

It will also depend on the level of despair that you experience when you conclude that any new approach to the problem will only lead to more failure, so why go through it all over again? Why bother trying when it will all end in failure anyway?

And still further, if you place so much importance on the achievement(s) that you are failing at, that other aspects of life seem to be of little or no value, this type of attitude can also lead to a prolonged state of depression.

This is actually a two headed sword. On the one hand it is a worthwhile quality to refuse to give up on important achievements in your life, but on the other hand, without any new methods to achieve a higher level of success, this --- “stick to it” --- determination can also lead to depression.

The above scenario is a vivid description of the vicious cycle of depression with its inevitable downward spiral. To counteract this, the individual so afflicted, must also look at depression as a motivating factor.

The individual needs to acquire more knowledge about the achievements that he is involved in or that he wishes to become involved in, so as to obtain a higher level of success, which in itself will reduce and/or eliminate the depression.

This attitude must definitely include the motivation to share ones problems with as many other competent people as possibly. It is wrong to conclude that the problem cannot be solved. There is always someone else with more knowledge than we have in any specific field and invariably they are more than willing to help others who are confident enough to seek help.

The bio-psychiatric profession recognizes short-term depression as the normal fluctuations of everyday life. But it has concluded that long term depression is a psychiatric disorder that is caused by a chemical imbalance inside the human mind. I say that it is caused by unresolved failure in achievements that are important to the sufferer.

People with short-term depression have enough other areas in their lives that give them cause for happiness and a sense of value and worth. In some cases they ultimately find methods to reduce the sense of failure or actual failure in the areas that are causing the feelings of depression. Obviously this is the best method to reduce depression. In some cases, people avoid prolonged depression by devaluing the achievement that they are not succeeding at.

In other cases, long-term sufferers do not have a sufficient “cache” of successful achievements to bring them out of their depression. Many people have lofty goals that are either beyond their ability to succeed at, or they do not have the patience or persistence that is necessary to achieve the success that they dream of. This model for depression indicates that the condition is at all times negotiable.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy evaluates the fears that are happening inside the sufferer’s mind. More often than not, at the core of their distress is to be found the twin culprits of conglomerated and distorted fears.

A therapist who finds a patient who is exhibiting a high level of procrastination must realize that he has a patient who has a distorted fear of failure that is robbing the person of his or her initiative.

These types of personalities inevitably rob themselves of the knowledge that can be gained from analyzing ones errors. It is from such analysis that one has the best chance to increase ones potential for success at the chosen achievement in the future.

Let’s look at a baseball player who is having a terrible hitless steak. It does not mean that he cannot hit the ball, he has already proven that he can. It can mean that his current failure has siphoned off a large portion of his confidence and he is allowing the fear of failure to detract from his ability to hit the ball to an area where no one can catch it or throw him out.

Taking into account the fact that there is an element of luck involved in hitting a baseball, it is usually a change in attitude (positive) that brings about the end of the hitless streak. Rather than wait for a lucky bounce to end a hitless streak, which in turn leads you into a more positive attitude, the best method is to instill a positive attitude inside your mind on your own volition. You do so with the realization that such an approach will bring results faster and give you greater control over the fluctuations of lady luck.

It is our variable reactions to fear that determines our mental make up. It is the tenacity to press on in spite of failures in the past that shapes our personalities. It is the belief that you are learning from your mistakes and that you are on the road to success that helps to make that success possible and/or inevitable. It is precisely that kind of personality that is less affected by depression than any other type of personality.

But it is also true that anyone who searches deeply into the meaning of life and who has the desire to help the human race overcome some of its more complicated dilemmas, will find themselves feeling depressed, from time to time, over the enormous challenges that lie before us.

It is at these moments that such people must realize that the feelings of depression are in reality a call to the spirit of motivation that ultimately will lead to new understanding. This type of mental resolve is one of the many attributes of an expansive personality.

STOP STUTTERING

Good messages, when short, are twice as good.

In 1976, Martin F. Schwartz, PH.D., wrote the book called, “Stuttering Solved”, and in 1986 he wrote another book called, “Stop Stuttering.” On page 8 of this second book he writes about the myth of stuttering as a psychological problem.

Although he acknowledges the importance of fear, he now believes that the different physical reactions to fear that people exhibit are genetically determined. Those whose vocal chords are supersensitive to the emotion of fear, are the people who will be susceptible to the problem of stuttering.

The second half of this book is written by Dr. Grady L. Carter who was a stutterer himself. His story proves beyond any doubt, that the causes are indeed psychological. It is a prototypical account of behavioral deflections that are caused by fear and the verification of the simple fact that all fears that are experienced by mankind are negotiable.

The difference between Dr. Grady L. Carter the stutterer, --- and Dr. Carter the fluent human being, is a study in the maturing process that we all wish to achieve during our journey through life. On page 124 of the above mentioned book, which was co-written by Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Carter, the latter writes as follows: --- “The open admission of my stuttering shifted the power from the stuttering to me. When there was nothing to hide, the fear was gone. When the fear was gone, there was no more stuttering.”

Dr. Carter correctly writes about the importance of the longevity of the stuttering habit as a determining factor in the correction of the problem. The longer the habit is reinforced, the longer it takes to eradicate it.

It is this aspect of traumatic childhood experiences or other distorted fears that are experienced in childhood, which have the capacity to derail the normal maturing process. This is why ones childhood can be so important in understanding ones personality limitations later in life.

But at the same time, the above story of Dr. Grady L. Carter, shows that these problems are all negotiable and in fact, it is not overtly necessary to search back into ones childhood to begin to change ones personality. It is more important to begin the process of learning how to reduce and eliminate distorted fears that one has entertained over a long period of time.

This process is referred to as the hierarchal approach to overcoming fear. It is similar to a 12-step program in that small steps are taken that eventually lead to a cure. It is as if the cure for ones distorted fear in any area, is represented by a ladder that is 50 feet long. The only sensible way to get to the top is to take one small step at a time.

Once Dr. Carter overcame the fear of stuttering, his capacity to embrace more achievements increased exponentially. This new and higher level of confidence owed its conception to his determination and dedication to force changes in his previous ways of thinking and behaving.

Paraphrasing Dr. Carter here, --- it felt like he had been literally “recalled to life.” Similar rewards await all those who have the courage to face their fears and overcome them. I am not simply talking about a new psychological home for you or myself or our loved ones; --- I am talking about a new psychological home for the entire human race.

When such a new home comes to pass, the human race will begin to experience a level of peace and harmony that has thus far only been visualized inside the human mind as a distant --- and seemingly unattainable goal.

This age old dream of mankind can only occur with our capacity to embrace more achievements in response to our ever-increasing world population. It is the deeper level of understanding about the motivational importance of fear that will allow the above dream to become reality.

I fervently issue the following challenge to you the reader. I do so by paraphrasing the immortal Winston Churchill: --- “Let us therefore conduct ourselves in such a manner, that if the human race should continue to exist for another one million years, men and women will still say --- this was their finest hour.”

Whose opinion about stuttering should we accept, Dr. Martin F. Swartz or Dr. Grady L. Carter? What we have here, is the age-old question, which came first the chicken or the egg. Dr. Martin F. Swartz has concluded that each of us has a different level of base line tension in the area of our larynx, which is genetically determined.

I have concluded, and I emphatically believe that Dr. Grady L. Carter’s story proves that I am right, that the larynx or voice box of the stutterer was not supersensitive first but rather, the fear of speaking caused the tension, which caused the super sensitivity in the muscles of the voice box, which in turn is causing the stuttering.

If a young boy or girl is slapped in the face for using vulgar language, then the potential for stuttering can occur. If ones thoughts lead to actions that cause punishment, either physical or psychological, this too can lead to stuttering in a person whose learned responses to fear are increased tension.

When we speak to others, we are in reality, exposing the value or competence of our brain to those who are listening. The more people we are talking to at one time, the more potential there will be for nervous tension to occur inside our brains and nervous system.

Since our brains are the greatest gift that our Creator has bestowed upon us, to believe that your brain or nervous system is somehow inferior to others can cause such beliefs to result in a performance that seems to verify your mistaken belief in the inferiority of your brain.

In all achievements in life, the hierarchal approach to overcoming fear is the preferred method to employ. Slowly but surely, with increased experience at whatever achievement that you are trying to succeed at, you will learn from your mistakes and eventually become competent in your chosen achievement.

Of course the sense of embarrassment that is ever present in the human psyche, finds some people simply giving up on an achievement. It is the persistent people who fight their way through embarrassment and nervous tension that finally become successful.

Of course these psychological insights alone will not provide you with success. It is your responsibility to increase, as much as possible, your knowledge of the achievement that you are trying to embrace.

In Dr. Martin F. Swartz’s first book, a Vietnamese boy who lost a leg in a land mine and then began stuttering one month later disproves the genetic predisposition to stutter. If his baseline tension was supersensitive, he would have started stuttering much earlier in his life. Because of the war, there were plenty of high stress situations that he would have had to endure before this.

Not everyone who loses a leg begins to stutter. This is in keeping with the subjective nature of fear. That is, each person reacts differently to the implications of fear. This boy had been hiding to avoid being injured by bombs that were being directed to where he was living. His sister had chosen a far more dangerous place to hide and he decided to go over to where she was and take her to a safer place. As he ran toward her, he stepped on a land mine that tore off his leg.

If this boy lay in the hospital developing a fear of his thoughts, then this could show up as stuttering. After all, the thought that motivated him to go across the open area to help his sister had cost him his leg. In this scenario, thoughts themselves could become very fearful inside the boy’s brain.

This Vietnamese boy had been stuttering for about two years when Dr. Schwartz first saw him. Since he had not developed the stuttering habit over a long period of time, and since he had about 12 years of fluency before the stuttering started, it was easier for Dr. Schwartz to help him overcome his stuttering. Those who start to stutter at an early age and spend many years stuttering have much more difficulty breaking the habit.

Of even greater significance is the negative self-image that is reinforced over a long period of time by this socially unacceptable behavior. This is a perfect example of what Dr. A. G. Forgione meant, (see page 103) when he attached such far ranging behavioral deflections to the theory of conglomerated fear.

Other motivating factors were also at play for this boy. First, this important Doctor from America says that he can cure me. That in itself, as an example of the power of suggestion, lays the ground work for the potential to build a positive image inside the boy’s mind.

Second, since his country (Vietnam) is experiencing abject poverty, the future life of a one legged man who stutters is almost definitively reduced to begging. Learning to speak fluently and then having Dr. Swartz provide the ultimate incentive of taking him to America to help validate his ideas about curing stuttering, created a powerful motive to overcome his stuttering.

Much time is spent in this book about stuttering, talking about the subconscious. I do not like to use this expression because it denotes something very mysterious and therefore beyond our specific control. I believe that when we use the word “subconscious” we are actually talking about the mind’s capacity to generalize.

Our individual actions are attributed to our conscious mind but they are governed by the generalizations from the so-called “subconscious” mind. In my opinion, the dictionary definition of the word subconscious should be as follows: --- the mind’s capacity to make generalizations concerning the ideas that it entertains.

The generalizations that you have formed about yourself, determine the make-up of your self-image and consequently, your personality also. If they are negative, then your individual actions will be negative and the predisposition to failure will dominate your behavior. This is why positive thinking is so important.

However, by itself, positive thinking is not enough. The process of positive thinking must include the capacity to look at every conceivable way that an achievement can go wrong so that you can increase your knowledge and avoid as many mistakes as possible. This will not eliminate mistakes, but it will hopefully reduce them.

Then comes the ultimate level of positive thinking. Rather than allowing mistakes to incorrectly verify an ill conceived negative self-image, they are looked upon as illuminated possibilities for increased knowledge. This is the psychological model upon which our most courageous and action oriented leaders construct their personalities.

Fluent speech is a complex and compound achievement. As stated earlier, life is nothing more or less than an endless series of accumulated achievements. Progressing from childhood to adult achievements is itself an achievement.

Just as distorted and conglomerated fears can change the potential for fluid speech into disjointed, stuttering speech, so also can other conglomerated fears change mature adult behavior into that which is called, mental illness.

I firmly believe that 90% of the biological damage that bio-psychiatry has been able to discover inside the human brain, is not genetic or chemical imbalance that is germane to that person’s brain. On the contrary, I postulate that it is the by-products from fear reactions such as noradrenaline and its derivatives in excess or other metabolic chemicals in the brain.

It is far past the time for the human race to aggressively take hold of this unknown area and transfer it into our accumulating storehouse of knowledge where it should have been residing since many years ago.

I myself, through my own intransigence and an insufficient amount of determination have prevented this book from being written 5 or 10 years ago. In this regard, I must assume the lion’s share of the blame for not making it happen sooner. With a touch of shame, or irony, in my words, I ask that you do not compound my inaction. Please help me make it happen --- NOW!

ANGELA

The courage that we should desire is

not to die decently, but to live courageously.

(Thomas Carlyle)

In her book called, “Making The Prozac Decision”, author Carol Turkington includes the following story on page 89: --- “Angela, 70, was under a lot of stress at home that just kept getting worse. She and her husband had moved to a smaller apartment, and her husband had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.”

“For the past three months, she’d been feeling more and more depressed and anxious. She’d begun to lose weight; she couldn’t concentrate; she felt helpless and worthless. To her husband’s alarm, she began talking about suicide”.

“Deeply concerned, they finally sought help for her at a psychiatric hospital. Four days after getting a prescription for Zoloft (seraline) and beginning psychotherapy, she was back home. In three weeks, she was back to her normal self and was no longer troubled by the same problems that had seemed so difficult only a few weeks before. Angela's suicidal thoughts had disappeared. After six months, Zoloft and her therapy were stopped and one year later the depression had not returned.”

This is an uplifting story that has elements of success for bio-psychiatry and psychotherapy. Which one of these two procedures is indispensable to the patient’s recovery? The answer is the correct use of psychotherapy.

While this story records a relatively easy transition from using a Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitor, to facing life without this medication, in reality, many people face a harrowing array of withdrawal symptoms from ending this type of medication too quickly.

If you break your leg and you are given an anesthetic, but they do not repair your leg properly, (set it straight), you will not get proper healing. If the Doctor who is repairing your leg has partial or incorrect knowledge of the proper procedure, you will not obtain the return to physical good health that should be available to you. The same type of thinking applies to the alleviation of distorted and conglomerated fears.

It is more than a coincidence to note that initial bouts of mental illness, as well as subsequent returns of such symptoms, are almost always precipitated by an increase in stress in the affected person’s life.

As previously mentioned, the word stress is a more acceptable synonym for the word fear. The biological model of mental illness sees this correlation between stress and the onset or re-occurrence of illness as indicative of a physical malfunction that does not allow this person to handle the stress like a mature, normal person could.

The conglomerated fear model sees this problem as one in which the person used avoidance behavior to control these fears in the past but the unavoidable dynamics of life have forced the person to now confront.

That is, in this story about Angela, the diminished and possibly life-threatening health of her husband cannot be rationalized away or avoided; it is reality. The following fears, which are affecting this ladies behavior, can be ascertained from this story:

1... The potential for economic failure.

2. The potential loss of the important psychological necessities that occur when one loses ones mate.

3. The loss of control which inevitably becomes a part of the aging process.

4. Her fear of life without her husband has become greater than her fear of death and that is one of the prerequisite components which brings about the onset of thoughts and even actions leading to suicide.

These factors are helping to cause the anxiety that this lady is feeling. It is important to realize that anxiety is actually a compound or double fear. Fear regarding the responsibilities and achievements that you are involved in, which are compounded by the fear of time. Our capacity to imagine the future also plays a significant role in producing anxiety.

The valuable insights from psychotherapy that this lady must have received to help her deal with all of these new fears, plus the passage of time, which did not include the further impairment or death of her husband, helped her to overcome the helpless and worthless feelings that had dominated her thinking processes and she appears to have become more capable of facing the uncertainties of life that none of us can escape.

A terribly disturbing scenario for problems of the nature that Angela was going through, sees some people who are given an SSUI, such as Paxil, Zoloft, or Effexor, to help them get through a difficult emotional period and then sees them kept on the drug permanently. In this type of case, the psychiatric profession concludes that the onset of the person’s problems exposed a hidden chemical imbalance that must now be treated for the rest of the person’s life.

This decision then exposes the individual to whatever side effects that this drug can have on the body, either on a short-term basis or even more dangerously, on a long-term basis also. It also exposes the person taking the drug to an unnecessary economic cost, which in turn represents a veritable boondoggle for the pharmaceutical companies.

And still further, there is always the potential for the person to forget his or her medication and then fall victim to withdrawal symptoms that some psychiatrists mistakenly conclude is the definitive proof that the person did have a latent chemical imbalance that has now become full blown.

For a definitive explanation of this phenomena, I recommend that you read Dr. Joseph Glenmullen’s book called, “The Antidepressant Solution.” On numerous occasions, in patient stories throughout his book, he restores such people to mature approaches to the uncertainties of adult life, without the use of life long medication.

I must say that my fear of death has changed dramatically as my knowledge about fear has increased. I now see it as the ultimate form of motivation for me to press on with the writing of this book. You could compare it to a woman’s biological clock which begins to tell her that her chances for reproduction are not infinite and it is restricted by the passage of time.

I know that I am expressing ideas about the human mind that are fundamentally correct. That does not mean that it represents the final piece of the puzzle concerning how our minds function. On the contrary, I am sure that it will be seen, in the not too distant future, as one small but necessary step towards a higher level of understanding about how the human mind functions. As previously stated elsewhere in this book, I strongly suspect that understanding the human mind and how it thinks and reacts to reality; will be found to approach infinity.

As for the reality of this moment, it remains to be seen if I have developed the communicative skills that will allow my fellow travelers through life to progress to this higher level of understanding that I am trying to put forward. To write these words which have the potential to be published, is to react correctly to the natural fear of death. It is motivating me towards action and in this regard, I consider it to be my very best friend.

If our Creator gave me a choice between having these new ideas about fear accepted within the next year, but without any credit to me personally; or having them accepted 10 years from now with fame and fortune heaped upon me, --- without a moments hesitation I would choose the first option. ---------I LOVE THE HUMAN RACE AND I WANT TO SEE THE SUFFERING REDUCED AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

SUPERMAN

The chief danger in life is that you

will take too many precautions.

Everyone in the city of Hamilton, which is located in southern Ontario, has a right to be proud of the facilities at the McMaster-Cherokee Medical Center. However, I wonder how many people know that a Superman is masquerading there as Clarke Kent, --- well actually Dr. Chuck Cunningham?

During the summer of 1993, the Toronto Star newspaper carried weekend features on a children’s behavioral problem known as, “Elective Mutism.” The main characteristic of this problem is the decision on the part of the children never to speak to anyone except their own immediate family and further, only when they are inside their own homes.

Psychologists said they were baffled. Some prescribed tranquilizers, others said it was a genetic abnormality and the affected parents were left in an absolute quandary. After returning from school, where she refuses to speak, one child checks every room, closet and crawl space inside her home before she starts a non-stop talking barrage with her mother.

Isn’t it obvious that these children have a distorted fear of strangers? Perhaps they have seen too much violence and too many people being killed on TV. Perhaps the parents, in their desire to protect the child from strangers have unwittingly added to, --- or conglomerated this fear. Whatever the reasons are, it is obviously a distortion of reality inside the child’s mind.

Emerging from an imaginary phone booth comes none other than Dr. Chuck Cunningham from the McMaster-Cherokee Medical Center. In one of the most simple, yet eloquent quotes that you could ever hear, he says: “All of the children that I have known with this condition eventually came to speak normally.”

Dr. Chuck Cunningham shouldn’t be a Doctor; he should be teaching other Doctors his expertise. What about all of the other children who continue to fail to mature because of the bio-psychiatric bias or the insipid meanderings of unskilled psychiatric practitioners?

Again you might ask: okay --- okay, everybody makes mistakes; the bio-psychiatrists have learned from them and let’s get on with it. Ah, but what about other more complicated behavioral problems for children as well as adults that are routinely misdiagnosed?

What about the incorrect diagnosis for some of their patients by bio-psychiatrist who mistakenly look for physical causes to explain behavioral problems that other more competent psychiatrists and psychotherapists have shown can be corrected without drugs or long drawn out psychiatric intervention?

It is my belief that a good example of the above syndrome is the expanding conditions whose original founding member was Attention Deficit Disorder. Give the child some kind of drug and hope that the interactive maturing process shows the child how to overcome fear, --- to learn to be assertive without resorting to aggression, --- to curb anxiety and to learn how to concentrate and not make mistakes caused by failure to pay attention.

Now, they are diagnosing the parents of these children with the same quote, “illness”, and prescribing pills for them also. Apparently they think our Creator was some kind of an idiot and the whole world will eventually have to be given neuroleptic (mind altering) medication.

As is the case with the elective mute children, it is about time that we realized that distorted fears are the cause of distorted behavior. The more severe and conglomerated that the deflections become, the closer the individual, so afflicted, comes to being labeled as being mentally ill.

Ask Dr. Norman White at the McMaster-Cherokee hospital how he has to educate some people who have suffered heart attacks, to prevent them from allowing their distorted fears, and consequently their distorted beliefs, from adversely affecting their behavior and robbing them of their potential for a rewarding life after suffering a heart attack.

The increased fears that these heart attack patients are feeling, if reacted to correctly, will help to motivate them towards increased understanding of his or her personal health issues and in the process, these fears will be alleviated. No matter how complex they are, behavioral deflections caused by fear are all negotiable. So bring on the Dr. Chuck Cunningham’s and the Dr. Norman White’s of this world. Their expertise is long overdue.

CITIZENS OF LONDON

On page 268 of the book entitled, --- Citizens of London, authored by Lynne Olson and written in 2010, which concerns the stress and fears that could not be avoided during the second world war, the following apocryphal words appear: ---

“In the 5 months before D. Day, over 2600 bombers (and 980 fighters) were [shot] down and more than 10 thousand crewmen were killed.” “The morale of the bomber crews, already in the depths, plummeted even further. The number of mental breakdowns skyrocketed as did cases of alcohol and drug abuse.”

I suppose all of the pilots who had mental breakdowns had latent genetic flaws which curiously decided to manifest themselves simultaneously among these particular individuals, at this particular time, as if the fear of imminent death was somehow inconsequential. Please, --- give me a break!!!

And still further from page 268 above, comes the following exchange between an inebriated young pilot and a Colonel in a drinking establishment somewhere in London. After the Colonel ordered the pilot to leave because of his raucous and objectionable behavior. “Colonel”, said the young pilot, “yesterday I was flying over the city of Berlin.” “Where the Hell were you???

The alcohol and the drugs were used to shut off the thoughts that could not be stopped by these young flyers who were facing almost certain death every time they climbed into their airplanes.

Talking back to a superior in the forces, would normally result in a severe penalty. Apparently nothing was done by the above mentioned Colonel. I am sure that he passed the young pilots insubordination off as being fueled by alcohol.

In reality, the Colonel had to admit that he really had no idea how much stress these pilots were forced to endure and as a result he was stunned into relative silence. The young pilots words had struck a chord for the truth.

Yes indeed, the alcohol did provide the courage that saw the young pilot making such a statement. But it was also further motivated by the realization that in all probability he would be dead within a few days so what was the difference. At least he would go out telling the truth.

HUMAN SEXUALITY

She’s trying to diet and I’m dying to try it.

To write a book about the human mind and the topic of psychology and not talk about sexuality would be the same as having an elephant in ones living room and not talking about it. If you believe in a Creator, as I do, then it becomes obvious that all living forms were created in such a way, that they would almost always have the potential to reproduce.

Since our continued existence as a species, is the potential that our Creator has given to us, as well as other creatures also, it becomes patently obvious that the process of procreation would be given paramount importance inside the mind of all forms of life, including the human race also.

Many years ago, I spent a short time as a volunteer at a mental hospital. On the mistaken assumption that I was one of them, the patients were not guarded with their conversations, as they were when a member of the staff was within earshot. Under these terms of reference, it was a revelation to me to realize that the weekly social dance and the potential to find a partner at these dances, was the main topic of conversation.

I was about 36 years old at the time and I became interested in a beautiful young girl about 18 years old. Her facial appearance and demeanor was such that it did not appear that she belonged in that hospital. Obviously something had precipitated her inclusion into that setting.

I believed that I could help her to extricate herself from her predicament. Unfortunately a young female Chinese worker incorrectly decided that I was paying too much attention to this patient and she misconstrued my motives. She gave me a number of looks that, according to the favorite expression, --- were sufficient enough to kill me.

I presume that this young lady talked to her superior because the very next day I was informed that I was to stay away from that particular patient from then on. I often wondered whether she was able to extricate herself from the hospital and lead a relatively normal life; or did some misguided Doctor assign her a position of genetic inferiority and condemn her to a lifetime of psychiatric intervention?

The point being, that the sexual interaction between two individuals is so powerful that confusion about ones motives and the potential for deceit and even criminality is always possible. Of course when it brings the right people together, it can be the most beautiful part of life itself.

One of the most difficult situations that one might have to face in life is to have the moral fortitude to resist the overt sexual advances of a sexually skilled potential partner. Obviously these situations are fraught with danger. For a psychiatrist to help a patient in all other areas of life but fail to help a person with a sexual problem is to render his or her service next to useless.

As previously stated, Dr. Joseph Glenmullen wrote a book which was at first called, --- “The Pornographer’s Grief”, which has subsequently been renamed as --- “Sexual Mysteries.” I suppose the reason for this change will remain a mystery also.

Every one of the stories in his book is chalk full of important lessons to be learned about sexual conduct and misconduct. I have already discussed in another part of this book, the story about Carl and Lee. Their story is found under the heading of, “Ancient Rites.”

In the chapter entitled, “The Woman Who Wanted To Seduce Her Father”, we get a picture of a psychiatrist, (Dr. Joseph Glenmullen),

whose sexual boundary lines between patient and Doctor were clearly and unequivocally established. Would that such knowledge, restraint and an unshakeable desire to help, rather than hinder a patient’s recovery, were so strongly ensconced in all such therapists.

On page 127 and 128, the topic of bulimia and its sexual overtones are discussed. The following words appear: “For someone with an eating disorder, food is no longer an inanimate object. Feeding is not merely a physiological function. Instead, it is heavily invested with conflictual psychological meaning. Interestingly, one only sees this kind of distortion of eating behavior in luxury societies where food is in abundance.”

“Only in such circumstances do people overeat and vomit, even starve themselves to death, out of psychological anger and hunger. One does not see eating disorders in underdeveloped countries where food in short supply is still yoked to biological necessity and not available to assume such distorted and symbolic meaning.”

The above, simple, straight forward knowledge means that any bio-psychiatrist who tries to say that bulimia is a sign of genetic damage or chemical imbalance inside the human brain, that is not conducive to behavioral change and repair, is unequivocally and demonstrably wrong.

Obviously it is a selected response on the part of the sufferer to a multitude of psychological and physical problems that are all negotiable in the hands of a competent Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist or Cognitive Behavioral Therapist.

It can also be alleviated by a family member, or group of family members, or friends who have a collective knowledge about psychology sufficient for the task and present it to the aggrieved sufferer in a caring and loving atmosphere of empathy.

The last paragraph on Page 215 of this book contains a haunting reminder of how easily the human race can assign untold suffering to those who are the most vulnerable: --- “In the past few decades, the field of psychiatry has done a turn around on the issue of physical and sexual abuse in families. In Freud’s day, abuse was regarded as too great a violation of social standards to be credible. Freud believed that patients imagined sexual relationships with parents or other adults as an extension of their strong feelings towards them.”

This conclusion speak more about Sigmund Freud’s fear of economic failure as well as other fears that came into play here also. The well-to-do fathers of these children were paying the bill for their young daughters or sons psychiatric assistance provided by Sigmund Freud.

If these fathers are actually guilty of incest, it is rather obvious that they would find various and sundry reasons why their daughter or son should stop seeing Sigmund. They would obviously be motivated to assign negative implications to Freud’s ideas.

All of which would conveniently fit inside Freud’s fear of economic failure but of even more importance to Freud, they would cast aspersions on his competence as the most respected Psychiatrist of his day. Whether Freud worked his way through the above thoughts or not remains quess work at this late date.

It is known that such deviant sexual behavior as mentioned above, was considered to be too illogical to be considered as possible. Especially in such upstanding members of society at that particular time. The obvious question to be answered is simply this. How deeply inside the human mind are some fears actually hidden??

Did the Freudian belief that the potential incest that his young patients were describing actually represent the strong emotional attachment that these children feel for their fathers, or indeed, do they represent the violation of the obtuse sexual code of conduct invoked at that time and which I referred to above?

Would such a misguided belief be sufficient to leave Freud thinking that his imaginary definition of this situation was authentic? One of the mistakes that Freud made was to attach his own kind of fears to the fears that his clients would express to him, rather than act directly on those fears themselves.

Fortunately today, more illuminating circumstances prevail and the criminal behavior that such children are reporting is more actively confronted and corrected today rather than being shunted aside as if they are illusory and not worth further analysis. Sadly, even today such behavior is too easily covered up because of the explosive measures that such disclosure would bring about.

On page of the book called Fear [learning to cope], comes the following words. “Fortunately, in recent years, strident patient advocates emerged within the profession to challenge such notions. Nowadays, abuse is recognized all too often as being true. A burgeoning literature and support network provides survivors with sanctuary for breaking the taboo and being heard and affirmed.”

Just like in all other facets of human life, the psychiatric profession must learn by trial and error. Not to have seen beyond the apparent chaos of psychological understanding, to the clearer understanding of psychological factors that the theory of conglomerated and distorted fear has to offer, is an example of such trials and errors that must now be swept aside.

And finally, on page 221, we find the slide into criminal activity from failure to control ones sexual desires. We then become aware of the all-encompassing emotional turmoil that such action can cause for the victim and in other destructive ways, --- for the perpetrator also.

Chapter 11 entitled, “Sexual Fears” in Albert G. Forgione’s book called, “Fear (Learning to cope)”, also delves into the devastating effects that sexual fears can have on a person’s life. These are not confined to criminal activity but also embrace fears of any nature that prevent the average person from experiencing the pleasure and happiness that a mature sexual lifestyle can bring to each and every one of us.

In an earlier chapter, I stated that Dr. A.G. Forgione came within an Ace of putting forward the main ideas that I am putting forward in this book. Here is the relevant quote from page 137: --- “Fears that permeate many different aspects of an individual’s behavior may become deeply entrenched and protected through elaborate rationalizations and an almost impenetrable maze of defense mechanisms. Such far-ranging fears, essentially affect the entire personality.”

Dr. Forgione concludes the above comment by saying that: [This topic] “is beyond the scope of this chapter.” I consider the opposite to be true. The theories about psychological matters at that time and even right now, fail to grasp the significance of the above bolded quotation.

I surmise that the so-called brilliant psychiatrists that Dr. Forgione knew, convinced him that even though his ideas appeared to have some merit, --- after all; he was only studying dental psychology, whereas the entire field of psychology was far more complex then what Dr. Forgione was capable of understanding. Once again, as I said before, the opposite is true.

The last chapter in his book deals with the fear of flying. For various reasons, one of which would obviously be the need to earn a living, Dr. A. G. Forgione accepted a position at the Logan International Airport in Boston teaching people how to overcome their fear of flying. It is somewhat ironic to note that the terrorist attack on 9/11 originated from Logan International Airport.

The question that I would like to ask Dr Forgione is simply this: Does he realize how close he came to shedding new light on the manner in which the human mind functions? Without any doubt whatsoever, this author remains one of my most cherished heroes. In spite of the fact, that as Winston Churchill once said: “Some men stumble over the truth, pick themselves up and walk away as if nothing had happened.” I INTEND TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!!!

Unfortunately, Dr. Forgione’s book was written in 1978, so you might have some difficulty finding a copy of it. I was able to buy a copy of it for my personal library and if possible, I recommend that you get a copy of it also. I also found a copy at the York University library which is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

It is altogether too easy to fixate oneself on the degradation of the human condition and fail to realize that decency, honesty, bravery and heroism is at all times surrounding us. Much of these positive attributes of the majority of human beings becomes lost in a sea of corruption and violence perpetrated by one human being against another.

The police officers and social workers in particular are subjected to such levels of negativity as to leave them feeling morose about mankind's future. But it is important to realize that the level of civilization that we have achieved, albeit not as complete as we would like it to be, would nevertheless be impossible unless the majority of people were decent, law abiding citizens.

The words of the following three people should never be forgotten when one is contemplating the human condition:

1. Margaret E. Sangster (paraphrased)

“Love makes the world go around. It makes every enterprise worthwhile here on earth. It is co-equal with life, outlasts death and reaches onward into infinity.”

2. Pearl S. Buck

“Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between a man and a woman. Actually that is wrong. It is life itself.”

3. Charles Templeton

“I believe that the greatest motivating force in life is love. Caring for someone else, we will be motivated to seek the best for that person and we will be ennobled in so doing.”

4. And finally from the Christian Bible comes the ultimate message.

LOVE SURPASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING.

THE WOUNDS OF WAR

True Friends visit us in prosperity only when invited,

but in adversity they come without invitation.

(The Orphratus)

The book, whose title is the heading of this chapter, was written by Herbert Hendin and Ann Pollinger Haas. It deals with the problems associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. On page 62 they write that; ---

“Medication may be absolutely necessary in the short term for veterans who appear to have a conditioned emotional response to combat-related stimuli at the core of their stress disorders. Nevertheless, in the long run, behavioral interventions are preferred.”

On page 87 he writes: “Although guilt is often the outgrowth of fear, the development of guilt perpetuates and increases fear. It becomes a vicious cycle. Conversely, reducing fear reduces guilt.” The dictionary definition of guilt is --- the fact or state of doing wrong.

But guilt is actually the fear that you are failing to live up to certain standards that are important to you or to the society into which you were born. It then becomes obvious that guilt is simply a corollary of fear. Under these terms of reference, it should become self-evident that reducing ones fears will reduce ones feelings of guilt.

Because the lines of demarcation between those who were enemies and those who were not, was almost impossible to define in the Vietnamese war, many soldiers developed a distorted fear of everyone that they encountered who was not wearing the same uniform as they were.

These problems are enunciated proficiently on pages 88 and 89 of this book. These soldiers developed --- a conditioned emotional response to other people as potential enemies, out of proportion to reality. But how many people, put into a similar situation would not react similarly?

After all, ones very life is at risk at almost every moment in this scenario. The problem then becomes how to bring this response back to a level that is consistent with the normal non-warlike state. That is, a level more in keeping with everyday life.

These two pages, (87 & 88), contain a brilliant description of conglomerated and distorted fears, which have invoked adaptive emotional conditioning leading to aggressive action. When these types of reactions occur in everyday life after the veteran has returned home safely from the war zone, they become part of the diagnosis for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in combat veterans.

It is my contention that it also proves that a genetically normal brain can be transformed by fear into a brain that the bio-psychiatric community would describe as being mentally ill. These words appear on page 231:

“Among veterans who were exposed to combat and who had both an unstable pre-combat history and a history of non-military violence in Vietnam, we have seen none who have escaped a post-traumatic stress disorder.”

On page 236 we have the story of a war veteran who believes that he is suffering from PTSD. It turns out that his stress has been caused by the death of his wife and child in a recent car accident and it is not a product of his wartime experiences. This proves that stress (read fear) is at the core of these problems and the various life experiences and achievements, of a negative nature, are the groundwork from which the stress is developed.

On page 240 we find that unrelenting emotional after-affects of combat (fear of death) gave the soldiers symptoms of stress that caused them to fear for their own sanity. The fear of ones own thoughts and emotional responses, including the fear of the feelings of fear itself; are, as previously stated, the cornerstones upon which the theory of conglomerated and distorted fears as the actual cause of so-called mental illness, so convincingly resides. .

On page 214, we find the other side of the coin. Here we find a cluster of traits that are observed in veterans who did not develop PTSD. “Calmness under pressure, intellectual control, ability to create and impose a sense of structure, acceptance of their own and others emotions and limitations plus a lack of excessively violent or guilt arousing behavior. (All these features) --- comprised an adaptation response that was uniquely suited for the preservation of emotional stability in a context that was often unstructured and unstable.”

If one is attempting to put forward a new concept, a new and deeper level of truth in a chosen area of discovery, it becomes of paramount importance to try to find examples that will help to unequivocally verify the authenticity of this new concept.

In this regard, the information reproduced above from the book called, “The Wounds Of War“, and that which a more detailed perusal of the book would provide for any reader so interested, --- in effect, represents the “Holy Grail” for yours truly. Namely, that the information thus described in that book should inexorably lead the reader to become aware of the following fundamental truth.

A large number of soldiers, who were classified as being in relatively normal mental health before they experienced combat service in the Vietnam War, were ultimately dispersed into all sections of the mental health spectrum after they had survived the war and returned home.

That is, some suffered PTSD and were listed as being mentally ill and placed on medication. Although all soldiers were obviously changed by having experienced the horrors of this war, some soldiers nevertheless remained in a broad spectrum of behavior that is considered to be consistent with normal mental health.

And still others obtained remarkable new insights into psychological values, which translated into their capacity to handle far more responsibility then they could prior to experiencing the Vietnam War. Many of these veterans went on to become pillars of society and others became what the writer Harry Overstreet referred to as --- “Intercreating Minds.”

How can one use the biological or genetic model for mental illness to explain such a dispersal of those who were considered to be in good, or “normal” mental health before joining the forces; into all of the other spectrums of human behavior including mental illness? Fortunately for me, I do not have to try to embrace such a task, because I believe that it is impossible.

I believe that the Vietnamese conflict and the psychological ramifications for its combatants, precisely and succinctly verifies the theory of mental illness being caused by distorted and conglomerated fears. It is not that the Vietnamese war was somehow unique and as a result, it illuminated more completely the veracity of the above statement.

In reality, the accumulated psychological knowledge of the human race at that time was such that some one such as Herbert Hendron and Ann Pollinger Haas would write such a book and someone such as myself would, in turn write this book.

And still further, it is not that these personal intersecting lines of evaluation between myself and these writers represents the only possibility for the human race to acquire this new knowledge. In reality many other researchers are approaching this new understanding from a proliferation of other sources and ultimately this new understanding was destined to come into existence in the not too distant future.

The only claim that I can make then, is that because of my determination to make this book happen, this new understanding might come into existence sooner --- rather than later. And in reality, what more can any one man or woman ask for.

As stated elsewhere in this book, a combination of increased world wide population, which in turn causes an increase in the fear of the unknown in any particular chosen achievement, which then brings about an increase in the human desire to acquire new knowledge to reduce the unknown in that particular achievement, ultimately leads to new knowledge for the human race as a whole.

These underlying laws of probability that produce new understanding very rarely amount to monstrous leaps which lead to fundamental new understanding and new truths. With the exception of Albert Einstein and perhaps a few others, it is far more common that a veritable profusion of individuals in a chosen field of discovery, are inexorably moving towards the discovery of new and deeper level of truth in that field.

This scenario applied to Frederick Banting in his discovery of Insulin, it also applied to Charles Darwin in his discovery of the Origin of Species. These are simply two examples of the above-described laws of probability that apply to new discoveries.

Of course there is also the simple fact that the word truth is not as simple as we might have once thought it to be. Very few truths can be labeled as absolute truths. It is always our human destiny to seek out even deeper levels of truth.

Very few of our new platforms of knowledge obtain the status of being called an absolute truth. In most instances they become the launching pad for new generations to reach into the unknown and find even deeper levels of truth for the field in question. I believe that a similar future will obtain for these new ideas about how the human mind functions that I am putting forward in this book at this time.

EMOTION

If I had not used humor, I would have

gone insane a long time ago.

(Mohandas Gandhi)

Current theory suggests that emotion in most cases defies reason and it is represented as a force inside the human mind that must forever contain what one might best describe as uncharted waters. Although I am quite ready to admit that emotion and reason are not exactly married to each other, at the same time, I believe that: --- Emotion is not divorced from reason but rather, it is a product of reason under the influence of fear.

Distorted fears give rise to distorted emotions and although we already know that many emotional feelings and actions can be analyzed and corrected, it also remains true that a large area of emotional understanding will remain outside of our current ability to understand.

The above situation will apply no matter how much we increase our knowledge about how the human mind functions. Because of the infinite nature of reality, no matter how much knowledge the human race is able to accrue, we will always have partial understanding about reality. This is where our emotional responses come into play in an effort to keep us alive until such time as we advance to the next level of understanding.

The following is obviously a simplification of the method by which the feelings of fear are transmitted through our nervous system. Before starting, I think it is appropriate to mention that there is a miniature muscle for every hair on the human body. Although some nerve tissue is microscopic in size, nevertheless the muscular sheath that surrounds the flow of electricity through the nervous system has the capacity to expand and contract.

Increased electrical flow, caused by adrenaline and nor adrenaline, which in turn are activated from the fight of flight response to fear, in combination with constricted nerve tissue, produces the varying degrees of sensations that make up the feelings of fear.

These feelings represent a part of our emotional system and it is this simple fact that leads me to make the above statement that emotion is not divorced from reason, but rather, it is a product of reason under the influence of fear.

Understanding how or where the feelings of joy, happiness and pleasure come from is rather complicated. One source seems to be the ability of these experiences to relax the nerve sheaths and allow a more stable flow of electricity throughout the body. Laughter also seems to bring about the same kind of relaxation. Before the discovery of some of the newer neuroleptics, some mental patients would laugh uncontrollably.

Now that we know that their mental tensions, which caused their abnormal behavior, are caused by distorted and conglomerated fears; --- now that we know that this condition will constrict the nervous sheath and cause nervous and mental anguish; --- now that we know that this anguish can be somewhat alleviated by laughter; --- it is easier to understand why these people were laughing at what appeared to be nothing. In effect they were trying to medicate themselves.

I predict that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will be the leading edge of psychological assistance for the general public at large in the future. With this in mind, I decided to read the autobiography of one of the pioneers in the science of behavior whose name is B.F. Skinner.

Although he correctly visualized the future importance of behavioral science, he made a basic mistake at the very start of his career. It constituted a fatal flaw that helped to dictate the pessimistic view that he predicted for the future of the human race.

When studying or describing behavioral processes, he purposely avoided any reference to mental states or to the structure and function of the human mind. He chose to almost entirely ignore feelings and by so doing, he robbed himself of the total picture, which severely limited his chances for success.

He believed that --- “Talking about feelings is safe because nothing will ever be done about them.” This quotation comes from the book called, --- “B.F. Skinner (a life)”, which was written by Daniel W. Bjork. In this regard, I must empathically say that Mr. Skinner was dead wrong.

In fact, I will do everything in my power to motivate the entire human race to increase its knowledge about emotion and feelings. Specifically, to use them as a beacon along the side of the road that will lead us to more successful approaches to life for all of the years that remain in the history of mankind.

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

Just recently CNN showed a program about Glen Campbell's mental deterioration due to Alzheimer’s disease.   Everyone's hat should be off in tribute to Glen for his desire to face this problem and not hide it from the public at large.

From listening to his answers to various questions it became obvious to me that he had a distorted fear of failing to remember the words to the songs that made him so famous and earned so much money for him.

Unfortunately he decided that other memories were unimportant and he would concentrate all of his memory skills on remembering the words to his many famous songs.

It is this attitude that resulted in his hippo-campus being much smaller than it should have been. It would be like not using one of your arms and watching it shrivel up rather than become the healthy looking appendage that it should have been. We are lucky that we can now see such shriveling of the hippo-campus. In the past no such telltale signs would become self-evident.

I cannot offer Glen Campbell any skill in bringing his hippo-campus back to a healthy looking one. I am sure that others could help to alleviate the symptoms of this disease for Glen in various ways. But I can offer younger people a chance to reduce their chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Do not deliberately shut down your memory cells!!! I do not mean that you should try to memorize everything that you experience. What I am saying is to use moderation in this area as well as almost all areas in your life. This type of response, in my opinion, will help to reduce your chances of ending up with Alzheimer’s disease as you get older.

CHAPTER 4

THE SYMPHONY OF LIFE

Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt,

in the suffering involved --- not in the victory itself.

(“Words of Wisdom“) by Shall Sinha Ph. D.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the city of New York was facing a serious dilemma. The profusion of horses being used for transportation and commerce was threatening to leave the streets of New York looking and smelling like an open sewer. Debates about the best method to combat these problems were unending. The invention of the automobile finally solved the problem and of course, created new and different problems.

We certainly owe a debt of thanks to people such as Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, Dr. Peter Breggin and a host of others who have dedicated their lives to challenge the bio-psychiatric profession.

The public is certainly better served when it hears such eloquent critiques of a system so loaded with potential harm for the human race as a whole. God knows that the bio-psychiatric faction of this profession has certainly patted itself on the back all the way to the bank.

However, rather than debate ad nauseam the pros and cons of bio-psychiatry, the psychotherapists and cognitive behavioral therapists must become so successful, that the bio-psychiatric approach to mental illness will be looked upon as the horse and buggy days of old. The cognitive behavioral sciences and the psychotherapists must become the newly invented automobile to replace the horse and buggy era of bio-psychiatry.

The way that the bio-psychiatrists are headed, what with their expansion theories that include depression, attention deficit disorder and a host of other newly named conditions, --- if they have their way, it won’t be long before they have the entire human race on some sort of mind altering drug.

The above scenario represents a horribly disparaging indictment directed at our Creator. Those people who place limitations on the intelligence of our Creator fail to remember that at all times, we as mortal human beings can only have partial understanding of life itself. When such people act in this way, they must be prepared to reap the whirlwind that their misguided theories will bring down upon themselves.

Yes, the ideas that I am putting forward in this book represent a deeper level of truth about how the human mind functions. But in reality, they must be looked upon as simply a new platform from which others must launch new attacks against the unending unknown. When you talk about our Creator’s, intelligence, then you must necessarily talk about --- infinity.

Having a higher regard for our Creator shows up dramatically in the story of the discovery of Insulin. Dr. Frederick G. Banting, who was born in the small town of Alliston near Toronto, finally solved the problem while reading a medical journal. At that time, people were still dying of gall stones that would lodge in the channel which should have carried the digestive juices that are made in the pancreas to the stomach.

When autopsies were performed on these people, the digestive juice making cells inside the pancreas had shriveled up and almost completely died, but the Islands of Langerhan cells, which were believed to contain the magical secretion to prevent diabetes, were perfectly healthy. These individuals showed no sign of being diabetic.

Banting correctly recognized that he had to destroy completely, the digestive producing cells in the pancreas before he tried to extract any of the magical extract. Prior to this time, countless other researchers including the most eminent scientists in this field had tried to use extracts from the pancreas to cure diabetes to no avail.

When they chopped up the pancreas to make the extract, the small amount of digestive juices still undestroyed, which are used to tear apart the food that we eat, tore apart the magical secretion that we now call Insulin and the whole procedure became useless.

Our Creator knew that the Insulin and digestive juices had to be kept apart and so he constructed the Island of Langerhan cells so that their hormone, Insulin, would be secreted directly into our blood stream. This Creator did so under the auspices of the theory of evolution.

In a similar manner, our Creator is using the emotion of fear for more reasons than any of us will probably ever know. But at this time, we can at least speculate that its most valuable use is to motivate us towards greater knowledge and understanding.

If in the process of this search for deeper understanding, we did not see the fundamental truth about fear, then we would follow paths away from, rather than towards, deeper levels of understanding. To conclude that mental illness is physical in most cases rather than psychological in nature, is an example of such an incorrect deflection.

For me to put forward the ideas about conglomerated and distorted fears as being the actual cause of mental illness, is not just equivalent to, but far more important than the discovery of Insulin by Frederick G. Banting.

One thing that Banting had in his favor that I do not is simply this; he could inject Insulin into a dying diabetic person and when the patient recovered his or her health, the truth of Banting’s discovery could not be denied.

I do not have any magical injection to offer to the Psychiatric profession. I only have new ideas which, if accepted and applied correctly by the right persons working in the psychological community at this time, will amount to a magical injection of new life for not only those who have been told that they are mentally ill, but for every living member of the human family.

The following quote occurs on page 234 of the book called, --- Argosy To Adventure. The book is so old that it was part of my English literature class in school about 62 years ago: --- The book was authored by Paul de Kruif.

The quote is as follows: “Why do searchers always have to go into the jungle of the unknown blindfolded and backwards??” The following quote is also appropriate. “Truth is allowed but a short interval of time between the two long periods when it is either condemned as paradox or belittled as trivial.”

I long for the day when this new level of understanding that I am trying to put forward, concerning the manner in which the human mind functions, will be considered to be trivial. When that day occurs, an incredible amount of suffering and agony will begin to be eliminated from the human condition.

One of mankind’s greatest assets is his desire to be empathic. In this regard, it is not good enough to discover new concepts in any field of human endeavor, unless in the process, you develop the communicative skills that will allow your fellow travelers through life to progress to your perceived higher level of understanding. Without this all important skill, your knowledge will remain restrictive rather than becoming expansive.

We deserve more peace and interpersonal harmony, which are the by-products of increased understanding and increased productivity, than that which we are experiencing at this time. You do not bring together a group of confused or stressed out musicians and expect to hear beautiful music.

It is my eagerly accepted responsibility to do everything that I possible can to promote the acceptance of this new understanding about the primary importance of the emotion of fear, so that the symphony of life in the immediate future, will not contain so many --- unbearable sounds.

CHANGING ONE’S PERSONALITY

Education is not a preparation for life.

It is life itself.

(Thomas Dewey)

ATTITUDE

(The following words are a paraphrased quote from Charles Swindoll.)

“The longer I live, the more that I realize the incredible impact of attitude on life. It is more important than education, money, circumstances, failure, success or what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home.”

“We cannot change the past or the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. But we do have a choice regarding the type of attitude with which we choose to embrace each and every day of our lives with.”

“I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. You are in charge of your attitude. If you choose an attitude which reflects happiness and quiet confidence about yourself to those that you come into contact with, and if you constantly try to increase your knowledge, no matter what life’s uncertainties bring, you will live successfully.”

PROBLEMS

When Winston Churchill was a member of the opposition in the British Parliament, one of his colleagues gave a speech deploring the inability of the party in power to make a decision. When he had finally finished, Churchill stood up and said: --- “You are wrong sir; the government has indeed reached a decision; --- they have decided to remain undecided.”

What we are talking about here is the fear of making a mistake. The age old and endless fear of failure. Here then, is a formula for solving problems, which helps to overcome that fear. I first heard of this method while I thought I was “teaching” someone else about reacting to indecision. It quickly became apparent that I was the student, not the teacher.

What is your problem? List the options that are available to you which you believe will have the potential to solve the problem. Pick out the best one and do it. If two or three options look like identical risks, choose one of them and do it. If this decision does not solve the problem, after a certain amount of time, re-evaluate the problem and repeat the listing process above until the problem is finally solved.

Another person added the following thoughts to the above ideas. --- “In my position as head of our company, I find that if I interview four people about a problem, they will each describe the problem differently.”

“Since they have been hired to concentrate on a specific area of responsibility in our company, their understanding of the problem is partial in accordance with their duties. My responsibility is to hear all pertinent sides of the issue and then formulate in my mind what the total problem is. Then I use the listing solution to problems that you have just reiterated.” PRICELESS!!!

WEEDS IN A GARDEN

“When you plant a garden, you do not set aside a place for weeds.

Your mind is a garden of knowledge, there should be no place for weeds. “

Dag Hammarsjold

PROCRASTINATION

A lazy person is a perfectionist; --- he or she aims at nothing and hits it every time.

It has now been recognized that procrastination is a sign that the individual so affected is experiencing a high level of the fear of failure concerning the achievements that he or she is refusing to complete. The more intelligent that the procrastinator is, the more elaborate becomes the rationalizations for not completing the task at hand.

The above words in italics represent a paraphrased quote from a church bulletin board. Many times, laconic statements such as this contain fundamental truths at their core. Almost all human beings are motivated to make something special of their lives. But unfortunately, in many cases, people who have chosen to do nothing, have at the core of their psychological maturity, or lack thereof, an all encompassing fear of failure.

To assist such people in returning to more mature approaches to life, it is absolutely necessary that his or her family, relatives, friends, social workers or psychological therapists, direct their help towards the alleviation of such fears and the slow but inexorable build up of the individuals confidence so that they can once again enter the world of trial and error that all of us must embrace in our individual journeys through life.

One of the greatest rewards for anyone who tries to help such an individual is to see their eyes light up with eagerness and anticipation for the exciting journey of life that you have helped them come to realize is well within their grasp. It is not a pipe dream. It can become a dream come true.

5 IMPORTANT RULES FOR SUCCESS

1. Perform all tasks with enthusiasm and pride.

2. Always strive to be the best at what you are doing.

3. Always place the interest of the human race as a whole ahead of the interests of the individual.

4. Always remember that little things mean a lot.

5. Above all else, have fun at what you are doing.

RED LIGHTS IN YOUR MIND

Every achievement carries with it valuable lessons that a person can apply to other achievements also. Learning to drive a car is a good example. When a person is approaching a green light, it can become a very anxious moment for the new driver.

Actually, using the word “moment” is rather misleading because it can develop into an all-engrossing level of anxiety also. The new driver must develop a level of skill that allows him to stop the car safely if the green light turns yellow at what could be considered as the “wrong” moment. The new driver is making this calculation inside his mind, but to learn the correct procedure, it is better if he says his thoughts out loud.

His or her nervousness comes from the unspoken ideas that are translated as follows: If the light turns yellow at this moment, I will stop. ---- I will stop. --- I don’t know exactly what I will do. --- I don’t know exactly what I will do. --- I will go.

To overcome the anxiety caused by the fear of making a mistake and either getting a ticket or causing an accident, the new driver must increase his skill to the point where the words that he speaks out loud become, --- I will stop. --- I will stop. --- I will stop. --- I will go.

Since the driver has removed the uncertainty from the decision, he or she will eventually calm down, and this achievement, facing a green light that might change to yellow at any second, will lose most, if not all of its potential to make the new driver nervous. Eventually, the driver can stop saying the words out loud and it becomes a visual decision inside the mind of the driver.

Since you learned to drive a car many years ago, the above story is not of any value to you, --- is it? If your answer is no it isn’t; I challenge you to think again. What achievements in your life are causing anxiety for you?

Can you define where the areas of uncertainty are? What are the increased skills that you need to have a better chance to be successful at this achievement? Are you willing to do whatever is necessary to learn these new skills?

If you can not specifically determine what these new skills might be, are you willing to ask someone with experience in the area of your chosen achievement for help in visualizing them inside your mind more clearly? Are you willing to increase your knowledge and skill level at this achievement until your nervousness subsides considerably, or it is eliminated completely?

There is one thing that I should caution you about. The human condition, or the usual approach to life that most humans follow is simply this; new successes in one or more achievements necessarily propels them to embrace even more new achievements.

Be prepared to begin a journey that can last for the rest of your lifetime. And one more piece of advice, enjoy every moment of the exciting life that awaits you, --- if you dare to make use of the ideas expressed herein.

While we are on the subject of driving, how do you react when you are caught in traffic? Certainly if you are facing a life threatening situation, no one in his right mind would find happiness or a contented feeling while experiencing gridlock. But how many times have you found yourself rushing to get home so that you can relax? Why not begin to relax right now, right in the midst of a horrible traffic jam.

If you are as lucky as I am, you live in a wonderful city such as Toronto. I used to affirm the following statement in the middle of terrible traffic jams. Achieve, achieve you beautiful people; it is your combined work ethic that allows me to live in such a beautiful city. Of course then I would tell some so and so to get the blankety blank out of my way.

Well, to be honest, I did lose my cool from time to time but in reality, I added that last sentence for the sake of humor. It is one of the best ways to help yourself relax. When you laugh, you are telling those around you that you are enjoying life. Unfortunately, like most other things in life, laughter can become very complicated and destructive also.

Generally, if you are laughing with someone, or at your own foibles, it has a positive and calming influence on your nerves. But if your laughter is directed at someone else, it carries the real potential that it will be the source of a great deal of tension and stress in the future for you.

Another important aspect of humor that should be used more often is simply this. If you and another person experience a prolonged amount of genuine laughter, it eventually leads to more important discussions. Perhaps the level of relaxation, or the insights that humor gives to those who participate in it, allows the people involved to begin to talk about things that they were hesitant to bring into the conversation before. This is one of the most valuable side effects of laughter.

But to return to the story about tangled traffic jams. If you have done your best to avoid the traffic, it is much better to make a positive statement about it then cursing the heavens for your misfortune.

We still have electric streetcars in our public transit system here in Toronto. They, and the buses also, get in a driver’s way and cause slow downs. After wasting my time thinking how much easier it would be to drive around the city if there were no streetcars or buses, I finally got my wish.

The Toronto Transit Commission went on strike and the cars and trucks had the road to themselves. They turned it into a parking lot. Finally, I began to realize that after you have done your best to be as efficient as possible with your driving choices, you might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. Or, move out of town and experience the pluses and minuses that any --- and all decisions carry with them.

MEDITATION

There is no doubt that meditation is good for you. It will help to calm you down and even more importantly, it will prove to you that certain mental states that seem to be beyond your control can be controlled if you know how to do it.

The best procedure, is to know why you have become stressed and full of tension and change the behavior that is causing the tension which is a by product of the achievement or multiple achievements that you are involved in.

Understanding the role of fear and how it becomes distorted and conglomerated, will help to isolate the factors involved in causing the tension and then; it is up to you to find the correct method to slowly reduce and then control the concerns or fears that are causing the stress itself.

One of the drawbacks that I have for meditation concerns the fact that it takes up a lot of ones time. If you are involved in a serious life threatening achievement, you will fail if you decide that you need to take time out to meditate yourself into a calmer state. That is why I say that the direct approach to solving ones stress is preferable.

Another concern about meditation involves the person or persons who go to the top of a mountain and meditate themselves into a state of bliss and then seem to make the gaining of such a state as their ultimate goal.

The world needs people who can be in the middle of gut wrenching achievements and still maintain the necessary level of emotional control to be successful. Give me that person, --- rather than the blissful guru meditating at the top of a distant mountain.

EXERCISE

In another area of this book, I write about the fact that people who lived long ago were forced to do much more physical activity then they do today. Our technological world allows people to earn a living with their brain much more than was available in earlier times.

It is the fear reactions to these mental requirements that activate the glands that secrete adrenaline and which builds up in the muscles of the body. It is this build-up that causes problems that can only be overcome if the individual in question becomes involved in physical activity of one kind or another.

Of course this necessity can be used in a negative manner also. Apparently John Fitzgerald Kennedy believed that he needed to find sexual release to allow him to sleep at night. This necessity can be used up within marriage but he did no such thing.

Part of the problem with such men is that if they are successful in covering up this so-called secret activity by outright lies, when they become involved in complicated situations they tend to revert back to lying to solve their problems.

There is a real good chance that Nikita Khrushchev from Russia actually only wanted to get rid of the missiles that were pointed at Russia from an American base in Turkey. If by chance the Americans did not notice that Russia had built a missile base in Cuba, so much the better.

Obviously the Americans discovered the base and the Cuban Nuclear crisis resulted from it. Eventually the Russians agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba, but only if the Americans would agree to remove their missiles from Turkey. JFK agreed to these terms as long as the Russians were willing to wait a certain amount of time until the Americans removed the missiles from Turkey.

This allowed JFK to pretend to the American people that he had faced down the Russians and prevented the possibility of a nuclear war between the USA and Russia. This was a real political coup for JFK which was engineered from JFK’s penchant for lying that he gained from his nefarious sexual exploits.

If you have trouble sleeping at night, do not let this problem divert you into covert sexual behavior. Find another outlet for your excess energy which is derived from your ability to embrace achievements successfully. Do not let this positive aspect of your personality allow yourself to engage in such destructive behavior.

There are any number of ways in which to obtain the necessary exercise to allow you to experience a good night’s sleep. Without this balanced approach to your life, eventually you will pay the price either in the way that JFK did, --- or in some other way such as physical damage inside your body of one kind or another. .

MUSIC

To avail oneself of the finer compositions of music, in any of the varied fields of this art, is to give oneself a treasured experience that truly represents one of the finer aspects of life itself. On numerous occasions, I have found that if I am wrestling with cumbersome thoughts and/or puzzling questions, by taking some time out to listen to a good selection of music; I can invariably calm my nerves and reduce my mental tension.

It is not entirely unrealistic to believe that such activity can have a positive affect on reducing or eliminating ones chances of developing Alzheimer's in later life. Try listening to beautiful music more often. I am sure that you will agree with me about its therapeutic value.

POETRY

Who knows for sure why poetry is so important? Maybe it’s the symmetry of the words. Maybe it’s the fact that the author must try to give the most meaning to the least number of words. I am sure that there are many more reasons why poetry is so important, but there is one thing that I am positively sure of; it is much better to actually read poetry than it is to try to explain it. So without further ado, let’s get started --- enjoy!

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils.

Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never ending line

Along the margin of a bay,

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee.

A poet could but not be gay,

In such a jocund company.

I gazed --- and gazed --- but little thought

What wealth to me the show had brought.

For oft when on my couch I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon the inward eye,

Which is the bliss of solitude,

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

THE CRYSTAL RAINBOW

It danced demurely on the foyer wall,

A picture perfect prism of light.

Created by a gently swaying cystal,

Mounted in a window to catch the sunlight.

Red, blue, green, yellow and mauve,

Each to their separate space disperse,

Motivating me to pick up pen and paper

And with these items create this verse.

Life is busy, achievements are many,

Responsibilities beckon, hurry rushes in.

Smell the roses --- sounds so easy

Paying the rent, forces reality in.

Stress and hardships take our focus,

We have children that we must feed.

Time runs out before you know it,

Who knows what --- we really need.

Do not pass through life, in such a hurry,

Do not find fault --- in everything,

Sheer delight will overwhelm you,

When you see the crystal rainbow dancing.

Myself

I Dreamed a Dream.

I dreamed a dream in times gone by,

When hope was high and life, worth living.

I dreamed that love would never die,

I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid,

And dreams were made and used and wasted.

There was no ransom to be paid,

No song unsung no wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night,

With a voice as soft as thunder.

As they tear your dreams apart,

And they turn your dreams to shame.

I had a dream my life would be,

So different from this hell I’m living.

So different now from what it seemed,

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

English Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer

THE SIEGE OF THE FAIRIES

I’d not give room for an Emperor ---

I’d hold my road for a King.

To the Triple Crown I’d not bow down ---

But this is a different thing!

I’ll not fight with the powers of (truth) ---

Sentry, --- pass him through!

Drawbridge let fall ---

He’s the Lord of us all ---

The dreamer whose dream came true.

Rudyard Kipling (Kim)

MY WAY

And now the end is here and so I face the final curtain,

My friend, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain.

I’ve lived a life that’s full; I’ve traveled each and every highway,

And more, much more than this, I’ve did it my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway,

And more, --- much more than this, I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew,

When I bit off more than I could chew.

But through it all when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out.

I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way.

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried. I’ve had my fill, my share of losing. And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that and may I say not in a shy way,

Oh no, oh no not me, I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught, to say the words he truly feels,

And not the words of one who kneels.

The record shows I took the blows. --- And did it my way.

Paul Anka

This next poem was written at six o’clock in the morning on July 30th, 1802 by William Wordsworth, while he was riding on the top of a (stage) coach which was taking him to the coast for a trip to France.

UPON WESTMINISTER BRIDGE

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This city now does like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning: silent bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky, ---

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor valley, rock or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still.

William Wordsworth

THE SOLITARY REAPER

Behold her, singing in the field,

Yon solitary Highland lass!

Reaping and singing to herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travelers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard

In springtime from the cookoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? ---

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of today?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

What ‘er the theme the maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work

And o’er the sickle bending; ---

I listened motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

William Woodsworth

THE FUTURE UNFULFILLED

Looking ahead to what is not ---

And what I have done with what I have got.

I wonder if somehow the thoughts within me,

Shall die with the body that our Creator gave to me.

Will life give me time to pay back the debt,

That the soul must demand lest the mind forget.

Could I traverse through the journey of life

And never reduce man’s toil and strife.?

Living together with a common goal,

Enjoying the struggle of body and soul.

Meeting the unknown with courage and grace,

Increasing our knowledge just to keep pace.

Oh! For the chance to speak but one word,

One act or one deed to reduce the absurd.

These are the treasure a man or woman -- must desire,

If the heights of our Creator -- mankind dares to aspire.

Myself

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth,

Then took the other as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

But knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost)

THIS QUIET DUST

Here in my curving hands I cup

This quiet dust; I lift it up.

Here is the mother of all thought;

Of this the shining heavens are wrought,

The laughing lips, the feet that rove,

The face, the body that you love:

Mere dust, no more, yet nothing less,

And this has suffered consciousness,

Passion, and terror, this again

Shall suffer passion, death, and pain.

For as all flesh must die, so all,

Now dust shall live. ‘Tis natural;

Yet hardly do I understand ---

Here in the hollow of my hand

A bit of God Himself I keep,

Between two vigils fallen asleep.

John Hall Wheelock (1886-unknown]

THERE IS A BEAUTY AT THE GOAL OF LIFE

There is a beauty at the goal of life,

A beauty growing since the world began,

Through every age and race, through lapse and strife

Till the great human soul complete her span.

Beneath the waves of storm that lash and burn,

The currents of blind passion that appall,

To listen and keep watch till we discern

The tide of sovereign truth that guides it all;

So to address our spirits to the height,

And so attune them to the valiant whole,

That the great light be clearer for our light,

And the great soul the stronger for our soul;

To have done this is to have lived, though fame

Remember us with no familiar name.

Archibald Lampman

THE PATHS OF MYSTERY

Let me write about our mental processes,

Let us walk through paths unknown.

Let the calm within our nervous system

Take us where no one has flown.

Let the warning constrictive feelings

Bid us stop where danger lies,

Let the storehouse of our knowledge

Increase itself ‘till danger flies.

In this world there must be something,

More than we have dared to see.

Hold my hand we’ll walk together,

Down the paths of mystery.

Myself

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master,

If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the thing you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build’em up with warn out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your nerve and heart and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And -- which is more -- you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

The Impossible Dream

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unfightable foe,

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar,

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest

To follow that star,

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far.

To fight for the right

Without question or pause,

To be willing to go into hell

For a heavenly cause.

And I know if I’ll only be true,

To this glorious quest,

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I’m laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars,

Still strove with his last once of courage

To reach the unreachable star.

Joe Darion

This next entry is obviously not a poem but nevertheless it belongs here as a perfect example of prose at its very best.

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all people. Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nuture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him or Her to be, --- and whatever your labors and aspirations. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. --- Be cheerful. --- Strive to be happy.

_______________________________

The author of this brilliant piece of literature is unknown. Let us go forward with the belief that it represents the best of what the human race has to offer. Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy’s words: --- “Ask not what other people in this world can do for you. Ask rather what you can do for other people.”

HUMOR

The value of humor was discussed in the article about Red Lights in Traffic. In the game of tag played by children, there are at least two reasons why children laugh in this situation.

If the child is exceptionally good at avoiding being touched, he or she may laugh as a result of their superiority in that situation. If their ability to avoid being touched is in doubt, they may laugh to reduce the tension concerning the uncertainty of the situation.

I found the following short, humorous stories in a book called, --- “The Dictionary of Jokes”, and they were compiled by the author Fred Metcalfe. They represent relatively innocent humor and I hope you enjoy them.

1. Agent: Leave your number and I’ll call you when I’m looking for someone to play an old man.

Actor: But I’m a young man.

Agent: You won’t be when I call you.

2. There’s no doubt that advertising brings results. Yesterday we advertised for a security guard and last night we were robbed.

3. Do you ever file your nails?

No said the secretary. I just cut them off and throw them away.

4. (Soldier) --- I proved to the enemy that this was no place for cowards.

(Officer) --- How did you do that?

(Soldier) --- I ran like hell!

5. (Sergeant) --- Fire at will!

(Private) --- Which one is Will?

6. (Prospective artist) --- I’d like to donate some of my paintings to a worthy charity.

(Director for Charities) --- How about the institute for the blind!

7. When I was a boxer they called me Rembrandt because I was always on the canvas.

8. My uncle converted these cannibals to Catholicism; --- now on Fridays they only eat fishermen.

9. Wife --- Whenever I’m down in the dumps, I get myself a new dress.

Husband --- So that’s where you find them!

10. Sales clerk --- This computer will cut your workload by 50%

Customer --- I’ll take two of them.

11. (Judge) ---I’m sending you to jail for 3 months.

(Defendant) --- What’s the charge!!!

(Judge) --- There’s no charge. Everything is free.

12. (Judge) --- What possible reason could you have for acquitting this villain?

(Foreman of the Jury) --- Insanity your honor.

(Judge) --- What? All 12 of you?

13. How did you learn to dance so well? Simple, when I grew up there were 9 kids in our family and only one washroom.

14. Our courtship was fast and furious. I was fast and she was furious.

15. (Policeman) --- Why is one side of your car painted red and the other side painted blue?

(Driver) --- I like to hear the witnesses contradict each other.

16. There were 11 of us in our family. I didn’t know what it was like to sleep alone until I got married.

17. I met my husband at a travel agency. I was looking for a holiday and he was the last resort.

18. We went to a topless bar only to find out that it had no roof.

19. She’s trying to diet and I’m dying to try it.

20. My wife and I have an agreement that we never go to bed angry. We’ve been awake for nearly six months.

21, What is the last thing they do to a Tickle Me Elmo Doll before it leaves the factory? --- They give it two test tickles.

22. They call him “jigsaw.” Every time that he’s faced with a decision, he goes all to pieces,

23. (Wife) --- I’ve changed my mind.

(Husband) --- Thank goodness. Does this one work any better?

24. I’m in love with a beautiful girl but she doesn’t even know that I exist. What should I do? --- Show her your birth certificate.

LESSONS FROM GEESE

Fact # 1

As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the birds that follow in a “V” formation. As a result, the whole flock adds 71% more range than if each bird flew separately.

Lesson

People who share a common sense of direction and community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the trust of one another.

Fact # 2

When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the flying power of the bird directly in front of it.

Lesson

If we have as much sense as a goose we stay in formation with those who want to go where we are heading. We are willing to accept their help and give our help to others.

Fact # 3

When the head goose tires, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies into the point position.

Lesson

It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership, as with geese, people are inter-dependent on each other’s skill, capabilities and unique arrangement of gifts, talents and resources.

Fact # 4

The geese flying in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

Lesson

We need to make sure that our honking is encouraging. In groups where there is encouragement the productivety is much greater. The power of encouragement (to stand by one’s heart or core values and encourage the heart and core values of others), is the quality of “honking” that we should seek.

Fact # 5

When a goose gets sick, wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it They stay until it dies or it can fly again. Then they launch out with another formation or catch up with their original flock.

Lesson

If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.

“Lessons from geese was transcribed from a speech given by Angeles Arrien at the 1991 Organizational Development Network and it is based on the work of Milton Olson.”

THE STATUE

A large percentage of the intellectual skills that I have acquired in my lifetime, were obtained at the local libraries here in the city of Toronto. In tribute to the extensive library system that has been developed here in the North American continent, and for that matter, in all parts of the world, I would like to see the following statue placed near the entrance to one of those libraries.

It would depict a young man (perhaps 18 years old) and a young woman standing beside each other on a pedestal. Both of them would be in perfect physical health. Instead of holding barbells, they would be holding a stack of books in each hand as if they were lifting weights. The caption on the pedestal would read as follows: “Join me in the mental exercise of the human mind, whose physical structure is restricted but whose creative dimensions remain unknown.”

(Myself)

BEHAVIORAL CONSULTANTS

Nothing is as contagious as ENTHUSIASM,

it moves boulders, it charms bullies and brutes.

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and TRUTH

accomplishes no victories without it.

(Edward G. Bulmer-Lytton)

I would rather see the new practitioners in the field of psychiatry described as Behavioral Consultants to differentiate them from others in the psychological field who, because of their fear of change, would continue to have faith in old ideas which now must be discarded.

A brilliant and illuminating quote from Abraham Lincoln is appropriate in this situation. “I will adopt new ideas as fast as they appear to coincide with the truth.” It is time for the pendulum of knowledge and success in the psychological sciences to swing in favor of the conglomerated and distorted fear model to explain mental illness and various stress levels that all humans are subjected to when they become involved in any and all achievements.

Once I can convince enough members of the psychological profession who have not isolated themselves from further comprehension, that understanding fear at a much deeper level, equals understanding human behavior on a much deeper level also, --- some exciting progress will lie in store for the human race as a whole.

In everyday life, if we are lucky, we are not threatened with death at any second. We are however, involved with millions of small achievements, some of which are then grouped together under the heading of one achievement. Each one of them, according to their actual importance, or to the importance that you assign to them, have the capacity to activate the emotion of fear.

The level of that effect constitutes a wide spectrum of reactions, both as a determinant of observable behavior and of internal nervous reactions that can be hidden from others but manifests its potential for good or bad effects upon the individual’s body itself.

Whether these effects are observable or not, if you are actually failing at the above mentioned achievements, or if you believe that you are, you will be experiencing stress which is simply a polite word for fear.

The people who live confidently are those who react correctly to fear by increasing their knowledge about the achievements that they are involved in. They know that they will make mistakes, but they do not allow those mistakes to rob them of their God (Creator) given right to live confidently.

Since we were placed on the face of this earth with less knowledge than is required for us to succeed, it is only through the emotion of fear that our Creator could keep us alive long enough to hopefully give us time to learn how to be successful. And even more importantly, it is the emotion of fear that will ultimately motivate us towards higher levels of understanding.

Without the emotion of fear, it would be impossible for us to remain alive. What achievements are you either involved in or contemplating? At this particular time, what is your learned reaction to the fear of failure? Are you afraid of the feelings of fear itself?

Have you incorrectly assigned yourself a position of inferiority because you are not able to function as good as some one else? If your answer to these questions is a resounding yes, please know that no matter what level of failure that you are now experiencing, --- it is at all times negotiable.

To those of us who are considered to be normal, --- but who are not satisfied with the level of achievements that we are now embracing; I offer you the chance to embrace life more abundantly than you ever thought that you possibly could. To those who have been told that they are mentally ill, --- I offer you a virtual return to mature, responsible living.

Does this mean that you will never make mistakes? Absolutely not! In fact, because you will begin to embrace more achievements, you may make even more mistakes than you did before, so take it slow and easy. Never forget Winston Churchill’s words: “We will make a brand new set of mistakes.”

Change your personality slowly so that your mistakes will not be so large or serious that you will be derailed. Learn from these small mistakes and in the process, become the complete person that you have always wanted to be.

That is exactly the path that our Creator has us follow on our journey through life. We start out with small childhood achievements and slowly move towards more complicated and important adult achievements. If it is good enough for our Creator, it should be good enough for you and I also.

SOCIAL THERAPY

The best way to get on in the world is to make people believe

that it is in their best interests to help you.

(La Bruyere)

One of our basic psychological needs is approval and when a person’s fear of failure in interpersonal relationships helps to cause the very behavior that leads to rejection, we have the potential for a spiraling problem. In our daily lives, all of us face these interpersonal situations and life must be a continuous learning process. When the above mentioned fear is part of a larger conglomeration process, we have the potential for someone to be labeled as being mentally ill.

It is my firm belief that before such a label is applied to a specific individual, two fundamental distorted fears must be present in their personality. First, is the fear of the feelings of fear itself and second, is the distorted fear of one’s own thought processes.

The problems listed above require intensive one on one therapy until such time as the individual’s reduced fears and increased knowledge indicate that to include such a person in social therapy would be appropriate.

The social therapy setting is one where problems are not allowed to spiral downward for people who are considered normal, and conversely, a step up on the hierarchical approach to returning those who were considered to be mentally ill, back to adult maturity and responsibility.

It brings a number of afflicted people together to discuss their problems and to negotiate different approaches to solve the problems, guided and overseen by a competent therapist. This approach helps the person to reduce considerably his or her previous fears of failure and rejection.

Part of their problem in the first place is the mistaken belief that “normal” people solve such problems easily and since they can not, this simple fact must prove that they themselves must be negatively different and inferior to others. Such an individual is given positive reinforcement, which will translate, into a higher level of motivation to increase his or her knowledge.

This new negotiating and correcting approach to other problem areas in their lives will help them to successfully go about the business of changing their personality so that the desired higher level of success will occur and their approval rating with those around them will be higher.

What we have here is the maturing process, which is achieved at different speeds and in different ways by all of us. Some of the more serious failures in this maturing process, find themselves deflected towards psychiatry which, in far too many cases, succeeds in deflecting them even further away then before.

It is psychiatry’s poor performance record that is responsible for the negative image that is too often imposed upon anyone who is courageous enough to seek help from them. It is the acceptance of the ideas that I am putting forward in this book that will end this dilemma once and for all.

Altered, expanded and corrected Psychiatry, or as I would prefer to call the new practitioners --- Behavioral Consultants, will ultimately succeed on a much greater scale then is currently being experienced.

Just exactly what kind of relief or correction for a persons distorted fear of rejection, is offered by an omnipresent bio-psychiatrist who gives you a prescription for a neuroleptic drug and then tells you to see him again in 6 months?

Who feels that talking about your problems will only make things worse and whose unspoken message is: --- I am a brilliant, successful and mature adult. You are a dysfunctional member of the human race. It’s not your fault, life is a gamble and unfortunately you lost when it came time for your genetic material to function properly.

With the increased knowledge that I have gained during my lifetime and as a result of my understanding about fear, which in turn, was

gained from a multitude of books, written by brilliant authors; I know that fear does not only affect our individual behavior, but it affects the entire human race as a whole.

As our population continues to expand, knowledge must increase proportionately. When this does not happen, our fear reactions cause avoidance behavior or aggression.

While there are thousands of reasons that one could write about to explain why we had two horrendous World Wars in the 20th century, and countless other smaller acts of aggression also; this deeper level of understanding about fear will allow us to talk about reasons that are very close to, or perhaps even the actual core reason, why this aggression took place in our not so distant past history.

In the absence of sufficient understanding, we began to experience worldwide avoidance behavior, which caused the worldwide depressions. When we failed to increase our knowledge and when our problems would not go away, we resorted to aggression and ultimately World War, which is the fight response to fear on the most virulent and grotesque scale.

Out of these terrible conflicts came greater knowledge that we are now using to try to solve more of life’s problems. Our airline industry would never have been developed as quickly or dramatically, if it were not for the war efforts. Computers, medical advances, you name it, they all were advanced more quickly because of the war.

Psychiatry was forced to admit that unrelenting fear for ones safety has a profound effect on human behavior and the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or Syndrome) is now a part of our vocabulary. As a result of the above advances, more people than ever before in the history of the world live productive and peaceful lives. Since there are approximately 7 billion people on the face of the earth, one could also say that proportionately speaking, we are experiencing more aggression then ever before also.

The drive to procreate is so strong that as we learn to provide the necessities of life and the social conditions conducive to happiness and a better sense of worth for the people at large, we also reproduce at a rate that forces us to advance our knowledge even further.

Obviously the strength of the drive to procreate also applies in the poorer and less educated areas of the world. Sadly, death from starvation, aggression, disease and a multitude of other pestilences, both physical and psychological, combine together to somewhat check over population in these areas.

But the collective desire to do something that has value and makes a person’s life worthwhile, motivates some people from more successful areas of the world to travel to these dispossessed areas to make a positive difference. Of course the side effect of this help is to allow more people to survive until at least child bearing age and the pressures of population growth are again accelerated.

One could easily become discouraged and say that it is an endless cycle of negative actions that will never be corrected. Perhaps that might be true during any one particular person’s lifetime, but eventually, such dispossessed areas will ultimately begin to experience successful methods of looking after their ever increasing population.

The above outline of the human condition, should not leave us with a negative outlook for mankind’s future. As Stephen Hawkins says, the future of the human race is to reach out into space to learn how to live elsewhere. We can begin the work to achieve this goal voluntarily, or our continued population explosion will force us to achieve this goal simply to accommodate the expanding population.

Of course no one knows exactly what the timetable is for all of these new and necessary discoveries. While we know that the earth is approximately 6 billion years old, we do no know for sure whether or not the human race will survive during the next 24 hours.

One thing we do know is this, if some catastrophe occurred that made life impossible here on earth, we can not expect any of the other living entities on earth at this time, to overcome such a dilemma. At least not any of those life forms that are sentient beings, similar, but essentially limited to that which we find ourselves capable of.

The above simple fact should definitively dictate to us that achieving the ability to live elsewhere in this Universe, rather than just here on earth, is our responsibility to the human race as a whole, and to all other forms of life on this planet also.

I cannot tell you in definitive terms why we are here on this earth. I cannot tell you the fundamental meaning of life. But I can tell you this. If we do not succeed in remaining alive, if the human race becomes extinct, we never will answer that question. As of this moment, we still have the potential, even though it may take another one million years, to give a more definitive answer to the above tantalizing questions.

Since the ultimate reaction to fear is increased understanding, then it conversely follows that in the absence of such increased understanding, increased fear and ultimately, increased aggression will follow.

When you are forced to act, even if it is aggressively, understanding and knowledge have the potential to occur. Our responsibility is to always continue to expand our knowledge on a consistent basis so that the other two options to fear are not practiced so completely that depression or war becomes inevitable.

One of the wars that we must constantly wage, is to boldly go into the jungle of the unknown and search for cures to the seemingly endless diseases and breakdowns that occur inside our bodies. Frederick Banting discovered Insulin in 1923 when the population of the world was approximately 2 billion.

There are underlying laws of probability in life that only our Creator understands completely. I believe that one of those laws stated that the explosion of fear regarding the fatal disease called diabetes, which was proportional to the population of the earth at the time of its continued mystery; would at the same time result in an explosion of knowledge about this problem.

Banting got his brilliant idea that solved the problem of diabetes while he was reading a medical magazine. I believe that there are intersecting lines of increased fear and increased knowledge that dictate that new knowledge will be found by the human race concerning any one particular achievement.

Where are those two intersecting lines for cancer? I hope that it is somewhere before we reach 8 billion. Some of them have already been found. Perhaps many more are waiting to be found. Perhaps one unifying theory for the cause of Cancer will provide the same dramatic breakthrough that Insulin did for diabetes.

Where are the two intersecting lines for more understanding about how the human mind functions? Since I am writing these words as part of this book, and since I am convinced of the veracity of the ideas expressed herein; I believe that the hoped for breakthrough in this area will occur before we reach 8 billion people.

I would like to have said 7 billion, but from the extensive reading that I have done over my lifetime, I have become painstakingly aware of the simple truth that the human race changes at an exceedingly slow pace. In this regard, I am not excluded. In one form or another, I have procrastinated, dodged, derailed and delayed the writing of this book for more years than I am willing to admit.

What makes me think that there is a maximum level of population for each specific new level of understanding? Because in the case of increased knowledge about the functioning of the human mind, if we do not achieve this increase, then we will fall back into aggression and kill each other off at a rate that will keep us below either the 8 billion mark that I have guessed, or the actual mark that only our Creator knows for sure.

Eventually, the inevitable march of time will push us through the 8 billion mark, which I predict will occur when the new understanding contained in this book is accepted. Of course I am only estimating about the 8 billion mark, it could be more or less. Let’s hope it is less.

Social therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Psychotherapy, Psychiatry and many other positive therapies are all converging on the misguided theories of bio-psychiatry. The level of success that they have already achieved is not recognized as completely as it should be.

Unfortunately, that is because such people who were told that they are mentally ill and are now living normal productive lives, do not advertise their successful journey back to good mental health. They know that others are skeptical of this journey. These skeptics believe that such an individual will “backslide” at any moment and they don’t want them around. And so such people keep quiet about their past.

How many more people, whose problems are all negotiable, are going to be given neuroleptic drugs and set aside as being physically damaged and consigned to an unnecessary role in life as having reached the essence of the level of tension that they can embrace and left on drugs for the remainder of their lives?

How many others will be told that because of a chemical imbalance inside their brain, that they are defective and dependent, instead of being perfectly normal and productive?

How many more people are going to commit suicide who, with the proper help and empathy, might still be alive today? How much longer are people who are actually capable of shouldering life’s responsibilities, going to give up in despair because we have failed to understand more completely the actual manner in which the human mind functions?

How much longer must we stumble along in the darkness, before these new ideas assume the place of importance that they deserve? To write this book and by so doing, help to shorten that time and illuminate that darkness is definitely the most valuable action that I have ever embraced in my entire life.

For the accumulated good of the entire human race, I emphatically implore you to join with me in this meritorious battle against the partial understanding by some, and the total misunderstanding by others, that now prevails.

In our unending quest for knowledge, it is my firm belief that the human race has been programmed by our Creator with the potential to be successful in our journey towards the ultimate goal that our Creator has programmed us to constantly search for. It is that search and that striving that constitutes the very essence of life itself. It is a journey without end and without parallel in value.

For the human race itself, it is my resolute and unshakeable belief that we have the potential to be the masters of our fate as far into the future as our incredible imaginary powers allow us to see. I BELIEVE WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST RESERVATION, --- THAT IT IS OUR DESTINY!

Stephen Adams

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Resilience Factor --- Karen Revitch Ph. D & Andrew Shatte Ph. D. (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) ---

Glory Enough For All --- CBC TV Movie about Frederick Banting

(The man who discovered Insulin)

Interplay --- Jerome L. Jacobs M.D. --- (Psychiatric casualties from the first World War)

Stuttering Solved (1976) --- Martin F. Swartz Ph. D

Psychotherapy: The Hazardous Cure --- Dorothy Tennov

As I Am --- Patricia Neal --- (Gary Cooper)

Sexual Mysteries--- Dr. Joseph Glenmullen

Fear (Learning To Cope) --- Dr. A. G. Forgione

(Sigmund Freud’s little Hans)

Argosy To Adventure --- C. Bennett & L. Pierce

Freud Fainted --- Samuel Rosenberg --- (Freud & Jung)

How To Become A Schizophrenic --- John Modrow

Schizophrenia & Manic Depression Disorder --- E. Torrey Fuller

Beyond Prozac --- Dr. Michael J. Norden M. D.

From Ann Landers column in The Toronto Star Newspaper

Toxic Psychiatry --- Dr. Peter Breggin --- (The Genain Quadruplets)

Stop Stuttering --- (1986) --- Martin F. Scwartz Ph. D.

(Supersensitive Vocal Chords)

Citizens of London --- (2010) --- Lynne Olson

Making The Prozac Decision --- Carol Turkington

The Antidepressant Solution --- Dr. Joseph Glenmullen

Wounds Of War - Herbert Hendin & Ann Pollinger Haas

B. F. Skinner (a life) --- Daniel W. Bjork

Words Of Wisdom --- Shall Sinha Ph. D.

Dictionary Of Jokes --- Frederick Metcalfe

The Human Mind

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

THE HUMAN MIND.

No comments:

Post a Comment