PROCRASTINATION

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.

HUMORE [SPELLING IT WRONG DOESN''T COUNT AS HUMOR!!]

Hello to one and all:

The following is obviously not another story or anecdote so why is it part of a book that I have called, --- The Human Mind??   Because laughter is extremely important.  It represents an unspoken indication that you are enjoying life.

Mohandas Gandhi said the following:  [I paraphrase for lack of a sufficient memory and the decision not to look up the actual quote at this particular moment.]  “If it was not for humor, I would have gone insane a long time ago.”   That is one of the quotes at the start of each article in the book.   It looks like it should have been used at the start of this article about humor.  Hey, have you heard the news, --- I'm not perfect unless you want to call me a perfect idiot.  Of course I'll reject that conclusion but enough of this nonsense, let's try some actual humor after the next --- enjoy.   

Gandhi's quote is not some kind of a flippant remark that sounds good but is lacking in any meaningful value.  On the contrary, it shows that it’s author will not become overwhelmed by the inability to understand the entirety of human behavior, but is willing to push ahead because he or she is aware that what they have to offer is better than that which is currently in vogue.

In another area of the human mind book,  I reference the behavior that many years ago some individuals who were told that they were mentally ill, used to laugh most of the time.  Now that we have mind altering drugs that can calm a person down, this type of behavior does not occur as often as it did before.

The point to remember is that these individuals were actually trying to self-medicate themselves into a calmer state.  Their state of tension was being caused by distorted and/or conglomerated fears that they or their “teachers” [read psychiatrists] were, in most cases, unable to help them with.  And so my friends read on and laugh out loud if you so desire.  The whole idea of placing this article in the Human Mind book was to underline in bold print the importance of humor in our everyday lives. 

Enjoy!!! 

     

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.  [Since I made this one up myself, there is a very good chance that you have never heard it before.  Unless of course the circle has become complete.]

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.

25.      Why can’t I align #’s 4, 24 and 25 up properly?

Because I am clueless when it comes to this computer technology.  [Sometimes the truth comes out funny but in this case, maybe it didn’t.]

ADRENALINE

Hello:  

The reason for me to enter these posts that are part of my book called, --- The Human Mind, is obviously to market that book.   But in a much larger sense it is an attempt on my part to get the ideas contained in that book accepted.  In my not so humble opinion, that is a much more valuable goal than marketing the book for the book's sake alone.

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

This article shows that the feelings of guilt [a derivative of fear] are capable of having physical properties.  Why it shows up as a case of hives, rather than some other physical embarrassment, is a mystery to me; except of course that Helen is also embarrassed because she failed to follow up on her plans to hold a family picnic that would have included her Mother.

I know that I will sound conceited here but it is beyond me why the simple facts that I am trying to put forward are not accepted for the unvarnished truth that they represent.   I can only conclude that it is a combination of my inability to market my ideas correctly and the unwillingness of the psychological profession at large to believe that an unskilled [I am not a psychotherapist] individual such as myself could see the truth where others before me have not.   Let us hope that my attempts to market my ideas meet with more success this time.   Not necessarily for my own personal benefit but for the benefit that these ideas can have for the entire human race itself.      

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.  

NEUROLEPTIC OR MIND ALTERING DRUGS.

This article is also from the book called, --- The Human Mind.   The word Neuroleptic doesn't seem to be used very much and so a better title might be --- MIND ALTERING DRUGS.   I consider the ideas expressed in this article to be the "kicker" that validates my belief that in many cases, the cause of stress related problems and even that which is currently called mental illness; is nevertheless caused by distorted and conglomerated fears.  It is also my contention that the overriding cause of mental illness is a fear of the feelings of fear itself.        

   

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 [read mind altering] 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.  

The main point to remember of course is that these drugs must only be used on a temporary basis until such time as the correct use of cognitive behavioral therapy becomes available to the long - suffering patient. 

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.”  Hats off to you Milton Rokeach!!!  Hat's off to you!!!

SUPERMAN

Hello one and all:

This next article has been copied and pasted into this blog from the Human Mind book that became the first blog that I entered into this site.   I repeat it here to give further credence to the ideas that I have expressed in my previous blog called, --- "Refusing to take my own advice."   In the Superman story, Dr. C. Cunningham concentrated on the distorted fears that the children were experiencing and solved the problem.   In the dys-executive syndrome put forward in the previous blog, it is my firm belief that a similar concentration on relevant fears will solve the problem also.   
 

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.

REFUSING TO TAKE MY OWN ADVICE.

Hello One and All:

While the advice that I gave in my previous blog is entirely true, the following story is also true.   Recently I read a book called, --- “the Organized Mind”, it was written by Dr. J. Levitin who is associated with the McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

On page 160 he tells the story of a mother named Ruth who has a mental breakdown and is diagnosed as suffering from dys-executive syndrome.  It is categorized as some complicated disease of the brain.’  Two other men whom the author calls Ernie and Peter also have the same problem.

The author does not say how this problem occurred.  If it is from some terrible brain damage that would be an entirely different story but if it is some kind of damage that they have been able to detect inside the brain, but not from an outside source, then one of two scenarios seem to be valid.  

For some unknown reason a genetic flaw has taken this opportunity to make itself known or psychological reasons have caused the damage inside their brains.   For a clearer understanding of this phenomena I could offer you a link but unfortunately I don't even know how to actually do it and if I did I don't have the time today  to set it up.

Suffice it to say that in the story about Helen Irving in my book called the Human Mind, we come face to face with the proof that the emotion of guilt can cause physical damage to the body.   In Helen Irving's case, this damage caused her to break out into hives.

At another point in my Human Mind book a psychotherapist states that he and his colleagues successfully showed that psychological interventions can bring about the correction of chemical imbalances inside the human mind. 

Hopefully I will be able to use links in the near future and provide them to you in this kind of a setting.  On the other hand, it is said that too many links spoil the broth --- so to speak.   There is one last point to consider here.  

The word guilt actually expresses ones fear that the person so afflicted is either not living up to his or her own standards of behavior or to the standards that his or her social customs bring to bear upon them.  The whole point being that we are actually talking about fear.  The word guilt then simply illuminates the type of fear that one is experiencing.     

                

‘Indeed, it is entirely possible that the damage to the brain has been caused by the fears that this mother is experiencing in her life and not by a genetic malfunction or by some outside physical damage to her brain.  

This whole story reminds me of the Superman story in my book called the Human Mind.   In that story while Dr. Cunningham of the McMaster Chedoke Hospital stated that ever one of the children that he saw with this problem eventually spoke fluently on a normal basis.  Other psychiatrists and psychotherapists said they were stumped.  Doctor Cunningham determined that the children were suffering from a distored fear of strangers and corrected this problem in due course.   

This mother, named Ruth, is actually suffering from the profusion of multi- tasking which has become more and more a part of our every-day lives.  She is simply taking on more than is necessary and her failure to be as successful as she wants to be is affecting her behavior.

My wife exhibits some of this behavior herself but it is not conglomerated to the point of deflecting her behavior as drastically as the mother in this particular story.  What I am talking about is my inability to be as successful as she is in performing tasks around the house and in particular, in the kitchen. Since I am 77 years old, she has decided that I am to set in my ways and it would be next to impossible to teach me new ideas that I am currently ignorant of.  Consequently she does things herself.   

She correctly explains that she does this because it would take longer to teach me how to do these household tasks successfully and even if I do it right the next time, under my own kind of stress, I will probably revert back to my mistaken ways of the past.  She has also decided that she will save time if she just does it herself.

I suspect that the lady in our dys-executive syndrome story uses similar ideas to do everything herself.   Instead of having her oldest daughter or son, help her making supper and other achievements around the home, for reasons similar to what I described above concerning my wife, she decides to just do it all herself.

Many things would favor such a decision on her part.  Yes it is true that for the first time or even the second or third time, showing one of her children how to help her would take longer but eventually the mother would be managing her own time better. In the longer picture she would be providing that child with the skills that he or she would need when they themselves become adults.  Which in turn fits into the Mother’s desire to be the best mother that she possibly can be.

It would be nice if the story in the book told more of the  mother’s history but from what is offered, the above ideas appear to be appropriate and possibly the following also.  Is the brother a constant “visitor” for supper or just a casual one.  Sometimes husband’s fail to realize how difficult it is to run a home and care for one's children.  In this case we are told that there are 6 of them.

More deeper knowledge of the personal situation would be necessary but the following ideas might turn out to be part of the problem.   With 6 children already, there is a chance that this husband wants to experience the extra excitement of sexual intercourse without using a condom.

He could be one of those men who believes that it is up to the woman to avoid becoming pregnant by either using the rhythm method or whatever.  As long as it does not interfere with his desire to experience as much pleasure as possible during sexual intercourse.

This type of attitude by the father in this kind of situation can add untold stress to his wife’s life.   It is up to her to share her concerns with him.  She may not be confiding her concerns to him under the assumption that as a “good wife” it is her duty to give her husband as much pleasure as he feels that he needs.

Perhaps he believes that he is experiencing the pleasure he craves but let me make this perfectly clear.  Unless ones partner is experiencing a similar amount of pleasure, he is not realizing the level of contentment that he is seeking.

It is this kind of failure to communicate such ideas with each other that finds them at odds in other areas of the marriage which leaves them both thinking that they are not achieving the level of happiness that they expected in their marriage. 

Especially the level that they probably achieved when their lives were much simpler.  That is, before they had six children and a brother who may or may not be looked upon by the wife as just another individual to be cared for and looked after, instead of assuming the adult role of looking after himself.

Correcting this problem of dys-executive syndrome must include the psychological training that sees an individual speaking up for themselves in a way that also shows empathy for all those who make up the family unit.

If this means that the brother in question must learn to live on his own, then so be it.   If I told the husband that he had two choices, either he starts thinking about and acting on the ideas that I have expressed above or watch as his wife suffers a mental breakdown; I think it would be much easier for him to make the right decision.

But when a respected Psychotherapist tells you that your wife has a disease of the brain that requires some kind of mind altering drug to correct; where is the incentive to find the right ‘”cure” for the problem?? 

When such an ill-advised decision is made by the psychotherapist who incorrectly determines that this kind of problem is caused by genetic damage that requires mind altering drugs to correct; the outcome invariably finds the so-called patient being told to cut back on her responsibilities.

While this decision is correct, the method of achieving this cut-back are absolutely wrong and the additional psychological knowledge that is required to fix the problem is never really discussed. Making the correct decision is further exasperated by the fact that since the psychotherapist tells the woman that she must slow down, this indeed makes her start to feel better.  In far too many cases this better feeling is attributed to the drug rather than to the slowing down process.

But if the mother whose name is Ruth, included her children in appropriate responsibilities and entered into a more truthful expression of her feelings with her husband, in all probability she could uphold her part of the marriage bargain without having to deal with the stigma that she needs a special drug to help her cope with reality.  Especially when the drug helps to prevent her from ever confronting the real problems that caused the "so-called" problem in the first place.       

And further, while I said that I should stick to simpler problems, this one, although it looks complicated, especially when the psychiatric community becomes involved, is much simpler than they are incorrectly describing it to be.

I’ll confidently hang my hat on my interpretation of this situation --- and leave the incorrect diagnosis to the well-intentioned --- but misguided advice of the psychological profession at large.