[lit-ideas] Re: Tune and Turn Off - Panic Attacks
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 10:37:10 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 5/4/2006 10:27:20 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Tune and Turn Off - Panic Attacks
>
>
> Some brief comments:-
>
> >1. Everything is determined by economic conditions
> > ('Vulgar Marxism' etc.).
>
> >>Money doesn't enter into it. Extreme poverty is
> > a whole nother animal. Most unhappy people are not in extreme poverty.
> >> Unhappiness crosses all economic lines.
>
> If we agree the thrust of this (as I am inclined to) then we have the
problem
> to explain why at the same time as we in the West have got measurably
richer
> we have not got measurably happier - in fact, why depression has markedly
> increased in the last forty years? [Answers on a postcard to..]
>
>
It's probably not more prevalent, there's just more awareness of it, like
sexual abuse of children. It's always been there relatively rampantly, but
it's now no longer acceptable and therefore on the decline, at least in the
U.S. Depression is expressed in different ways. Terrorism might be an
expression of depression. Such an unpolitical statement, but so true. Did
you see the picture of Moussaoui with his family as a kid on CNN? He looks
downright in pain.
> Donal: >2. That what is not
> > resolved through psychoanalysis (eg. anger) is simply>pumped round the
> > psyche-system to emerge in a perhaps different form (eg.>depression)
[ever
> > heard the theory that depression is just repressed anger?] >This
> > 'pumping-round' is the 'hydraulic' theory of the mind that I alluded
> > to>before, re Freud.
>
> >> AA: This is exactly it in a nutshell. That anger
> > (sadness, whatever) is repressed, or depressed, is my
> >> mantra in posts.
>
> But my point is that Clark's cognitive therapy undermines any wholesale
> 'hydraulic theory'; and it is not alone in this. We might plausibly take
> certain psychic states as *symptoms* of some underlying pathology and we
> might conclude that to treat these symptoms we need to treat the
underlying
> cause. But what if this is false because a) there is no underlying cause
(ie.
> the symptom is the cause); b) we can successfully treat the symptoms
without
> addressing the underlying cause?
>
We disagree. Cognitive works when it works. Underlying pathology is
repressed emotions and twisted thinking patterns. Also disconnection,
isolation. Too much mother and not enough father. Saying the symptom is
the cause is like saying sniffles are the cause of a cold. Treat a
psychological symptom and it will most likely manifest in another way,
unless it is a very specific thing.
> Both a) and b) are possibilities borne out by modern research on human
> psychology.
>
>
> >Donal: >(Btw I am sympathetic to the view, as AA
> > says, that Freud must be creditedwith opening these problems up; on the
> > other hand he can be criticised forsetting up a _dogmatic_ theory {in
> > Popperian terms} that hindered theirsolution - particularly because
Freud
> > claimed a scientific status fortheories which he could not offer a test
for
> > that would involve a falsifyingobservation). [The theory of 'emotional
and
> > cognitive self-repression' thatperhaps underpins the 'hydraulic theory
of
> > the mind' also contains elementsof important truth].
>
> >>AA: The unconscious
> >> can't be tested per se. How can that be done?
>
> It depends: surely REM-sleep is a test of the unconscious?
>
Theories on sleep change. I personally believe that dreams are expressions
of the unconscious, but they're usually in code. They are still only
reflections.
> It depends, Popper says. Consider by way of analogy: I push my finger
against
> my eye and my image in that eye 'splits'. Do I think the world actually
> splits according to my visual-image? No. Have I therefore shown there is
an
> external world outside of my visual-experience? Not conclusively.
However, my
> experience is suggestive of a distinction between a world that exists
outside
> my experience of it (and which does not split) and my experience of the
world
> (which in the case of my visual experience might appear to split in the
above
> example).
>
I think this a bit more philosophical than psychological. But it might be
useful in applying it to the way children think. Tell a young child you're
going to put his ear in your pocket, he'll believe it and cry. Of course
the child soon outgrows that knowledge, but the fear he experienced
may/will have begun to etch into the store of information that begins to be
the unconscious. Most of what causes trouble is far more traumatizing.
That's only an example of what can seem fine to an adult can be very
disturbing to a child.
>
> > Donal: 3. Addressing the _cause_ for a
> > negative thing must hold the
> > key to its solution as a problem (Do raincoats, as a response to
> 'negative'
> > rain,actually address the cause of rain?; does psycho-therapy about the
> > causes of childhood abuse provide a solution to whatever negative impact
> > this mighthave on adult life?)
>
> >>AA Once problems are etched in by
> > parents, they're hard to erase, but they can be significantly eased.
Also,
> > hopefully insight and a better way to express emotions than beating or
> >> spousifying children will make the next generation healthier.
>
> This may or may not be so: but to speak scientifically in this area we
need
> to have developed tests of rival theories that have differential outcomes.
>
They call all of medicine an art, which they practice. Even
physiologically the body is so unimaginably complex that only some of the
biochemistry is understood. However, one of the universe's primary
principles seems to be the elegance of simplicity. Most complex processes
boil down to a few startlingly simple principles. I think emotional
problems are quite simple at their essence, even if difficult to repair.
> On a related point: Adolf Grunbaum has argued, I believe, that Freud's
> theories can be formulated in a testable form. Does this destroy Popper's
> critique? Not really - for anyone who properly understands Popper's views
> will understand that while he may use Freudianism as an example of a
> pseudo-science (one that seems to have many comfirming instances but
posits
> no falsifying ones)
Mike called psychology a religion. It's not a religion exactly, but it's
not "science" either. It can't be weighed, measured. It's a way of
applying rational, relatively agreed upon principles to something that
can't be overtly seen or even measured (psychological tests are mostly, if
not completely, baloney).
> TTFN
> Donal
>
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