[lit-ideas] Re: You People Are Crazy [was: Tune and Turn Off - Panic Attacks]
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 00:49:05 -0400
Misdiagnosing someone is a different issue. Schizophrenia is another one
that's constantly being reinvented. I personally think that a lot of the
reason therapy works, when it does, is because a person makes a connection
with someone for the first time, and that someone helps complete them and
helps them to see straight so to speak. But often therapy is a lot of
hooey, partly because the client doesn't want to come out of denial and
partly because an awful lot of therapist are bad. All these movies and
stories (and in real life too) where people have affairs with their
therapist underscores how ineffective therapy can be; good therapy means
the therapist becomes a surrogate parent. Dating a therapist is
effectively dating a parent. Yet it happens an awful lot. It's why
insurance companies won't pay for more than a few visits, and I can't blame
them. It's very sad, because therapy, when it's good, can be priceless.
> [Original Message]
> From: Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 5/6/2006 7:40:54 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] You People Are Crazy [was: Tune and Turn Off - Panic
Attacks]
>
> Donal wonders how it can be that the etiology of panic attacks seems at
once
> physiological and cognitive -- as if the wave properties and particle
> properties of energy weren't staring him in the face every instant of his
> being. Get used to it, fella, life is a chimera. For my part as a
> chemicalist, I wonder how placebos work to cure some people.
Psychosomatic
> magic? Or maybe we should all be studying Mary Baker Eddy.
>
> Carol K wrote: "It's true that cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT or
"brief
> therapy" here) has [been] shown more effective in quelling panic attacks
> than previous exposure techniques popularized in the 1980s."
>
> I don't doubt that cognitive therapies work in some cases just as
placebos
> work in some cases, but I do have serious reservations accepting the
theory
> that "inappropriate behaviors" (as a psychological judgment) might be
rooted
> in dissonant cognitive processes. Beliefs (i.e., most thoughts) do
affect
> the hormonal output of our bodies (no, I don't have any sources to
support
> me in this, just accept it as true, for christsake). Cognitive
therapies,
> as with placebos -- which are essentially a faith-based cognitive therapy
> (provided the taker believes the placebo isn't a placebo), work by
changing
> the brain chemistry, etc., etc. (yes, I know I'm cheating here, so sue
me.
> I'm right, irregardless.). I remember a theory of Behavior Adjustment
from
> back in my teaching days that was based on the theory of "do anything".
Any
> attention given to a person will affect that person's behavior. Positive
> attention more often yields positive change than negative attention does.
> Etc., etc., etc. It's not any cognitive eureka that changes us, it's
> endorphins, especially dopamine (why do you think they call it dope?),
that
> redoes us. But then I could be wrong, it's knowing nothing about any of
> this that makes me feel brave -- dopaminely.
>
> A case in point: my younger brother had been diagnosed as having panic
> attacks for some 30 years -- eye twitch, shortness of breath, high
anxiety,
> fatigue, insomnia, etc. But then worse came to worst and he was rushed
to
> the hospital and they discovered that he had a congenital heart valve
> problem that flooded his heart with a backflow of blood, supplying him
with
> half the blood his body needed. After 30 years of psychological care for
> panic attacks, it was decided that the cause of his "panic attacks" was
> physiological. The boy was dying, his poor body knew it and went into a
> panic. Ach. Such is life. But I have no religion. If cognitive
therapy
> works, do it, if placebos work, do it, if prayers work, do it. The mind
is
> the body and the body is the mind. Etc., etc.
>
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carol Kirschenbaum" <carolkir@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 4:45 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Tune and Turn Off - Panic Attacks
>
>
> > donal:
> >>Clark turned this on its head;...
> >
> > judy:
> >> the thought that panic attacks are anticipatory fear
> > is rather old. I realise David Clark isn't saying precisely that,
still...
> >
> > ck: I thank Donal for bringing David Clark's work to my attention. He's
> > not that well known in the US, compared to Aaron Beck, David Burns,
Albert
> > Ellis, among other researching theorists in the cognitive-behavioral
area.
> > Judy's right in pointing out the ever-blurry distinction between
> > "biological" and "psychological" over the past 30 years or so.
Currently,
> > the encompassing term "psychobiosocial" is gaining popularity. Add
"cogno"
> > and that should cover the whole "bodymind" thing.
> >
> > Interesting, isn't it, that the old "mind-body" schism has pretty much
> > been fuzzed away. It's true that cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT or
> > "brief therapy" here) has shown more effective in quelling panic
attacks
> > than previous exposure techniques popularized in the 1980s. (CBT was
> > developed for popular consumption in the 1970s, btw. Earlier forms are
> > based on Ellis's retitled REBT.)
> >
> > CBT has been around for quite a while. It's the only form of "talk
> > therapy" that has tried, actively, to be quantifiable and, thus,
> > scientific. The development of CBT's primacy in the psychological
> > marketplace has much to do with the development of managed care in the
US,
> > the appeal to HMOs and insurance companies of treatment for mental
illness
> > within 12 sessions, and the elimination of mental institutions in the
US,
> > circa 1975.
> >
> > However, psychodynamic therapy is still useful in treating agoraphobia,
> > PD's stubborn first cousin. Thing is, you can extinguish panic attacks
> > through a combination of behavioral exposure and cognitive
restructuring,
> > but the range of emotions that surface with panic attacks very often
> > uncover debilitating anxieties and negative self-beliefs. Panic
disorder
> > is one cluster of symptoms. Eliminate the most disabling symptom in
that
> > cluster--the panic attack--and you don't necessarily have a
symptoom-free
> > individual. The cluster of symptoms associated with
obsessive-compulsive
> > disorder may emerge in force, for instance. (Sounds like Freud's
> > observation about anxieties being "repressed," and ready to pop up
> > somewhere else. Freud's observations were amazingly keen, and the
theories
> > he developed to explain them were pretty good models, considering what
he
> > had to work with, imho.)
> >
> > I hadn't heard of Clark's experiment with lactate. Did Donal post the
> > citation? I'd like to read it. No argument, just interested.
> > Carol
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>
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