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Women who deliver vaginally may be more responsive to their newborns in the early postpartum period than those who deliver via cesarean section, new research suggests.1
This has been speculated about for a long time, but new research shows that it is the case. I think it only makes sense. As humans, I think we are automatically more connected with others with whom we have suffered together. But, I think the other point is that this method is more natural (as God intended perhaps). I realize that there are many situations where this is not an option, but I also know that over the years, the decision of vaginal versus cesarean birth has been a matter of convenience. I don’t necessarily mean the woman either. I’ve heard stories about a doctor having to come in on a holiday to deliver a baby, and in order to get it over as soon as possible, opted for cesarean. Or worse, induced the birth and utilized forceps for the most rapid delivery possible. Doctors like their holiday times as much as anyone.
The research also found:
“We found a significant difference in activity in certain cortical and subcortical areas of the brain in this group of mothers who delivered vaginally compared with those who delivered by cesarean section. Broadly speaking, the cortical brain regions are believed to be important for regulating emotions and empathy,” principal investigator James Swain, MD, PhD, FRCPS, told Medscape Psychiatry.
This research is part of a longer term study examining the relationship between bonding at delivery method. The researchers reported that cesarean deliveries have increased from 4.5% in 1965 to 29.1% in 2006. Based on my observations, people who were born via cesarean section are more reactive to sudden changes, scared of surprises, and have more difficulty with life transitions.
I became the victim of one of his most violent crimes, and repressed the memories for 43 years until 2005. Dickinson meticulously planned a gang rape in my honor several days in advance. My life was derailed. I told no one — not even the rapist. Confronting Dickinson would mean acknowledging to myself that the rapes had actually occurred … too horrible for my conscious mind to accept, and at that time, the words drugged or raped never occurred to me. I forced myself into denial, refusing to believe it ever happened. The mind rejects whatever it deems as “unimaginable”. More on that later.1
There is a general defense mechanism that seems to explain all others to one extent or another. That defense mechanism is repression. All defense mechanisms involve a blocking of information from awareness. With the specific defense mechanism of repressed memories, the information is from one’s past. The quote above is from an individual who experienced horrific trauma, repressed it, and then recovered it later.
Freud rejected his earlier notion of widespread sexual abuse as fantasies. He simply could seem to deal with the implications. Later, therapists and shrinks in their exuberance, implanted many false memories through suggestion into their patients. As a result, many psychologists, completely rejected the notion of repressed memories. When what they should have learned is to be very careful, and to understand the issue in great detail. Part of the duty of a physician is, “first, do no harm.” This is also the duty of a shrink. By rejecting out of hand, the possibility of repressed memories, there are folks who will be harmed. I’ve seen a number of folks who thought “something might have happened,” but as far as I can tell nothing did. This is not generally how truly repressed memories emerge.
One also has to be very careful with the use of hypnosis in the recovery of repressed memories. This can easily implant false memories. That said, a very competent psychologist may help someone to recover memories in a very objective and sensitive way.
I write on the psychological aspects of atheism, because academic psychology and academic tradition has been biased and focused on the psychological aspects of belief in God. I feel there needs to be a little balance to this issue. Recently, there has been some research that seems a little more even-handed in the study of belief and disbelief. It is a very large and ongoing study.
I have noted before, the association between a poor relationship with one’s father and atheism. Paul Vitz noted this association for the most extreme atheists. The recent study presents some data on the issue in terms of what atheists and believers say about their relationship with their fathers.
There certainly is a correlation here. It looks as if approximately 56% of atheists believe that they had a good relationship with their father, whereas, 62% of believers believed they had a good relationship with their fathers. Granted, that’s only about a 6% difference. So, while the association I’ve noted between relationship problems with the father and atheism exists. It does not appear to be the whole story. I would also point out, that in treatment, that beliefs about one’s relationships with one’s parents often changes during the course of treatment. Patients often come to see their relationship with their parents in a new light–the light of today’s understanding. So, I will admit that the relationship may be less strong than what I have presented before, but certainly does exist. This factor with the mother, is not associated. The study also did not examine the strength of belief and association with the relationship with one’s parents (which is the notion of Paul Vitz).
I’ve also asserted the following before:
4). They portray themselves as enlightened, intelligent, tolerant, moral, caring, accepting, loving, peaceable, and kind. And sometimes, they really and truly are. I’ve known them and met them. However, they are not tolerant, in general, of the beliefs of “believers.” They can tolerate anything but that.
I think the data broadly supports this assertion. You can see more graphs here.
The data does seem to show that atheists (on average), view themselves as more intelligent than the rest of the population.
So, as you can see, 68% of atheists believe they are more intelligent than the average person, whereas, 52% of Christians believe they are more intelligent than the average person. This is a stronger association than the assocation between the relationship with the father and atheism. So, this confirms what I’ve stated with respect to intellectual elitism and atheism. However, I would also state that I have never seen a study of IQ scores of believers vs. atheists. So it is at least possible that their beliefs about their intelligence are accurate. But on average, in my opinion, this intellectual elitism does exist.
I will continue to examine these issues in Part VI.
((FOR THE EYES OF A SHRINK ONLY))
Other folks, please read at your own risk. Do I have your interest?
As a shrink, you really need to have several quotes at the ready–quotes possessing wisdom. Folks come to see you for wisdom, believe it or not. This is a piece of wisdom taught to me by my mentor. When folks come to see a shrink, they expect shrinks to have some wisdom. I’ll present some of the gems that I have acquired over the years. These are few and far between. I don’t learn these very often. I quote myself here a couple of times. I hope that’s not too vain. Are you a non-shrink and still reading? Hmmmmm. (Shrink raises one eyebrow, and then looks away while observing non-verbal behavior out of the corner of his eye).
ANGER
“No man is ever made braver through anger, except the one who would never have been brave without anger. It comes, then, not as a help to virtue, but as a substitute for it. And is it not true that if anger were a good, it would come naturally to those who are the most perfect? But the fact is, children, old men, and the sick are most prone to anger, and weakness of any sort is by nature captious.”1
“Be ye angry, and sin not.” (Ephisians 4:26).
“If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.” (Epictetus).
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” (Chinese Proverb).
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” 2
“Anger is part of being human. You’ll never get to a place where you’re never angry. That doesn’t happen for humans. At times, anger drives us to address things that we would not otherwise. So, it can be a positive motivation at times. You can tell it’s not positive by thinking about whether the other person is put beneath you as a human being. If so, then you are out of line.” — The Country Shrink
SUICIDE
“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” (Author unknown)
“Folks who commit suicide make it more likely that their children or relatives will do the same. There is nothing more harmful to family members than for one of the family members to commit suicide. I’ve worked with people who had a family member commit suicide as a child. There are few traumas that are worse.” –The Country Shrink
…. To Be Continued–You didn’t expect me to reveal all of the scant wisdom I have in one post, did you? ….
What, you’re not a shrink and you’re still reading? For shame. For shame. Who woulda thought it?
1 http://praxeology.net/seneca2.htm
2 http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/29885.html
Some concepts in psychology are very difficult to explain. Part of the reason is that some concepts apply to one individual, but not to another. One of the challenges of being a shrink, is being patient enough to figure it out. Another thing is, that when you see a new patient, you never know for sure how long they will stick around.
What if the first session is the only session? Do you want to work to make it maximally therapeutic? But will that cause them to only come in for one session?
I find that as a shrink I have to pay attention to what I’m thinking and feeling and what I’m saying to a patient. If I find myself trying to convince a patient to stay in treatment for the long-term, I’ve very liked picked up on, an unconscious level, that they may well not stay in treatment. So far, every time I’ve noticed myself doing this, the patient doesn’t stay in treatment for very long.
They seem to stay a little longer if I point this fact out when I notice myself doing this, and we analyze their historical patterns for sticking with things. But still, it often ends up being a short-term treatment, when I think it really needs to be a longer term treatment. Perhaps, with time, I will figure out how to address these patterns in such a way that these folks stay in treatment.
As some examples, I’ve worked with a number of folks who have only seen a ‘therapist’ (I hate that term), for one to three sessions. Often they’ve seen several therapists for this many sessions. When I encounter this, I try to analyze the reasons why this occurs with the patient. Often, my experience is that that will stay two to four times longer in treatment with me, but then they drop out.
This is difficult for a shrink (or me), because I want to see good outcomes in every case. But this field teaches me on a daily basis to know my limits, and to strive for more understanding. So, while I strive to help my patients change their life patterns, I try to improve the patterns that I have with my patients. In the end, I am human, and make mistakes on a daily basis. Unfortunately, that is part of the human condition. All I can do, and you can do, is to work to see what mistakes have been made in the past, and work to prevent them from occurring again in the future.
I’m not exactly sure why, but the majority of my patients seem to require long-term psychotherapy (1 year or more of psychotherapy). On rare occasion (probably 20% of the time), treatment can be completed in less than 12 sessions. Perhaps it is the nature of the referrals I receive. The problems tend to be more complex and at a personality level. But perhaps it is that the prevalent paradigms for psychotherapy are not interested in the best possible outcome. I don’t really know yet what the answer is.
But I do know, that recent research1, shows that long-term psychodynamic treatment is the best approach for complex problems. And it also seems to me that a vast majority of my patients have complex problems. What I am uncertain of, is “Do I see problems as being more complex than other psychotherapists?” or “Do I see patients with more complex problems than the average psychotherapist?”
Regardless, what I do know is that I have done absolutely no advertising in a town of less than 10,000 people. One of my biggest referral sources is a bar in a town 45 miles away (that I have never been to). All of my recent new referrals have come from this bar. The comment from my new patients is, “I know you treated ‘Jane,’ she had a lot of problems. I thought to myself, ‘If she can change, I can too. I saw all of the changes that she made, and I was amazed.’” The patients talked to each other and started car-pooling to get to sessions with me. Other than one individual, their problems were very complex, requiring long-term treatment (treatment duration greater than 1 year).
So, on average, I’ve seen longer-term psychotherapy have great outcomes. Along the way, there have been a few short-term treatments with great outcomes. But on average, “Longer treatment is better treatment.”
On occasion, probably 10% of the time, treatment is a failure. The patient drops out without completing treatment, and continues to have problems. This percentage is fairly subjective, but I think it’s a fairly accurate representation. I’d like to get this down to 1 to 5%, and feel that this is possible if I can get better at my job. I think the main point I’m trying to get across to you, is that long-term treatment may be one of the best solutions to many problems that folks have.
1 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080930164454.htm
I remember one fellow I saw. He was a bartender. Over the years, he joked to all of his friends, “I’ve been a bartender since I was six.” He started out by getting his father a new beer whenever requested (which was often). He didn’t know any different. This was normal family life to him. Then his father was killed in a truck driving accident when he was 8-years-old. His mother became extremely depressed and couldn’t function (couldn’t cook, couldn’t comfort, couldn’t provide parental correction, and so forth). So, he became the perfect boy (independent, high achieving, extremely helpful, protective of those with emotional needs, and so forth).
Unfortunately, he missed out on his childhood. When he became an adult, he dropped out of college, started using drugs, hooked up with women who were bad news, and generally disappointed his mother. She didn’t give him any attention or concern after the death of his father (she couldn’t). He missed his dad horribly. He became a bartender to repeat the early pattern (serving beer and liquor to folks). He also repeated a number of other patterns from his relationship with his father.
These things represent an unconscious wish “for a better outcome.” The person wishes greatly that things had not turned out the way that they had. They keep repeating, in ineffective ways, the early traumatic experience. Unconsciously, they are trying to resolve the early problem–to make things turn out differently. On another level, their symptoms are communicating the problem from their past. When they end up finding a shrink who can understand these things, they are finally able to communicate, verbally, what bothered them so horribly. Unfortunately, with today’s training, there are not many shrinks who can understand this unconscious communication. It’s rare that I don’t see this communication. I see it every single day in my practice. The symptom communicates the problem.
Just as when you have an intense pain in your shoulder communicates that there might be a physical problem with your shoulder. This prompts you to seek medical attention. Life patterns and problems also prompt people to seek psychological help. Too often, this is not recognized in my opinion.
The first thing to consider when you have apparent physiological problems, is that you have a physical problem (a problem with your body). You want to have this checked out by a doctor. Even in cases where many doctors think that the problem is psychological, a significant percentage of case are actually a physiological problem.
Now, there are also a number of cases that have a psychological component. That doesn’t mean that the pain or the symptom is not “real.” Because it certainly is—all symptoms are experienced in the mind. If your finger is cut, it feels like it is in your finger where the pain is, but it is actually ‘felt’ in your mind. Pain signals are sent from the site of the injury to the brain.
It’s been estimated that up to 90% of doctor’s visits are for difficulties that have a psychological component.1 Perhaps that’s a bit misleading, because of the strong link between the mind and the body.
When I first started graduate school, I noticed that every break I had, I got sick! There are different theories as to why this happens. But I found the most important component was my thinking. Now that’s odd isn’t it? Now, during the time of year when people have more of the flu, colds, etc.. (winter), we all notice when others are sniffling, coughing, and blowing their noses. We think, “I hope I don’t get that.” But, we end up getting it anyway, a lot of the time. Oddly, as long as I thought, “I don’t have time to get sick,” and as long as it was actually true, I did not get sick. At times, an illness can perform a function. Such as a severe cold may force you to rest more than you would otherwise. You may have a personality type where you don’t rest enough, but if you are forced to rest, you will.
Now, another notion is that aspects of immune system activity may increase under stress, but then crashes after the stress is gone (I’ve simplified this greatly). This increases our susceptibility to infections of various types. One study found that Olympic athletes are more likely to become ill in the period after the competition is over. Studies have shown that the immune response tends to crash for these individuals after the competition is over. So there is a mind component, but there is also a body component to this. They are intimately linked.
There is a branch of psychology called, Psychoneuroimmunology.2 This is a branch that investigates the relationship between psychological variables, neurological variables, and immunological variables. It’s a fascinating field of study, and there is much to learn about the relationship between the mind and the body. We are only beginning to scratch the surface with our understanding.
1 http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/f/psychosomatic.htm
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology
The mind and the body are intimately interconnected. If we’re honest, we don’t understand how this works. Suffice it to say, we only understand some of the results.
One woman I saw was having marital problems. She developed severe hives. She and her husband had an intense argument and she felt the relationship was on the verge of ending. She could not put her feelings about this into words, so I asked her to put it into an image. She rubbed her hand against the bare wall behind her. She said, “This is it. It’s nothing! That’s what I saw for my life. Or stepping off of the edge of the Grand Canyon at night. You can’t see anything. You don’t know how far your falling. It’s just terror.” She showed me her hives when she first came in. I asked her to show me again at the end of the session (they were greatly reduced and she found this remarkable!). This is but a simple example of how emotions can be expressed in the body.
The interesting thing is, with hypnosis, a certain area of the body can be focused on. And while general immune system features may not change (such as circulation of killer T-cells), the immune response changes for the very specific area that is focused on. For example, let’s say a person has a wart on their finger. If in hypnosis, you have them visualize that wart shrinking and healing, there will be a very specific immune system response in that area only! So, how in the world can this happen? Warts are caused by a virus. But the immune system can be unconsciously directed to the very specific area in question by the mind!
I will continue this series in the future.
It’s now 80 years since scientists first claimed schizophrenia was genetic. Yet, no such gene has been identified. Some private genetic research firms are now abandoning their search for a schizophrenia blood test, and a senior psychologist says the quest for the schizophrenia gene has been biggest failure in medical history. Is it? (1)
I’ve always found claims the claims of psychological difficulties having a genetic basis to be dubious. And yet, this is emphasized in the educational system for psychologists, psychiatrists, and other counselors. I ran across an excellent writeup that examines some of the historical perspective and recent research that found no significant genetic association for schizophrenia. While schizophrenia has been looked at for years as a nearly purely biological problem, the tide seems to be shifting. There is some increasing recognition, at least in some cases, that schizophrenia is amenable to treatment with psychotherapy. The role of psychological trauma in the development of schizophrenia is beginning to receive increased recognition.
I’ve written before on how to receive feedback (Part I and Part II). In this series, I will talk about giving feedback to others.
Many of my professors in graduate school were well-known for their inability to give positive feedback. For several of the professors, if you weren’t receiving negative criticism, then you were probably doing fine. My classmates and I thought this was ironic. In our day-to-day relationships, it is very important to compliment people at times. When you are in a relationship and your significant other does something that you like, it is very important to tell them that. Most people find positive feedback motivating. When we are complimented for doing something, it makes us want to do what we were doing at the time even more.
For many people, positive feedback is much more motivating than negative feedback. When giving positive feedback, we want to think about the message that we are sending.
Parent: “You’re such a smart kid. No wonder you get good grades.”
Now, the above example is good for boosting general self-esteem, and you may want to do that sometimes. But, other times, it may not be the message that you want to send. It credits the child’s abilities and not their effort. You don’t want a child to only tie notions of success to innate ability. That builds a fragile self-esteem. You want them to tie effort more to success than to ability. I don’t want to go into that too much, because the topic of self-esteem is worthy of a separate post.
Parent: “You’ve been doing very well at school. You must be working very hard at things. You’re a hard worker aren’t you?”
The second compliment is motivating in a more specific way, and it also teaches something that can be useful in life. It ties the notion of effort to performance.
Spouse: “Thank you for all the hard work you do. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you.”
People will sometimes give you clues to when you would do well to provide some positive feedback.
Spouse: “I’ve been doing laundry and cleaning the house all day. I didn’t really feel like doing it. Sometimes I hate doing it.”
Response: “I really appreciate that you do all of those things. I know you do them sometimes even when you don’t feel like it.”
So, sometimes a clue may sound a bit like complaining to some people. So, the next time your significant other starts to talk like this, try giving them a compliment for what they are doing. It may not always be that it is this type of clue, it could be a different type, but you’ll find out by how they respond to your compliment. I’ll continue the above example in two different directions to elucidate the matter further.
Spouse: “I really don’t want appreciation right now. I would like some help!”
Oops. But at least you found out what was behind what appeared to be complaining.
Spouse: “It’s okay. I know you appreciate me. I appreciate everything you do too.”
That was on track, and the response confirmed that you successfully understood the clue.
In the second part of this series, I will address how to give negative feedback.
I work with a lot of folks who have a great deal more ability than they ever utilize. I often find myself scratching my head….”This person is extremely capable, but they’ve gone for years only making minimum wage.” They never ask for a raise. They put up with mistreatment in their dead-end job. They are not assertive in their personal relationships (they make no demands on their friends or spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends).
Sometimes, they had a learning disability, and came to believe that they were incompetent. Sometimes they had a speech problem (problems learning how to talk). Sometimes they had problems in developing motor skills (problems learning how to walk, had medical conditions requiring braces on their legs, had an early high fever resulting in poor motor skills, experienced a lack of oxygen at birth resulting in poor motor skills, and so forth). Sometimes, they were viewed by a parent as being completely incompetent, and told that they would be a failure. The reasons are numerous and very personal to the individual.
But the upshot, is that a person’s self-perception becomes their reality. Be willing to fail. You’ll gain more wisdom from failure than you ever will from success. God didn’t give you the skills and abilities that you have for no reason.
Believe it or not, we all have self-defeating expectations at times. What do I mean by this?
“I wish I could meet someone to date…”
“What have you done to try to meet somebody?”
“Well nothing. Nobody would want to date me anyway.”
“Hmmm…”
A self-defeating expectation is different from outright self-sabotage. With self-sabotage, a person approaches a goal only to shoot themselves in the foot by something they do. For example, a person might drop out of college with only a class or two left to complete before achieving a degree. Secretly, they may fear that they will fail in their chosen career path, so it’s short-circuited before it even has a chance to start.
Most often with both patterns, there is an element of anxiety that is often subtly concealed. There can sometimes be a deep-seated belief, “Whatever I do, I am doomed to fail.” This often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A person brings about that which they fear.
Now, believe it or not, sometimes a self-defeating pattern brings about things that are more positive in a person’s life. I remember one lady whose grandmother wanted her to become a nurse. She had a very close relationship with her grandmother. One day, her grandmother was complaining about a pain in her leg. Her grandmother remarked, “Oh, I probably just pulled a muscle.” And she responded, “Yeah, probably so.” Two days later, the grandmother was dead because a blood clot in her leg dislodged and ended up in her heart. This woman felt tremendously guilty—that she had caused her grandmother’s death by not suggesting that she see a doctor. She felt she had to fulfill her grandmother’s dreams for her in becoming a nurse. But she struggled in college. She became more depressed. She kept flunking certain classes. It was not because she lacked intelligence—I tested her IQ level and she should have been able to get all A’s or at least A’s and B’s in every class she took. What we discovered was that she didn’t really want to be a nurse. Once she was able to resolve her feelings of guilt about her grandmother’s death, she was able to see that her grandmother would have wanted her to choose a profession that she wanted to choose. She switched majors and started getting the A’s and B’s that I knew she was capable of.
Sometimes the patterns of self-defeat run a little deeper and keep repeating over and over. Most often, this has to do with a pattern of experiences in childhood that leads the person to have deep doubts about the competence or effectiveness. These patterns take longer to resolve, because the self-defeating beliefs are very strong and resist change. Sometimes, these patterns take several years to resolve. There may be numerous subtle anxieties that keep a person in a repeating pattern of self-defeat. But, if you are truly motivated to overcome these patterns and have a shrink that you connect with, you can overcome these patterns with a lot of hard work. Unfortunately, there is no medication that will help you do this, and there is no quick fix. It is difficult to resolve these patterns outside of a psychotherapeutic relationship, because everyone has their blinders.
Race horses are fitted with blinders. The blinders restrict their field of vision to basically straight ahead of them. This is so they do not become frightened by other things that are going on around them. People have “mental blinders,” defenses that keep them from recognizing those things that frighten them. Psychotherapy can help people remove these blinders and confront their fears and anxieties.
“The situation in the academy is such that to refer to God in any serious way would bring the legitimacy of one’s scholarship into question…..there seems to be a widespread assumption, throughout much of our intellectual community, that belief in God is based on all kinds of irrational, immature needs and wishes, whereas atheism or skepticism flows from a rational, grown-up, non-nonsense view of things as they really are.” (1)
Paul Vitz in his work on the psychology of atheism, wrote about those atheists who were intense in their passion for atheism. His thesis, is that these particular individuals, have strong psychological needs associated with their atheism. In particular this is related to an individual’s relationship with their father. It seems that this pertains more to men than women. (5)
I have worked with a number of atheists who did not have the intensity that Vitz has noted. In all cases, they have been men. However, their relationship with their father was still prominent in their relationship with God. I’m not saying that this relationship is entailed by a poor relationship with one’s father (I know of at least one person, a female, who believes in God whose father committed suicide). I know of another, a male, whose father committed suicide in front of him and struggles greatly to believe. But I noted the association (between the relationship of the fathers of men, and men themselves) before reading Vitz’s book.
Also, I have noted psychological factors distorting the faith of believers based on their experience with their father and other factors. This usually involves the realm of guilt, over things done in the past. (2)
Sigmund Freud is given both much credit and much disdain in the field of psychology. He was an atheist who had problems with his father. (3, 4) Men are approximately 7 times more likely to be atheists than women. (5) So, it seems that there is either a ‘glass ceiling’ for women and atheism, or some other factor is at work. I, for one, believe it is some other factor.
I think it has to do with the fact that men have the tendency to, identify with their fathers, and women identify with their mothers. God is represented as a male figure in the Bible, and because of these tendencies of identification, males are more likely to project their feelings onto God than females. I realize that this point is highly speculative, and that there may be other explanations.
(1). Paul C. Vitz. Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. (1999).
(2). Hindsight is 20-20 and guilt, The Country Shrink (2008 )
(3). Some Psychological Aspects of Atheism, The Country Shrink (2008 )
(4). Paul C. Vitz. Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. (1999), pp. (47-48 )
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