++++

Sunday, March 09, 2014.  Do I know my limitations right now and if I do, do I know how to honor those limitations?  My entire life is swirling around me in parts and pieces – like chunks and shreds of flying debris.  I recognize this state of emergency both in myself and in my immediate family.  I think in important ways all of us with traumatic, complicated lives both wish for with all our heart and DREAD with everything in our being — these kinds of times.

Healing comes through in these times.  That is the hope, the intention anyway.  Yet I am not sure they (these times) could be more complex, more sinister, more frightening — no, terrifying — in many, many ways.

These are life and death times.  Sometimes actual physical life and death is on the line.  Sometimes it is a death with hope of new life that must include major changes in one’s way of being in the world.  These are times of birthing.  Of regeneration.  But oh the agonies of birthing sometimes.

The hidden difficulties appear as if called into the sky above to cloud or to blacken, to illuminate, to prevent ignorance — ignorance born of the need to survive hard times at all.  That kind of ignoring that keeps TOO MUCH INFORMATION from swamping the often meager boat, the retrofitted (seemingly) pathetic rafts that we have strung together from the times of our childhood and then try to create a good life all through our adult lives being tossed around upon.

++

I could continue on in my life during the first half of it being oblivious to feelings.  I could cry and then continue forward without remembering (thinking about) ever having cried before.  I could make choices and decisions without ever having to link one to the other.  All I knew how to do was to endure.  To survive.  Working SO HARD at living!!!!  Knowing NO OTHER WAY to be alive!

++

I just grabbed a piece of paper and a pen a few moments ago and sketched out how my life feels to me right now.  I started by making a little circle connected to a short straight line going across the paper.  Attached to the end of this line I drew down a long squiggly line that formed a loop “down there” and then squiggled its way back up again to meet at the point where it began.  Like a loop of crooked string.

Then a little space.  Then I drew another concoction just the same as the first one.  Then another one and another and another.

I know that along each of the drooping, dropping down squiggle loops is a collection of experiences I have had in my life that as a rule – in any given moment in the passage of time in my current life — have no meaning to me because they do not relate to what is going on NOW.

I have always left them behind (No, Dr. Daniel Siegel, they are so NOT integrated into my main life story!) as I faced and tackled and made do living with whatever appeared to me next.

All fine so it seems until something MAJOR happens – like is happening for me now – that brings into play my entire life history!  Like pulling up a series of tangled fishing lines dropped off the edge of my battered raft – Is there anything life-producing (helpful, useful) attached to or involved with my history stored along those lines?

++

Dissociation.  Protection against being overwhelmed with more information at any one time than any person could cope with!

Take a step.  One dot as my heel rests upon the earth.  A line forms as the rest of my foot lays itself down.  A space between.  Another step forward.  As if being alive gives anyone any other choice?

BUT ALL THAT INFORMATION DOWN THERE!  ALL of it contaminated in some way from the horrendous traumatic abuse of the first 18 years of my life that was glued inside of me as I made all my choices.  All my decisions.

Children were born to me.  There is no way I could leave behind me (down below, tromp tromp drag tromp….) all my complicated history so that it could NOT touch and hurt my children.

++

No.  The history my children carry of the trauma that happened to me and came through me to be their burden is NOTHING like the burden I carry — but it hurts them just the same.  Just as I could not have anyone heal me they must heal themselves.  Now within THIS family we are all doing our best to be there for one another.  But oh what a storm!

Prayer and faith and forgiveness.  Truth and honesty.  Love.  Courage and willingness.  But this time is PAINFUL!!  It is very very hard.

Of course individuals do not stand all alone in sharing the passed-down traumas within families.  In many ways – so many of them accidental — we carry these traumas and their effects together.  Heart to heart.  Shoulder to shoulder.  Tears and rage.  Hopes and terrors.  In the traces together.

And when one falls?  When one begins to fall?  When one begins to STOP FALLING?

++

This is not an arbitrary process.  Death is disintegration.  Continued life is integration.  (Yes, Dr. Siegel — I hear this!)  Life is orderly.  No matter how hard, no matter how chaotic it might feel.  Healing IS ORDERLY in its own way so that life can go on — and go on — better than it was before.

Even when it doesn’t feel that way.

Especially then.

++

So many of those trauma-loaded lines below being shaken and dragged up into NOW at the same time.  Is it true that we cannot bear alone what is meant to be shared together?

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Tuesday, March 04, 2014.  I have not been content to rest since my last post without finding some positive angle with which I can leverage hope for healing after taking a serious look at the heavy and very factual information about attachment trauma and the right brain developmental alterations it can cause.

I used to see the image when I began my most serious search to find out the truth of what happened to me and about HOW I am in this world a decade ago that led me through developmental neuroscience studies that there were people whose problems in life could be seen scattered around a tabletop.  There seemed to be help available for those people.

Then there were the rest of us – those who I now know where nearly completely unsafely and insecurely attached – or not attached at all – from birth – who then suffered all kinds of trauma from abuses and neglect after infancy.  WE were – in my image which has returned to me as I write this post – simply shoved off of the tabletop to fall – who cares where???

I have moved into a line of thinking about these concerns that lets me know that for the most part, as Dr. Martin Teicher states, those of us off of the tabletop are evolutionarily altered individuals – who seem to live in an entirely different world.  I evidently am still looking for a bridge across the seemingly bottomless chasm that divides us from most other people.

I do not give up believing that there ARE ways we can improve our well-being.  I realized this evening that not only is my own current difficult state motivating me to look anew for workable solutions but so also is my desire to understand how MY MIND is helping to form the MIND of my little grandson under my care at least 50 hours a week.  I don’t want to accidentally miss important steps toward helping him NEVER have ANY of the difficulties I live with in terms of having a mind that was starved for what it needed to grow in the best way possible.

Before I present the excellent material below I will mention here a few resources that Siegel mentions in this short talk that are about healing:

(1) CASEL Guide:  Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs

You can Google search this program for more information – Siegel highly recommends it.      

(2)  There are many excellent resources online for this woman’s work, again highly recommended by Siegel:  The Roots of Empathy by Mary Gordon

(3)  Mindfulness – search this term online – it’s a buffet!  Again, highly recommended by Siegel

(4) Daniel Siegel – search amazon.com for his books – all are EXCELLENT!  I am ordering at least 3 of them – and may perhaps also buy the newer 2013 edition of his book Parenting from the Inside Out.

++

Siegel has a lot to say about “differentiation,” “linking,” and “integration.”  I continue on my hunt to learn what he is saying.  It is important!  A healthy mind and healthy relationships – including parent-child relationships – are about improving all three!  Siegel says although the “blender” image which ends up in a “smoothie” does not signify health – the image of “a fruit salad” does. 

I wanted to write another hopeful fruit salad post – and here it is – hopefully to be followed up with more of the positive – although the truth of what might seem so negative is also vital to those of us who suffer from lifelong consequences of severe childhood trauma.  I can leave neither domain off of this blog – but my being able to strike a balance would be most excellent!

++

Making sense – A great short video 2010 segment with Dr. Daniel Siegel where he discusses new research showing 100% overlap between the criteria for secure attachment and mindfulness.  (at around minute 4 on the slider bar) – Here is my transcription of a portion of that talk:

“…[H]ow do take energy and information flow and allow it to be about integration?  So it’s straight-on….  Let’s talk about what health is and about social and emotional intelligence – that is mindsight – are necessary for that, how mindsight is necessary for that, how actually knowing about the nervous system can be essential for knowing, for example, if you’ve been traumatized how integration has been impaired and then how to FEEL the texture of different circuits in the brain – literally, the skull-based brain – and know how to work that into your awareness so that you use the mind to actually shape the brain in new ways.

“So all of that is included in the mindsight approach, and I think it informs mindfulness as the book The Mindful Brain [Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being – 2007, by Siegel (see more of his books by clicking his name here] tried to do and…by looking at it this way you can actually see the incredible parallels between parent-child relationships – and attachment – which is one field of study – and contemplative studies and mindfulness.  

“So now what my students are doing is – those that are getting their PhDs – looking at the features of  secure attachment and now looking for mindfulness traits in the parents to see if they coordinate with or correlate with the security of the child’s attachment to that parent.  And the preliminary data says yes.

“And even trained as an attachment researcher myself and not being trained as a mindfulness practitioner what was fascinating for me was to take the criteria we use to assess the adult narrative – which is the most robust predictor of child attachment is how the parent has made sense of his or her early life experiences – Not what happened to him or her – but actually how they make sense of it….  The insight into “Look these good things happened, these bad things happened, I’m still working on it, it’s hard.  It’s a challenge.  But I see how my relationships really affected me.”

“Versus “Nothing bad ever happened” or “Everything’s good” or “I don’t remember anything” or something like that.

 “The parents who have a coherent narrative, when they’ve made sense it looks like those criteria – even though they were done without even the concept of mindfulness in mind – 100% overlap with the scientists who don’t know anything about attachment research who are now looking into mindfulness traits.  So by actually being kind of an innocent and newbie to all these fields by bringing them together you see these discoveries so that mindsight informs all of these different fields even though it’s a term that’s new in our vocabulary.”

++

I also suggest taking a look at this online article.  I will read it tomorrow.  Right now I need to finish this post and end my evening in a more relaxed state of mind!

An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy:
Awareness, Mirror Neurons, and Neural Plasticity in the Development of Well-Being

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

++++

I also want to point out a very important statement that appears in the article I mentioned in my previous post as it describes very particular language children need to hear to develop the best Theory of Mind.  I imagine that we-wounded might benefit from taking a close look also at this simple truth as stated in this Oxford Journal article:

“There is strong evidence that exposure to mental state language (references to beliefs, desires, emotions, etc.) directly predicts children’s later theory of mind understanding….  Jill de Villiers, however, argues that the critical factor in theory of mind development is not general conversational exposure to language about mental states and different perspectives but the acquisition of certain syntactic forms….  Specifically, de Villiers argues that the acquisition of complement syntax, in which a proposition is embedded under a mental state verb (e.g., “He thinks that the chocolate is in the cupboard”) or communication verb (e.g., “She says the box contains candy”), is necessary to represent false beliefs.  In support of this hypothesis, two studies found that training on complement syntax improved children’s performance on false belief tasks….”  (page 219)

Personally I believe that for we severe abuse survivors – especially when the traumas happened from birth forward and directly involved attachment-related “betrayals” – our being from the time we were very little could not understand the underpinnings of what is known as “false belief” in anything like an ordinary way. 

Here is a YouTube video that will give an idea about what researchers know as FALSE BELIEF

BUT – this train of thought would lead me off into another post – NOT going to happen tonight!

BUT – HEY!  What’s this?

False-belief tasks are distinct from theory of mind

“No, Linda.  Leave the autism research alone for the night!

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Tuesday, March 04, 2014.  In one of the recent talks I listened to via YouTube (I’ve lost track of which one specifically) Dr. Daniel Siegel referred to research about how deaf children raised by parents who do not communicate with them via sign language lost “mindsight” abilities and can grow up to appear autistic.  Years ago when I first began my neuroscientific studies into the long-term consequences of infant abuse on brain development my sister mentioned that she thought some of my characteristics regarding difficulty in “reading” other people appeared similar to autistic troubles with processing social signals.  I have come to believe she was correct.

In this article — Theory of Mind and Language in Children with Cochlear Implants – researchers Ethan Remmel and Kimberly Peters present information about how hearing impairments affect a child’s development of what is known as “Theory of Mind (TOM).”

Dr. Siegel also states that empathy involves “mindsight” which is another word, basically, for empathy with self and others.  Empathy is reading another person and is different from compassion.  Empathy-mindsight are interactional experiences related to Theory of Mind.  Dr. Allan N. Schore writes volumes about the development of the early growing right limbic brain hemisphere through infant-caregiver attachment experiences.  This region of the brain is directly related to processing social information and to regulation (or dysregulation) of emotional experience and is altered in its development when relationship trauma is present in an infant’s life (as it was in mine).

Dr. Schore on page 280 of his book Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self Schore mentions that

“The right brain, the locus of the corporeal and emotional self is also dominant for the ability to understand the emotional states of other human beings, that is, empathy (Perry et al., 2001; Schore, 1994).  Empathy, an outcome of attachment (Mikulincer et al., 2001), is a moral emotion, and so attachment experiences thus directly impact the neurobiological substrate of moral development.  The orbitofrontal regions mediate empathy (Tekin & Cummings, 2002), and the prefrontal areas are now referred to as a “frontal moral guidance system” (Bigler, 2001).”

He continues on page 282.

“The functioning of the “self-correcting” right hemispheric system is central to self-regulation, the ability to flexibly regulate emotional states through interactions with other humans in interconnected contexts via a two-person psychology, or autoregulation in independent, autonomous contexts via a one-person psychology.”

+++

These processes Schore describes are directly connected to quality of early attachments as those interactions shape the physiologically developing brain of an infant.  Relationship with self and with “other” is impaired-changed through insufficient safe and secure attachment relationships during early critical brain-body growth stages.

On page 281 Schore states:

“It is important to stress the fact that the developmental attainment of a secure attachment bond of emotional communication and an efficient internal system that can adaptively regulate various emotional states only evolves in a growth-facilitating emotional environment.”

+

I know this can all seem very difficult to comprehend but I challenge readers to try to let the words percolate within because I believe this level of truth about what happened to early trauma survivors resonates with the truth of what we know through our experiences in the world.  Remember, Schore is not talking about PTSD in what he says (below) but rather is describing a consequence of unsafe and insecure attachment relationships (neglect, abuse, trauma) during an infant’s earliest right brain developmental stages.

Schore goes on to say:

“Psychopathological regulatory systems contain poorly evolved frontolimbic switching mechanisms that are inefficient or incapable of uncoupling and recoupling the sympathetic and parasympathetic components of the autonomic nervous system in response to changing environmental circumstances.  The inability to adapt to stress and the continued activation or inhibition of internal systems that is inappropriate to a particular environmental situation essentially defines the coping limitations of all psychiatric disorders.

“I believe that every type of early forming primitive disorder involves, to some extent, altered orbital prefrontal function.  Indeed, there is now evidence for impaired orbitofrontal activity in such diverse psychopathologies as autism (Baron-Cohen, 1995), mania (Starkstein, Boston, & Robinson, 1988), unipolar depression (Mayberg, Lewis, Regenold, & Wagner, 1994), and borderline (Goyer, Konicki, & Schulz, 1994) and psychopathic (Lapierre, Braun, & Hodgins, 1995) personality disorders.  Because the orbital system is centrally involved in the executive functions of the right cortex, these studies underscore the importance of the role of right hemisphere dysfunction in psychiatric disorders (Cutting, 1992).  In light of the facts that this hemisphere mediates empathic cognition and the perception of the emotional states of other human beings (Voeller, 1986), and that orbitofrontal function is essential to the capacity of inferring the states of others (Baron-Cohen, 1995), regulatory dysfunctions of the prefrontal system would underlie the broad class of developmental psychopathologies that display “empathy disorders” (Trevarthen & Aitken, 1994).”  [BOLD added by me for emphasis]

+

On page 35 of this same book Schore stated:

“Thus deprivation of empathic care [for an infant], either in the form of chronic excessive arousal intensification or reduction, creates a growth-inhibiting environment that produces immature, physiologically undifferentiated orbitofrontal affect regulatory systems.  Furthermore, extensive dysregulating experiences at this time are permanently etched into forming cortical-subcortical circuits in the form of right-hemispheric “pathological” representations of self-in-interaction-with-a-dysregulating-other.  Instead of a dual circuit organization that generates adaptive coupled reciprocal modes, these unevolved frontolimbic systems that maintain weak bidirectional connections with the sympathetic and parasympathetic components of the peripheral nervous system are only capable of generating coupled or uncoupled nonreciprocal (Berntson et al., 1991) modes of autonomic control.  They thus show a limitation in strategies of affect regulation.  The result is an organization that cannot adaptively shift internal states and overt behavior in response to stressful external demands.”

++++

It was, as I mention, so very important to me to find the work of Dr. Martin Teicher (articles highlighted in last post) – so I could move past the idea of “pathology” and “psychopathology” in what happens to abused infants when their attachment environment is so traumatic that it changes the way their body-brain develops.  We simply had to change our development to survive.  Simply?  Well, hardly that….

So — I cannot “read” other people in ordinary ways and this creates its own kind of sometimes nearly intolerable loneliness.  I CAN, however, read some things about people that I am not SUPPOSED to be able to read.  This kind of special empathy would be a topic for some other post – some other day.

(I still read all this kind of information and wonder about infants who are today often raised in large daycares (day orphanages) that I can’t imagine provide for them what is needed to grow a healthy right brain — what are the costs to this neglect?  Societally approved neglect?  Is anyone “in the know” asking the questions that I am?  I mean, the ones with the big research bucks behind them?)

++

NEXT POST: 

+SMOOTHIE IN THE BLENDER? NOT HEALTHY. FRUIT SALAD? HEALTHY. SO SAYS SIEGEL!

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Monday, March 3, 2014.  There is nothing fun about waking into tears as I did this morning when my alarm went off, or with the need to make an instantaneous choice not to let those tears escape the body that holds them – mine — or to let that sadness completely control my day.

My next thoughts came from a conversation I had with a friend yesterday who also suffers from the lifelong effects of trauma altered physiological development from infant and child abuse:  The set point of our entire body (nervous systems-brain, etc.) is NOT set at peaceful calm as it should have been had early trauma not happened to us.  Mine is set at sorrow.

So this morning I went on a hunt for what I remember from my thorough reading of the works of Dr. Allan N. Schore 8-10 years ago about what is said about abused infants’ “set point of balanced equilibrium.” 

I didn’t know enough in the beginning of my studies to take issue with anything of Schore’s I read, yet today when I read a statement like “Dissociation is a very early appearing survival mechanisms for coping with traumatic affects, and it plays a critical role in the mechanism of projective identification” I can clearly separate the operation of “dissociation” from “the mechanism of projective identification.”  In my thinking they are NOT the same thing even though when I first read this text I didn’t realize that.

Both my mother and I were forced to form a brain-nervous system with dissociation built into it.  But while Mother continued her development in the direction of massive use of projective identification I do not believe that I did.

As a result of my having been so abused by my (mentally ill-psychotic) dysregulated Mother I also had my infant (and therefore adult) “homeostatic equilibrium” massively disorganized.  However, dissociation is, for me, in no way ONLY tied to “interactive forces that induce intensely stressful states.”  My body processes most information it receives in this fashion, not “just” interactive forces with people.  My body (as readers have mentioned in regard to Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)) receives nearly all information as intensely stressful – and this has gotten significantly worse the older I have gotten.

While no doubt this is true regarding projective identification, “Dissociation is a very early appearing survival mechanisms for coping with traumatic affects, and it plays a critical role in the mechanism of projective identification,” I believe that for myself dissociation NOW simply reflects my baseline state based upon how my body-brain was designed to operate as it changed in its developmental trajectory in an environment of massive ongoing trauma from birth.

++

Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (2003) by Dr. Allan N. Schore – page 62 – (if this link does not take you to this page do a Google Books search for “allan n schore equilibrium” and follow the first link shown).  Scroll up from page 62 in the book online – very important reading as well. 

“There is a great deal of interest amongst clinicians in intense, primitive affects, such as terror and rage.  But in recent work I have suggested that we must also deepen our understanding of the early etiology of the primitive defenses that are used to cope with – to autoregulate – traumatic, overwhelming affective states.  An interdisciplinary approach can thus model how developing systems organize primitive defense mechanisms, such as projective identification and dissociation, to cope with interactive forces that induce intensely stressful states that massively disorganize the infant’s homeostatic equilibrium (Schore, 2001a). Dissociation is a very early appearing survival mechanisms for coping with traumatic affects, and it plays a critical role in the mechanism of projective identification (Schore, 1998c, 2000g, 2002d).  Since these early events are imprinted into the maturing brain (Matsuzawa et al., 2001), where states becomes traits (Perry et al., 1995), they endure as primitive defense mechanisms.  It has been observed that patients who utilize projective identification have “dissociatively cleansed” themselves of traumatic affects in order to maintain some form of relationship with narcissistically vulnerable others (Sands, 1994.  1997b).”

“In two seminal papers, Kelein conjectured that defensive projective identification is associated with the massive invasion of someone else’s personality (1955/1975) and represents an evacuation of unwanted parts of the self (1946).  The use of a unique and restricted set of defenses in severely disturbed personalities has been long noted in the clinical literature.  Indeed, a primary goal of treatment of such patients is to help them replace excessive used of projective identification with more mature defensive operations.  Boyer described a group of patients who experienced an early defective relationship with the m other that resulted in a grossly deficient ego structure.  Their excessive use of projective identification “very heavily influences their relationships with others as well as their psychic equilibrium.  Their principal conscious goal in therapy is to relieve themselves immediately of tension.  Often they greatly fear that the experience of discomfort is intolerable and believe that failure to rid themselves of it will lead to physical or mental fragmentation or dissolution” (Boyer, 1990, p. 304).

“In writings on the “costs” of the characterological use of projective identification, Stark described, “Those patients who do n ot have the capacity to sit with internal conflicts will be in the position of forever giving important parts of themselves away, leaving themselves feeling internally impoverished and excessively dependent upon others” (1999, -. 269).”

++

It does not take much searching (using the same terms I mentioned above) to find Schore stating on pages 289-290 in his book, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, the following: 

“The brain of an infant who experiences frequent intense attachment disruptions and little interactive repair is chronically exposed to states of impaired homeostasis which he or she shifts into in order to maintain basic metabolic processes for survival.  If the caregiver does not participate in reparative functions that reduce stress and reestablish psychobiological equilibrium, the limbic connections that are in the process of developing are exposed to a toxic chemistry that negatively impacts a developing brain.  Developmental pscyobiological  studies indicate that hyperaroused attachment stressors are correlated with elevated levels of the arousal-regulating catecholamines and hyperactivation of the excitotoxic N-methyl-D-asparate (NMDA)-sensitive glutamate receptor, a critical site of neurotoxicity and synapse-elimination in eraly development (McDonald et al., 1988; Guilarte, 1998).  Research now indicates that apoptotic degeneration is intensifiec in the immature brain during the NMDA receptor hypersensitivity period (Johnston, 2001), and that the neonatal brain is more prone to excitotoxicity than the adult brain (Bittigua et al., 1999).  High levels of glutamate and cortisol are known to specifically alter the growth of the developing limbic system.  During critical periods, dendritic spines, potential points of connection with other neurons, are particularly vulnerable to long pulses of glutamate (Segal et al., 2000) that trigger severely altered calcium metabolism and therefore “oxidative stress” and cellular damage (Park et al., 1996; Schore, 1994, 1997a, 2001c).

“Furthermore, basic research shows that adverse social experiences during early critical periods result in permanent alterations in opiate, corticosteroid, corticotropin releasing factor, dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin receptors (Coplan et al., 1996; Ladd et al., 1996; Lewis et al., 1990; Martin et al., 1991; Meerlo et al., 2001; Rosenblum et al., 1994; van der Kolk, 1987).  Such receptor alterations are a central mechanism by which “early adverse developmental experiences may leave behind a permanent physiological reactivity in limbic areas of the brain” (Post et al., 1994, p. 800).  Impairments in the limbic system, and in dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin receptors have all been implicated in aggression dysregulation (Dolan, Deakin, Roberts, & Anderson, 2002; Oquendo & Mann, 2000; Siever & Trestman, 1993).

“Because the early maturing (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1987; Schore, 1994) right hemisphere is more deeply connected into the limbic system than the left (Borod, 2000; Gainotti, 2000; Tucker, 1992), this enduring reactivity is “burnt” into corticolimbic circuits of the right brain, the hemisphere dominant for the regulation of stress hormones cortisol and corticotropin releasing factor….”  READ MORE HERE – or go to the 2^nd link following the term search I mentioned above)

++

So how’s this for light early Monday morning reading?  You can Google search for any term you don’t recognize in order to get a clearer picture of what Schore is saying.  Personally I find myself wondering if in my situation the “aggression” circuits were not allowed to develop due to my exposure to SUCH abusive rage in Mother.

When I wake as I did today finding myself “on the verge of tears” I can now look for, find and use my mental aggression toward THE HUNT for supportive information about why it is NOT MY FAULT in any way that the set point of my entire being is set at sorrow rather than at peaceful calm.

This means that I must use massive amounts of my waking energy to fight against a state that is completely natural for my body’s resting state. 

Notice also in the above text Schore’s use of the word PERMANENT – and he means what he writes.  This is the kind of information that Dr. Daniel Siegel is NOT talking about – although I am open to the understanding that research in the past 10 years may have opened up areas of new knowledge about this kind of “permanence” that Schore is mentioning.  However, I would not take new concepts of brain plasticity to mean that we can change what happened to us on the level of permanent during the brain developmental stages Schore is talking about. 

It is also important to remember that the entire body is effected by this kind of traumatic stress in its development – certainly not “just” the brain.

++

As I have mentioned many times I felt so hopelessly damaged as I read Schore’s work!  It was when I finally found the work of Dr. Martin Teicher that I realized all of what Schore describes of trauma-caused developmental changes actually means in the bigger picture that we become “evolutionarily altered” beings made within and to endure within a malevolent world.  It is the mismatch between our natural state and life in a more benign world that causes us the most trouble.

Who chooses to cross the morning’s threshold from sleep to wakefulness being forced to find such ways to cope with the icy threat of heated tears?

Who chooses to have to plow through the facts of developmental neuroscience to discover what changes create this kind of “resting state” within one’s body?

None of US, that’s for sure!

But here we find ourselves, none-the-less.  I would rather KNOW what’s “wrong=changed” within me as I fight every moment of the day to be “happier” than my body tells me I am than to NOT know.  And if you continue to study this kind of information you will recognize yourself AND most probably the reality of your abuser, as well.

It helps me to remember that for all else I need to cope with in my everyday life I will ALWAYS have a trauma altered body to cope with life with – and coping with the conditions within my trauma changed body is a life’s work all by itself!

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

++++

Sunday, March 02, 2014.  Never before in the history of our species has so much information been available to so many people.  The exclusivity of access to this information is shrinking at the same time that the body of information is growing exponentially.  As lay scholars (and this includes everyone who has found their way to this blog) we can be as creative, far-ranging, thorough, specific and eclectic as we choose to be in our studies.

 Information posted below about how to find and access research online has kindly been provided by blog commenter mlhyde – and THANK YOU!  The link to this information will post at the top of this blog’s “ABOUT” page where it will remain so that I know where I put it and so that blog readers can also find it when they need it.

I have used PubMed in my studies.  It is a fantastic resource site which contains a MASSIVE searchable database of research in the format of abstracts and/or FREE access articles. 

Google Books at http://books.google.com/ may offer searchable pages of books that are not accessible via, say, amazon.com’s book pages.

+++++++++++++++++

Here is the first comment about research provided yesterday, March 1, 2014:

+

Sorry for my long comment but you need some information.

You made a comment about not being able to get internet access to some literature now that you are not at a university but I know that there are many ways to get access to some journals.  When searching using Google Scholar, you will find free access even when there are no pdf links to the right of the citation.  Just be sure to click on the “All x versions” to see which choices you have.  Look at the green words and see the journals/publishers.  The ones which say europepmc or cat.inist.fr usually are just catalogs, same for psycnet.apa.org (although not all of their journals are subscriber only–sometimes you need to put the name up onto Google search and see for yourself if the article is accessible.  You learn which psych journals are out of reach.

If it says Sage you can still get free access to many psych journals NOW by registering with Sage for email alerts, not just to specific journals but to informative notices (that then gives you global email alert checkoff boxes). They used to notify you in special newsletters devoted to specific fields when they had free access trials but now you have to go to

http://online.sagepub.com/cgi/freetrial

periodically to check if there is anything new. They have free access to ADDITIONAL psych journals right now until the end of March 2014.  However, I usually sign up for everything there so that when I do a search on something like “abuse” and I get journals that are not in the psych journal list (e.g. Journal of Interpersonal Violence), but are on free trial lists right now, I can still get the article.  I just copy the journal information of articles that I want but that are not yet freely available to a list for when a trial does open up.

Sage also has free access to all of its journals in the database in October or November (if you register).  Usually it has free trials to neuro journals in November and very often overlap with ALL Database free trials.  They never give you enough time to get everything.  However, if you periodically do searches on Sage, saving articles to a list, you soon discover which journals you want free access to and can save their names to a list, too.  That saves you a lot of time when the all database free trial occurs.

Also look for Oxford University Press which has a free access period, too at times, but it also has free access to many of its psych journals and others which it doesn’t often tell you about in the “About this Journal” section.  For instance:  I found that Integrative & Comparative Biology tells you that it will give you free access for 2012 and part of 2013 right now, but in fact it gives you free access back 17 years.  Now that may be because I am registered to get email alerts from them on many journals, so when I go to any Oxford University Press journal it automatically logs me in (I set those preferences in my browser).

Royal Society of London also has free periods, usually in November or December each year, but sometimes at other times.  They give free access to some journals if they are 1 year old, and to others if they are 2 years old, back to about 10 years old.  Since they have truly ancient articles dating back to the 1700’s, you generally have to wait until Nov/Dec to get those.  They do have open access journals, too, as well as open access articles (as all databases have).

In the class of rarely free belong the following with comments:

SpringerLink also has some open access journals, too. Even Elsevier/ScienceDirect have some freely accessible, but rarely. Taylor & Francis is rarely free.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences gives free access to all year old issues and some new ones. Even Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences gives some free access. Then PLOS has free access all the time (get on the free email alerts there) and BMOC also has many journals that are free. Cell has many journals associated that have free access to many issues as does J. Neuroscience, and American Journal of Physiology journals.

Also I found some Indian journals, like

http://www.ijpm.info/

which is free access. I think that I found them through Medknow.

So always go to the listings after you click on “All x versions”.  Now ncbi doesn’t always have free access but

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/?filter=t4&titles=current&search=journals

gives a list of journals where for the most part, you can get free access. Some are listed on the Sage website where sometimes it won’t give you a location other than a citation in a search, or it won’t give you access there to articles earlier than 2014, but you can get them at the above website.

Some journals give free access after they are a year old, but Google Scholar may not let you think you have access by their notation because they are cataloged on information that is not updated.

+

From today’s comment from mlhyde, March 2, 2014:

Actually, I find specific articles in Google Scholar. In fact, most of Teicher’s research is available for free there, as I said, much of it not implied when you see a list of sources without a *.pdf file on the right side of the page.  You just have to type the title and one author’s name into the right space under “Advanced Search”.  Sometimes, once I got a listing of all versions, I had to search for the journal on regular Google and then for the article on that journal’s website.

++

These comments were made to this Friday, February 28, 2014 post:

  +BLACKBIRD PIE – WHAT IS TRUE FOR US?

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++