Psychology

People lose their minds and reason when they lose any signs of structure and belonging to the world around them. It is as simple as that – excepting psychopaths who technically are not mad and usually very successful people because they do not care about others. Caring too much also drives people mad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=578JJeLN9Kw

However, as the radical pyschiatrists Laing and Cooper observed, psychiatrists employed by the system are whores to that system. They will never blame the system for your apparent mental health problems. They will blame you, and use strong glue to label you. That label will never come off.

Robert Cook

The Psychology of Religion October 18th 2020

Many Western Europeans think of Americans as hopelessly, bafflingly, and dangerously, religious. Many Americans think of Western Europeans as distressingly, inexplicably, and unrelentingly, secular. In 2009, the German sociologist Hans Joas observed that “it is widely accepted that the United States is far more religious than practically any comparable European state.” And he noted Western European puzzlement: “The more secularized large parts of Europe became, the more exotic the religiosity of the United States seemed to European observers.” So why are Americans, compared with Western Europeans, seemingly so religious? And are we as religious as we seem?

Sixty percent of Americans say that religion is “very important” to them; only 21 percent of Western Europeans say that. How did we get that way? How did they get that way? And how different are we?

Maybe everyone is religious. Maybe sports fans who live or die each week with the fortunes of Manchester United or the Pittsburgh Steelers are as religious, in their own way, as earnest participants in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. And maybe the Americans who look on with outrage when some mob “desecrates” the flag are as devoted to a civil religion as the Pope is to the Catholic faith. But the sixty percent of Americans who say religion is “very important” to them and the seventy-nine percent of Western Europeans who just can’t bring themselves to say that, probably mean something more traditional. They probably mean that they believe—or don’t—in God; follow—or don’t—the Torah; cherish—or don’t—the Buddha; or devote themselves—or don’t—to the teachings of Mohammed the Prophet. In other words, most of them probably think conventionally about religion when someone asks if it is “very important” to them.

More to Come on this topic, as we consider the Islamic lunatics who conspired to behead a teacher – and the push of ramapnt Islamists into Armenia. There is a stupid argument that religion brings cultures together. It is rubbish and the language of multi cultural appeasement.

Islam has never reformed and its leading lights believe and teach that they have th only truth. Religion is barbaric politics and a comfort blanket for certain primitive gullible mindets, especially women.. If they actually believed it beyond the comfort of rituals, they would not be so frightened of Covid 19 killing them.

The Bible and Koran are a mere 4000 years of biased political factional history, rewritten by all of the schisms over centuries, to justify violence and reinforce mass ignorance. Religious fanatics in the U.S and elsewhere, are primarily from BAME and backward communites, led on by the elitists who use religion to divide, rule and oppress.

Marx called religion the opium of the masses. Religion divides, playing on the human tendency to OCD comfot rituals. Killing that French teacher was a mad man who, in his mind, saw dangerous vermin threatening his perfect Islamic World. this is not multi culture. It is mental illness.

Religion doesn’t unite which is why and how the British used that psychology to build an empre. The statues were not put up to denigrate blacks. They were put up to intimidate the white underclass. We can’t draw serious images of God because Gd does not exist. Think about it, what on earth would God look like ? God is not a person like us little sad animals. God isn’t God. God is a word. It is not good enough to explain anything so complex as the origins of life. This moronic bigotry is now protected by anti hate laws in an alleged secuar democracy.. People are scared to argue in this police state cuture across the west.

There are some interesting questions as to how we and the infinite universe came to be also how and why MUSLIMS want to steal back the land the Turks stole before. losing it after World War One, where they supported Germany. Look up the Armenian Massacre.

Religion is not the asnwer and is not compatible with the science we are all supposed to believe in this Covid 19 age of censorhip absurdity and hypocrisy. So. more on the psychology to come..

Finally,powerful men use religion to justify violence in war, as do some women, but women like it mostly because it makes them feel eternal, safe and special. Women by and large do not deliberately sacrifice themselves in wars, they expect men to do that – giving out white feathers and abuse if they do not. Equality is bulsit. R.J Cook

Over 65s not getting access to ‘talking therapies’ despite suffering increased anxiety and depression

Date Published: 07 Oct 2020 @ 15:10 PM Article By: Jill Rennie

Social care leaders are urging the government to take the mental health of older people seriously after a poll suggests “bereavement, anxiety and depression” has increased since the COVID pandemic.

A new report published today reveals only six per cent of people aged 65 and over are using ‘talking therapies’ to help them with mental health issues.

In its new Minds that matter report, Independent Age says the six per cent figure is too low given the age profile of the population – with 18 per cent aged 65 and over and the prevalence of mental health conditions in the community.

The report also found 75 per cent of older people have experienced significant anxiety or low mood at least once since turning 65, with one in 10 saying they feel this frequently or all the time.

Between March and July, up to 98,000 older people experienced bereavement

Access to talking therapies is even more essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, with national statistics showing people in later life are facing increased anxiety, depression and experiencing complicated grief as a result of bereavement during this period.

Talking therapies which include counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and guided self-help, are available through NHS England’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme to treat issues such as depression and anxiety. People are often referred to these services by their GP.

Chief executive of Independent Age, Deborah Alsina, who commissioned the report said: “Now, more than ever, it’s critical we take the mental health of people aged 65+ seriously.

“COVID-19 has brought extra challenges around bereavement, but we’ve also seen an increase in mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. In fact, ONS statistics show that rates of depression have doubled for people aged over 70. This is an urgent problem.

“Conditions like depression and anxiety can affect people at any age – and people of all ages can be treated and recover.”

Independent Age found that between March and July this year, up to 98,000 older people experienced a partner bereavement, almost one and a half times as many as in a typical year.

“It’s vital that NHS England takes a multi-faceted approach to improving older people’s access to mental health services, says Ms Alsina. “We want them to review the barriers to accessing therapy, share best practice where it’s working well, and use targeted messaging to ensure people are aware of what services exist and how they can help.”

The report states despite the low rates of IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) referral and low levels of awareness, people in later life often respond well to this support. Data from the programme for 2019-20 shows that people aged 65 and over had an overall recovery rate of 64 per cent, compared to 50 per cent for people aged 18-64.

James Bullion, president of ADASS said: “COVID-19 has underlined just how vital positive mental health support is to enabling us to live good lives. It is essential that those of us who are older can get access to talking therapies and bereavement support whenever we need it. We know that this type of support works and we know the difference it makes.”

‘The spending review should be used to provide funding for councils to invest in mental health services’

Councils across England play a crucial role with improving and maintaining mental health and wellbeing through their services including adult social care, suicide prevention and helping unpaid carers as well as providing safe access to parks and green spaces.

Cllr Ian Hudspeth, chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: “We need a new national focus on helping everyone stay mentally well, including those affected by COVID-19, backed-up by funding for councils to spend with the voluntary and community sector on meeting local mental wellbeing needs.

“This should include a shift in focus and funding away from simply treating mental ill-health and towards a locally-led approach to promoting people’s mental wellbeing throughout their lives.

“The upcoming spending review should be used to provide ongoing funding for councils to invest in effective mental health services and support to meet existing, new and unmet demand caused by the pandemic.”

The Minds that matter report investigated attitudes of, and towards, older people’s mental health, using a nationally representative poll of 2,316 people, as well as in-depth interviews with 43 people across the country, and a UK wide survey with 2,821 respondents.

Comment It would be a kindness if the State dropped all the religious bullshit and hypocrisy. Just legalise euthanasia for those who are sick and tired of the British Police State , the crippling taxes, rich man’s lockdown and other miseries. The state drive people mad and then affects to care- blaming them for going mad. God isn’t to blame because God does not exists. Religion is politics of oppression. It has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is an arm of the State. R.J Cook

Multi Culture and the religious Psyche October 6th 2020

Karl Marx called religion ‘the opium of the masses.’  Another German, Friedrich Nietzsche concluded that ‘God is Dead.’ Going on to say that if there was no God it would be necessary to invent him.

One of the most revealing things about the current Covid 19 panic is how much many folk, especially the apparently religious, fear death. Some fear hell, others fear nothingnes.

For others, mainly the poor and lonely, ideas of God will not stop them wanting to diess. I know that on last August 24th, the 12th anniversary of my mother’s death, I tried to strangle myself in a cold dirty police cell, where I had been held from 8a.m until midnight.

I was there, while my home was ransacked again, and because of things I had written and published. Immorality is all about sex as far as Britain’s rule makers are concerned. Their institutional corruption and abuse of power is not an issue when the public interest ( Class Interest ) has to come first. I had no God to save me. For some of us, this corrupt vile world gets a little too much to cope with. Corruption comes from power, with nasty individuals motivated by greed, ego, status and financial gain.

If God really made all of this, then he made hell and is The Devil. So I have no favour either way for Islam or Christianity, they are both politicised belief systems an infinity away from for the peace loving Jesus Christ who inspired both of them, the former being derivative of the latter, both derivative of the then corrupt Judaic religious establishment that killed Jesus as a dangerous rival.

Tim Dieppe has written an in-depth piece about multiculturalism, asking “What’s wrong with multiculturalism?”  He does not consider anyone’s preference for a secular society.  Our culture should be unified by God. For those of us who fear authoritarian science, as we are experiencing with Covid Lockdown and financial ruin, it seems a hopeless choice, because religion and science are both used to abuse and control the masses.

Tim starts with defining ‘multiculturalism’ and explaining how it is based on the idea that all cultures are equally valid. He critiques cultural relativism, and instead argues for transcendental, objective moral values originating from our transcendent God. Multiculturalism is opposed to missionary activity or attempts to morally reform cultures. It is therefore opposed to Christianity. Christians need to proclaim the reality of a single creator God before whom all peoples from every culture are accountable.

R.J Cook

What is ‘multiculturalism’?

We need to start by defining our terms. What exactly do we mean by ‘multiculturalism’? There is a significant difference between describing something as ‘multicultural’, and the word ‘multiculturalism’. It’s that suffix ‘-ism’ that turns the adjective ‘multicultural’ into the ideology of ‘multiculturalism’. Think for example of: communism, capitalism, secularism, racism, sexism, nationalism, Marxism, statism, feminism, conservatism, liberalism, Darwinism, fatalism, ecumenism, and vegetarianism. These are all ideologies, as is ‘multiculturalism’. A ‘multiculturalist’ is someone who advocates the ideology of multiculturalism.

The ideology of multiculturalism is based on the idea that all cultures are equally valid. No one culture is better than another. All cultures are worthy of equal respect. As a state-sponsored policy it refers to the policy of expecting people from multiple different cultures to live harmoniously alongside each other without any shared values or customs. Since multiculturalists believe that all cultures are equal, they therefore believe that it would be immoral, or even racist, to expect people from radically different cultures to adopt any particular values, ethics, customs, or practices. Instead, they argue that we ought to allow them to live their lives according to their own customs, and respect these practices no matter how different or conflicting they may be.

The political failure of multiculturalism

The meaning of multiculturalism is demonstrated by showing how politicians have recently used it. It was the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was the first major national leader to openly admit the political failure of multiculturalism. In a major ‘state of the nation’ speech in October 2010 she said:

“Of course, the tendency had been to say, ‘let’s adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other’. But this concept has failed, and failed utterly.”[1]

Merkel received a standing ovation and was praised for having the courage to tell a difficult truth in the press. It didn’t take long for others to follow. Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, speaking in February 2011 said:

“Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream. We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. So when a white person holds objectionable views – racism, for example – we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them.

The failure of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage the practice where some young girls are bullied and sometimes taken abroad to marry someone they don’t want to is a case in point. This hands-off tolerance has only served to reinforce the sense that not enough is shared.”[2]

A few days later, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy joined in, pronouncing multiculturalism to be a ‘failure’ in a television interview, saying: “The truth is that, in all our democracies, we’ve been too concerned about the identity of the new arrivals and not enough about the identity of the country receiving them.”[3]

It is important to realise that these politicians were not criticising multiethnicity. They were stating that the idea of welcoming different cultures, customs and values and treating them all equally, that is, the ideology of multiculturalism, has led to a disjointed segregated society lacking any sense of cohesive identity.

What is culture?

Let’s take a step back and examine what culture is. Anthropologists tend to define culture as: ‘a shared set of values and rules of behaviour that allows a social group to function and perpetuate itself.’[4] This is helpful, so far as it goes, but a Christian understanding of culture would seek to broaden and deepen that definition. First, humans are inescapably religious (Romans 1:25). We all have some ultimate commitment that we obtain our values and sense of self-worth from. Values and rules of behaviour are also inescapably religious. The source of a culture’s values and rules is effectively that culture’s god. It is the ultimate authority for that culture. Therefore, all cultures are inescapably religious, whether recognised as such or not. An Islamic culture is a cultural manifestation of Islam. A humanistic culture is a cultural manifestation of humanism, which is another religious worldview. Any culture is necessarily a manifestation of the religion of that society. Hence, Henry van Til loosely defined culture as “religion externalised.”[5]

Secondly, culture includes more than values and rules of behaviour. Surely it includes works of art, buildings, infrastructure, literature, clothing, food, technology, industry, and much else besides. Culture, more broadly speaking, from a Christian perspective is what humans make of creation. Genesis 1:28 is often referred to as the ‘cultural mandate’. Humanity is instructed to “fill the earth and subdue it.” This means to create culture out of creation. God delegated responsibility to humans for creating a social order or culture that glorifies God out of creation. The shortest definition of culture is “what we make of the world.”[6] Culture-making is what humans do. All forms of work participate in culture formation. Once again, all this is inescapably religious. Any culture will either be aimed at glorifying the living God or at the worship of some idol(s) or divine substitute that the society seeks fulfilment and direction from.

No neutral cultures

What this Christian understanding of culture makes clear is that there is no such thing as a neutral culture. All cultures proclaim certain values which they understand to be superior to alternative values. Multiculturalists cannot escape from this since they believe that multiculturalism creates superior forms of society. No culture can be religiously or value neutral.

All cultures will have some ultimate commitments that cannot be challenged. A current myth in our society is that ‘tolerance’ is a helpful ultimate virtue. Confusion arises here because the meaning of ‘tolerance’ has changed from accepting behaviours that we may continue to object to, to not criticising anyone else’s behaviour. True tolerance is not the same as approval. What the new definition means in practice is that someone who criticises the prevailing morality of society is regarded as ‘intolerant’ and therefore as someone who is effectively a traitor to this ultimate commitment to be ‘tolerant’. Society then becomes highly intolerant of what is seen as ‘intolerant’ behaviour, whilst claiming to value ‘tolerance’! This is why we are starting to see the courts attempting to restrict free speech in this country when people criticise currently accepted sexual ethics.[7] All cultures will have some behaviours that they are intolerant of. Culture is inherently prejudiced, and will therefore ‘pre-judge’ some behaviours as immoral.

This religious nature of culture also enables us to better understand multiculturalism as equivalent to religious pluralism, or state-sponsored polytheism. The multiculturalist tries to say that society can continue without any favoured religion or worldview. This is self-defeating because multiculturalism itself is a favoured worldview. It is also inherently unstable. Different religions and worldviews proclaim different values and ethics which will unavoidably clash. A society with no agreed moral or religious foundation cannot avoid collapsing or fragmenting into a set of isolated subcultures abiding by different values. This is already what we are seeing in the UK with segregation of our society into enclaves dominated by certain religions, most notably Islam in certain areas. Professor Elham Manea aptly described this present reality as “plural monoculturalism.”[8]

Cultural Relativism

The foundational doctrine of multiculturalism is the view that all cultures are equally valid. This leads straight on to cultural relativism which believes that a person’s behaviour should be judged relative to their own culture rather than against any other criteria.

From a Christian perspective we can straightaway reject the idea that all cultures are equal. Clearly a culture aimed at glorifying God is superior to one that glorifies human sexuality or any other idol. Even without this perspective, to say that all cultures are equal makes a mockery of equality. Every culture proclaims certain values and ethical norms which can be in direct conflict with another culture. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that they are all equal. Is a culture that values free speech equal to one that does not? Is a culture that values women’s rights equal to one that does not? Is a culture that promotes promiscuity and homosexuality equal to one that does not? What about slavery, racism, polygamy, FGM, etc. All these are cultural practices, and they are evidently not equal. Of course, to say this is to imply that there is a transcendent source of morality by which all cultures can be judged, which is a truth that contemporary societies seek to reject.

This reality of a transcendent source of morality directly contradicts cultural relativism. A consistent cultural relativist would neither criticise nor seek to curb the practice of slavery, for example, because she sees this practice as culturally relative. She has no moral source to appeal to. As Christians we recognise the divine origin of moral law as revealed in the Bible, and thus we have legitimate, transcendent grounds to criticise various cultural practices. In fact, we are morally obligated to critique cultures and to proclaim God’s laws and moral order to them. This is what the prophets did, not only in Israel, but to the surrounding nations – see Amos 1 for example.

This is why William Carey was able to boldly criticise and campaign against the culturally ingrained, religious practice of Sati in India – the practice of burning widows alive at their husbands’ funerals. His campaigns led to the outlawing of the practice.[9] No consistent cultural relativist could consider doing such a thing.

In this way, cultural relativism suffers from what is known as the Reformer’s Dilemma.[10] If cultural relativism is true, then a person’s actions can only be evaluated according to the culture they are from. If that is so, then the greatest crime possible is to try to change the practices of a culture. Cultural change can only be evaluated by a multiculturalist as immoral. Therefore, the cultural relativist must condemn people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., William Wilberforce, William Carey, and many others. Their actions can only be regarded as moral if we accept a transcendent source of morality.

Furthermore, cultural relativism is also undermined by cross-cultural actions. What are we to make of a person from culture A having extra-marital sex with someone from culture B, whilst staying in a hotel in culture C? By which culture should the morality of this act be evaluated? How about someone who’s biological parents are from cultures A and B, and whose foster parents are from cultures C and D, who is now living in culture E? Which culture’s moral standards is she expected to abide by? These are not merely hypothetical examples. Witness the fuss caused by the story about a child with some Christian cultural heritage being cared for by Muslim foster parents who were alleged to be imposing Muslim values on the child last year.[11] The child was actually of mixed cultural heritage which added to the complexity of the story. The point is that cultural relativism cannot resolve issues like these because it tries to affirm that all the cultures are equally valid even though they clash and conflict in multiple ways. It is the ideology of multiculturalism that has created situations like this.

Other examples of the absurdities of multiculturalism abound. A court in Ontario ruled that a man was not guilty of raping his wife because he genuinely believed he could have sex with her whenever he wanted.[12] No matter that he broke Canadian law. The judge accepted that he did not know it was against the law to have sex with his wife without her consent. An Australian court granted leave for an Afghan rapist to appeal on the basis that the rapist had “an unclear concept of what constitutes consent in sexual relationships in Australia.”[13] A judge in Germany acquitted a Turkish man of a rape that had left the woman incapacitated. The judge argued that in “the mentality of the Turkish cultural circle,” what the woman “had experienced as rape” might be considered merely “wild sex.”[14] An Iraqi man who raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Austria had his conviction overturned after judges found he may have believed the child consented.[15] The victims in all these cases had a valid cultural expectation not to be abused in this way, and a further cultural expectation that their abuser would be punished by the law. Multiculturalism is responsible for such injustices which undermine the fundamental principle of one law for all. The multiculturalist thinks that someone’s moral behaviour can only be judged relative to their culture. What this means in practice is that multiculturalists hold people from other cultures to a lower standard of morality, which can be viewed as a form of racism in itself.

Samuel Huntingdon writes: “Multiculturalism is in essence anti-European civilisation. … It is basically an anti-Western ideology.”^[16] Western culture was based on Christian values. We have seen that fundamental to multiculturalism is the denial of objective transcendent moral law. Thus, multiculturalism is directly opposed to Christianity, which proclaims that there is one God who is the sole source of objective, transcendent moral law by which all people from all cultures will be judged. Therefore, multiculturalism is fundamentally anti-Christian. It cannot tolerate Christians proclaiming that there is a God who “commands all people everywhere to repent.” (Acts 17:30).

On cultural identity

Multiculturalism teaches that a person’s authentic identity is bound up in their cultural identity, so much so that nonrecognition of this cultural identity constitutes psychological harm.[17] The idea that identity is bound up in culture assumes that people never change culture, or convert to another religion. A multiculturalist would severely criticise anyone who criticised their original culture – that is seen as a form of treason.

The idea that nonrecognition of cultural identity constitutes psychological harm is one of many victim narratives that contemporary culture is captivated by. Why would not being categorised as a member of a particular community constitute harm? Insisting on recognition of different cultural identities is in fact divisive, anti-inclusive, and leads to the fragmentation of society.

Machteld Zee illustrates how this applies in practice.[18]

“Take, for example, ‘John’. John is an Iraqi-born Muslim living in Birmingham who disapproves of people who do not follow his religion. In fact, an important part of John’s identity is expressed through his dismissive attitude towards non-believers. He wishes not to recognise a non-believer for who that person truly is, preferring to be critical, or even dismissive of Western values. If we were to follow multiculturalist theory, we respect John’s true nature. We should not even criticise John for criticising other people’s life choices. John has the right to believe whatever he wishes, and we should be respectful and tolerant of his position. So far so good. But now we change John a little bit and this time, he is a white male citizen living in Liverpool. John does not recognise Muslims for who they truly are, in fact he is quite dismissive of Islam. He regularly unfolds his critique of life choices inspired by that religion, stating that Islam is detrimental to individual wellbeing. He questions the merits of Islam-inspired practices, such as veiling and praying five times a day. Now multiculturalists would label the latter lack of recognition as a form of causing psychological harm, as well as arrogant, condescending, and Eurocentric, possibly even racist and discriminatory. The moral duty of recognising an individual for who he truly is thus a one-way street.”

Somehow, as Zee points out, multiculturalists manage to assume that white Euro-Americans are psychologically immune to criticism, even to the extent of being called racist, whilst at the same time assuming that members of minority cultures are dependent on the approval of white Euro-Americans for their sense of self-worth! This inequality is held to be justified because of collective guilt imposed on white Euro-Americans for their past behaviour. This imposed guilt actually requires multiculturalism to be false because it assumes that historically culturally bound practices were immoral. A true multiculturalist cannot say that past cultural actions were immoral, let alone that present cultures are collectively guilty for those past actions.

It is, in fact, people who should be treated with equal respect and dignity because they are all of equal worth, being created in the image of God. Cultures, however, do not deserve equal respect, because not all cultural beliefs and practices are equally worthy. A person’s identity is not intrinsically bound up in their cultural background both because their culture may change, and because they may change their cultural allegiance.

On preservation of culture

One argument put forward by multiculturalists is that minority cultures ought to be preserved. This is an odd argument to make. No-one argues for the preservation of Victorian culture. Of course, we should preserve the history and historical information about Victorian culture, but we shouldn’t condemn some people to living as if they were in Victorian Britain today. Neither should we insist that indigenous African tribal culture is preserved. Indigenous people will benefit from better education, water supply, healthcare, and many other technologies that their original culture did not have. They should not be denied these benefits.

Cultures regularly go extinct, largely because people turn away from them. People should have the freedom to do so. Western missionaries have been criticised for changing local cultures by introducing Christianity. But the fact is that cultures change all the time, sometimes for better. The introduction of Christianity will objectively improve any culture with superior morality and religious conviction. Christianity will also tend to improve literacy, education, healthcare, and much else besides. We should all feel morally obligated to seek to change cultures in these various objectively beneficial ways. Multiculturalism is fundamentally opposed to missionary activity and thus opposed to evangelical Christianity.

Our loss of cultural identity

French President Emmanuel Macron famously said, “There’s no such thing as French culture.”[19] Unpicking his words in detail, he explained: “There is culture in France and it is diverse.”[20] This amounts to an admission of no unifying culture. Macron’s statement is indicative of a collective loss of cultural identity throughout western Europe. The British government’s commissioned report into integration in our society resulted in an admission that we have basically failed at integration.[21] This is hardly surprising if we lack any sense of collective identity in the first place. The government is now desperately trying to work out what ‘British values’ are in order to regain some sense of collective identity and shared values. David Cameron was even criticised for wanting migrants to learn English.[22] But surely a common language is the most basic requirement of a cohesive society?

Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum, claims that modern Britain is the first society to try to operate without shared religious beliefs and rituals at its heart. “In a sense, we are a very unusual society. We are trying to do something that no society has really done. We are trying to live without an agreed narrative of our communal place in the cosmos and in time,” MacGregor said.[23] There is truth in this, though it is an exaggeration. No society can hold together without some agreed set of values, and the source of these values is necessarily a religious worldview, whether recognised as such or not. Multiculturalism is an ideology which imposes certain values on society. These values are neither morally nor religiously neutral. What is unusual about multiculturalism is that it expects everyone to accept contradictory values and practices in the same society and yet to live harmoniously together. This expectation is delusional. No society can accept contradictory values and practices and hold together.

Fundamental freedoms

We now recognise that any society necessarily adheres to some religious convictions which provide its source of values. Clearly, the best moral framework for any society is the Biblical one. What this framework also provides for is fundamental freedoms such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of conscience. Indeed, it is widely recognised that Christianity formed the moral foundation for the whole concept of human rights.

In any society all these freedoms are limited to some extent, and freedoms naturally come with responsibilities. The laws of the land should be respected, and everyone should be treated equally by them. This is another Biblical principle (Exodus 12:49; Numbers 5:16). Within these constraints, fundamental freedoms should be maintained and protected, with the law also making allowance for freedom of conscience, particularly in controversial areas. Historically, UK law has allowed conscientious objection during war, and it currently allows conscientious objection to abortion. In general, people should be allowed to object to the production of goods or services on conscientious grounds. Recent cases of bakers and printers being asked to produce goods promoting same-sex marriage have raised the profile of this issue. A principle of ‘reasonable accommodation’ should be agreed which allows for people to obey their conscience. Such accommodation should not extend to the creation of a de facto parallel legal system as we see with sharia courts in this country, nor to the promotion of discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, or to promoting hatred for outsiders, for example.

Integration requires a measure of respect for the host culture, including agreement to abide by the laws of the land. Any society also requires not just a common law, but a common language to hold together. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali is quite right to point out that integration does not necessarily mean assimilation, however.[24] Many communities such as Jews, Huguenots, and East Africans have successfully integrated whilst also maintaining something of their own distinctiveness. Others are segregated and are widely understood to have failed to integrate, for which the ideology of multiculturalism must take a large part of the blame.

What is wrong with multiculturalism?

Multiculturalism is an ideology that is fundamentally opposed to Christianity. It cannot accept a transcendental source of morality and therefore resists accepting the reality of a creator God. It considers missionary activity and attempts to morally reform cultures as immoral. It is damaging to society in that it creates obvious injustices and holds people from different cultures to lower moral standards, which can be regarded as a form of racism. It undermines a fundamental principle of democracy – the principle of one law for all. State sponsored multiculturalism is a form of state endorsed religious pluralism or polytheism. It is unstable and will inevitably result in the collapse or fragmentation of society.

Multiculturalism should be resisted by Christians. Indeed, it has only been able to arise in the context of weakened allegiance to Christianity in this country. Our task, as Paul wrote, is to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Since multiculturalism is opposed to Christianity, it needs to be demolished. This article is an attempt to demonstrate the kinds of arguments Christians can employ to demolish multiculturalism. We, like Paul, are called to proclaim the gospel to people of all cultures (Acts 17). This necessarily involves the proclamation of a creator God who holds all people accountable to his transcendent moral law, regardless of culture. It is the proclamation of this truth that is our primary tool in calling people to reject multiculturalism, and to seek to objectively improve contemporary culture according to God’s transcendent righteous moral standards.

Tim Dieppe

Head of Public Policy, Christian Concern

The WHO says being transgender is a mental illness. But that’s about to change. Posted September 28th 2020

By Shayla LoveFeatures InternJuly 28, 2016 at 9:20 a.m. GMT+1

According to the World Health Organization, being transgender is a mental illness.

But that could soon change, as the WHO prepares a new edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), its global codebook that influences disease diagnostic manuals worldwide. The current version, ICD-10, was endorsed in 1990, and ICD-11 is due in 2018.

The proposals to declassify transgender identity as a mental disorder have been approved by each committee that has considered it so far. A study published Tuesday in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, offers up new evidence supporting the change.

A condition is designated as a mental illness when the very fact that you have it causes distress and dysfunction, said Geoffrey Reed, a professor of psychology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, a consultant on ICD-11 and co-author of the study. The study argues that this is not the case with transgender identity.AD

In 2014, from April to August, Reed and his team interviewed 250 transgender adults who were receiving transgender-related health services at the Condesa Specialized Clinic in Mexico City. They asked them about their childhoods, when they knew they were transgender, and what kinds of reactions they had gotten from work, school or family.

Reed found that many of the people he interviewed experienced a lot of distress in their lives. Later, using mathematical modeling, he found a good way to predict who was suffering — but the most important determining factor was not being transgender, it was something else.

“We found distress and dysfunction were very powerfully predicted by the experiences of social rejection or violence that people had,” he said. “But they were not actually predicted by gender incongruence itself.”AD

This finding contradicts the basic classification of a mental illness, which is that “distress or dysfunction are essential elements of the condition,” the paper said.

Reed hopes his work shows that being transgender does not have to equate to suffering. It’s actually the external factors, Reed said, that cause the suffering: the societal stigma, the violence and the prejudices. Remove them, and all that remains is the feeling of “gender incongruence,” the label proposed in ICD-11 in a new chapter called “Conditions Related to Sexual Health,” which will be medically and biologically oriented.

This issue echoes past controversies. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the psychiatric disorder guidebook, once included homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1973, the diagnosis became “sexual orientation disturbance,” and then disappeared completely in 1987, largely because of gay rights advocates.AD

Hysteria, an affliction often attributed to women, was in the DSM until 1980. The DSM called transgender identity “sexual deviations” in 1968. In 1980 it was “psychosexual disorders,” and in 1994 it was “sexual and gender identity disorders.” The DSM-5 changed the listing of transgender to “gender dysphoria,” in 2013 (though it remains classified as a mental illness today).

There has been progress, but as long as mental illness continues to be widely stigmatized, Reed said, it’s going to affect transgender people in a negative way. In most cases in the United States, to undergo a sex reassignment surgery, a person must first get a diagnosis from a doctor. That means readily accepting a mental illness diagnosis, even though the patient may not feel they have one, to go through with that part of transitioning.

After that, “stigma associated with both transgender status and mental disorders has contributed to precarious legal status, human rights violations, and barriers to appropriate health care among transgender people,” the paper says.AD

“The fact that people have a mental disorder has sometimes been misused to say, that means that they’re not competent to make their own decisions,” Reed said. “They’re not competent to decide if they want to be a different gender, they’re not competent to decide if they want to change their identity documents, they’re not competent to have custody of their own children, they’re not competent to manage their own reproductive rights.”

So why not remove the classification altogether, as was done with homosexuality? Because one of the primary goals of the reclassification is to also improve transgender people’s access to health care. There are often insurance-coverage differences between mental and physical illness, and one of the incentives for the authors of the study would be to close that gap.

“The risk would be if we took conditions related to gender identity out of the classification altogether, it would undermine the access to health services that transgender people have,” Reed said. “They wouldn’t have a diagnostic code that conveyed eligibility.”AD

Jack Drescher, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at New York Medical College who serves on the WHO working group, told the New York Times that inmates, such as Chelsea Manning, are able to receive hormone treatments in part because transgender identity belongs to a medical category.

Transgender activist groups have been working toward this for years, said Mauro Cabral, one of the program directors of the Global Action for Trans Equality.

Jamison Green, former president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, said the change would be a tremendous relief to any person who is gender variant or gender nonconforming. The association has been publishing Standards of Care since 1979, guidelines for health professionals to assist transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

“If we could stop society from judging people’s gender expression as a kind of craziness if it doesn’t fit what someone else thinks their gender identity ought to be,” he said. “That’s going to be a long process, it’ll be more than just changing the diagnosis. But that would be a step in the right direction.”AD

The study also reveals how much a toll societal stigma can have on a young person. A 2012 study showed that teenagers who grew up with unsupportive families had a 57 percent suicide rate, compared to a 4 suicide rate for those who had supportive families. Some studies show that transgender people can develop post-traumatic stress disorder just from being transgender.

Because of this, for some trans activists, such as Alok Vaid-Menon, changing the language of the ICD-11 is a small battle won, but the war is still being waged for trans rights.

“For me, I don’t see it as necessarily a victory to differentiate ourselves from mental illness,” Vaid-Menon said in an interview Wednesday night. “The true victory would be to de-stigmatize diversity and difference itself.”

Even the fact that mental illness is stigmatized so much, to the point that trans people don’t want to be associated with it, is a cause for concern, Vaid-Menon said. The issue is not the labeling, but how people can damage each other through their actions.AD

“I think the bigger question that we need to ask is: Why do we stigmatize difference?” Vaid-Menon said.

Vaid-Menon is part of a trans South Asian performance art duo called Dark Matter, along with Janani Balasubramanian. This year, the New Yorker magazine said they “offer a cheeky radical-queer critique of the gay-rights movement.” They perform poems related to transgender rights and transphobia all over the country and are heavily involved in trans activism.

Even before this new study, to Vaid-Menon, it’s been painfully obvious that any distress related to being transgender comes from the outside world.

“We literally are traumatized doing really basic actions, like going outside, walking, doing our laundry, eating, where we have people say and do horrendous and horrible things to us,” Vaid-Menon said. “The only representation we see of ourselves in the media is violence and in the case of black and Latina trans women, often incredible murder. I think that it’s really really irresponsible, rude, and humiliating to say that it’s trans people’s internal fault that we are dysphoric. That makes no sense to me.”AD

Vaid-Menon is proud of the ICD-11 change, but said there are still bigger problems trans people face than a semantic definition. The real issues are violence, poverty, homelessness and housing discrimination. Reed acknowledged this in his paper, saying that “ample documentation from existing studies shows that transgender people experience high rates of harassment and violence, including sexual violence, not only from strangers but also from their own families and communities.”

“Young people who grow up in supportive environments” are not particularly distressed, Reed said. “They are receiving adequate social support, they come from families that are not treating them with stigmatization and violence, and they expect that there will be services available to them. So there’s no reason for them to be distressed. They still have the anatomical incongruence, where they experience themselves to be a different gender than what their body may be developing into. But they don’t have to have hallmarks of distress and dysfunction.”

Shayla LoveShayla Love was a features intern for The Washington Post. She left The Post in August 2016. More from The Post

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Comment

The World Health ( Wealth ) Organisation is the ‘think tank’ behind calls for worldwide Covid19 Lockdown. This rambling ideological organisation masquerades as having the only solutions to Developing ( Third World ) violence,, poverty, disease and corruption.

Religious bigotry is a big problem in these areas.  To such stupid small minds, if it isn’t in the Koran aor bible, then it is evil.  One could, and one will write more about transgender in due course.  That is why Islamists and feminist transphobes get on so well.

But in this context, one should simply use the above article as a yard stick with which to judge the failing harmful WHO which obscures the real problems in corrupt Africa.

R.J Cook

The Psychological Origins of Procrastination – and How We Can Stop Putting Things Off Posted September 27th 2020

Don’t delay. Here’s the science behind why we procrastinate, and some tricks to overcome it. September 27th 2020

The Conversation

• Elliot Berkman
• Jordan Miller-Ziegler

Now or later? Photo by Jay Malone / flickr, CC BY.

“I love deadlines,” English author Douglas Adams once wrote. “I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

We’ve all had the experience of wanting to get a project done but putting it off for later. Sometimes we wait because we just don’t care enough about the project, but other times we care a lot – and still end up doing something else. I, for one, end up cleaning my house when I have a lot of papers to grade, even though I know I need to grade them.

So why do we procrastinate? Are we built to operate this way at some times? Or is there something wrong with the way we’re approaching work?

These questions are central to my research on goal pursuit, which could offer some clues from neuroscience about why we procrastinate – and how to overcome this tendency.

To Do, Or Not To Do

It all starts with a simple choice between working now on a given project and doing anything else: working on a different project, doing something fun or doing nothing at all.

The decision to work on something is driven by how much we value accomplishing the project in that moment – what psychologists call its subjective value. And procrastination, in psychological terms, is what happens when the value of doing something else outweighs the value of working now.

This way of thinking suggests a simple trick to defeat procrastination: find a way to boost the subjective value of working now, relative to the value of other things. You could increase the value of the project, decrease the value of the distraction, or some combination of the two.

For example, instead of cleaning my house, I might try to focus on why grading is personally important to me. Or I could think about how unpleasant cleaning can actually be – especially when sharing a house with a toddler.

It’s simple advice, but adhering to this strategy can be quite difficult, mainly because there are so many forces that diminish the value of working in the present.

The Distant Deadline

People are not entirely rational in the way they value things. For example, a dollar bill is worth exactly the same today as it is a week from now, but its subjective value – roughly how good it would feel to own a dollar – depends on other factors besides its face value, such as when we receive it.

The tendency for people to devalue money and other goods based on time is called delay discounting. For example, one study showed that, on average, receiving $100 three months from now is worth the same to people as receiving $83 right now. People would rather lose $17 than wait a few months to get a larger reward.

Other factors also influence subjective value, such as how much money someone has recently gained or lost. The key point is that there is not a perfect match between objective value and subjective value.

Delay discounting is a factor in procrastination because the completion of the project happens in the future. Getting something done is a delayed reward, so its value in the present is reduced: the further away the deadline is, the less attractive it seems to work on the project right now.

Studies have repeatedly shown that the tendency to procrastinate closely follows economic models of delay discounting. Furthermore, people who characterize themselves as procrastinators show an exaggerated effect. They discount the value of getting something done ahead of time even more than other people.

One way to increase the value of completing a task is to make the finish line seem closer. For example, vividly imagining a future reward reduces delay discounting.

No Work is ‘Effortless’

Not only can completing a project be devalued because it happens in the future, but working on a project can also be unattractive due to the simple fact that work takes effort.

New research supports the idea that mental effort is intrinsically costly; for this reason, people generally choose to work on an easier task rather than a harder task. Furthermore, there are greater subjective costs for work that feels harder (though these costs can be offset by experience with the task at hand).

This leads to the interesting prediction that people would procrastinate more the harder they expect the work to be. That’s because the more effort a task requires, the more someone stands to gain by putting the same amount of effort into something else (a phenomenon economists call opportunity costs). Opportunity costs make working on something that seems hard feels like a loss.

Sure enough, a group of studies shows that people procrastinate more on unpleasant tasks. These results suggest that reducing the pain of working on a project, for example by breaking it down into more familiar and manageable pieces, would be an effective way to reduce procrastination.

Your Work, Your Identity

When we write that procrastination is a side effect of the way we value things, it frames task completion as a product of motivation, rather than ability.

In other words, you can be really good at something, whether it’s cooking a gourmet meal or writing a story, but if you don’t possess the motivation, or sense of importance, to complete the task, it’ll likely be put off.

It was for this reason that the writer Robert Hanks, in an essay for the London Review of Books, described procrastination as “a failure of appetites.”

The source of this “appetite” can be a bit tricky. But one could argue that, like our (real) appetite for food, it’s something that’s closely intertwined with our daily lives, our culture and our sense of who we are.

So how does one increase the subjective value of a project? A powerful way – one that my graduate students and I have written about in detail – is to connect the project to your self-concept. Our hypothesis is that projects seen as important to a person’s self-concept will hold more subjective value for that person.

It’s for this reason that Hanks also wrote that procrastination seems to stem from a failure to “identify sufficiently with your future self” – in other words, the self for whom the goal is most relevant.

Because people are motivated to maintain a positive self-concept, goals connected closely to one’s sense of self or identity take on much more value.

Connecting the project to more immediate sources of value, such as life goals or core values, can fill the deficit in subjective value that underlies procrastination.

Elliot Berkman is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon.

Jordan Miller-Ziegler is a PhD Candidate in Psychology at the University of Oregon.

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5 Habits That Will Help Your Brain Stay in Peak Condition

Train your brain, change your brain.

Posted September 26th 2020

Thomas Oppong

Illustration by Pedro Fernandes / Getty Images.

Nothing about our brains is set in stone. Our brains are surprisingly dynamic. It can adapt, heal, renew or rewire itself.

What you do or don’t do daily is literally changing your brain for better or worse. But it’s not too late rejuvenate, remodel, and reshape your brain to stay in peak condition.

Experiments in neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to change in response to experience) have proven that the brain is capable of modifying itself, either by changing its structure, increasing and reducing its size or altering its biochemistry.

Can you physically change your brain at any age? The answer is: yes, within limits. You can start with these science-backed activities and habits.

1. Juggling Improves the Brain’s Grey Matter

Yes, the simple act of juggling has recently been linked with better brain function. A new study reveals that learning to juggle may cause certain areas of your brain to grow.

The study found that volunteers who participated in a juggling exercise improved white matter in two areas of their brains involved in visual and motor activity.

‘We have demonstrated that there are changes in the white matter of the brain — the bundles of nerve fibres that connect different parts of the brain — as a result of learning an entirely new skill,’ explains Dr Heidi Johansen-Berg of the Department of Clinical Neurology, University of Oxford, who led the work.

‘In fact, we find the structure of the brain is ripe for change. We’ve shown that it is possible for the brain to condition its own wiring system to operate more efficiently, ’ she added.

Four weeks after the study, the researchers found that new white matter in the jugglers’ brains had stayed put and the amount of grey matter had even increased.

The researchers chose juggling as a complex new skill for people to learn. Juggling is one of the many activities you can choose to help your brain improve its grey matter.

2. Never Go to Bed Without Learning One New Thing.

It’s a Spanish saying. It’s profound and so true.

Juggling is not the only activity you can use to build white matter.

You can learn a variety of new things that are unrelated to what you normally do. Variety is key. Meet new people, learn a new skill, learn to dance, take up drawing, design, etc. Do something every day that stretches you and makes you somewhat uncomfortable.

Norman Doidge, explains in his book, “The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science”, “Not all activities are equal in this regard. Those that involve genuine concentration — studying a musical instrument, playing board games, reading, and dancing — are associated with a lower risk for dementia. Dancing, which requires learning new moves, is both physically and mentally challenging and requires much concentration.”

Learning a new language makes the brain grow by increasing grey matter in the areas related to the use of language, according to research. The study revealed that “The right hippocampus and the left superior temporal gyrus were structurally more malleable in interpreters acquiring higher proficiency in the foreign language.”

Leaning at least one new thing not only improves your brain, but it also helps you focus by ignoring irrelevant information.

Don’t do what you’ve always done.

3. Sleeping Poorly Is Linked to Rapid Reductions in Brain Volume

Many people don’t take good sleep seriously. The bad news is that if you sleep poorly, your brain shrinks.

That was the surprising conclusion reached by Claire E. Sexton, DPhil, Andreas B. Storsve, MSc, Kristine B. Walhovd, PhD, Heidi Johansen-Berg, DPhil, and Anders M. Fjell, PhD in their study to examine the relationship between sleep quality and cortical and hippocampal volume.

The findings showed that having trouble sleeping, or not getting enough sleep is linked to rapid reductions in brain volume. The decline can affect important areas of the brain where language, touch, balance and the ability to calculate mathematically or make decisions reside.

“Studies have shown poor sleep can cause protein buildup in the brain that attacks brain cells. So we’re still trying to put the puzzle together,” says Dr Neal Maru, a neurologist and sleep specialist with Integrated Sleep Services in Alexandria, Virginia, who is not associated with the study.

Sleep repair and restore the brain. Improving your sleep habits could be an important way to improve brain health. 7–8 hours/night of good sleep is essential for stimulating new connections and brain growth.

4. Any Form of Exercise Rewires the Brain: Keep Your Body Active

You already know that physical activity is important for your better health. Exercise also helps your cerebral quality that affects memory, motor skills, and the ability to learn.

In fact, just pedalling on a stationary bike for 30 minutes can do wonders for your brain. In a study to determine whether hippocampal volume would increase with exercise in humans, the researchers discovered an increase in hippocampal size.

“Following exercise training, relative hippocampal volume increased significantly in patients (12%) and healthy subjects (16%), with no change in the nonexercise group of patients (-1%),” they revealed.

Exercise the brain in many areas. It increases your heart rate, which pumps more oxygen to the brain. It also helps release body hormones, which provide a nourishing environment for the growth of brain cells.

Indirectly, it also improves mood, sleep and reduces stress and anxiety.

In another study, Dr Scott McGinnis, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School said, “Even more exciting is the finding that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions.”

Any form of aerobic exercise that gets your heart pumping is a great start. Apart from hitting the gym, you can also consider adding walking to your daily routine. Other moderate-intensity exercises, such as swimming, stair climbing, tennis, or dancing can also help.

5. Mindfulness Is Becoming a Global Phenomenon for a Good Reason

People have sworn by meditation for millennia. It’s now supported by rigorous scientific research, driven in part by a desire for new practices to improve our mental health.

The simple idea of being present throughout your day, being more conscious of life as it happens, and noticing any tension or preoccupations of the mind, without judging or analysing can improve your mental health. It’s highly effective in combating stress.

Studies report that meditation can “permanently rewire” your brain to raise levels of happiness. “In the past decade, research has shown that the benefits of mindfulness include: stress reduction, improved concentration, boosts to working memory, reduced rumination, less emotional reactivity, more cognitive flexibility, a higher level of relationship satisfaction, etc.” writes Christopher Bergland of Psychology Today.

Our brains are on auto-pilot most of the time. Begin to notice the world around you. Awaken your senses to the world around you.

You can upgrade our brain in many different ways. Adopting better habits will not only increase your brain’s grey matter, but it will also slow cognitive decline, speed up your memory recall and improve your mental health.

Thomas Oppong is the founder of AllTopStartups and writes on science-based answers to problems in life about creativity, productivity, and self-improvement.

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This post originally appeared on Thomas Oppong and was published December 12, 2019.

How to Speak up for Yourself

Yes, it’s possible to ask for what you want without coming across as a jerk, says social psychologist Adam Galinsky. Posted here September 25th 2020

TED Ideas

• Adam Galinsky

Yes, it’s possible to ask for what you want without coming across as a jerk, says social psychologist Adam Galinsky.

Speaking up is hard to do. I understood the true meaning of this phrase last year, when my wife and I became new parents. After we took our child home from the hospital, we were unsure whether our baby was getting enough nutrients from breastfeeding. We wanted to call our pediatrician, but we also didn’t want to make a bad first impression or come across as crazy, neurotic parents. So we worried and waited. When we took him for a checkup the next day, the doctor said our son was pretty dehydrated and she immediately gave him formula. She also assured us that we could always contact her. But when my wife and I were worrying at home, I should’ve spoken up but I didn’t.

Of course, there are times we speak up when we shouldn’t. I learned that over 10 years ago when I let my twin brother down. He is a documentary filmmaker, and he received an offer for one of his films from a distribution company. He was excited and inclined to accept it. But as a negotiations researcher, I insisted he make a counteroffer, and I helped him craft the perfect one. And it was perfect — perfectly insulting. The company was so offended, they withdrew the offer, and my brother was left with nothing.

In my work, I’ve asked people all over the world how they handle the dilemma of speaking up: when do they feel they can assert themselves, when can they push their interests, when can they express an opinion, when can they make an ambitious ask. Through their anecdotes, I’ve seen that each of us has what’s called a range of acceptable behavior. Sometimes we may come across too strong; we push ourselves too much. That’s what happened with my brother — making a counteroffer was outside his range of acceptable behavior. When we step outside our range, we usually get punished in a variety of ways. We get dismissed, demeaned, even ostracized. Or we lose that raise, promotion or deal we were asking for.

You can start by asking yourself: “What is my range?” The key thing is, our range isn’t fixed. It’s dynamic, expanding or narrowing based on the context you’re in. However, one thing determines your range more than anything else: your power. Power comes in many forms. In negotiations, it comes in the form of alternatives. My brother had no alternatives, so he lacked power. At the same time, the distribution company had lots of alternatives, so they had power. When we have lots of power, our range is very wide and we have a lot of leeway in how to behave. But when we lack power, our range narrows and we have little leeway. The problem is, when our range narrows, it produces something called the low-power double bind: if we don’t speak up, we go unnoticed, but if we do speak up, we get punished.

In order to feel comfortable speaking up and to get what we want, we need ways to expand our range of power. In our work, my colleagues and I have found two things that really matter: 1) You feel powerful in your own eyes; 2) You feel powerful in the eyes of others. When you feel powerful, you feel confident and not fearful, and you can expand your own range. When other people see you as powerful, they grant you a wider range. So we should find and use tools that help expand our range of acceptable behavior.

The first tool — which is sometimes called “the mama bear effect” — was discovered in negotiations through an important finding. On average, at the bargaining table women make less ambitious offers and get worse outcomes than men. However, negotiation researchers Hannah Riley Bowles and Emily Amanatullah both discovered there is one situation where women receive the same outcomes as men and are just as ambitious — when they advocate for others. When they do, they expand their range in their own minds and become more assertive. Like a mama bear defending her cubs, when we advocate for others, we can discover our own voice.

Often, though, we need to be able to advocate for ourselves. In that case, one of the most important tools we have is called perspective-taking. It’s really simple — just look at the world through the eyes of another person — and it’s one of the most important tools we have to expand our range. When I take your perspective and think about what you really want, you are more likely to give me what I want.

Here’s a true story that exemplifies this approach. A man walked into a bank in Watsonville, California. He said, “Give me $2,000, or I’m blowing the whole bank up with a bomb.” The bank manager didn’t just hand him the money. Instead, she took his perspective and noticed something really important — he’d asked for a specific amount of money. She said, “Why did you ask for $2,000?” He answered, “My friend is going to be evicted unless I get him $2,000.” She replied, “Oh! You don’t want to rob the bank. You want to take out a loan. Why don’t you come back to my office, and we can have you fill out the paperwork?” Her quick perspective-taking defused a volatile situation. Taking someone’s perspective allows us to be ambitious and assertive, but still be likable.

There’s another way to be assertive and still be likable: signal your flexibility. Imagine that you work at a car dealership, and you want to sell someone a car. You’re more likely to make the sale if you give your customer two options; let’s say option A is a price of $24,000 and a five-year warranty, and option B is a $23,000 price and a three-year warranty. My research shows when you give people a choice of options, it lowers their defenses, and they’re more likely to accept your offer.

This doesn’t only work for salespeople — it can work for parents. When my niece was four, she resisted getting dressed and rejected the outfits her mother pulled out for her. But then my sister-in-law had a brilliant idea: What if she gave her daughter a choice of shirts, pants or dresses? It worked brilliantly — my niece made her choice and then got dressed quickly and without resistance.

I’ve asked people around the world “When do you feel comfortable speaking up?” The number one answer has been “when I have social support.” So it helps us to get allies on our side. One way to do that is to be a mama bear. Another way to earn strong allies, especially in high places, is to ask for advice. When we ask for input, people like us because we’re flattering them and expressing humility. What’s more, it solves another double bind. Known as the self-promotion double bind, it’s where if we don’t advertise our accomplishments, no one notices; and if we do, we’re not likable.

But when we ask for advice in reference to one of our accomplishments, we’re seen as competent in other people’s eyes — and also likable. This strategy is so powerful it works even when you see it coming. Multiple times in my life, I’ve been forewarned that a low-power person has been instructed to ask me for advice. Each time, I took their perspective, I became more invested in their cause, and I became more committed to them because they asked me for advice.

Another time we feel more confident speaking up is when we have expertise. Expertise gives us credibility. When we have high power, we already have credibility — we only need good evidence. But when we lack power, we don’t have credibility — and we need excellent evidence. We can come across as an expert by tapping into a passion. When we tap into our passion, we give ourselves the courage in our own eyes to speak up, and we get permission from others to speak up, too. Tapping into our passion works when we come across as too weak. Both men and women are frequently punished in the workplace when they shed tears. But researcher Elizabeth Baily Wolf has shown that when we’re able to frame our strong emotions as passion, the condemnation of crying disappears for both men and women.

While all of us have been assigned ranges and roles in this world, these roles and ranges are constantly expanding and evolving. So depending on the scenario, be a ferocious mama bear or a humble advice seeker. Have excellent evidence and strong allies. Be a passionate perspective taker. When you use these tools — and anyone can use them — you’ll expand your range of acceptable behavior, and you’ll always be able to speak up.

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This post originally appeared on TED Ideas and was published February 17, 2017.

In times of serious stress, people might turn to exercise to blow off steam and shake off nervous energy. However, despite anecdotal evidence, the link between working out and relieving stress isn’t well understood by scientists. Researchers haven’t yet pinned down exactly how exercise modulates stress in the brain and body, despite knowing that exercise benefits mental health. September 5th 2020

Mind and Body

8.24.2020 2:00 PM

Exercise may reduce depression — if your brain works in this specific way

By Emma Betuel

Mind and Body

Want to climb Everest? New study identifies factors that influence success

By Sarah Sloat

In a recent study conducted in mice, researchers became one step closer to that understanding, discovering that exercise actually strengthens the brain’s resilience to stress. Exercise helps animals cope with stress by enabling an uptick in a crucial neural protein called galanin, the study suggests. This process influences stress levels, food consumption, cognition, and mood.

Leveraging this finding, researchers were able to genetically tweak even sedentary mice’s levels of galanin, shifts that lowered their anxious response to stress.

The study’s authors explain that this study helps pin down the biological mechanisms driving exercise’s positive effects on stress. While further human experiments are needed to confirm these findings, the researchers have practical advice for people looking to get these benefits: perform regular, aerobic exercise.

“Not exercising at all and then suddenly going for a hard 10 mile run just before a stressful event isn’t as helpful as regularly jogging 3 miles several days a week over several months,” researchers David Weinshenker and Rachel Tillage, tell Inverse by email.

That’s because, based on these results, a history of increased exercise doesn’t affect the immediate physiological response (like a release of cortisol) during a stressful event, Weinshenker and Tillage explain. Instead, exercise increases behavioral resilience after stress exposure.

“This could suggest that increased exercise doesn’t impact our immediate feelings of stress, but does allow us to cope with stress in a healthier way,” the co-authors say.

These findings were released Monday in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The search for the brain mechanisms — Research shows exercise protects against the deleterious effects of stress in both mice and humans. Galanin, that pivotal brain protein that modulates stress and mood, is expressed in similar areas of both animal’s brains.

To examine how these factors interact and influence each other, the study team turned to mice.

“Mechanistic questions are difficult to answer in humans due to ethical and technical limitations, so we used mice for this purpose,” Weinshenker and Tillage say. With these overlapping properties, the team adds that the neurobiological substrates underlying galanin’s role in physical activity-related stress resilience could occur across species.

“One of the major implications from this study in that the galanin system could be a potential target for future therapies… “

The measured mice’s anxious behavior 24 hours after a foot shock test — aka the stressful event. They also analyzed their levels of galanin and examined its source.

Half the mice had regular access to an exercise wheel in their cage, while others had no running wheel. Mice steadily increased their running distance over the first week, after which they ran approximately 10-16 kilometers per day. Researchers tracked the mice’s activity for three weeks.

Aerobic exercise, like biking, is more likely to have a greater effect on stress resilience than non-aerobic exercise.

Those who exercised showed less anxious behavior after the stressful event compared to mice that didn’t exercise. Exercising mice also had elevated galanin levels in the locus coeruleus, a cluster of neurons in the brainstem involved in the stress response.

The amount of time the mice spent exercising in the third week correlated with the amount of galanin in the locus coeruleus, which in turn correlated with their degree of stress resilience.

Based on these findings, the team then genetically increased galanin in the locus coeruleus in sedentary mice. This gave these inactive mice exercise’s beneficial stress resilience effects, without changing their physical activity patterns.

If further human experiments confirm these findings, it could mean hijacking the galanin system could help people gain exercise’s stress resilience benefits, even if they aren’t able to work out.

“These findings build on what we know by isolating a specific biological mechanism — increased galanin in the locus coeruleus— by which exercise can influence how we respond to stress,” Weinshenker and Tillage explain. “One of the major implications from this study in that the galanin system could be a potential target for future therapies to gain the positive effects of exercise on stress resilience for people who are not able to exercise.”

Interestingly, the increased galanin didn’t influence other aspects of the mice’s behavior, suggesting galanin may be recruited only during periods of high stress, the team says.

More human data is needed to figure out exactly what type or how much exercise confers this stress-resilience effect. But based on the current evidence, the researchers say they can offer some general guidance:

• Aerobic exercise (like walking, running, biking, swimming) probably has a greater effect on stress resilience than non-aerobic exercise (like weight lifting).
• Exercise probably needs to be routine; completed a few times a week. Cramming in a HIIT workout or long run right before a stressful event isn’t likely to be as helpful as regularly hiking or hitting the elliptical.

Abstract: The neuropeptide galanin has been implicated in stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders in humans and rodent models. While pharmacological treatments for these disorders are ineffective for many individuals, physical activity is beneficial for stress-related symptoms. Galanin is highly expressed in the noradrenergic system, particularly the locus coeruleus (LC), which is dysregulated in stress-related disorders and activated by exercise. Galanin expression is elevated in the LC by chronic exercise, and blockade of galanin transmission attenuates exercise-induced stress resilience. However, most research on this topic has been done in rats, so it is unclear whether the relationship between exercise and galanin is species-specific. Moreover, use of intracerebroventricular galanin receptor antagonists in prior studies precluded defining a causal role for LC-derived galanin specifically. Therefore, the goals of this study were twofold.

First, we investigated whether physical activity (chronic wheel running) increases stress resilience and galanin expression in the LC of male and female mice. Next, we used transgenic mice that overexpress galanin in noradrenergic neurons (Gal OX) to determine how chronically elevated noradrenergic-derived galanin, alone, alters anxiogenic-like responses to stress. We found that three weeks of ad libitum access to a running wheel in their home cage increased galanin mRNA in the LC of mice, which was correlated with and conferred resilience to stress. The effects of exercise were phenocopied by galanin overexpression in noradrenergic neurons, and Gal OX mice were resistant to the anxiogenic effect of optogenetic LC activation. These findings support a role for chronically increased noradrenergic galanin in mediating resilience to stress.

Where Is My Mind? August 31st 2020

The rise and fall of the claustrum epitomizes the hunt for consciousness in the brain.

Nautilus

• Marco Altamirano
• Brian N. Mathur

Photo by Peshkova / Shutterstock.

In 1976, Francis Crick arrived at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, overlooking a Pacific Shangri-La with cotton candy skies and a beaming, blue-green sea. He had already won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, revealing the basis of life to be a purely physical, not a mystical, process. He hoped to do the same thing for consciousness. If matter was strange enough to explain a creature’s life code, he thought, maybe it’s strange enough to explain a creature’s mind, too.

For something that everybody walks around with everyday, consciousness wouldn’t seem to be as immense a puzzle as the origin of the universe. It’s just that difficult to imagine how subjective experience can arise from basic physical elements like atoms and molecules. It seems like there must be more to the story. Small wonder, then, that for ages people believed that consciousness was a function of the soul, far beyond the grasp of science. Consequently, consciousness became the strongest argument for vitalism, the idea that life is dependent on immaterial or non-physical forces. Crick, a lifelong defender of materialism, was absolutely determined when he arrived in California to dispel the notion from consciousness and blaze a path toward solving it.

In the last 30 years of his life, he propelled a revolution in neuroscience by molecular biology, challenging the brightest minds in the field, usually over tea, and publishing works on his “astonishing hypothesis” that consciousness arises from the brain alone. On his deathbed in 2005, Crick, together with his friend and colleague Christof Koch, published a final article, “What is the function of the claustrum?”, which reignited the search for the physical location of consciousness in the brain.¹ It proposed the claustrum, a set of neurons coincidentally shaped like a hammock, as the seat of consciousness because it receives “input from almost all regions of cortex, and projects back to almost all regions of cortex,” the wrinkled surface of the brain responsible for conscious features ranging from sensation to personality. The promising idea would go on to spur probing studies on the nature of consciousness, and the beguiling role of the claustrum, that continue today.

Finding the Mind: Francis Crick brought to neuroscience an uncanny ability to determine the function of a biological system by studying its structure. He wanted to do for consciousness what he had succeeded in doing for the development of life, with DNA: to show that our inner life had a completely material basis. Photo by Marc Lieberman.

---

The claustrum is far from the first part of the brain to be singled out as the seat of consciousness. The first hypothesis came in the mid-17th century from René Descartes, who notoriously claimed that the “soul has its principle seat in the small gland located in the middle of the brain”—namely, the pineal gland. The problem Descartes was trying to solve was how the soul (or mind), which he viewed as entirely separate from the body, nonetheless interacts with it. It’s easy to imagine how material bodies like bowling balls and pins interact, but thoughts don’t seem material. It’s hard to imagine them taking up any space or exerting force—so how does something seemingly immaterial interact with matter? How does ingesting a martini affect our thoughts?

To solve this, Descartes borrowed the concept of “animal spirits” from the ancient Greek physician Galen. Animal spirits, Descartes believed, were psycho-physiological messengers in the blood that can record physical sensations while providing signals that the mind interprets as conscious perceptions. He nominated the pineal gland as the hub for these half-mental, half-material messenger spirits to interface and radiate throughout the body. Descartes’ hypothesis may seem extravagant, but it brought consciousness into the field of science, into the mechanism of bodies, as it were, opening the door that ultimately led to Crick.

For a moment, it seemed that the claustrum was indeed what Crick suspected: the hub of consciousness.

An alternative to the pineal gland wasn’t suggested for another 200 years. In 1835, German physiologist Johannes Müller nominated as the seat of consciousness the medulla oblongata—a part of the brainstem that regulates the flow of oxygen rich blood cells to the rest of the brain. Although it’s a kind of power source for the brain, the medulla oblongata doesn’t seem related to higher-order conscious functions from a modern perspective. (It’s now known that the medulla is responsible for involuntary functions like vomiting and sneezing, hardly defining aspects of the human experience.)

The idea that the seat of consciousness in the brain must, in some way, be a hub for neural activity across the brain was seeded in the 19th century by the English physiologist William B. Carpenter. He located consciousness in the thalamus, in the middle of the brain. Even today, the role of the thalamus in consciousness remains largely conjectural, but Carpenter’s enduring legacy was to understand that consciousness is an experiential unity—not a cacophony of unconnected perceptions—and that the neural origin of consciousness must have the capacity to produce that unity by integrating higher-order functions (like thought, emotion, and agency) with lower-order sensory faculties.

Carpenter’s work was corroborated a century later by a pioneering American-Canadian neurosurgeon named Wilder Penfield. Penfield was treating patients with severe epilepsy by lesioning areas of the brain that were generating seizures, and he realized that he could functionally map specific movements or perceptions to specific areas of the cortex, which spreads out across the entire brain surface. But his map of the cortex presented a problem of brain geography that eluded Carpenter: How could remote and seemingly disconnected sensory processing areas generate the unified experience of consciousness? The solution did not seem forthcoming.

Until Francis Crick, that is. He had an uncanny ability to envision the function of a biological system by looking at its structure. Crick searched for a neural structure capable of integrating information from distant regions of the cortex. Decades of fine-grained neuroanatomical studies directed him to one area of the brain that satisfied all his criteria: the claustrum. Bi-directionally connected with arguably every area of the cortex, the claustrum appears like the Grand Central Station of the brain. Crick’s analogy was that if the different areas of the cortex processing various sensory modalities (visual, auditory, somatosensory, and so on) were the musicians in an orchestra, the claustrum was the conductor making sure everyone hit the right notes in time. His argument was simple, elegant, and cogent. It also provided the first scientifically sound and testable hypothesis for the seat of consciousness.

---

In the decades since Crick set his sights on the claustrum, scientists have rushed to produce data about this mysterious region of the brain. A 2014 case study of an epileptic patient at George Washington University showed that electrical stimulation near the claustrum resulted in an immediate loss of consciousness, although the patient regained consciousness as soon as the stimulation stopped.² And in 2017, researchers at the Allen Institute discovered that the claustrum contains neurons that reach across the entirety of the brain like a “crown of thorns,” supporting the hypothesis that it’s a massive integrator and conductor of brain-wide activity.³ For a moment, it seemed that the claustrum was indeed what Crick suspected: the hub of consciousness.

However, two studies published in 2019 suggest that the claustrum’s moment has passed. A study on five epileptic patients at Stanford University demonstrated that zapping the claustrum on both sides of the brain had no effect on their subjective experience.⁴ Corroborating this, a study on mice from investigators at the University of Maryland showed that deactivating the claustrum resulted in no apparent loss of consciousness.⁵ Based on these data, it seems that the claustrum may be yet another red herring in the hunt for the seat of consciousness.

The field now stands on the precipice of new testable theories of consciousness.

While the claustrum may not be the seat of consciousness, it could still be a kind of chauffeur for it. Primates, especially humans, can be surprisingly absent-minded: We are often barely aware of our commutes to work until we take a wrong turn and, suddenly, the sensory world grabs our attention. Navigational habits allow primates to effectively auto-pilot through a lot of tasks, until there are unpredicted changes that spur cognitive demand, igniting the claustrum. How a possible cognitive control-like function for the claustrum relates to consciousness remains a matter of debate.

---

In October 2019, the Society for Claustrum Research convened in Chicago where Koch, from the Allen Institute, and one of us, Brian N. Mathur, held an open, albeit unresolved, discussion on the degree to which the claustrum may conduct consciousness. At the subsequent Society for Neuroscience meeting, new preliminary data encouraged revisiting the thalamus as a possible neural correlate for consciousness. These data would appear to place the seat of consciousness in another structure, but neuroscientists now largely suspect, thanks to Carpenter and Crick, that any neural correlate of consciousness functions as a part of a broader, dynamic neural network.

For example, Bernard Baars, who developed Global Workspace theory, argues that consciousness does not arise from a single anatomical hub like a claustrum. Instead, it emerges from a complex network of functional hubs working together in a sort of neuronal “cloud computing” format.

Giulio Tonini, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers another interesting approach. The Italian neuroscientist’s Integrated Information Theory (IIT) posits that the neural activity of a subject is associated with certain conscious experiences, such as reading the paper or walking through a neighborhood. The hypothesis is that the more areas of the brain that are stimulated at once, the more integrated the sensory, emotional, and cognitive information and, hence, the more conscious the organism.

The claustrum may not be the seat of consciousness, but it could still be a kind of chauffeur for it.

IIT is supported, and even quantified, by a method developed by Tonini and Massimini in 2013 that yields a pertubational complexity index (PCI).⁸ PCI involves stimulating (that is, functionally perturbing) certain parts of cortex, which causes a response from the rest of the cortex that PCI maps and measures. In sleeping subjects, the responsive activity is restricted, but in conscious subjects the activity is significantly more widespread and complex. Tonini claims that the measurement of this activity is a measurement of consciousness itself, allowing it to possibly determine whether unresponsive patients are truly in a vegetative state or in a conscious state but unable to communicate.

IIT’s methodology is brilliant, but there is something of a conceptual sleight of hand when it identifies consciousness with neural activity. Although it’s possible to measure patterns of neural activity and correlate them with certain conscious experiences, this is not logically sufficient to claim that such measurements are consciousness itself, tout court. Conceptually, at least, claiming that active neural patterns are consciousness is tantamount to pointing to a world map plastered on a wall and saying, “This is Copenhagen.”

Nonetheless, in a determined effort to bridge the gap between neural activity and the mind, researchers using IIT are now applying machine-learning algorithms to correlate PCI data with causal fingerprints of consciousness. As a result, the field now stands on the precipice of new testable theories of consciousness. But neuroscientists must still contend with the basic questions that have bogged the science of consciousness since Descartes; namely, what exactly is consciousness, and how can we study it through the brain?

Some philosophers imagine that the brain produces consciousness like the stomach produces enzymes or the gall bladder secretes bile. (It doesn’t.) But the desire to confine consciousness to that sort of mechanistic description is kind of the problem: Although it’s easy to localize apparatuses for different parts of conscious experience, say, the smell of dinner, or the distance to the table, or the music from the radio, consciousness itself offers no such broken mirror of experience—it’s a coherent, unified experience of an entire body within an environment—the brain-gut connection, for example, is important for conscious emotions.

Perhaps it will be possible, someday, to replicate something approaching the dynamics of a conscious system in silico and produce the robots imagined in science fiction. Or, as Koch now startlingly suggests, it may be the case that the dualism between mind and matter is the obstacle for locating consciousness in the brain, and that matter already, somehow, experiences itself. Combining vitalism and materialism, the idea of panpsychism—that fundamental matter has conscious elements—is admittedly strange but, then again, so is consciousness. And, in a weird way, it confirms Crick’s suspicion that matter, by itself, is dazzling enough to explain it.

Marco Altamirano is a writer based in New Orleans and the author of Time, Technology, and Environment: An Essay on the Philosophy of Nature. Follow him on Twitter @marcosien.

Brian N. Mathur is a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Follow him on Twitter @BrianMathur1.

References

Where Is My Mind?

The rise and fall of the claustrum epitomizes the hunt for consciousness in the brain.

Nautilus

• Marco Altamirano
• Brian N. Mathur

Photo by Peshkova / Shutterstock.

In 1976, Francis Crick arrived at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, overlooking a Pacific Shangri-La with cotton candy skies and a beaming, blue-green sea. He had already won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the double-helix structure of DNA, revealing the basis of life to be a purely physical, not a mystical, process. He hoped to do the same thing for consciousness. If matter was strange enough to explain a creature’s life code, he thought, maybe it’s strange enough to explain a creature’s mind, too.

For something that everybody walks around with everyday, consciousness wouldn’t seem to be as immense a puzzle as the origin of the universe. It’s just that difficult to imagine how subjective experience can arise from basic physical elements like atoms and molecules. It seems like there must be more to the story. Small wonder, then, that for ages people believed that consciousness was a function of the soul, far beyond the grasp of science. Consequently, consciousness became the strongest argument for vitalism, the idea that life is dependent on immaterial or non-physical forces. Crick, a lifelong defender of materialism, was absolutely determined when he arrived in California to dispel the notion from consciousness and blaze a path toward solving it.

In the last 30 years of his life, he propelled a revolution in neuroscience by molecular biology, challenging the brightest minds in the field, usually over tea, and publishing works on his “astonishing hypothesis” that consciousness arises from the brain alone. On his deathbed in 2005, Crick, together with his friend and colleague Christof Koch, published a final article, “What is the function of the claustrum?”, which reignited the search for the physical location of consciousness in the brain.¹ It proposed the claustrum, a set of neurons coincidentally shaped like a hammock, as the seat of consciousness because it receives “input from almost all regions of cortex, and projects back to almost all regions of cortex,” the wrinkled surface of the brain responsible for conscious features ranging from sensation to personality. The promising idea would go on to spur probing studies on the nature of consciousness, and the beguiling role of the claustrum, that continue today.

Finding the Mind: Francis Crick brought to neuroscience an uncanny ability to determine the function of a biological system by studying its structure. He wanted to do for consciousness what he had succeeded in doing for the development of life, with DNA: to show that our inner life had a completely material basis. Photo by Marc Lieberman.

---

The claustrum is far from the first part of the brain to be singled out as the seat of consciousness. The first hypothesis came in the mid-17th century from René Descartes, who notoriously claimed that the “soul has its principle seat in the small gland located in the middle of the brain”—namely, the pineal gland. The problem Descartes was trying to solve was how the soul (or mind), which he viewed as entirely separate from the body, nonetheless interacts with it. It’s easy to imagine how material bodies like bowling balls and pins interact, but thoughts don’t seem material. It’s hard to imagine them taking up any space or exerting force—so how does something seemingly immaterial interact with matter? How does ingesting a martini affect our thoughts?

To solve this, Descartes borrowed the concept of “animal spirits” from the ancient Greek physician Galen. Animal spirits, Descartes believed, were psycho-physiological messengers in the blood that can record physical sensations while providing signals that the mind interprets as conscious perceptions. He nominated the pineal gland as the hub for these half-mental, half-material messenger spirits to interface and radiate throughout the body. Descartes’ hypothesis may seem extravagant, but it brought consciousness into the field of science, into the mechanism of bodies, as it were, opening the door that ultimately led to Crick.

For a moment, it seemed that the claustrum was indeed what Crick suspected: the hub of consciousness.

An alternative to the pineal gland wasn’t suggested for another 200 years. In 1835, German physiologist Johannes Müller nominated as the seat of consciousness the medulla oblongata—a part of the brainstem that regulates the flow of oxygen rich blood cells to the rest of the brain. Although it’s a kind of power source for the brain, the medulla oblongata doesn’t seem related to higher-order conscious functions from a modern perspective. (It’s now known that the medulla is responsible for involuntary functions like vomiting and sneezing, hardly defining aspects of the human experience.)

The idea that the seat of consciousness in the brain must, in some way, be a hub for neural activity across the brain was seeded in the 19th century by the English physiologist William B. Carpenter. He located consciousness in the thalamus, in the middle of the brain. Even today, the role of the thalamus in consciousness remains largely conjectural, but Carpenter’s enduring legacy was to understand that consciousness is an experiential unity—not a cacophony of unconnected perceptions—and that the neural origin of consciousness must have the capacity to produce that unity by integrating higher-order functions (like thought, emotion, and agency) with lower-order sensory faculties.

Carpenter’s work was corroborated a century later by a pioneering American-Canadian neurosurgeon named Wilder Penfield. Penfield was treating patients with severe epilepsy by lesioning areas of the brain that were generating seizures, and he realized that he could functionally map specific movements or perceptions to specific areas of the cortex, which spreads out across the entire brain surface. But his map of the cortex presented a problem of brain geography that eluded Carpenter: How could remote and seemingly disconnected sensory processing areas generate the unified experience of consciousness? The solution did not seem forthcoming.

Until Francis Crick, that is. He had an uncanny ability to envision the function of a biological system by looking at its structure. Crick searched for a neural structure capable of integrating information from distant regions of the cortex. Decades of fine-grained neuroanatomical studies directed him to one area of the brain that satisfied all his criteria: the claustrum. Bi-directionally connected with arguably every area of the cortex, the claustrum appears like the Grand Central Station of the brain. Crick’s analogy was that if the different areas of the cortex processing various sensory modalities (visual, auditory, somatosensory, and so on) were the musicians in an orchestra, the claustrum was the conductor making sure everyone hit the right notes in time. His argument was simple, elegant, and cogent. It also provided the first scientifically sound and testable hypothesis for the seat of consciousness.

---

In the decades since Crick set his sights on the claustrum, scientists have rushed to produce data about this mysterious region of the brain. A 2014 case study of an epileptic patient at George Washington University showed that electrical stimulation near the claustrum resulted in an immediate loss of consciousness, although the patient regained consciousness as soon as the stimulation stopped.² And in 2017, researchers at the Allen Institute discovered that the claustrum contains neurons that reach across the entirety of the brain like a “crown of thorns,” supporting the hypothesis that it’s a massive integrator and conductor of brain-wide activity.³ For a moment, it seemed that the claustrum was indeed what Crick suspected: the hub of consciousness.

However, two studies published in 2019 suggest that the claustrum’s moment has passed. A study on five epileptic patients at Stanford University demonstrated that zapping the claustrum on both sides of the brain had no effect on their subjective experience.⁴ Corroborating this, a study on mice from investigators at the University of Maryland showed that deactivating the claustrum resulted in no apparent loss of consciousness.⁵ Based on these data, it seems that the claustrum may be yet another red herring in the hunt for the seat of consciousness.

The field now stands on the precipice of new testable theories of consciousness.

While the claustrum may not be the seat of consciousness, it could still be a kind of chauffeur for it. Primates, especially humans, can be surprisingly absent-minded: We are often barely aware of our commutes to work until we take a wrong turn and, suddenly, the sensory world grabs our attention. Navigational habits allow primates to effectively auto-pilot through a lot of tasks, until there are unpredicted changes that spur cognitive demand, igniting the claustrum. How a possible cognitive control-like function for the claustrum relates to consciousness remains a matter of debate.

---

In October 2019, the Society for Claustrum Research convened in Chicago where Koch, from the Allen Institute, and one of us, Brian N. Mathur, held an open, albeit unresolved, discussion on the degree to which the claustrum may conduct consciousness. At the subsequent Society for Neuroscience meeting, new preliminary data encouraged revisiting the thalamus as a possible neural correlate for consciousness. These data would appear to place the seat of consciousness in another structure, but neuroscientists now largely suspect, thanks to Carpenter and Crick, that any neural correlate of consciousness functions as a part of a broader, dynamic neural network.

For example, Bernard Baars, who developed Global Workspace theory, argues that consciousness does not arise from a single anatomical hub like a claustrum. Instead, it emerges from a complex network of functional hubs working together in a sort of neuronal “cloud computing” format.

Giulio Tonini, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers another interesting approach. The Italian neuroscientist’s Integrated Information Theory (IIT) posits that the neural activity of a subject is associated with certain conscious experiences, such as reading the paper or walking through a neighborhood. The hypothesis is that the more areas of the brain that are stimulated at once, the more integrated the sensory, emotional, and cognitive information and, hence, the more conscious the organism.

The claustrum may not be the seat of consciousness, but it could still be a kind of chauffeur for it.

IIT is supported, and even quantified, by a method developed by Tonini and Massimini in 2013 that yields a pertubational complexity index (PCI).⁸ PCI involves stimulating (that is, functionally perturbing) certain parts of cortex, which causes a response from the rest of the cortex that PCI maps and measures. In sleeping subjects, the responsive activity is restricted, but in conscious subjects the activity is significantly more widespread and complex. Tonini claims that the measurement of this activity is a measurement of consciousness itself, allowing it to possibly determine whether unresponsive patients are truly in a vegetative state or in a conscious state but unable to communicate.

IIT’s methodology is brilliant, but there is something of a conceptual sleight of hand when it identifies consciousness with neural activity. Although it’s possible to measure patterns of neural activity and correlate them with certain conscious experiences, this is not logically sufficient to claim that such measurements are consciousness itself, tout court. Conceptually, at least, claiming that active neural patterns are consciousness is tantamount to pointing to a world map plastered on a wall and saying, “This is Copenhagen.”

Nonetheless, in a determined effort to bridge the gap between neural activity and the mind, researchers using IIT are now applying machine-learning algorithms to correlate PCI data with causal fingerprints of consciousness. As a result, the field now stands on the precipice of new testable theories of consciousness. But neuroscientists must still contend with the basic questions that have bogged the science of consciousness since Descartes; namely, what exactly is consciousness, and how can we study it through the brain?

Some philosophers imagine that the brain produces consciousness like the stomach produces enzymes or the gall bladder secretes bile. (It doesn’t.) But the desire to confine consciousness to that sort of mechanistic description is kind of the problem: Although it’s easy to localize apparatuses for different parts of conscious experience, say, the smell of dinner, or the distance to the table, or the music from the radio, consciousness itself offers no such broken mirror of experience—it’s a coherent, unified experience of an entire body within an environment—the brain-gut connection, for example, is important for conscious emotions.

Perhaps it will be possible, someday, to replicate something approaching the dynamics of a conscious system in silico and produce the robots imagined in science fiction. Or, as Koch now startlingly suggests, it may be the case that the dualism between mind and matter is the obstacle for locating consciousness in the brain, and that matter already, somehow, experiences itself. Combining vitalism and materialism, the idea of panpsychism—that fundamental matter has conscious elements—is admittedly strange but, then again, so is consciousness. And, in a weird way, it confirms Crick’s suspicion that matter, by itself, is dazzling enough to explain it.

Marco Altamirano is a writer based in New Orleans and the author of Time, Technology, and Environment: An Essay on the Philosophy of Nature. Follow him on Twitter @marcosien.

Brian N. Mathur is a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Follow him on Twitter @BrianMathur1.

References

1. Crick, F.C. & Koch, C. What is the function of the claustrum? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 360, 1271-1279 (2005).
2. Koubeissi, M.Z., Bartolomei, F., Beltagy, A., & Picard, F. Electrical stimulation of a small brain area reversibly disrupts consciousness. Epilepsy Behavior 37, 32-35 (2014).
3. Reardon, S. A giant neuron found wrapped around entire mouse brain. Nature News (2017).
4. Bickel, S. & Parvizi, J. Electrical stimulation of the human claustrum. Epilepsy Behavior 97, 296-303 (2019).
5. White, M.G., Mu, C., Zeng, H., & Mathur, B.N. The claustrum is required for reward acquisition under high cognitive demand. bioRxiv (2018). Retrieved from DOI:10.1101/390443
6. Remedios, R., Logothetis, N.K., & Kayser, C. Unimodal responses prevail within the multisensory claustrum. Journal of Neuroscience 20, 12902-12907 (2010).
7. Krimmel, S.R., et al. Resting state functional connectivity and cognitive task-related activation of the human claustrum. NeuroImage 196, 59-67 (2019).
8. Casali, A.G., et al. A theoretically based index of consciousness independent of sensory processing and behavior. Science Translational Medicine 5, 198ra105 (2013).

1. Crick, F.C. & Koch, C. What is the function of the claustrum? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 360, 1271-1279 (2005).
2. Koubeissi, M.Z., Bartolomei, F., Beltagy, A., & Picard, F. Electrical stimulation of a small brain area reversibly disrupts consciousness. Epilepsy Behavior 37, 32-35 (2014).
3. Reardon, S. A giant neuron found wrapped around entire mouse brain. Nature News (2017).
4. Bickel, S. & Parvizi, J. Electrical stimulation of the human claustrum. Epilepsy Behavior 97, 296-303 (2019).
5. White, M.G., Mu, C., Zeng, H., & Mathur, B.N. The claustrum is required for reward acquisition under high cognitive demand. bioRxiv (2018). Retrieved from DOI:10.1101/390443
6. Remedios, R., Logothetis, N.K., & Kayser, C. Unimodal responses prevail within the multisensory claustrum. Journal of Neuroscience 20, 12902-12907 (2010).
7. Krimmel, S.R., et al. Resting state functional connectivity and cognitive task-related activation of the human claustrum. NeuroImage 196, 59-67 (2019).
8. Casali, A.G., et al. A theoretically based index of consciousness independent of sensory processing and behavior. Science Translational Medicine 5, 198ra105 (2013).

Comment on Consciousness by Roberta Jane Cook August 31st 2020

Comment This is a very erudite and well researched article, When the author raises the question how drinking a Martini influences cosnsciousness, he complicates something simple. The same could be questioned of any chemical change in the brain, natural or induced – including sexual arousal and orgasm, which appears to be connected to a person’s sense of gender and sexual purpose, though feminists dominate psychology and don”t like this veiew.

Stress affects hormones, altering and hopefully triggering the flight or fight for survival response. However, sometimes it triggers the ‘rabbit in the car headlights syndrome.. Sometimes consciousness just shuts down to accept the inevitable and oblivion – or maybe life after death.

Consciousness appears not to be absolute. Psychology is a dubious subject because it comes from a dubious dominant cultural self perpetuating rather than enlightening standpoint, hence reliance on the DSM. cultural and religious morality also massively obscures the measurement and judegement of what is acceptable consciousness, hence the psychiatric community’s arrogant definition of paranoia and delusions. I was sent by police, to spend over 12 hours in a mental hospital after 14 in a police cell. The experience affected and altered my cosnciousness accordingly and I saw some seriously disturbed highly medicatsed people walking around in circkes all night long.

We see two interersting developments in Western society. One is the quest for creating Artificial Intelligence ( A1 ). This, some fear will result in AI developing a sense of self detrmintaion and contol. Interestingly mainstream opinion never considers the logic of the God story that we might be A1 created by God, running out of control, though blaming God for alleged ‘free will’ – i.e planet destroying greed.

The second development is the obvious use of psychology, psychiatry, medication, education and other police state methods to frighten people into robotic behaviour, enhancing the oppression of official prejudices and control.

The police gave me no choice but to admit to being female. In the past, I found such an admission had unpleasant consequences,, including being patronised by officialdom who thought my issues with authorities and others was psychotic- they still think this and want to drug me.. This is because its lackeys and running dogs need too patronise and play the common woman’s protector and common man’s denigrator just to make sure neither step out of line. Their conciousness through training and personality peculiarities channels and so enforces the elite’s fear of differences and authentic challenge from below – as we see with the Covid Conspiracy..

In short, they do not like individuals. This is why on the one hand they kill Muslims en masse abroad, whislt welcoming their migration into Europe and exceptionalism on mass. The elite have the sturdy jails and new gestapo. BLM are O.K at the moment because the elite fear the white far right even more. BLM thus justifies focus with BLM support on the disgruntled white working class movemeents. They can’t imagine there ever being a black far right, as happened with Idi Amin in Uganda.

So, unfortunately, the debate about the seat of consciousness and supporting memories, is guided by ruling class prejudcies and patronage. If anything really near the truth was discovered, we would never know because first considerations would be how to milk and guide such truth for military, coorporate and elite advanatge.

We know the CIA pioneered the use of mind altering drugs, along with post hypnotic suggestions. J.D Salinger wrote one book ‘Catcher In The Rye.’ He was a CIA man, his book being linked with agents’ post hypnotoc suggestion trigger words. John Lennon’s killer had been reading that book outside the pop star’s apartment, getting up like a robot when Lennon arrived, then in a robotic trance, got up and shot him dead. Then he sat down again, waiting to be arrested.

As a young student teacher, I was told – using a corruption of Marxism- that our role in schools was consciousness raising. The same is true of the police and other key influencers. To suggest that consciouness could ever be something apart from the body is the same as saying their is no electric current without a generator.

Of course such a view is anathama in our increasingly Islamic dominated western societies, with freedom of worship nonsense, society used to suppress divide and control. So there is another reason, along with militant feminism, all defining a bigoted non scientific definition of truth. Since our consciosness is generated and altered by our changing bodies, the only way we would ever know what it is would be if we lived after death, with all memories in tact. If we did, I suspect most of us would go mad.

The subject of collective consciousnes telepathy ( something else researched by the CIA ) and channeling is another story. The moment my mother died, 12 miles away in hospital I was awoken by the most excruciating cramp, followed by a nurse phoning to tell me she had passed away, or on as some prefer to say. My mother and I were very very close, especially after my father’s death in 1962.

Roberta Jane Cook

Psychosis August 29th 2020

Psychosis

The Relationship Between Violence and Psychotic Disorders

They are both common—but occur together uncommonly.

Posted Jan 19, 2014

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THE BASICS

• Find counselling to treat psychosis

Violence is extremely common, violent crimes occurring literally in the hundreds of thousands every year. Individuals assault each other impulsively, almost casually, even those whom they love. The causes of violence are, consequently, the subject of much attention—especially now, in the wake of a number of mass shootings. Every time someone commits a violent act so egregious that it comes to public notice, a dozen reasons are given for it and for all acts of violence. Poverty is blamed, or prejudice, or overcrowding. But the truth is that the causes of violence are innumerable.

Mental illness is commonly alleged to be a principal cause for violent behavior. For that reason many uninformed people are frightened of someone who is obviously disturbed emotionally. Yet mental illness, like most physical illness, tends to impair the individual’s ability to act, aggressively or in any other way. Only a few such conditions have a significant potential to precipitate a violent act. Among these is paranoid schizophrenia, which may affect the individual so that he comes to believe that people are persecuting him. He may then attack whomever he imagines his enemies to be. Certain drugs—for example, amphetamines—produce psychotic paranoid states which can be dangerous for the same reason. As everyone knows, alcoholic intoxication, because it lowers impulse control, causes some people to become violent; and if they are chronic alcoholics, they become violent over and over again.

Certain rare forms of epilepsy and other confusional states that sometimes occur as a complication of organic disease may cause the individual to strike out indiscriminately at whoever is nearby; but since these attacks are unpremeditated and uncoordinated, they do not often result in someone being injured. Occasionally, sexually deviant individuals become notorious by committing sadistic or murderous acts, but they too are unusual and represent the behavior of only a tiny fraction of those who arc sexually disturbed or deviant. There are in addition certain very dangerous, very strange, hysterical psychoses—such as amok—which stimulate the individual to sudden and usually short—lived bouts of murder, but these are exceedingly rare. And they occur mostly in islands of the South Pacific.

And there are still other people who are labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis, such as explosive personality, precisely because they are repeatedly violent irrationally and with little provocation. Such a term signifies nothing at all about them beyond the fact that they are indeed violent.  Certainly they are not psychotic, or mentally ill in any conventional sense. It is true, of course, that any psychotic or neurotic person can commit a violent act, but only because any person at all can commit such an act. The fact is that violence is an uncommon complication of mental illness.

Some attempts have been made to predict who will become violent, and who having once been violent, perhaps criminally violent, will become violent again. Not much success has been achieved. Psychiatrists, who are often charged legally with the responsibility for determining whether or not someone is dangerous, are often wrong, judging by subsequent events. What is not commonly appreciated is that these professionals are likely to exaggerate the danger rather than minimize it. They are more likely to hold patients indefinitely in a hospital on the sometimes arbitrary presumption of their dangerousness than they are to release homicidal persons into the community carelessly, as they are often accused of doing. article continues after advertisement

The indicators, such as they are, by which a person’s potential for violence is judged, are as follows:

1. A previous history of violence. The more frequent and more vicious someone’s past violent acts, the more likely he is to be violent again. Often adults who have committed crimes of violence give a long history of other similar acts, dating back to their childhood. They may have had difficulty in school because of fighting. Or they may have exhibited an odd triad of symptoms: bed-wetting, fire-setting, and cruelty to animals. Probably any act of cruelty or wanton destructiveness is a sign of a defect of personality which may manifest itself at some point in the willful injury of others.
2. Menacing behavior. Someone who threatens violence when he or she is angry, or who punches walls or breaks furniture, or who in some other way shows poor impulse control, is likely to strike out at someone when  particularly angry. Similarly, someone who nurses a grievance and constructs plans for revenge may undertake someday to consummate those plans. Threats are sometimes a prelude to an overt act. Threats can be expressed also nonverbally through the individual’s demeanor. Some people, before losing control, give warning by quarreling and shouting and by becoming agitated—in short, by appearing as if they are about to lose control.  And some people, of course, openly state their intention of committing a violent act.
3. A pattern of engaging in activities where violent encounters are likely to occur. Certain social settings undermine the usual strictures against violence. For instance, someone in a rioting mob is capable of perpetrating a violent act even though ordinarily he is in good control of himself. Similarly, a person who frequents bars constantly or who associates with drug addicts places himself in a setting where violent behavior is tacitly encouraged because it is construed as a sign of manhood. Consequently, such a person may learn to be violent. Such learning occurs also in certain families so consumed by rage that their members repeatedly attack each other physically. Merely living with such a family is an incitement to violence.

As people become violent for different reasons, they are also violent in different ways:

One man became drunk regularly and punched his wife and children when he came home. On one occasion, his wife, presumably in a spirit of self-defense, stabbed him with a kitchen knife, precipitating the need for an emergency operation in order to save his life.

Another man, after a fight with his father, went to a park where he raped the first woman he saw. Another man, when he became angry at his wife, shot a rifle out of his window at passing cars.

A woman who had had no previous history of violent or abnormal behavior became so desperate upon delivering an illegitimate child that she killed it by throwing it into an incinerator.

A 12-year-old boy kicked his younger siblings at every opportunity and finally killed one of them with a hammer.

These examples could be multiplied endlessly. The variety of violence is extraordinary. The attendant risk to others depends on the strength and the intent of the violent impulse, the circumstances under which it arises, and the response those people who are immediately present. article continues after advertisement

Treatment
The violent person is usually violent again and again; therefore proper treatment must extend past the moment of violence itself and over a period of time. His therapist—who in this case may be almost anyone, a parole officer perhaps, or even a lawyer—must accomplish with this difficult patient the basic goals of any therapy. He must establish a trusting relationship between them in which the patient can express frustration verbally instead of by striking out. Indeed, they must be able to discuss openly not only the patient’s violence but all of his, or her, behavior.

Obviously the first principle of managing someone potentially violent is to see to it, as far as possible, that he does not in fact injure anyone, for his own sake as well as for everyone else’s. Even for a psychopath, the knowledge of having harmed another human is terrible.

Consequently, if it seems that there is a real risk of someone becoming violent, the police or other legal authorities should be involved promptly, at a time when they can prevent his actions rather than punish them. Some people, rather than call the police, play the role of victim over and over. Being so passive, perhaps masochistic, they may actually provoke attacks on themselves. No one should subject himself, or herself, to repeated physical assaults—or allow others to be subjected to them. Surprisingly, some people refuse to take the dangerousness of physical attack seriously, especially if they are not themselves the victim.

An army corporal was sent for psychiatric examination after he was found choking another soldier in the bathroom of his barracks. It was the third such assault he had committed that month, each time on a different person. Each time, the attack was interrupted fortuitously by other personnel who happened to walk into the room. The only explanation the corporal gave for these attacks was that these individuals “did not deserve to live;” and so he set out to kill them. There was no particular reason why they were undeserving of life. In fact when pressed, the corporal went so far as to admit that so far, at the age of 19, he had not yet come across anyone who in his judgment deserved to live. article continues after advertisement

His life before he entered the army was marked by one violent incident after another. When he was small, he tortured arid killed small animals, then larger animals when he was older. He committed petty larceny at an early age, then graduated to armed robber and assault with a deadly weapon. He attacked members of his own family, once with a wrench. From the time he was ten, his family refused to allow him in the house, and he lived thereafter in different foster homes and then different reformatories, one after another. Finally, when he was 18 years old, a judge who found him guilty of assault gave him the choice of serving a jail sentence or of enlisting in the army. He chose to enlist.

The psychiatrist contacted the corporal’s commanding officer and asked why the corporal, who was so obviously dangerous, had not been discharged from the service following the first of these three serious assaults. “Because he’s the best gunner I have,” replied the captain unabashedly. The fact that the United States happened to be at peace at the time made no difference. Taken aback, the psychiatrist asked the captain what it would take to convince him that the corporal was potentially homicidal. “Only if he killed someone,” the captain said. “Anyone who really wants to kill someone has no trouble doing it.”

The corporal was discharged from the service on psychiatric grounds before this provocative theory could be put to the test.

Violent behavior should never be overlooked, fCommentor it is an indicator of more violence to come. However, the present attention paid to psychiatric patients, although welcome for other reasons, is not likely to work as a way of preventing  mass shootings.  A murder can take place even when someone is being observed closely, just as suicide can. (c) Fredric Neuman Excerpted from “Caring: Home Guide for the Emotionally Disturbed.” Follow Dr. Neuman’s blog at fredricneumanmd.com/blog/ or ask advice at fredricneumanmd.com/blog/ask-dr-neuman-advice-column/

Comment from an alleged psycho – Roberta Jane Cook August 29th 2020

My readers will know much of my story. I cannot say more for legal reasons. However, I will make mention again, of how I had completed over the two years living as a woman. I should have been lined up for gender reassignment surgery in February 2018, around the time the police raided my home, arresting me on suspicion of sending letters and pictures of a ‘private and personal nature’ of my ex wife, to various senior police and council people, along with alleged pictures of my ex wife and a porn video, to ex in laws, shopping myself for working as a ‘gay escort’ for my son..

After 6.5 hours in a cold dirty cell, with only one blanket, I was interviewed. The exhibits shown to me, of which I was not allowed to keep, were a badly written typed sheet with a stranger’s name on ( Obviously from my aggrieved ex partner – dumped by me- whose English was bad and tone vengeful ), and pictures of a strange woman in lingerie, and one of me laying on afreind’s bed wearing a lacey black short evening dress. My ex partner had the photo on her system and it was her dress. There was no porn video, but it was left on the record.

So when I attended my last interview, I was confronted with my regular therapist, along with a senior person. – paid a dubious compliment about how elegant I looked – which made me wonder whether this prcess was all about superficial image- I was ushered into a room.

Here. modestly dressed little me, sat down with Dr Kirpal Sahota and Dr Paul Johnson. Dr Sahota began by telling me that she wanted me to attend Johnson’s regular therapy sesssions for those with mental and behavioural problems. This had come out of the blue. At the outset of my ‘treatment’ I had warned the GP and clinic about my issues with police and allegations of untested undefined mental illness etc.

Dr Sahota then said, softly and ingratiatingly, ‘I will recommend and forward you for gender reassignment surgery if you will agree to taking anti psychotic drugs.’

Now I have some post graduate background in psychology. I have been very intersted in gender, feminism and political correctnesss for many years. One of my many publsihed books, ‘Man, Maid,Woman’ is on the subject of transgender. I realise that most transsexuals believe that hormones and sex change surgery will solve all of their problems. It won’t.

I made my views very clear, incluidng why the police had taken it upon themselves to inform my GP that I am mentally ill and have been for years, refusing treatment. This begs the question why I was ever referred for sex change treatment, involving castrating feminising hormones, in the first place. This near on additional two year police led delay means my genitals are so withered, I will be lucky if there is anything left to create new female ones. Frighteningly our police have power to make mental health jdgements, with off the record or blatant instructions. NHS officials trust the British police, especially the higher ranks.

The police raid on my home and arrest in February 2018, obviously was used as ammunition to block my gender reassignment surgery. Curiously, Dr Sahota wrote a letter to my GP after my February 2018 interview, saying that I had a secure female identity but my issues with police and ex in laws were troubling me. She recommended me for powerful hormone injections and said I could progress to gender reassignment surgery.

.A few weeks later three men in suits backed up my drive. I had been working all night on the road for about fourteen hours. I had not been warned they were coming. One was a psychiatrist. Dr C R Ramsay, the others ; a medical student and a well built mental health nurse. All were from Aylesbury’s ‘Whiteleaf Centre.’ They had been sent by the GIC, in a chain that started with the police ‘et al ! ‘

There followed two more weekly home meetings of equal length both after my long tiring work shifts. On the second occasion, I defiantly had a glass of wine on my desk – becaue I knew that certain parties including the police and my GP had passed on allegations that I am a violent alcoholic – in spite of my GP regularly signing of on my HGV medical to the effect that I am not mentally ill or an alcoholic. This label is essential to the psycho schizophrenic label.

According to Ramsay, I talked too fast. He recorded this as ‘pressured speech’ and evidence of paranoia and psychosis, but ‘ not needing hospital yet’ rather advocating a ‘multi agency approach – police GP and Oxford Menatl Health Care ( sic ).

Dr Ramsay, having lied on the record that I would not agree to a second opinion -which should have been compulsory if I was as mad as Ramsay concluded, -declines any form of explanation..

I have spent much of the last two years trying to get information from my GP, the Police, Gender Identity Clinic and , above all, the police. They refuse. Ramsay Ramsay had concluded that I have a paranoid personality disorder but would not say what I was paranoid about – he patronised me as a woman,officially reporting that ‘seeing all of the agencies files ‘would upset Roberta’.

My situation with the police has deteriorated further. On Monday, after 14 hours in custody, I nearly succeeded in strangling myself in my dark cold dirty little cell , under the one permitted blanket with banging, shouting and screaming coming from the other cells on a day when the house was very full indeed..

Apparently I had gone blue and was semi conscious and sectioned to the Whiteleaf Centre at midnight last Monday, remaining there for another 12 hours before going in front of a panel of three, two doctors and a mental health specialist. They concluded that I was not mentally ill, or at least fit enough to be released. These are very dangerous times for me, . Roberta Jane Cook

D S M Diagnosis Statistics Medication A Dangerous Strong Arm of Police State E

Scheduling Just 15 Minutes of “Personal Development Time” Can Change Your Life

Personal development is a journey, not a destination. August 30th 2020

Thomas Oppong

Photo from Westend61 / Getty Images.

Successful people don’t grow by accident, they grow by design.

When you schedule personal development time on purpose, you are making time to design the life you want.

You are essentially who you create yourself to be.

Once you embrace the “growth” habit, you will improve your way of life.

You will think differently.

Your approach to situations and problems in life will change.

You will question your daily choices because you will expose yourself to different models of thinking.

Your perspective and worldview will shift.

You will be able to deal with setbacks or obstacles better.

You will become your best self when you focus on YOU!

In the words of Lao Tzu, “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

Know yourself and seek improvement.

When you make your personal goals as important as your professional goals, achieving balance is a natural result.

Design Yourself. Design Your Future

Your current self versus your ideal self.

How are they similar and how are they different?

A better you, won’t just happen!

In his new book, High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way Brendon Burchard said, “Often, the journey to greatness begins the moment our preferences for comfort and certainty are overruled by a greater purpose that requires challenge and contribution.”

My approach to life and living it has changed in recent times because I respect “me” time. My ‘personal development’ is important to me because it keeps me relevant.

Take time for “you” because, the better you become, the less time it takes you to achieve your goals.

There are so many ways to embrace the lifelong learning habit that can make you a better person.

I personally enjoy taking productive breaks on purpose, making time to think, taking long walks, reading books and articles, watching TED videos, and listening to podcasts.

A lot of the time when I am not writing, I am reading. It’s personally fulfilling.

I do anything to make me a better person than I was yesterday. Choose activities that inspire you, fulfill you, or help you meet a personal goal.

There are courses you can take.

Never stand still. You should constantly search for more effective approaches in life and better ways to solve the same problems.

Go back to cultivating your curiosities. Nourish your dormant talent.

It will also facilitate an understanding of yourself.

Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change said, “But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”

Embrace intentional learning.

Even if you are just learning something new for the fun of it, it’s a good idea to do so with an end goal in mind.

Isolate the most important areas of your life for growth — the ones that will help you develop the kind of life you really want — and hone in on those.

To really make personal growth a habit and help you stick to a daily or weekly plan, try reserving certain time slots in your week for those activities.

Instead of planning to squeeze in personal development activities when you have a free moment, make them a priority.

Personal development is a journey, not a destination.

Taking time to regularly focus on you will help you start improving all the various areas of your life.

Choose two or three-time slots each week if you can, add them to your calendar, and then stick to your schedule.

In many cases, there is no other solution but to make yourself a priority.

Henry David Thoreau once said, “You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.”

Whatever you expect out of life, you must deliberately pursue.

Make time for just 15 minutes of learning every day.

15 minutes isn’t a lot of time compared to how much time you spend “working”, and it’s short enough for you to actually commit to it even during a commute.

The time you invest in yourself is related to your success.

Next time you wonder why you have not achieved your goals, think about how much time you dedicate to your professional and life goals.

True personal development enables you to identify your lifelong goals and pursue them.

Thomas Oppong is the founder of AllTopStartups and writes on science-based answers to problems in life about creativity, productivity, and self-improvement.

More from Thomas Oppong

• 99% Of Successful Individuals Started Doing These 9 Things Early In Life1,024 saves
• Do These Things After 6 P.M. And Your Life Will Never Be The Same9,871 saves
• 6 Powerful Questions to Ask Yourself Daily1,668 saves

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This post originally appeared on Thomas Oppong and was published October 7, 2017. This article is republished here with permission.

Join the newsletter and get a free ebook “Habit Stacking: Deeper Essays on Personal Growth, Productivity and Happiness

U and U.S.A August 22nd 2020

DSM-5 – Pros and ConsThe launch of DSM-III in 1980 triggered revolutionary changes in the field of psychiatry and associated sciences. The classification of mental disorders moved from partially arbitrary decisions to a reliable system. Before DSM-III, it was more likely that 2 diagnosticians resulted in different diagnoses for the very same patient than that they came to the same conclusion about the diagnostical label for the clinical problem. The introduction of a reliable clas-sification system for mental disorders moved psychiatry, clinical psychology, and several other fields from low scientific recognition to one of the top posi-tions of healthcare research.

This also resulted in tremendous improvements in our understanding and treatment options for patients with mental disor-ders.However, is DSM-5 still on this track of fostering research and treatment for mental disorders? Is science still the major purpose of DSM-5, or did it be-come the victim of economic interests and power of specific subgroups? The societal impact, but also the money that is made by DSM became tremen-dous, and this can threaten the scientific purpose. Just a small example: Au-thors are not allowed to cite DSM-5 criteria for a single disorder without pay-ing fees to the American Psychological Association (APA) press.

This means that text books and other publications are not allowed to inform their audi-ence about any DSM-5 diagnosis without paying for it. Is this the way how we want to disseminate scientific approaches? And the content of DSM-5, is it really based on the best of our knowledge? Critique has been expressed that some innovations are arbitrary and misleading [Rief and Martin, 2014].As editor of the German journal VERHALTENSTHERAPIE (Behavior Therapy), I am proud that we were able to get 2 extremely distinguished experts of the field to discuss the pros and cons of DSM-5. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Wittchen (Technische Universitaet Dresden) was member of different DSM groups during the last 20 years, and no German scientist was more involved in this process.

Prof. Dr. Allen Frances (Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA) can be considered the main person who started the ‘counterrevolution’ against DSM: As chair of DSM-IV, he had the best insight into these proc-esses, and he considers DSM-5 as a misdevelopment that must be revised. He is our special guest author of this Pro-Con section, and we are extremely delighted to publish this discussion.Winfried Rief, MarburgReferenceRief W, Martin A: How to use the new DSM-5 somatic symptom disorder diagnosis in research and practice: a critical evaluation and a proposal for modifications. Ann Rew Clin Psychol 2014; DOI: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032813-153745.

Verhaltenstherapie 2013;23:280–285Pro and Con · Pro und Contra281The Inclusion of Unsafe and Scientifically Unsound New Diagnoses Will Be Harmful and Could Entail Diagnostic HyperinflationThe international controversy surrounding DSM-5 has de-livered a severe blow to its credibility and has also reduced the public’s faith in the reliability and effectiveness of psychia-try. The inclusion within DSM-5 of unsafe and scientifically unsound new diagnoses will have harmful unintended conse-quences and threatens to turn our current diagnostic inflation into diagnostic hyperinflation.

I will explain how DSM-5 went so far wrong, point out its worst dangers, and offer recom-mendations for minimizing them and for preventing similar disasters in the future. Excessive AmbitionDSM-5 shot unrealistically high – early on it announced the goal of effecting a paradigm shift in psychiatric diagnosis.

Two of its premature and failed ambitions – to include biological markers and dimensional ratings – were temporary distrac-tions that looked silly but caused no permanent harm. The third – an attempt to promote preventive psychiatry by intro-ducing new diagnoses and reducing thresholds for existing ones – will have potentially disastrous and long-lasting unin-tended consequences. An effective preventive psychiatry would have to meet 3 prerequisites: accurate diagnosis, effec-tive treatment, and safety. None of the DSM-5 changes meets these standards.

All will misidentify patients and result in ex-cessive, often harmful treatments. Other medical specialities have experienced the dangers of premature preventive diag-nosis and are tightening guidelines for screening and diagnosis – just as DSM-5 made the mistake of loosening them!Disorganized MethodsThere was little central direction of the DSM-5 work groups and insufficient quality control.

As a result, the experts were given free rein to expand their pet diagnoses. Their pro-ceedings were secretive, inflexible, and not open to outside influence and correction. Literature reviews were inconsistent in their quality and used very varying standards for making changes. Deadlines were always missed, often by more than a year. Sloppy WritingDSM-5 had no one experienced in writing diagnostic crite-ria and there was little text editing to ensure accuracy and consistency.

As a result, DSM-5 is filled with egregious writ-ing mistakes and ambiguous wordings that will make many of its diagnoses inherently unreliable and inaccurate [Frances, 2013].Publishing Profits Trump Public TrustThe DSM-5 franchise has become a lucrative profit maker for the APA – vital to meet what would otherwise be a big budget deficit. From the start the workers on DSM-5 were forced to sign confidentiality agreements to protect the DSM-5 intellectual property – a decision that badly limited their interchange with the field. At the end, because of missed deadlines, DSM-5 was prematurely rushed to press in a raw and poorly edited state.

DangersIn the USA, 25% of the population already qualify for a psychiatric diagnosis in any given year; 50% will face a psychi-atric diagnosis in their lifetime. 20% of the population take psychotropic medication and 80% of the prescriptions are written by nonpsychiatrists with little training and an average of only 7 minutes to spend per patient. Drug company mar-keting has driven excessive medication use and there are now more deaths from overdose with prescription drugs than with street drugs. There have been false epidemics of Attention Deficit Disorder, Autism, and Childhood Bipolar Disorder. DSM-5 should have tightened the definitions of mental disor-ders and should have included cautions against the risks of careless diagnosis. Instead DSM-5 has introduced new disor-ders with a high prevalence (Minor Neurocognitive, Disrup-tive Mood Dysregulation, Binge Eating), has reduced the threshold of Attention Deficit Disorder, and has turned nor-mal grief into Major Depressive Disorder. In aggregate, these changes can add tens of millions of new patients who will be misidentified at the fuzzy boundary with normality. None of the DSM-5 suggestions is supported by solid scientific data; none received a careful risk/benefit analysis; all represent the experts’ enthusiasm to expand their pet areas of interest; and all are likely to result in much more harm than good. The fu-rore over DSM-5 expansion of diagnostic boundaries by de-fining milder conditions has also distracted attention from a much greater problem facing psychiatry: the inadequate treat-ment of the severely mentally ill. What to DoMy advice about DSM-5 is: don’t buy it, don’t use it, and don’t teach it. It is an unfortunate aberration that needs cor-rection. Hopefully, the International Classification of Diseas-es (ICD)-11 will learn the obvious painful lessons and will not fall into the same trap of expert arbitrariness and diagnostic exuberance.

Future RevisionsNew diagnoses can do more harm than new drugs. The method of changing the diagnostic system needs to be changed. Diagnoses should be revised only when there is compelling evidence that any change is safe and scientifically sound. I have no confidence in the APA as the future steward of the diagnostic system. Its financial conflict of interest and Contra–

Pro and Con · Pro und ContraVerhaltenstherapie 2013;23:280–285 DOI: 10.1159/000356572© 2013 S. Karger GmbH, FreiburgAccessible online at: www.karger.com/ver Fax +49 761 4 52 07 14Information@Karger.comwww.karger.comDSM-5 – Pros and ConsThe launch of DSM-III in 1980 triggered revolutionary changes in the field of psychiatry and associated sciences. The classification of mental disorders moved from partially arbitrary decisions to a reliable system. Before DSM-III, it was more likely that 2 diagnosticians resulted in different diagnoses for the very same patient than that they came to the same conclusion about the diagnostical label for the clinical problem. The introduction of a reliable clas-sification system for mental disorders moved psychiatry, clinical psychology, and several other fields from low scientific recognition to one of the top posi-tions of healthcare research.

This also resulted in tremendous improvements in our understanding and treatment options for patients with mental disor-ders.However, is DSM-5 still on this track of fostering research and treatment for mental disorders? Is science still the major purpose of DSM-5, or did it be-come the victim of economic interests and power of specific subgroups? The societal impact, but also the money that is made by DSM became tremen-dous, and this can threaten the scientific purpose. Just a small example: Au-thors are not allowed to cite DSM-5 criteria for a single disorder without pay-ing fees to the American Psychological Association (APA) press. This means that text books and other publications are not allowed to inform their audi-ence about any DSM-5 diagnosis without paying for it. Is this the way how we want to disseminate scientific approaches? And the content of DSM-5, is it really based on the best of our knowledge?

Critique has been expressed that some innovations are arbitrary and misleading [Rief and Martin, 2014].As editor of the German journal VERHALTENSTHERAPIE (Behavior Therapy), I am proud that we were able to get 2 extremely distinguished experts of the field to discuss the pros and cons of DSM-5. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Wittchen (Technische Universitaet Dresden) was member of different DSM groups during the last 20 years, and no German scientist was more involved in this process. Prof. Dr. Allen Frances (Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA) can be considered the main person who started the ‘counterrevolution’ against DSM: As chair of DSM-IV, he had the best insight into these proc-esses, and he considers DSM-5 as a misdevelopment that must be revised.

He is our special guest author of this Pro-Con section, and we are extremely delighted to publish this discussion.Winfried Rief, MarburgReferenceRief W, Martin A: How to use the new DSM-5 somatic symptom disorder diagnosis in research and practice: a critical evaluation and a proposal for modifications. Ann Rew Clin Psychol 2014; DOI: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032813-153745.Verhaltenstherapie 2013;23:280–285Pro and Con · Pro und Contra281The Inclusion of Unsafe and Scientifically Unsound New Diagnoses Will Be Harmful and Could Entail Diagnostic HyperinflationThe international controversy surrounding DSM-5 has de-livered a severe blow to its credibility and has also reduced the public’s faith in the reliability and effectiveness of psychia-try.

The inclusion within DSM-5 of unsafe and scientifically unsound new diagnoses will have harmful unintended conse-quences and threatens to turn our current diagnostic inflation into diagnostic hyperinflation. I will explain how DSM-5 went so far wrong, point out its worst dangers, and offer recom-mendations for minimizing them and for preventing similar disasters in the future.

Excessive AmbitionDSM-5 shot unrealistically high – early on it announced the goal of effecting a paradigm shift in psychiatric diagnosis. Two of its premature and failed ambitions – to include biological markers and dimensional ratings – were temporary distrac-tions that looked silly but caused no permanent harm. The third – an attempt to promote preventive psychiatry by intro-ducing new diagnoses and reducing thresholds for existing ones – will have potentially disastrous and long-lasting unin-tended consequences. An effective preventive psychiatry would have to meet 3 prerequisites: accurate diagnosis, effec-tive treatment, and safety. None of the DSM-5 changes meets these standards.

All will misidentify patients and result in ex-cessive, often harmful treatments. Other medical specialities have experienced the dangers of premature preventive diag-nosis and are tightening guidelines for screening and diagnosis – just as DSM-5 made the mistake of loosening them!Disorganized MethodsThere was little central direction of the DSM-5 work groups and insufficient quality control. As a result, the experts were given free rein to expand their pet diagnoses. Their pro-ceedings were secretive, inflexible, and not open to outside influence and correction. Literature reviews were inconsistent in their quality and used very varying standards for making changes. Deadlines were always missed, often by more than a year. Sloppy WritingDSM-5 had no one experienced in writing diagnostic crite-ria and there was little text editing to ensure accuracy and consistency.

As a result, DSM-5 is filled with egregious writ-ing mistakes and ambiguous wordings that will make many of its diagnoses inherently unreliable and inaccurate [Frances, 2013].Publishing Profits Trump Public TrustThe DSM-5 franchise has become a lucrative profit maker for the APA – vital to meet what would otherwise be a big budget deficit. From the start the workers on DSM-5 were forced to sign confidentiality agreements to protect the DSM-5 intellectual property – a decision that badly limited their interchange with the field.

At the end, because of missed deadlines, DSM-5 was prematurely rushed to press in a raw and poorly edited state. DangersIn the USA, 25% of the population already qualify for a psychiatric diagnosis in any given year; 50% will face a psychi-atric diagnosis in their lifetime. 20% of the population take psychotropic medication and 80% of the prescriptions are written by nonpsychiatrists with little training and an average of only 7 minutes to spend per patient. Drug company mar-keting has driven excessive medication use and there are now more deaths from overdose with prescription drugs than with street drugs. There have been false epidemics of Attention Deficit Disorder, Autism, and Childhood Bipolar Disorder. DSM-5 should have tightened the definitions of mental disor-ders and should have included cautions against the risks of careless diagnosis.

Instead DSM-5 has introduced new disor-ders with a high prevalence (Minor Neurocognitive, Disrup-tive Mood Dysregulation, Binge Eating), has reduced the threshold of Attention Deficit Disorder, and has turned nor-mal grief into Major Depressive Disorder. In aggregate, these changes can add tens of millions of new patients who will be misidentified at the fuzzy boundary with normality. None of the DSM-5 suggestions is supported by solid scientific data; none received a careful risk/benefit analysis; all represent the experts’ enthusiasm to expand their pet areas of interest; and all are likely to result in much more harm than good. The fu-rore over DSM-5 expansion of diagnostic boundaries by de-fining milder conditions has also distracted attention from a much greater problem facing psychiatry: the inadequate treat-ment of the severely mentally ill. What to DoMy advice about DSM-5 is: don’t buy it, don’t use it, and don’t teach it. It is an unfortunate aberration that needs cor-rection.

Hopefully, the International Classification of Diseas-es (ICD)-11 will learn the obvious painful lessons and will not fall into the same trap of expert arbitrariness and diagnostic exuberance.Future RevisionsNew diagnoses can do more harm than new drugs. The method of changing the diagnostic system needs to be changed. Diagnoses should be revised only when there is compelling evidence that any change is safe and scientifically sound. I have no confidence in the APA as the future steward of the diagnostic system. Its financial conflict of interest and Contra–

Confidence, The Ex Spurt’s Fakery August 15th 2020

Does imposing the death penalty lower rates of violent crime? What economic policies will lead to broad prosperity? Which medical treatments should we allow and encourage to treat novel diseases? These questions have a few things in common. They bear important consequences for us all, and so policymakers and the public would like to know the answers – if good answers even exist. Fortunately, there are entire communities of experts who produce closely regulated scientific literatures dedicated to answering them. Unfortunately, they are also difficult questions, which require causal knowledge that’s not easy to come by.

The rise of social media means that experts willing to share their hard-won knowledge have never been more accessible to the public. So, one might think that communication between experts and decision-makers should be as good as, or better than, ever. But this is not the case. As anyone who has spent time on Twitter or watching cable news can attest, these outlets are also flooded with self-appointed ‘experts’ whose lack of actual expertise doesn’t stop them from sharing their views widely.

There is nothing new about ersatz experts, or even outright charlatans, and they aren’t limited to questions of policy. In every domain where decision-makers need the specialised knowledge of experts, those who don’t have the relevant knowledge – whether they realise it or not – will compete with actual experts for money and attention. Pundits want airtime, scholars want to draw attention to their work, and consultants want future business. Often, these experts are rightly confident in their claims. In the private market for expertise, the opposite can be more common. Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, described his time as a consultant as largely about trying to feign complete certainty about uncertain things; a kind of theatre of expertise. In The Undoing Project (2016) by Michael Lewis, Morey elaborates by describing a job interview with the management consultancy McKinsey, where he was chided for admitting uncertainty. ‘I said it was because I wasn’t certain. And they said, “We’re billing clients 500 grand a year, so you have to be sure of what you are saying.”’

With genuine expertise at a premium, the presence of experts who overstate their conclusions adds noise to the information environment, making it harder for decision-makers to know what to do. The challenge is to filter the signal from the noise.

When considering important questions in challenging domains such as economic forecasting and public health crises, there are many times that experts don’t have the answers. Less often, they admit it.

Must we accept that any expert assessment could be hot air or, at best, a competent expert stretching beyond his or her competence? Or can we do better?

Use the Magic 5:1 Ratio to Improve All Your Relationships Posted August 12th 2020

All happy partnerships (both professional and romantic) follow this simple but powerful ratio.

By Jessica Stillman, Contributor, Inc.com@EntryLevelRebel

Most people don’t need too much convincing that happy relationships are the key to a successful life. After all, when Harvard researchers followed 268 men for more than 70 years, the study’s founding director summed up its finding with a single sentence: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”

But if you feel the need for a hard-nosed business case for working on your relationships, it exists. Studies show that warm, loving relationships improve your physical health and positively influence job satisfaction and income. Good friends are the best stress buster available, according to science. And, as any professional can tell you, relationships make the business world go round. 

Which means keeping your relationships strong is as important as it can sometimes be tricky. But, as a fascinating article recently reminded me, as complicated as relationships are, keeping them going strong often boils down to remembering a single ratio. 

The magic ratio for happy relationships 

The piece comes from newsletter The Profile, and was written by newlywed Polina Marinova. Just seven days married, Marinova asked The Profile readers for their best marriage tips. Excellent advice poured in. If you’re looking to tune up your partnership, the whole long article is worth a read, but in the middle of it comes this one essential but dead simple tip: “Make sure your relationship follows the 5:1 ratio.”

This tip may have come from a Profile reader, but this isn’t some random ratio dreamed up by some self-proclaimed “love expert” on the internet. It’s actually backed by decades of research by perhaps the most respected expert in the field of marital stability, John Gottman. You may have heard of his famous ability to predict which couples would divorce with 90 percent accuracy. 

How he and his collaborators did this boiled down to looking at whether a pair followed the 5:1 ratio. As the Gottman Institute website explains: 

The difference between happy and unhappy couples is the balance between positive and negative interactions during conflict. There is a very specific ratio that makes love last. That “magic ratio” is 5 to 1. This means that for every negative interaction during conflict, a stable and happy marriage has five (or more) positive interactions. 

These interactions need not be anything big or dramatic. A simple eye roll or raised voice counts as a negative interaction. A quick joke to defuse tension, a squeeze of a partner’s hand, or listening closely when your partner vents about his or her day all constitute a positive interaction. The important thing isn’t the scale of the gesture (sorry, florists). It’s their relative frequency. 

And, according to Marinova’s reader, that’s an insight you can easily put into action in your own relationship. “Whenever she gets frustrated or tired, she pushes herself to do something thoughtful or nice for her husband,” Marinova reports.The reader insists: “That 5:1 ratio is a thing.” 

A real thing for business relationships, too 

Divorce lawyers agree that an everyday effort to monitor positive interactions compared with negative ones helps keep your romantic life from going off the rails. But this is a business site, so it’s important to note that while the 5:1 ratio was invented for couples, it’s a pretty handy standard to keep in mind for all your relationships. 

Friendships are more nourishing when both parties make sure that small kindnesses heavily outweigh slights and missed connections. And employees will almost certainly perform better for a boss who offers five warm and helpful interactions for every one gruff reply or impatient dismissal. 

Humans are complicated, and the details of maintaining healthy, positive relationships, as we all know, can get tricky. But all relationships are off to a great start if you begin by setting the 5:1 ratio as a baseline for how you interact with each other. 

2 Words That Can Help Check Your Assumptions About People August 11th 2020

Asking “so what?” can bring out your hidden beliefs and ideas, says career strategist Gail Tolstoi-Miller.

TED Ideas

• Mary Halton

Illustration by  Raúl Soria.

Six seconds.

That’s how long the typical recruiter is said to spend reviewing a resume.

In order to whiz through a dashboard full of applicants, recruiters rely not only on their years in the workplace but also on something not so admirable: their unconscious biases.

We all have biases, and without them, we might not function so effectively in the world. These mental shortcuts are formed from cultural conditioning and our life experiences, and they enable us to scan a crowded street and spot a police officer if trouble strikes, or scroll through a list of health-care providers and choose one without melting down.

Problems arise when important decisions — such as employment, school acceptance, mortgage approval — are shaped by unconscious biases. “Every single day we’re making hiring mistakes because we don’t see things as they are, but as who we are,” says Gail Tolstoi-Miller, a recruiter turned career strategist based in the New York area.

Age, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation are factors known to cause people’s unconscious bias to kick in, but we can have implicit preferences and aversions in all sorts of areas.

“Every single detail of your resume, not including your skills, can be a deciding factor about whether you go in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ pile,” says Tolstoi-Miller. “A mailing address that indicates a long commute or undesirable location could put you in the ‘no,’ an email address such as ‘crazymom666’ can put you in the ‘no.’ …. Even a reputable college such as Indiana University can be perceived as not a pedigreed school by some, and [if so] guess what? I just put Mark Cuban in the ‘no’ pile.”

And it’s not just recruiters whose work can be affected. Many of us are in positions — professional, volunteer, community, social media — where we need to evaluate and sort people.

Of course, the trickiest part about unconscious biases is that they’re unconscious. So how can we guard against the strange, hairpin turns that our subconscious minds may be making?

Tolstoi-Miller suggests we use these two words: “So what?”

Before you relegate a person to the “no” or “pass” pile, address your reasons for putting them there by asking “So what?”

So what — if you can’t quite tell what their gender is from their name, if they’re from a town in your state you’ve never heard of, if you know they’d have to take a ferry and 2 buses to get to the office, if they used a strange font on their cover letter, if they put a photo of themselves on their resume, if they’ve been out of work for six months?

“So what” is not a silver bullet. But it can be a preventive against your making the biggest mistake: missing out on a great person for an unimportant reason. You might not have the time to do this with every single candidate; you may just want to reserve it for your short lists. And of course, your “So what?” could reveal that you have a very valid reason to reject someone.

Says Tolstoi-Miller, “Asking yourself ‘so what?’ is a pause, it’s a self-check, and it helps you remove your emotional clutter … It also helps you focus on what is important by questioning the facts and judgments that you use to make decisions.”

The Art of Not Thinking August 11th 2020

Tiffany Matthé

03.08.2020 — Productivity — 5 min read

After years of feeling guilty about not wanting to do everything, I realized I don’t need motivation to get things done. Below, I describe how I use the concept of not thinking instead.

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It took me five years to get in the habit of exercising. I just didn’t want to do it. I followed Youtube workouts, hopeful that the energetic trainer on the screen would help me get fitter. I swam laps in my pool. I followed my brother on 3K runs. And afterwards, I felt great! On top of the world. And then the next day came, and I remembered I had to do it all over again. I had to be sweaty, push through the pain, and breathe like I had an asthma attack.

So every morning, I woke up and inevitably started dreading my exercise. It would slink around in my thoughts, casting a dark mood until I got it done. At one point, I would dread exercising enough to stop, and a wave of relief would wash over me. This feeling of calm usually lasted a few months, and then my disappointment in my poor levels of fitness would take over. And the cycle would restart.

Everyone has things they don’t want to do. It’s not limited to exercising. It can be anything from studying everyday for the entire school year to vacuuming the floor. Unless you can avoid that activity with no guilt or regrets, you usually have to do it. You know it will help in the long run, to study to prepare for finals and to have clean floors, but even with that in mind, it can still be incredibly hard to do those activities.

I realized that the hardest part of doing things I don’t want to do is usually not the activity itself, but getting started. Once I get started, I get into a flow and rationalize that since I’m already doing it, I might as well finish.

How much motivation do we need?

I like to describe the amount of energy I need for a task I don’t want to do as an exothermic reaction. In this reaction, the reactants (me) need a minimum activation energy (motivation) for the reaction (task) to occur. After the reaction is complete, the products then settle down into a lower energy state (since no more energy is needed to do the task or worry about it).

So how can we get this minimum activation energy? Well, if we don’t want to do the activity, it is nearly impossible to gain enough motivation to do it. The good news is that we can avoid the need for such a high activation energy.

How is this possible? A simple answer: don’t try to find motivation.

When you look for motivation, you usually start by reminding yourself about the advantages of getting the task done. But your brain is a stubborn toddler. If you strongly drag it towards one direction, it will fiercely pull you to the other side. The brain thinks there’s a choice, and thus a possibility to argue. It will start pointing out all the disadvantages and instant gratification alternatives.

Since humans instinctively reach for easier things, now you have not only dredged up all the negative points about your task, but also discovered easier alternatives that require an additional amount of energy to resist. In short, you have increased the minimum activation energy required to start the task.

You will also remember this awful internal debate, and associate these negative feelings with the task itself. Naturally, this does not bode well in the long run.

On the other hand, if you don’t think about the task, you can avoid the entire process of arguing with yourself and making decisions that you will feel guilty about. Instead, just do it. Become a mindless robot and don’t think twice¹.

This is, of course, easy to say and a bit more difficult to do. It’s hard to think about not thinking, because you’ll inadvertently wonder what it is you were trying to not think about, and bam, you’ve failed. Not thinking is a process, and just like any other skill you learn, it improves with time and practice. Here are a few tips.

Make the decision in advance

If you are temporally removed from the thing you don’t want to do, it’s easier to make a rational decision. By making the decision beforehand, you remove the effort needed to choose before doing your task. This reduces friction and removes one factor that could have led you to think about your task when you start it.

There are a few ways of making decisions in advance. There’s the two-minute rule, where you decide that for anything that takes less than two minutes, you do it. No thinking, no arguing, just swift action. For example, you see a pile of clothes on your bed. It takes less than two minutes to organize then in your drawer, so you do it. Here, you just avoided the trap of thinking about your clothes, feeling unmotivated to put them in order, and giving yourself the terrible alternative of doing it later.

Another method is planning out your days in advance. This does not always work, but it’s a good idea to try it out. The night before, you plan out all of your activities to the minute. And, of course, as you’re temporally distanced from these activities, you make rational decisions. Then when the morning comes, you can mindlessly follow the schedule you have made for yourself.

Do a small part first

Quickly pick a random small part of the activity you were dreading. And commit to only doing that one part. This helps you avoid overthinking by giving your brain a smaller task to easily execute².

For example, if you need to complete a scholarship application and hate writing about yourself, tell yourself to just write bullet points of topics you might include in the application. Most of the time, after you have invested those first five minutes into the activity, you enter a flow and continue working.

After implementing these strategies, where I tell myself that I have to exercise every other day for a mere 5 minutes, I now consistently exercise for at least 15 minutes without overthinking it.

So next time you find yourself not wanting to do something, make yourself a clear rule of when to do it and do the easiest part first. That way, you can avoid making too many decisions and associating the internal turmoil that stems from that process to the activity itself.

Note, not thinking works wonderfully if your sole purpose is doing an activity you don’t want to do. However, unless you don’t have any goals to pursue, this is not the best way to go about everything in life. Make sure to take the time to reflect on the overall purpose of the activity and if it brings you closer to where you want to be. If the answer is yes, then feel free to become a mindless robot for any activities that have passed the reflection stage.

At the small risk of being sued by Nike, just do it.

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1. This applies to doing things you don’t want to do after you have had one internal debate about whether this is worthwhile to you. You can have revised thoughts every once in a while, but doing it before each task is counterproductive.
2. It was brought to my attention that identifying the easiest part of a task might lead to thinking too much and finding ways to escape the task. That’s true. I have changed the text to just doing a small part. This removes the process of having to analyse the task and find the easiest part.

Women Who Kill

The curious case of the female killer. August 9th 2020

Written by Dr Julia Shaw,

She was probably desperate.This is the main assumption I hear when I enter into a conversation about a woman who has killed someone.When people talk about those who commit harmful acts, it seems easy to fall into the trap of being amateur psychologists. Nested within guesses and misconceptions, we can see sexism shine through as well.

Feminist criminologists have argued that we have a tendency to infantilise women in the criminal justice system.

Compared to men, we disproportionately treat female offenders as victims of circumstance, in need of help, and unable to support themselves in law-abiding ways. This may seem positive on the surface, but it can also reinforce the sexist narrative that women are passive actors in society while men are active.

Perhaps nowhere is this divide more evident than when we talk about women who kill.

The Gender Difference

When researchers study people who kill, we often study “intentional homicide” (referred to from now on in this article just as ‘homicide’), which is defined as unlawful death inflicted upon a person with the intent to cause death or serious injury – more commonly known as murder.

It is meaningful to examine whether gender plays a role in offending behaviour, and if it does to try to understand why.

There is also the tendency to split data into men and women. This is not because all researchers endorse a strict gender binary, but because these represent the two largest and easiest to measure groups.

Gender is also only one way to split the offending population, other characteristics like socio-economic status, mental health, and education are often more useful ways to talk about differences (or similarities) between offenders. Still, it is meaningful to examine whether gender plays a role in offending behaviour, and if it does to try to understand why.

When we look at homicide, the gender difference is stark.

Women in the UK constitute only 8% of homicide perpetrators.

According to a global UN report published in 2019, 10% of suspects in intentional homicide cases worldwide were women. This rate drops even further when looking at convictions, where only 6% are women.

In the UK, according to the ONS, the figure is similar. Women in the UK constitute only 8% of homicide perpetrators. These figures show a clear gender imbalance, with the vast majority of homicide being perpetrated by men.

These figures seem even more stark when we consider that the proportion of women who are victims of homicide is about four times higher than the proportion who are perpetrators. For example, in 2019 in the UK, 36% of homicide victims were female. These women were most often killed by a current or former intimate partner.

This is in line with the findings that women in the UK are four times as likely as men to have experienced sexual assault by a partner in the last year.

So far, everything fits with the assumption that women who kill are probably desperate, that some are women facing abuse who are finally fighting back. This is even more the case when we consider that research has found that compared to men, women more frequently kill intimate partners in situations where the homicide victim initiated the physical aggression.

Still, we must be careful not to homogenise women who kill. Especially as we only have very limited research on women who commit homicide. Even the ONS and UN reports only describe women in any detail when they speak of victims of homicide.

This is a problem. It renders the characteristics and risk factors of women who kill largely invisible.

On this week’s episode of Bad People, myself and my podcast co-host Sofie Hagen explore two cases where women kill – a teenage girl who stabs to death a love rival at a party in plain sight, and one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers, Karla Homolka.

These cases are interesting because they don’t offer an intuitive explanation for the killings, they seemed to be planned in advance, and the victims represented no threat to them.

Motivation

Female serial killers represent one example where we break out of the assumptions we have about women who kill. Female serial killers are typically educated, have been married, and have a caregiving role.

Why did they do it? The most common answer was financial gain.

In a US study of 64 female serial killers, every female serial killer had at least one vulnerable victim – a child, an elderly person, or someone who was very ill.

Why did they do it? For revenge or protection? No. The most common motive was financial gain.

Serial killers are themselves quite rare, but these examples remind us of the need to challenge our assumptions about why, when, and whom women kill.

Female Discount

Challenging the assumptions we have about why women commit crimes does not mean we need to treat them like men.

All genders deserve our empathy and to be seen as complex human beings, even when they do bad things.

Women are more likely than men to be primary caregivers, they often have fewer financial resources, and are often in other ways more vulnerable. These factors are important, and are correctly considered when deciding sentences.

Still, there are concerns about a “female discount”.

For example, a US study of sentencing disparities found that women were given sentences that were on average over 60% shorter. Women who were arrested were also significantly more likely to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted. Is this infantilising woman? Is it adversely discriminating against men? Is it fair?

My argument is not to impose longer prison terms on female offenders, or to ignore the context of homicide.

Like women, men can be victims of circumstance. Like men, women can be sadists or opportunists. And all genders deserve our empathy and to be seen as complex human beings, even when they do bad things.

Dr Julia Shaw

Dr Julia Shaw is a research associate at University College London and the co-host of the Bad People podcast on BBC sounds. She is an expert on criminal psychology, and the author of two international bestsellers “Making Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side” and “The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory.

Aug 3, 2020,03:50am EDT

7 Signs Someone Will Be Successful August 6th 202o

Jodie CookContributorEntrepreneursI explore concepts in entrepreneurship, happiness and lifestyle design

Predicting someone’s future might be invaluable to them. Being able to ascertain those actions and words that will create their prosperous future or cause their downward spiral. Knowing where they are on track and knowing where they might need support.

How many of the grandiose plans you hear about actually come to pass? How often does someone make themselves the success they set out to be? How often does someone intentionally set their goals and make progress towards them every day, and how often do they become distracted, or deterred, or just give up? Someone’s daily actions compound to create their entire life.

Based on interviewing, reading and observing, here’s how to tell if someone will be successful.

1.    They find their own inspiration

They don’t need pep-talks to perform or a motivational speech to deliver. They have made self-sufficiency their mission and they don’t rely on others to pick them up if they’re having a bad day. They have a strategy for switching states fast to always be at their best. They have techniques to go from low to high energy and they consistently apply them until it comes naturally. They steer away from draining topics and people and they inspire others as a by-product of their self-assurance.

2.    Their character is sound

Character predicts success more than anything else. Who you are now is who you will be in the future. Inquisitive, lazy, conscientious, flaky or determined. Sticking to your word or always making excuses. If someone lets you down, they’ll have let others down too. If they wow with their work, it won’t be their first time, or their last. Future leaders show leadership skills in their very first role. Small actions multiply over a lifetime to determine someone’s future in a big way. Recommended For You

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3.    They’re consistent behind closed doors

Someone bound for success operates exactly the same whether they’re being observed or not. There’s no Jekyll & Hyde or secret personality. They’re not into trickery or sleight of hand; they do what they say, audience or not. They consistently do far more than they could get away with. They don’t aim for the bare minimum, and they don’t say “that’ll do”. Sitting back when the boss isn’t there doesn’t occur to them. Work chat tools are their allies not their secret gossip room. They know who they are and who they want to be, and their motivation is themselves, not the orders of others.

4.    They don’t need following up

They don’t need chasing or following up because they make it their mission to match their actions to their words. You’ll know where you stand, no guesswork required. They’ve worked out what’s possible and they’ve stuck to their promise. They work to their own beat because it’s served them well so far. They’re solid and trustworthy and they’re a pleasure to work with. People like this are the lifeblood of businesses and without them, success would be impossible. Their reliable nature means clients say “yes” and teammates put them forward. It’s what leaders are made of.

5.    How they talk about others

Behind someone’s back they are kind and they avoid conversations of judgment. They can always see the other side and they’d rather address an issue with someone in person than talk about them to others. They focus on their own game. Successful people do not sit in groups slagging people off. It’s not in their nature, it wouldn’t occur to them, and there’s plenty more to be speaking about. Bitchiness and back-stabbing don’t lead anywhere good. A refusal to participate is an early sign of success.

6.    They take ownership

If there’s a challenge to be overcome they’ll have thought about how to do it. They don’t bring their problems to others to solve, they dig right in and get there first. They work within teams, but they don’t rely on them. They’re organised with their time, their plans, their weeks and their years; which leads to smashing through goals and doors being opened. They are determined and focused and they finish what they start. They know what’s what because they’ve sussed it all out. They seek responsibility rather than shirking it and they back themselves to deliver.

7.    They spread good vibes

They’re so sure of themselves that they can encourage others. They’re not threatened by success, they use it to inspire. They’re positive and happy and they amass a tribe. Others want to be associated with them. They see the good side, they are grateful, and they don’t throw tantrums over what they can’t control. They write positive reviews, they give the benefit of the doubt and they seek to understand rather than judge. They know that they get back what they put in, and that how they see the world is a reflection of themselves. They spread good vibes wherever they go.  

Early signs of future success are exciting to see. Early signs of future disappointment can be diverted before it’s too late. The first step is awareness, the second is action.

How much of yourself do you see explained in those descriptions? Who comes to mind for each phrase? If you match up well, the future looks good. If you don’t compare, there are changes to be made.

How to Distinguish a Psychopath From a ‘Shy-Chopath’

Psychologists are debating whether the presence of one trait – boldness – is the key to determining if someone is a psychopath, or just a garden-variety criminal.

• John Edens

What makes a criminal a psychopath?

Their grisly deeds and commanding presence attract our attention – look no further than Ted Bundy, the subject of a Netflix documentary, and cult leaders like Charles Manson.

But despite years of theorizing and research, the mental health field continues to hotly debate what are the defining features of this diagnosis. It might come as a surprise that the most widely used psychiatric diagnostic system in the U.S., the DSM-5, doesn’t include psychopathy as a formal disorder.

As a personality researcher and forensic psychologist, I’ve spent the last quarter-century studying psychopaths inside and outside of prisons. I’ve also debated what, exactly, are the defining features of psychopathy.

Most agree that psychopaths are remorseless people who lack empathy for others. But in recent years, much of this debate has centered on the relevance of one particular personality trait: boldness.

I’m in the camp that believes boldness is critical to separating out psychopaths from the more mundane law-breakers. It’s the trait that creates the veneer of normalcy, giving those who prey on others the mask to successfully blend in with the rest of society. To lack boldness, on the other hand, is to be what one might call a “shy-chopath.”

The Boldness Factor

About 10 years ago, psychologist Christopher Patrick and some of his colleagues published an extensive literature review in which they argued that psychopaths were people who expressed elevated levels of three basic traits: meanness, disinhibition and boldness.

Most experts in the mental health field generally agree that the prototypical psychopath is someone who is both mean and, at least to some extent, disinhibited – though there’s even some debate about exactly how impulsive and hot-headed the prototypical psychopath truly is.

In a psychological context, people who are mean tend to lack empathy and have little interest in close emotional relationships. They’re also happy to use and exploit others for their own personal gain.

Highly disinhibited people have very poor impulse control, are prone to boredom and have difficulty managing emotions – particularly negative ones, like frustration and hostility.

In adding boldness to the mix, Patrick and his colleagues argued that genuine psychopaths are not just mean and disinhibited, they’re also individuals who are poised, fearless, emotionally resilient and socially dominant.

Although it had not been the focus of extensive research for the past few decades, the concept of the bold psychopath isn’t actually new. Famed psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley described it in his seminal 1941 book, “The Mask of Sanity,” in which he described numerous case examples of psychopaths who were brazen, fearless and emotionally unflappable.

Ted Bundy is an excellent example of such a person. He was far from unassuming and timid. He never appeared wracked with anxiety or emotional distress. He charmed scores of victims, confidently served as his own attorney and even proposed to his girlfriend while in court.

“It’s probably just being willing to take risk,” Bundy said, in the Netflix documentary, of what motivated his crimes. “Or perhaps not even seeing risk. Just overcome by that boldness and desire to accomplish a particular thing.”

Seeds Planted in the DSM

In the current DSM, the closest current diagnosis to psychopathy is antisocial personality disorder. Although the manual suggests that it historically has been referred to as psychopathy, the current seven diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder mostly fall under the umbrella of disinhibition – qualities like “recklessness,” “impulsiveness” and, to a lesser extent, meanness, which are evident in only two criteria: “lack of remorse” and “deceitfulness.”

There’s no mention of boldness. In other words, you don’t have to be bold to have antisocial personality disorder. In fact, because you only need to meet three of the seven criteria to be diagnosed with the disorder, it means you don’t even need to be all that mean, either.

However, the most recent revision to the DSM, the fifth edition, did include a supplemental section for proposed diagnoses in need of further study.

In this supplemental section, a new specifier was offered for those who meet the diagnosis for antisocial personality disorder. If you have a bold and fearless interpersonal style that seems to serve as a mask for your otherwise mean and disinhibited personality, you might also be diagnosable as a psychopath.

Can a Psychopath be Meek?

Whether this new model, which seems to put boldness center stage in the diagnosis of psychopathy, ultimately will be adopted into subsequent iterations of the DSM system remains to be seen.

Several researchers have criticized the concept. They see meanness and disinhibition as much more important than boldness when deciding whether someone is a psychopath.

Their main issue seems to be that people who are bold – but not mean or disinhibited – actually seem to be well-adjusted and not particularly violent. In fact, compared with being overly introverted or prone to emotional distress, it seems to be an asset in everyday life.

Other researchers, myself included, tend to view those criticisms as not particularly compelling. In our view, someone who is simply disinhibited and mean – but not bold – would not be able to pull off the spectacular level of manipulation that a psychopath is capable of.

To be sure, being mean and disinhibited is a bad combination. But absent boldness, you’re probably not going to show up on the evening news for having schemed scores of investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. The chances that you’ll successfully charm unsuspecting victim after unsuspecting victim into coming back to your apartment to sexually assault them seem pretty slim.

That being said, timid but mean people – the “shycho-paths” – almost certainly do exist, and it’s probably best to stay away from them, too.

But you’re unlikely to confuse them with the Ted Bundys and Charles Mansons of the world.

John Edens is Professor of Psychology at Texas A&M University.

Everything you need to know about the art of tantric sex Posted August 6th 2020

Marie Claire September 9, 2016 4:06 pm

Get ready to have the best sex EVER

Ask anyone about tantric sex and they’ll probably tell you the two following things. a) that it’s meant to be amazing and b) that they don’t actually have a clue what it involves. Sure, we’ve all heard the rumours about those steamy sessions which supposedly last for hours on end, but just how much of this is actually true? And if it is, how do we do it?

Here are the answers you’ve been waiting for…

What is tantric sex?

Believed to have originated in India over 5000 years, Tantra is a combination of spirituality and sexuality that lead to enlightenment. And while it can give you mind-blowing orgasms, this isn’t actually what it’s all about. ‘Tantra is the union of sex, heart and spirit, bringing all of these into not just our sexual experiences but into our life,’ explains sex coach Sarah Rose Bright. ‘It invites us be really conscious about who and how we are as a sexual being.’ But of course the improved sex is a part of this as together, sex and orgasm are believed to equate to the highest level of spiritual awareness.

So, how do I have tantric sex?

Tantra takes time to master, but you know what they say – practice makes perfect. Here are three simple tips for beginners from tantric experts.

1. Make eye contact

Yes, it might sound a bit cringe, but gazing into each other’s eyes is one of the easiest ways of upping the sexual ante.

Start by sitting face-to-face in your partners lap with your eyes closed. Relax your breathing and start rocking towards each other with every inhalation and back on every exhalation. Once you’ve found your rhythm, begin clenching and unclenching your pelvic floor muscles to match your breathing.

Now open your eyes and stare into your partners. Sure, you might feel a bit stupid at first but if you stick with it, it’ll help you fall in love with each other all over again. ‘It can be the most intimate thing to connect with our eyes and just be in the presence of each other and to see each other in our nakedness without feeling the need to perform,’ explains Sarah Rose Bright. ‘And when we connect with our eyes it cultivates a deeper connection and presence.’

2. Go in for a kiss

As you’re rocking, try to coordinate your breathing so that you’re inhaling as your partner exhales. Now that you’re sharing each breath, kiss each other and visualise how you are sharing all of yourself with your partner. ‘Connect your lips and have a moment in stillness, feel that first contact and the energy between you there,’ advises tantric sex teacher Alexey Kuzmin. It’ll make those kisses so much more intense.

3. Try a simple touch

As we said, tantric sex isn’t all about orgasm, it’s about exploring your sensuality through an erotic build up. Touching and teasing is key, with a focus on making every touch count.

The secret to this is the intention behind it. When you’re busy and stressed, it’s hard to focus on the moment rather than an issue at work/the chores you need to do/the birthday card you need to send. But your partner will sense if you’re distracted and your touch will feel vacant.

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So when you start a session, make a concerted effort to clear your mind. ‘Place all of your attention on the pleasure in the here and now,’ advises Sarah Rose Bright. ‘If you find your mind wondering, gently bring your attention back to your pleasure. Rather than pushing to build the arousal, enjoy the natural ebb and flow of arousal. Simply being with it allows your body’s innate wisdom to spring forth. You begin to connect to the sensations in your body in a different way, immersing yourself in the depths of your pleasure.’

If you’re still looking to spice up your sex life, then why not try give one of these best sex toys for couples a try?

Why Shrinks Have Problems

Suicide, stress, divorce — psychologists and other mental health professionals may actually be more screwed up than the rest of us.

By Robert Epstein Ph.D., Tim Bower, published July 1, 1997 – last reviewed on June 9, 2016

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In 1899 Sigmund Freud got a new telephone number: 14362. He was 43 at the time, and he was profoundly disturbed by the digits in the new number. He believed they signified that he would die at age 61 (note the one and six surrounding the 43) or, at best, at age 62 (the last two digits in the number). He clung, painfully, to this bizarre belief for many years. Presumably he was forced to revise his estimate on his 63rd birthday, but he was haunted by other superstitions until the day he died—by assisted suicide, no less—at the ripe old age of 83.

That’s just for starters. Freud also had frequent blackouts. He refused to quit smoking even after 30 operations to correct the extensive damage he suffered from cancer of the jaw. He was a self-proclaimed neurotic. He suffered from a mild form of agoraphobia. And, for a time, he had a serious cocaine problem.

Neuroses? Superstitions? Substance abuse? Blackouts? And suicide? So much for the father of psychoanalysis. But are these problems typical for psychologists? How are Freud’s successors doing? Or, to put the question another way: Are shrinks really “crazy”?

I myself have been a psychologist for nearly two decades, primarily teaching and conducting research. So the truth is that I had some preconceptions about this topic before I began to investigate it. When, years ago, my mom told me that her one and only session with a psychotherapist had been disappointing because “the guy was obviously much crazier than I was,” I assumed, or at least hoped, that she was joking. Mental health professionals have access to special tools and techniques to help themselves through the perils of living, right?

Sure, Freud was peculiar, and, yes, I’d heard that Jung had had a nervous breakdown. But I’d always assumed that—rumors to the contrary notwithstanding;—mental health professionals were probably fairly healthy.

Turns out I was wrong.

Doctor, Are You Feeling Okay?

Mental health professionals are, in general, a fairly crazy lot—at least as troubled as the general population. This may sound depressing, but, as you’ll see, having crazy shrinks around is not in itself a serious problem. In fact, some experts believe that therapists who have suffered in certain ways may be the very best therapists we have.

The problem is that mental health professionals—particularly psychologists—do a poor job of monitoring their own mental health problems and those of their colleagues. In fact, the main responsibility for spotting an impaired therapist seems to fall on the patient, who presumably has his or her own problems to deal with. That’s just nuts.

Therapists struggling with marital problems, alcoholism, substance abuse, depression, and so on don’t function very well as therapists, so we can’t just ignore their distress. And ironically, with just a few exceptions, mental health professionals have access to relatively few resources when they most need assistance. The questions, then, are these: How can clients be protected—and how can troubled therapists be helped?

The Odd Treating the Idarticle continues after advertisement

Here’s a theory that’s not so crazy: Maybe people enter the mental health field because they have a history of psychological difficulties. Perhaps they’re trying to understand or overcome their own problems, which would give us a pool of therapists who are a hit unusual to begin with. That alone could account for the image of the Crazy Shrink.

Of the many prominent psychotherapists I’ve interviewed in recent months, only one admitted that he had entered the profession because of personal problems. But most felt this was a common occurrence. In fact, the idea that therapy is a haven for the psychologically wounded is as old as the profession itself. Freud himself asserted that childhood loss was the underlying cause of an adult’s desire to help others. And Freud’s daughter, Anna, herself a prominent psychoanalyst, once said, “The most sophisticated defense mechanism I ever encountered was becoming a psychotherapist.” So it’s only appropriate that John Fromson, M.D., director of a Massachusetts program for impaired physicians, describes the mental health field as one in which “the odd care for the id.” He chuckled as he said this, but, as Freud claimed, humor is often a mask for disturbing truths.

These impressions are confirmed by published research. An American Psychiatric Association study concluded that ‘”physicians with affective disorders tend to select psychiatry as a specialty.” (Curiously, the authors presented this as their belief, “for a variety of reasons,” without explanation.) In a 1993 study, James Guy, Ph.D., dean of the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, compared the early childhood experiences of female psychotherapists to those of other professional women. The therapists reported higher rates of family dysfunction, parental alcoholism, sexual and physical abuse, and parental death or psychiatric hospitalization than did their professional counterparts. And a 1992 survey of male and female therapists found that more than two-thirds of the women and one-third of the men reported having experienced some form of sexual or physical abuse in early life. Freud seems to have been right about this one: The mental health professions attract people who have suffered.article continues after advertisement

Patients Can Really Ruin Your Day

So we’re starting out, it seems, with a pool of well-meaning but slightly damaged practitioners. Now the real fun begins.

Check out the numbers: According to studies published in 1990 and 1991, half of all therapists are at some point threatened with physical violence by their clients, and about 40 percent are actually attacked. Try to put this in context. A special, intimate relationship exists between therapist and client. So being attacked by a client is a serious emotional blow, perhaps comparable, in some cases, to being a parent attacked by one’s child. Needless to say, therapists who are assaulted get very upset. They feel more vulnerable and less competent, and sometimes the feelings of inadequacy trickle over into their personal relationships.

Let’s take this a step further. Imagine working with a depressed patient every week, without fail, for several years and then getting a call saying that your patient has killed herself. How would you feel? Alas, patient suicide is another hazard of the profession. Between 20 and 30 percent of all psychotherapists experience the suicide of at least one patient, again with often devastating psychological fallout. In a 1968 hospital study, psychiatrists reported reacting to patient suicides with feelings of “guilt and self-recrimination.” Others considered the suicide to be “a direct act of spite” or said it was like being “fired.” Whatever the reaction, the emotional toll is great.

Virtually all mental health professionals agree that the profession is inherently hazardous. It takes superhuman strength for most people just to listen to a neighbor moan about his lousy marriage for 15 minutes. Psychologists, of course, enter the profession by choice, but you can imagine the effects of listening to clients talk about a never-ending litany of serious problems — eight long hours a day, 50 weeks a year. “My parents hated me. Life isn’t worth living. I’m a failure. I’m impotent. On the way over here, I felt like driving my car into a telephone pole. I’ll never be happy. No one understands me. I don’t know who I am. I hate my job. I hate my life. I hate you.”article continues after advertisement

Just thinking about it makes you shudder.

It’s a Rough World Out There

Patients aren’t the only source of stress for psychotherapists. The world itself is pretty demanding. After all, that’s why there are patients.

A number of surveys, conducted by Guy and others, reveal some worri-some statistics about therapists’ lives and well-being. At least three out of four therapists have experienced major distress within the past three years, the principal cause being relationship problems. More than 60 percent may have suffered a clinically significant depression at some point in their lives, and nearly half admitted that in the weeks following a personal crisis they’re unable to deliver quality care. As for psychiatrists, a 1997 study by Michael Klag, M.D., found that the divorce rate for psychiatrists who graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine between 1948 and 1964 was 51 percent—higher than that of the general population of that era, and substantially higher than the rate in any other branch of medicine.

These days, therapists face a major new source of stress: HMOs. Richard Kilburg, Ph.D., senior director of human resources at Johns Hopkins University and one of the profession’s leading experts on distressed psychologists, says managed care is having a devastating effect: “Therapists are chronically anxious. It’s getting harder and harder to make a living, harder to provide quality care. The paperwork requirements are enormous. You can’t have a meeting of practicing psychologists today without having these issues being raised, and the pain level is rising. A number of my colleagues have been driven out of the profession altogether.”

No wonder Richard Thoreson, Ph.D., of the University of Missouri, estimates that at any particular moment about 10 percent of psychotherapists are in significant distress.

The Final Resolution

Bruno Bettelheim. Paul Federn. Wilhelm Stekel. Victor Tausk. Lawrence Kohlberg. Perhaps you recognize one or two of the names. They’re all prominent mental health professionals who, like Freud, committed suicide.

All too often the stresses of work and everyday life lead mental health professionals down this path. According to psychologist David Lester, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Study of Suicide, mental health professionals kill themselves at an abnormally high rate. Indeed, highly publicized reports about the suicide rate of psychiatrists led the American Psychiatric Association to create a Task Force on Suicide Prevention in the late 1970s. A study initiated by that task force, published in 1980, concluded that “psychiatrists commit suicide at rates about twice those expected [of physicians]” and that “the occurrence of suicides by psychiatrists is quite constant year-to-year, indicating a relatively stable over-supply of depressed psychiatrists.” No other medical specialty yielded such a high suicide rate.

One out of every four psychologists has suicidal feelings at times, according to one survey, and as many as one in 16 may have attempted suicide. The only published data—now nearly 25 years old—on actual suicides among psychologists showed a rate of suicide for female psychologists that’s three times that of the general population, although the rate among male psychologists was not higher than expected by chance.

Further studies of suicides by psychologists have been difficult to conduct, says Lester, largely because the main professional body for psychologists, the American Psychological Association APA), hasn’t released any relevant data since about 1970. Why? “The APA doesn’t want anyone to know that there are distressed psychologists,” insists University of Iowa psychologist Peter Nathan, Ph.D., a former member of an APA committee on “troubled” psychologists.

ALCOHOL AND ADDICTION

Wait, there’s more. “Mental health professionals are probably at heightened risk for not just alcoholism but [all types of] substance abuse,” reports Nathan. It’s not surprising: Substance abuse is one of the most common—albeit destructive—ways people deal with anxiety and depression, and, as we’ve seen, mental health professionals have more than their share.

Richard Thoreson’s decades of research on alcoholism, in fact, stemmed from his own problems with the bottle. “I began drinking at a fairly early age,” he says, “and I continued during my early academic career. My life was organized around drinking. It had a very negative impact on my family. At one point I resigned as president of an organization because I was too shaky to speak before a group. I stopped drinking in 1969, at which point I was drinking the equivalent of 16 ounces of whiskey a day.”

In the 1970s, with the help of several colleagues, Thoreson founded an informal group called Psychologists Helping Psychologists, which has held open Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the annual APA convention ever since. This unofficial, all-volunteer group has helped hundreds of psychologists over the years — with no financial support from the APA.

ADDICTED TO THERAPY

“Some therapists,” says James Guy, “expect to continue practicing longer than the life expectancies in actuarial tables.” But with advancing age, impairment is almost inevitable. Explains Guy: “Lower back pain becomes a problem. Failing eyesight and hearing make it difficult to pick up on subtle nuances. Poor bladder control can make it difficult to sit, and fatigue becomes a big factor.”

Further complicating matters is that as therapists get older, more and more of their intimacy needs and social support actually comes from their patients. “Often, most of their waking hours are spent with clients, focusing on emotionally laden material,” notes Guy. “When that’s the situation, it’s difficult for them to think about retirement. It’s even difficult for them to know when to take time off.”

Many psychotherapists become, in effect, woefully addicted to their clients, with no one offering them guidance or alternatives. In general, private, independent practices—often conducted out of the therapist’s home—put the therapist at greatest risk, no matter what his or her age. Thoreson adds that such practices have special appeal for therapists who don’t want to be seen by colleagues; the isolated practice is the ideal one for the alcoholic or drug abuser.

DO THEY USE THEIR OWN TOOLS?

If therapists really have special tools for helping people, shouldn’t they be able to use their techniques on themselves? After all, the late behavioral psychologist, B. F. Skinner, systematically applied behavioral principles to modify his own behavior, and he ridiculed Freud and the psychoanalysts for their inability to apply their “science” to themselves. University of Scranton psychologist John Norcross, Ph.D., and his colleagues have studied this issue extensively, with two major findings. First: “Therapists admit to as much distress and as many life problems as laypersons, but they also claim to cope better. They rely less on psychotropic medications and employ a wider range of self-change processes than laypersons.”

This sounds encouraging, but Norcross’s second finding makes you stop and think: “When therapists treat patients, they follow the prescriptions of their theoretical orientation. But the amazing thing is that when therapists treat themselves, they become very pragmatic.” In other words, when battling their own problems, therapists dispense with the psychobabble and fall back on everyday, commonsense techniques—chats with friends, meditation, hot baths, and so on.

But aren’t psychotherapists required to be in therapy at various points in their careers, so that they get specialized help from their colleagues? Not so. “People are shocked when they learn this isn’t true,” says Gary Schoener, Ph.D., who directs The Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis, perhaps the country’s first and last free psychology clinic. “Lawyers are subjected to more psychological screens than psychologists are.”

Surveys do indicate that most therapists—between 65 and 80 percent—have had therapy at some point. However, except for psychoanalysts—the pricey, traditional Freudians you see more in movies than in reality—psychotherapists are virtually never required to undergo therapy, even as a part of their training.

Freud himself would be appalled by this. “Every analyst should periodically—at intervals of five years or so—submit himself to analysis,” he said. Unfortunately—and ironically—many psychotherapists are reluctant to seek therapy. In a survey by Guy and James Liaboe, Ph.D., for example, therapists said they were hesitant to enter therapy “because of feelings of embarrassment or humiliation, doubts concerning the efficacy of therapy, previous negative experiences with personal therapy, and feelings of superiority that hinder their ability to identify their own need for treatment.” Others are hesitant to seek therapy because of professional `complications’ — that is, they cannot find a therapist nearby whom they do not already know in another context. Or they mistakenly believe, as many patients do, that seeking therapy is a sign of failure.

“I worry,” says psychologist Karen Saakvitne, Ph.D., “about the implication that the therapists who are in therapy are the ones who are impaired. They are the ones acting in their clients’ best interest. I’m more worried about the therapists who don’t seek help.”

WOUNDED THERAPISTS

Maybe there’s an upside to all these problems among psychologists — if, say, a therapist needs to have experienced pain and suffering in order to relate to his or her clients’ pain and suffering. This “wounded healer” concept is, I believe, woven into the fabric of the mental health profession. When I served as chair of a university psychology department, I helped evaluate candidates for our marriage and family counseling program. The admission process — interview questions, essays, and so on — was structured, albeit subtly, to screen out people who hadn’t suffered enough. What’s more, I’ve heard colleagues express concern about the occasional student or trainee who, through no fault of his or her own, came from an unbroken home.

Data supporting this idea, however, are hard to find. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that you need a history of psychological problems in order to be a good therapist,” insists John Norcross. “In some studies, in the first few sessions only, [patients see] the wounded therapist as a little more empathetic, but the effect doesn’t last. Experience with pain can enhance a therapist’s sensitivity, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into good outcomes.”

“I don’t think therapists need to have had the same experiences as their clients,” adds psychologist Laurie Pearlman, Ph.D. “As long as the therapist can feel those feelings, he or she can connect with clients.”

On the other hand, in 1989 psychologists Pilar Poal, Ph.D., and John R. Weisz, Ph.D., found that therapists who faced serious problems in their own childhood are more effective at helping child clients talk about their problems, perhaps because of greater empathy. That study, however, is practically the only one that supports the wounded-healer hypothesis.

THERAPEUTIC ADVICE

So you’ve gotten into therapy because your life is falling apart — and now you have to keep one eye on your therapist just in case his or her life is falling apart, too? Basically, yes. Like it or not, you, the client, are probably carrying the major responsibility for spotting the signs of distress or impairment in your therapist, especially if you’re seeing an independent practitioner. The current president of the California Psychological Association, Steven F. Bucky, Ph.D., puts it this way: “The truth of the matter is that unless someone complains about an impaired therapist, there is no protection for the client.”

Here are some tips for protecting yourself from impaired mental health professionals, and, perhaps, in so doing, for helping them overcome their own problems. Remember, therapists are people, too.

First, it’s probably safer to bring your problems to a practitioner who works in a group setting. Independent, isolated therapists are probably at greatest risk for having undetected and untreated problems of their own. On the other hand, therapists working for managed care organizations or working under the gun of insurance companies are exposed to special constraints and stressors that may limit their ability to help you.

Second, trust your gut. “If you get the feeling that there’s a problem, you shouldn’t deny what your instincts are telling you,” says Kilburg. If, during your session, a little voice in your head begins screaming, “This guy’s eyes remind me of my college roommate’s when he was tripping on acid,” don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Indeed, any time your therapist shows clear signs of personal distress or impairment, bring your concerns to his or her attention. (Ideally, do this on the therapist’s dime, after your session is over.) If you’re uneasy about raising the issue with your therapist, talk to one of his or her colleagues about it. Or, consider finding a new therapist. If you think your therapist’s problem is serious and has the potential to do harm, report it to the appropriate professional organization or licensing body (see below). You have legitimate cause for concern if your therapist:

shows signs of excessive fatigue, such as red eyes or sleepiness.

touches you inappropriately or tries to see you socially.

smells of alcohol, or you see liquor bottles or drug paraphernalia in the office.

has trouble seeing or hearing.

talks at length about his or her own current, unresolved problems. This is known as a “boundary violation,” and it’s especially worrisome, because it’s often a prelude to a sexual advance. In fact, therapists who talk about their own unresolved problems are more likely to make sexual advances than those who actually touch their clients.

has trouble remembering what you told him or her last week.

is repeatedly late for sessions, cancels them, or misses them.

seems distant or distracted.

For help locating the appropriate organization or board, call the relevant national organization. For psychologists, call the American Psychological Association at (202) 336-5000; for psychiatrists, call the American Psychiatric Association at (202) 682-6000. If your therapist is a marriage and family counselor, try the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy at (202) 452-0109, and if your therapist is a social worker, try the National Association of Social Workers at (202) 408-8600.

Contributing editor Robert Epstein’s most recent books include Self-Help Without the Hype and Pure Fitness: Body Meets Mind.

Uh Oh, Now They Want Drugs

Here’s something that will rock you: The 150,00-member American Psychological Association is lobbying hard to get prescription privileges for psychologists. Pilot programs are already under way, and some think that many psychologists will be able to dispense drugs to their patients within five years. So much for the distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists. A more worrisome problem, though, is: Won’t prescription privileges put psychologists at greater risk for substance abuse?

The answer, unfortunately, may be yes. It’s well-known that the professions and specialties that have easy access to drugs also have the highest rates of addiction. “If psychologists get prescription privileges, I think there is going to be a dramatic increase in their abuse of drugs,” says University of Iowa psychologist Peter Nathan, Ph.D. “We don’t like to talk about this, but it’s inevitable.”

Harvard psychiatrist Malkah Notman, M.D., is also uneasy about the possibility of prescription privileges for psychologists. “Psychologists can do a lot of damage,” she says, “but not as much as a psychiatrist can do. With medication, you can get in a lot of trouble very fast. Prescribing drugs is really quite risky. Even with medical training, a lot of people get rusty.” advertisement

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How to Build a Life

‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy

The pursuit of achievement distracts from the deeply ordinary activities and relationships that make life meaningful.Arthur C. Brooks July 30, 2020 3 more free articles this month Sign in Subscribe Now

“How to Build a Life” is a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.

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Imagine reading a story titled “The Relentless Pursuit of Booze.” You would likely expect a depressing story about a person in a downward alcoholic spiral. Now imagine instead reading a story titled “The Relentless Pursuit of Success.” That would be an inspiring story, wouldn’t it?

Maybe—but maybe not. It might well be the story of someone whose never-ending quest for more and more success leaves them perpetually unsatisfied and incapable of happiness.

Physical dependency keeps alcoholics committed to their vice, even as it wrecks their happiness. But arguably more powerful than the physical addiction is the sense that drinking is a relationship, not an activity. As the author Caroline Knapp described alcoholism in her memoir Drinking: A Love Story, “It happened this way: I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out.” Many alcoholics know that they would be happier if they quit, but that isn’t the point. The decision to keep drinking is to choose that intense love—twisted and lonely as it is—over the banality of mere happiness.

Though it isn’t a conventional medical addiction, for many people success has addictive properties. To a certain extent, I mean that literally—praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is implicated in all addictive behaviors. (This is basically how social media keeps people hooked: Users get a dopamine hit from the “likes” generated by a post, keeping them coming back again and again, hour after miserable hour.)

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But success also resembles addiction in its effect on human relationships. People sacrifice their links with others for their true love, success. They travel for business on anniversaries; they miss Little League games and recitals while working long hours. Some forgo marriage for their careers—earning the appellation of being “married to their work”—even though a good relationship is more satisfying than any job.

Read: Workism is making Americans miserable

Many scholars, such as the psychologist Barbara Killinger, have shown that people willingly sacrifice their own well-being through overwork to keep getting hits of success. I know a thing or two about this: As I once found myself confessing to a close friend, “I would prefer to be special than happy.” He asked why. “Anyone can do the things it takes to be happy—going on vacation with family, relaxing with friends … but not everyone can accomplish great things.” My friend scoffed at this, but I started asking other people in my circles and found that I wasn’t unusual. Many of them had made the success addict’s choice of specialness over happiness. They (and sometimes I) would put off ordinary delights of relaxation and time with loved ones until after this project, or that promotion, when finally it would be time to rest.

But, of course, that day never seemed to arrive.

The desire for success may be inherent to human nature. The great American psychologist William James once noted, “We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.” And success makes us attractive to others (that is, until we ruin our marriages).

But specialness doesn’t come cheap. Apart from some reality-TV stars and other accidental celebrities, success is brutal work, and it requires sacrifices. In the 1980s, the physician Robert Goldman famously found that more than half of aspiring athletes would be willing to take a drug that would kill them in five years in exchange for winning every competition they entered today, “from the Olympic decathlon to the Mr. Universe.” Later research found that up to 14 percent of elite performers would accept a fatal cardiovascular condition in exchange for an Olympic gold medal—still a shockingly high number, in my estimation.

We can find this choice in ancient myth, as well. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles must decide whether to fight in the Trojan War—promising certain physical death but a glorious legacy—or return to his home to live a long and happy life with his loved ones but die in obscurity. He describes his choice thusly:

That two fates bear me on to the day of death.

If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,

my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.

If I voyage back to the fatherland I love,

my pride, my glory dies …

Achilles, success addict par excellence, chooses death.

Unfortunately, success is Sisyphean (to mix my Greek myths). The goal can’t be satisfied; most people never feel “successful enough.” The high only lasts a day or two, and then it’s on to the next goal. Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill, in which satisfaction wears off almost immediately and we must run on to the next reward to avoid the feeling of falling behind. This is why so many studies show that successful people are almost invariably jealous of people who are more successful.

Read: Kids don’t need to stay “on track” to succeed

They should get off the treadmill. But quitting isn’t easy for addicts. For people hooked on substances, withdrawal can be an agonizing experience, both physically and psychologically. Anxiety and depression are very common after one quits alcoholic drinking, for example. Indeed, the novelist William Styron famously cited the cessation of his lifelong heavy drinking as part of the onset of the clinical depression he chronicled in his book Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. Some chalk this up to loneliness in the absence of alcohol—remember, it’s a relationship.

Success addicts giving up their habit experience a kind of withdrawal as well. Research finds that depression and anxiety are common among elite athletes after their careers end; Olympic athletes, in particular, suffer from the “post-Olympic blues.” I saw this withdrawal all the time in my years as the president of a think tank in Washington, D.C. Prominent people in politics and media would step back from the limelight—sometimes of their own volition, sometimes not—and suffer mightily. They talked of virtually nothing but the old days. Many suffered from depression and anxiety.

“Unhappy is he who depends on success to be happy,” wrote Alex Dias Ribeiro, a former Formula 1 race-car driver. “For such a person, the end of a successful career is the end of the line. His destiny is to die of bitterness or to search for more success in other careers and to go on living from success to success until he falls dead. In this case, there will not be life after success.”

American culture valorizes overwork, which makes it easy to slip into a mindset that can breed success addiction. But if you’ve seen yourself in my description, don’t lose hope. There is plenty you can do to retrain yourself to chase happiness instead of success, no matter where you are in your life’s journey. Let me suggest that you consider three steps, whether you are at the peak of your career, trying to work your way up the ladder, or looking at success in the rearview mirror.

The first step is an admission that as successful as you are, were, or hope to be in your life and work, you are not going to find true happiness on the hedonic treadmill of your professional life. You’ll find it in things that are deeply ordinary: enjoying a walk or a conversation with a loved one, instead of working that extra hour, for example. This is extremely difficult for many people. It feels almost like an admission of defeat for those who have spent their lives worshipping hard work and striving to outperform others. Social comparison is a big part of how people measure worldly success, but the research is clear that it strips us of life satisfaction.

The second step is to make amends for any relationships you’ve compromised in the name of success. This is complicated, obviously. “Sorry about choosing tedious board meetings—which I don’t even remember now—over your ballet recitals” probably won’t get the job done. More effective is simply to start showing up. With relationships, actions speak louder than words, especially if your words have been fairly empty in the past.

The last step is to find the right metrics of success. In business, people often say, “You are what you measure.” If you measure yourself only by the worldly rewards of money, power, and prestige, you’ll spend your life running on the hedonic treadmill and comparing yourself to others. I suggested better metrics in the inaugural “How to Build a Life” column, among them faith, family, and friendship. I also included work—but not work for the sake of outward achievement. Rather, it should be work that serves others and gives you a sense of personal meaning.

Success in and of itself is not a bad thing, any more than wine is a bad thing. Both can bring fun and sweetness to life. But both become tyrannical when they are a substitute for—instead of a complement to—the relationships and love that should be at the center of our lives.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Arthur C. Brooks is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, and host of the podcast The Art of Happiness With Arthur Brooks.

Survey of Over 20,000 Lonely People Highlights the Cost of Living Alone August 4th 2020

Loneliness is taking a toll, and one country is trying to fight back.

Inverse

• Emma Betuel

Photo by Basak Gurbuz Derman / Getty Images.

Coming home to an empty house can feel like a blessing. But if blissful alone time turns into feelings of prolonged loneliness, that empty house can become a curse, according to research published in 2019 in PLOS One. For 20,500 residents in the United Kingdom, living alone is associated with steep psychological costs for one major reason.

Based off of survey data collected by the British Government, lead study author Louis Jacob, Ph.D. of the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines explains that living alone was associated with significantly higher rates of mental disorder symptoms, including neuroticism. Whether people with neurotic symptoms prefer to live alone, or if the symptoms originate because of their residential status, is unclear from this paper. Still, Jacob’s team’s analysis yielded an interesting statistic that hints at the reason this connection exists in the first place: Eighty-four percent of the symptoms could be explained by reported loneliness.

“We believe that reducing levels of loneliness in people living alone is important,” Jacob tells Inverse.

Overall, Jacob’s findings are based on a diverse sample of UK residents between 16 and 64 years old who responded to surveys conducted in 1993, 2000, and 2007. These surveys revealed that the number of people who lived alone is relatively small but has been increasing. In 1993, 8.8 percent of respondents lived alone, but by 2007, that had increased to 10.7 percent of people. People who lived alone, the authors note, were more likely to be male, older, and unemployed.

Importantly, they found significant associations between that status and the prevalence of symptoms of mental disorders (not necessarily diagnosed disorders). Across all years, they report that people who lived alone had higher chances of reporting symptoms of common mental disorders. In 1993, people who lived alone were 69 percent more likely to report symptoms. In 2000, that likelihood decreased to 63 percent, but by 2007, they were back up to 88 percent more likely to report symptoms of a mental disorder.

Jacob notes that there were other mediating factors like alcohol and substance abuse that impacted this relationship, but of all the factors that contributed to the pattern, loneliness was the most statistically powerful. Crucially, he notes that loneliness isn’t necessarily caused by living alone: Instead, he proposes that people who feel lonely tend to feel so despite having plenty of social support around them, suggesting that loneliness is a state of mind, not a residential status.

“Interestingly, despite this finding on loneliness, social support explained the living alone-[common mental disorder] relationship to a much lesser extent (i.e., 17%),” he explains. “This may mean that the self-perception of social relationships is more important than actual social ties,” he says. “You may feel lonely, although you have a substantial social support.”

The UK has already acknowledged that the country may have a loneliness problem and appointed Tracey Crouch as the official minister of loneliness in January 2018. In October 2018, the UK proposed a strategy for tackling loneliness that devotes funds to creating more community spaces, housing changes, and sports programs.

Jacob, for one, adds that the best way to intervene in a cycle of loneliness is to promote social connections that make people feel supported, a goal that is echoed in the UK’s plan too. As examples, Jacob lists certain “psychological therapies, health and social care provision, and leisure/skill development.”

In other words, living alone may contribute to loneliness, but it will take more than a roommate to cure the lonely feelings of an entire nation. Instead, the trick is to make sure that people feel connected, no matter who they are — or aren’t — living with.

Abstract: Given the high prevalence of common mental disorders (CMDs) and individuals living alone in the United Kingdom, the goal of this study using English nationally representative data was to examine the association between living alone and CMDs, and to identify potential mediating factors of this association. The data were drawn from the 1993, 2000 and 2007 National Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys. CMDs were assessed using the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised (CIS-R), a questionnaire focusing on past week neurotic symptoms. The presence of CMDs was defined as a CIS-R total score of 12 and above. Multivariable logistic regression and mediation analyses were conducted to analyze the association between liv- ing alone and CMDs, and to identify mediators in this association. The prevalence of CMDs was higher in individuals living alone than in those not living alone in all survey years. Multi- variable analysis showed a positive association between living alone and CMDs in all survey years (1993: odds ratio [OR] = 1.69; 2000: OR = 1.63; and 2007: OR = 1.88). Overall, loneli- ness explained 84% of the living alone-CMD association. Living alone was positively associ- ated with CMDs. Interventions addressing loneliness among individuals living alone may be particularly important for the mental wellbeing of this vulnerable population.

Emma Betuel is a writer based in NYC. Previously, she covered health and biology for WBUR’s Commonhealth blog and The Borgen Project Magazine. Last year, she spent too much time reading Darwin’s notes on pea plants. She recently started questioning the nature of her reality.

Imposter Syndrome August 2nd 2020

By Sheryl Nance-Nash 28th July 2020 Self-doubt and imposter syndrome permeate the workplace, but women, especially women of colour, are particularly likely to experience it. Why is this – and how can it be changed?

Although I haven’t worked in an office in more than 20 years, I still remember the feeling I used to have at my nine-to-five magazine job. No matter how well I did, I always felt that I wasn’t good enough for the rarefied publishing world. I didn’t come from a pedigree; I just was a hard-working black woman. I felt (and sometimes literally was) unacknowledged in the hallways, and my voice was hardly heard. It wasn’t unusual that ideas I presented at meetings got a lukewarm reception, but two meetings later someone else suggested a similar thought, which was instantly deemed a must-write story.

Even though I knew I was capable of doing the work, I was riddled with doubt. It was years later that I learned there was a term for what I felt: imposter syndrome.

You may not be able to see it around you, but imposter syndrome permeates the workplace. It’s a feeling that many people can identify with: why do I feel like a fraud even though I’m eminently qualified for this job? Despite having education and training, many have never been able to break free of doubting their worthiness and step into any a higher level of success.

But although anyone can ask this question, imposter syndrome has an outsize effect on certain groups.

We’re more likely to experience imposter syndrome if we don’t see many examples of people who look like us or share our background who are clearly succeeding in our field – Emily Hu

“Women, women of colour, especially black women, as well as the LGBTQ community are most at risk,” says Brian Daniel Norton, a psychotherapist and executive coach in New York. “When you experience systemic oppression or are directly or indirectly told your whole life that you are less-than or underserving of success and you begin to achieve things in a way that goes against a long-standing narrative in the mind, imposter syndrome will occur.”

If you doubt yourself even when you’re doing all the right things, are you doomed to feel like an imposter, no matter what? And why, exactly, do we feel imposter syndrome – and what can we do when that feeling starts to boil up?

Stacked odds

Corporate culture exacerbates the problem of imposter syndrome, particularly for women.

According to Lean In, a US organisation that focuses on women in the workplace, women are less likely to be hired and promoted to manager. Its 2019 research shows that for every 100 men brought onto teams and elevated to management, only 72 women experience the same thing. Men hold 62% of manager-level positions, while women hold just 38%. And although one-third of the companies Lean In surveyed set gender representation targets for first-level manager roles, 41% of them didn’t for senior levels of management.

CEOs who are women of colour are still rare. Xerox’s Ursula Burns was the only black, female CEO of a Fortune 500 firm, who left the company in 2016 (Credit: Alamy)

And despite progress in the boardroom, where diverse voices have been historically absent, women still don’t have near-equal representation. According to Catalyst data for 2019, women in the US held 26.1% of directorships, up from 20.3% in 2016. Women in the UK fared slightly better, holding 31.7% of directorships, up from 25.3%. But even in the top-rated country, France, women only hold 44.3% of directorships, up from 37.6% in 2016. Additionally, women of colour are all but non-existent on corporate boards: Catalyst reports that fewer than 5% of US corporate board seats are held by women of colour, despite being 18% of the US population. The only black woman to ever head up a Fortune 500 company as CEO was Xerox’s Ursula Burns, who left the company in 2016.

The lack of role models for marginalised communities has a major impact on making people feel like they do – or don’t – belong in these corporate environments. Without this representation, there’s no “signal of the possibility of advancement… [or] how they managed the realities of stereotype, stigma and oppression in order to advance”, says Thema Bryant-Davis, a black psychologist and professor of psychology at Pepperdine University in California.

“We’re more likely to experience imposter syndrome if we don’t see many examples of people who look like us or share our background who are clearly succeeding in our field,” adds Emily Hu, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles. “This is especially true for black and indigenous people, for whom overall representation across almost all white-collar fields is alarmingly low.”

For years I thought Nasa only hired me because they needed women – Maureen Zappala

But lack of physical representation is just one of the factors that feeds into imposter syndrome. For instance, pervasive racist and sexist stereotypes can cause marginalised people to doubt themselves, says Bryant-Davis. She points to common messaging such as that women are not good leaders because they’re too emotional; women are not good at maths or science; black, indigenous and other people of colour are lazy, unintelligent or lack integrity.

Even the traditional focus on female beauty can make an impact on self-doubt. “If you’ve grown up with messages that you’re only valued for your looks and your body, not your skills or intelligence, you may end up getting a certain job or position and wondering whether you truly deserve it or if the hiring manager just thought you were a pretty face,” says Hu.

‘Underqualified and in over my head’

Maureen Zappala is a former propulsion engineer – a literal rocket scientist. But despite working at the US’s renowned National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) for 13 years in the 80s and 90s, and reaching a mid-level management position, Zappala was still beset with self-doubt.

“For years I thought Nasa only hired me because they needed women. I felt under-qualified and in over my head. I worked long hours to try to prove myself. I was too afraid to ask for help because I thought if I’m really as smart as they think I am, I shouldn’t need the help, and I should be able to figure this out on my own,” she says.

Even after being promoted, she constantly second-guessed her decisions. “Even though people raved about my people skills, and how I knew the facility inside out, and how I was really good at project management, I refused to objectively look at that data that said I was qualified,” says Zappala, who is now a professional speaker and author of Pushing Your Envelope: How Smart People Defeat Self-Doubt and Live with Bold Enthusiasm.

That never-ending doubt can do damage both professionally and personally.

Hearing Voices When There Is No One There July 31st 2020

People who hear voices that other people can’t hear may use unusual skills when their brains process new sounds, according to research led by Durham University and University College London (UCL).

The study, published in the academic journal Brain, found that voice-hearers could detect disguised speech-like sounds more quickly and easily than people who had never had a voice-hearing experience.

The findings suggest that voice-hearers have an enhanced tendency to detect meaningful speech patterns in ambiguous sounds.

The researchers say this insight into the brain mechanisms of voice-hearers tells us more about how these experiences occur in voice-hearers without a mental health problem, and could ultimately help scientists and clinicians find more effective ways to help people who find their voices disturbing.

The study involved people who regularly hear voices, also known as auditory verbal hallucinations, but do not have a mental health problem.

Participants listened to a set of disguised speech sounds known as sine-wave speech while they were having an MRI brain scan. Usually these sounds can only be understood once people are either told to listen out for speech, or have been trained to decode the disguised sounds.

Sine-wave speech is often described as sounding a bit like birdsong or alien-like noises. However, after training people can understand the simple sentences hidden underneath (such as “The boy ran down the path” or “The clown had a funny face”).

In the experiment, many of the voice-hearers recognised the hidden speech before being told it was there, and on average they tended to notice it earlier than other participants who had no history of hearing voices.

The brains of the voice-hearers automatically responded to sounds that contained hidden speech compared to sounds that were meaningless, in the regions of the brain linked to attention and monitoring skills.

The small-scale study was conducted with 12 voice-hearers and 17 non voice-hearers. Nine out of 12 (75 per cent) voice-hearers reported hearing the hidden speech compared to eight out of 17 (47 per cent) non voice-hearers.

Lead author Dr Ben Alderson-Day, Research Fellow from Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project, said: “These findings are a demonstration of what we can learn from people who hear voices that are not distressing or problematic.

“It suggests that the brains of people who hear voices are particularly tuned to meaning in sounds, and shows how unusual experiences might be influenced by people’s individual perceptual and cognitive processes.”

People who hear voices often have a diagnosis of a mental health condition such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. However, not all voice-hearers have a mental health problem.

Research suggests that between five and 15 per cent of the general population have had an occasional experience of hearing voices, with as many as one per cent having more complex and regular voice-hearing experiences in the absence of any need for psychiatric care.

Co-author Dr Cesar Lima from UCL’s Speech Communication Lab commented: “We did not tell the participants that the ambiguous sounds could contain speech before they were scanned, or ask them to try to understand the sounds. Nonetheless, these participants showed distinct neural responses to sounds containing disguised speech, as compared to sounds that were meaningless.

“This was interesting to us because it suggests that their brains can automatically detect meaning in sounds that people typically struggle to understand unless they are trained.”

The research is part of a collaboration between Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project, a large interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing funded by the Wellcome Trust, and UCL’s Speech Communication lab.

Durham’s Hearing the Voice project aims to develop a better understanding of the experience of hearing a voice when no one is speaking. The researchers want to increase understanding of voice-hearing by examining it from different academic perspectives, working with clinicians and other mental health professionals, and listening to people who have heard voices themselves.

In the long term, it is hoped that the research will inform mental health policy and improve therapeutic practice in cases where people find their voices distressing and clinical help is sought.

Professor Charles Fernyhough, Director of Hearing the Voice at Durham University, said: ‘This study brings the expertise of UCL’s Speech Communication lab together with Durham’s Hearing the Voice project to explore what is a frequently troubling and widely misunderstood experience.”

Professor Sophie Scott from UCL Speech Communication Lab added: “This is a really exciting demonstration of the ways that unusual experiences with voices can be linked to — and may have their basis in — everyday perceptual processes.”

The study involved researchers from Durham University, University College London, University of Porto (Portugal), University of Westminster and University of Oxford.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiCJwTanRtA

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by Durham University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Ben Alderson-Day, César F. Lima, Samuel Evans, Saloni Krishnan, Pradheep Shanmugalingam, Charles Fernyhough, Sophie K. Scott. Distinct processing of ambiguous speech in people with non-clinical auditory verbal hallucinations. Brain, 2017; DOI: 10.1093/brain/awx206

---

Cite This Page:

• MLA
• APA
• Chicago

Durham University. “People who ‘hear voices’ can detect hidden speech in unusual sounds.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 August 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170821085707.htm>.

• RELATED TOPICS
  • Mind & Brain
    • Perception
    • Language Acquisition
    • Child Development
    • Spirituality
    • Hearing Impairment
    • Disorders and Syndromes
    • Mental Health
    • Neuroscience

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• RELATED TERMS
  • Hearing impairment
  • Social cognition
  • Charisma
  • Tinnitus
  • Education
  • Illusion of control
  • Human skin color
  • Asperger syndrome

RELATED STORIES

---

Auditory Hallucinations Rooted in Aberrant Brain Connectivity

June 30, 2020 — A study reports that auditory hallucinations, a phenomenon in which people hear voices or other sounds, may arise through altered brain connectivity between sensory and cognitive processing …

Brain’s Ability to Synchronize Voice Sounds Could Be Related to Language Learning

Mar. 4, 2019 — Researchers studied the synchronization of speech motor rhythms. Results show some people’s brains adapt spontaneously to align with the rhythm of the voices they hear, while others do not. According …

Synchronizing Cochlear Signals Stimulates Brain to ‘Hear’ in Stereo

May 8, 2018 — Using both ears to hear increases speech recognition and improves sound localization. Researchers want to bring this advantage to people who use cochlear implants. They have developed a new technique …

Mom’s Voice Activates Many Different Regions in Children’s Brains, Study Shows

May 16, 2016 — A far wider swath of brain areas is activated when children hear their mothers than when they hear other voices, and this brain response predicts a child’s social communication ability, a new study … FROM AROUND THE WEB

---

Below are relevant articles that may interest you. ScienceDaily shares links with scholarly publications in the TrendMD network and earns revenue from third-party advertisers, where indicated.

1. MIDS Medical to Receive up to $1.2M for POC Heart Attack Test 360Dx, 2018
2. ArcherDx, University College London, Crick Institute Partner on Lung Cancer Recurrence Research 360Dx, 2019
3. SARS-CoV-2 Experience Will Help Agency Strike Right Balance With LDTs, FDA Says Kelsy Ketchum, 360Dx, 2020
4. iReceptor Plus Consortium Wants to Improve Immunological Data Sharing Precision Oncology News, 2019

People who hear voices that other people can’t hear may use unusual skills when their brains process new sounds, according to research led by Durham University and University College London (UCL).

The study, published in the academic journal Brain, found that voice-hearers could detect disguised speech-like sounds more quickly and easily than people who had never had a voice-hearing experience.

The findings suggest that voice-hearers have an enhanced tendency to detect meaningful speech patterns in ambiguous sounds.

The researchers say this insight into the brain mechanisms of voice-hearers tells us more about how these experiences occur in voice-hearers without a mental health problem, and could ultimately help scientists and clinicians find more effective ways to help people who find their voices disturbing.

The study involved people who regularly hear voices, also known as auditory verbal hallucinations, but do not have a mental health problem.

Participants listened to a set of disguised speech sounds known as sine-wave speech while they were having an MRI brain scan. Usually these sounds can only be understood once people are either told to listen out for speech, or have been trained to decode the disguised sounds.

Sine-wave speech is often described as sounding a bit like birdsong or alien-like noises. However, after training people can understand the simple sentences hidden underneath (such as “The boy ran down the path” or “The clown had a funny face”).

In the experiment, many of the voice-hearers recognised the hidden speech before being told it was there, and on average they tended to notice it earlier than other participants who had no history of hearing voices.

The brains of the voice-hearers automatically responded to sounds that contained hidden speech compared to sounds that were meaningless, in the regions of the brain linked to attention and monitoring skills.

The small-scale study was conducted with 12 voice-hearers and 17 non voice-hearers. Nine out of 12 (75 per cent) voice-hearers reported hearing the hidden speech compared to eight out of 17 (47 per cent) non voice-hearers.

Lead author Dr Ben Alderson-Day, Research Fellow from Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project, said: “These findings are a demonstration of what we can learn from people who hear voices that are not distressing or problematic.

“It suggests that the brains of people who hear voices are particularly tuned to meaning in sounds, and shows how unusual experiences might be influenced by people’s individual perceptual and cognitive processes.”

People who hear voices often have a diagnosis of a mental health condition such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. However, not all voice-hearers have a mental health problem.

Research suggests that between five and 15 per cent of the general population have had an occasional experience of hearing voices, with as many as one per cent having more complex and regular voice-hearing experiences in the absence of any need for psychiatric care.

Co-author Dr Cesar Lima from UCL’s Speech Communication Lab commented: “We did not tell the participants that the ambiguous sounds could contain speech before they were scanned, or ask them to try to understand the sounds. Nonetheless, these participants showed distinct neural responses to sounds containing disguised speech, as compared to sounds that were meaningless.

“This was interesting to us because it suggests that their brains can automatically detect meaning in sounds that people typically struggle to understand unless they are trained.”

The research is part of a collaboration between Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project, a large interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing funded by the Wellcome Trust, and UCL’s Speech Communication lab.

Durham’s Hearing the Voice project aims to develop a better understanding of the experience of hearing a voice when no one is speaking. The researchers want to increase understanding of voice-hearing by examining it from different academic perspectives, working with clinicians and other mental health professionals, and listening to people who have heard voices themselves.

In the long term, it is hoped that the research will inform mental health policy and improve therapeutic practice in cases where people find their voices distressing and clinical help is sought.

Professor Charles Fernyhough, Director of Hearing the Voice at Durham University, said: ‘This study brings the expertise of UCL’s Speech Communication lab together with Durham’s Hearing the Voice project to explore what is a frequently troubling and widely misunderstood experience.”

Professor Sophie Scott from UCL Speech Communication Lab added: “This is a really exciting demonstration of the ways that unusual experiences with voices can be linked to — and may have their basis in — everyday perceptual processes.”

The study involved researchers from Durham University, University College London, University of Porto (Portugal), University of Westminster and University of Oxford.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiCJwTanRtA

---

Story Source:

Materials provided by Durham University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Ben Alderson-Day, César F. Lima, Samuel Evans, Saloni Krishnan, Pradheep Shanmugalingam, Charles Fernyhough, Sophie K. Scott. Distinct processing of ambiguous speech in people with non-clinical auditory verbal hallucinations. Brain, 2017; DOI: 10.1093/brain/awx206

---

Cite This Page:

• MLA
• APA
• Chicago

Durham University. “People who ‘hear voices’ can detect hidden speech in unusual sounds.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 August 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170821085707.htm>.

• RELATED TOPICS
  • Mind & Brain
    • Perception
    • Language Acquisition
    • Child Development
    • Spirituality
    • Hearing Impairment
    • Disorders and Syndromes
    • Mental Health
    • Neuroscience

advertisement

---

• RELATED TERMS
  • Hearing impairment
  • Social cognition
  • Charisma
  • Tinnitus
  • Education
  • Illusion of control
  • Human skin color
  • Asperger syndrome

RELATED STORIES

---

Auditory Hallucinations Rooted in Aberrant Brain Connectivity

June 30, 2020 — A study reports that auditory hallucinations, a phenomenon in which people hear voices or other sounds, may arise through altered brain connectivity between sensory and cognitive processing …

Brain’s Ability to Synchronize Voice Sounds Could Be Related to Language Learning

Mar. 4, 2019 — Researchers studied the synchronization of speech motor rhythms. Results show some people’s brains adapt spontaneously to align with the rhythm of the voices they hear, while others do not. According …

Synchronizing Cochlear Signals Stimulates Brain to ‘Hear’ in Stereo

May 8, 2018 — Using both ears to hear increases speech recognition and improves sound localization. Researchers want to bring this advantage to people who use cochlear implants. They have developed a new technique …

Mom’s Voice Activates Many Different Regions in Children’s Brains, Study Shows

May 16, 2016 — A far wider swath of brain areas is activated when children hear their mothers than when they hear other voices, and this brain response predicts a child’s social communication ability, a new study … FROM AROUND THE WEB

---

Below are relevant articles that may interest you. ScienceDaily shares links with scholarly publications in the TrendMD network and earns revenue from third-party advertisers, where indicated.

1. MIDS Medical to Receive up to $1.2M for POC Heart Attack Test 360Dx, 2018
2. ArcherDx, University College London, Crick Institute Partner on Lung Cancer Recurrence Research 360Dx, 2019
3. SARS-CoV-2 Experience Will Help Agency Strike Right Balance With LDTs, FDA Says Kelsy Ketchum, 360Dx, 2020
4. iReceptor Plus Consortium Wants to Improve Immunological Data Sharing Precision Oncology News, 2019

People who hear voices that other people can’t hear may use unusual skills when their brains process new sounds, according to research led by Durham University and University College London (UCL).

The study, published in the academic journal Brain, found that voice-hearers could detect disguised speech-like sounds more quickly and easily than people who had never had a voice-hearing experience.

The findings suggest that voice-hearers have an enhanced tendency to detect meaningful speech patterns in ambiguous sounds.

The researchers say this insight into the brain mechanisms of voice-hearers tells us more about how these experiences occur in voice-hearers without a mental health problem, and could ultimately help scientists and clinicians find more effective ways to help people who find their voices disturbing.

The study involved people who regularly hear voices, also known as auditory verbal hallucinations, but do not have a mental health problem.

Participants listened to a set of disguised speech sounds known as sine-wave speech while they were having an MRI brain scan. Usually these sounds can only be understood once people are either told to listen out for speech, or have been trained to decode the disguised sounds.

Sine-wave speech is often described as sounding a bit like birdsong or alien-like noises. However, after training people can understand the simple sentences hidden underneath (such as “The boy ran down the path” or “The clown had a funny face”).

In the experiment, many of the voice-hearers recognised the hidden speech before being told it was there, and on average they tended to notice it earlier than other participants who had no history of hearing voices.

The brains of the voice-hearers automatically responded to sounds that contained hidden speech compared to sounds that were meaningless, in the regions of the brain linked to attention and monitoring skills.

The small-scale study was conducted with 12 voice-hearers and 17 non voice-hearers. Nine out of 12 (75 per cent) voice-hearers reported hearing the hidden speech compared to eight out of 17 (47 per cent) non voice-hearers.

Lead author Dr Ben Alderson-Day, Research Fellow from Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project, said: “These findings are a demonstration of what we can learn from people who hear voices that are not distressing or problematic.

“It suggests that the brains of people who hear voices are particularly tuned to meaning in sounds, and shows how unusual experiences might be influenced by people’s individual perceptual and cognitive processes.”

People who hear voices often have a diagnosis of a mental health condition such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. However, not all voice-hearers have a mental health problem.

Research suggests that between five and 15 per cent of the general population have had an occasional experience of hearing voices, with as many as one per cent having more complex and regular voice-hearing experiences in the absence of any need for psychiatric care.

Co-author Dr Cesar Lima from UCL’s Speech Communication Lab commented: “We did not tell the participants that the ambiguous sounds could contain speech before they were scanned, or ask them to try to understand the sounds. Nonetheless, these participants showed distinct neural responses to sounds containing disguised speech, as compared to sounds that were meaningless.

“This was interesting to us because it suggests that their brains can automatically detect meaning in sounds that people typically struggle to understand unless they are trained.”

The research is part of a collaboration between Durham University’s Hearing the Voice project, a large interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing funded by the Wellcome Trust, and UCL’s Speech Communication lab.

Durham’s Hearing the Voice project aims to develop a better understanding of the experience of hearing a voice when no one is speaking. The researchers want to increase understanding of voice-hearing by examining it from different academic perspectives, working with clinicians and other mental health professionals, and listening to people who have heard voices themselves.

In the long term, it is hoped that the research will inform mental health policy and improve therapeutic practice in cases where people find their voices distressing and clinical help is sought.

Professor Charles Fernyhough, Director of Hearing the Voice at Durham University, said: ‘This study brings the expertise of UCL’s Speech Communication lab together with Durham’s Hearing the Voice project to explore what is a frequently troubling and widely misunderstood experience.”

Professor Sophie Scott from UCL Speech Communication Lab added: “This is a really exciting demonstration of the ways that unusual experiences with voices can be linked to — and may have their basis in — everyday perceptual processes.”

The study involved researchers from Durham University, University College London, University of Porto (Portugal), University of Westminster and University of Oxford.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiCJwTanRtA

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Durham University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Ben Alderson-Day, César F. Lima, Samuel Evans, Saloni Krishnan, Pradheep Shanmugalingam, Charles Fernyhough, Sophie K. Scott. Distinct processing of ambiguous speech in people with non-clinical auditory verbal hallucinations. Brain, 2017; DOI: 10.1093/brain/awx206

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Durham University. “People who ‘hear voices’ can detect hidden speech in unusual sounds.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 August 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170821085707.htm>.

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Could Consciousness All Come Down to the Way Things Vibrate? July 31st 2020

A resonance theory of consciousness suggests that the way all matter vibrates, and the tendency for those vibrations to sync up, might be a way to answer the so-called ‘hard problem’ of consciousness.

The Conversation

• Tam Hunt

What do synchronized vibrations add to the mind/body question? Photo by agsandrew / Shutterstock.com.

Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and others apparently not? Is a rat conscious? A gnat? A bacterium?

These questions are all aspects of the ancient “mind-body problem,” which asks, essentially: What is the relationship between mind and matter? It’s resisted a generally satisfying conclusion for thousands of years.

The mind-body problem enjoyed a major rebranding over the last two decades. Now it’s generally known as the “hard problem” of consciousness, after philosopher David Chalmers coined this term in a now classic paper and further explored it in his 1996 book, “The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.”

Chalmers thought the mind-body problem should be called “hard” in comparison to what, with tongue in cheek, he called the “easy” problems of neuroscience: How do neurons and the brain work at the physical level? Of course they’re not actually easy at all. But his point was that they’re relatively easy compared to the truly difficult problem of explaining how consciousness relates to matter.

Over the last decade, my colleague, University of California, Santa Barbara psychology professor Jonathan Schooler and I have developed what we call a “resonance theory of consciousness.” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibrations – is at the heart of not only human consciousness but also animal consciousness and of physical reality more generally. It sounds like something the hippies might have dreamed up – it’s all vibrations, man! – but stick with me.

How do things in nature – like flashing fireflies – spontaneously synchronize? Photo by Suzanne Tucker /Shutterstock.com.

All About the Vibrations

All things in our universe are constantly in motion, vibrating. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at various frequencies. Resonance is a type of motion, characterized by oscillation between two states. And ultimately all matter is just vibrations of various underlying fields. As such, at every scale, all of nature vibrates.

Something interesting happens when different vibrating things come together: They will often start, after a little while, to vibrate together at the same frequency. They “sync up,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious. This is described as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization.

Mathematician Steven Strogatz provides various examples from physics, biology, chemistry and neuroscience to illustrate “sync” – his term for resonance – in his 2003 book “Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life,” including:

• When fireflies of certain species come together in large gatherings, they start flashing in sync, in ways that can still seem a little mystifying.
• Lasers are produced when photons of the same power and frequency sync up.
• The moon’s rotation is exactly synced with its orbit around the Earth such that we always see the same face.

Examining resonance leads to potentially deep insights about the nature of consciousness and about the universe more generally.

External electrodes can record a brain’s activity. Photo by vasara / Shutterstock.com.

Sync Inside Your Skull

Neuroscientists have identified sync in their research, too. Large-scale neuron firing occurs in human brains at measurable frequencies, with mammalian consciousness thought to be commonly associated with various kinds of neuronal sync.

For example, German neurophysiologist Pascal Fries has explored the ways in which various electrical patterns sync in the brain to produce different types of human consciousness.

Fries focuses on gamma, beta and theta waves. These labels refer to the speed of electrical oscillations in the brain, measured by electrodes placed on the outside of the skull. Groups of neurons produce these oscillations as they use electrochemical impulses to communicate with each other. It’s the speed and voltage of these signals that, when averaged, produce EEG waves that can be measured at signature cycles per second.

Each type of synchronized activity is associated with certain types of brain function. Image from artellia / Shutterstock.com.

Gamma waves are associated with large-scale coordinated activities like perception, meditation or focused consciousness; beta with maximum brain activity or arousal; and theta with relaxation or daydreaming. These three wave types work together to produce, or at least facilitate, various types of human consciousness, according to Fries. But the exact relationship between electrical brain waves and consciousness is still very much up for debate.

Fries calls his concept “communication through coherence.” For him, it’s all about neuronal synchronization. Synchronization, in terms of shared electrical oscillation rates, allows for smooth communication between neurons and groups of neurons. Without this kind of synchronized coherence, inputs arrive at random phases of the neuron excitability cycle and are ineffective, or at least much less effective, in communication.

A Resonance Theory of Consciousness

Our resonance theory builds upon the work of Fries and many others, with a broader approach that can help to explain not only human and mammalian consciousness, but also consciousness more broadly.

Based on the observed behavior of the entities that surround us, from electrons to atoms to molecules, to bacteria to mice, bats, rats, and on, we suggest that all things may be viewed as at least a little conscious. This sounds strange at first blush, but “panpsychism” – the view that all matter has some associated consciousness – is an increasingly accepted position with respect to the nature of consciousness.

The panpsychist argues that consciousness did not emerge at some point during evolution. Rather, it’s always associated with matter and vice versa – they’re two sides of the same coin. But the large majority of the mind associated with the various types of matter in our universe is extremely rudimentary. An electron or an atom, for example, enjoys just a tiny amount of consciousness. But as matter becomes more interconnected and rich, so does the mind, and vice versa, according to this way of thinking.

Biological organisms can quickly exchange information through various biophysical pathways, both electrical and electrochemical. Non-biological structures can only exchange information internally using heat/thermal pathways – much slower and far less rich in information in comparison. Living things leverage their speedier information flows into larger-scale consciousness than what would occur in similar-size things like boulders or piles of sand, for example. There’s much greater internal connection and thus far more “going on” in biological structures than in a boulder or a pile of sand.

Under our approach, boulders and piles of sand are “mere aggregates,” just collections of highly rudimentary conscious entities at the atomic or molecular level only. That’s in contrast to what happens in biological life forms where the combinations of these micro-conscious entities together create a higher level macro-conscious entity. For us, this combination process is the hallmark of biological life.

The central thesis of our approach is this: the particular linkages that allow for large-scale consciousness – like those humans and other mammals enjoy – result from a shared resonance among many smaller constituents. The speed of the resonant waves that are present is the limiting factor that determines the size of each conscious entity in each moment.

As a particular shared resonance expands to more and more constituents, the new conscious entity that results from this resonance and combination grows larger and more complex. So the shared resonance in a human brain that achieves gamma synchrony, for example, includes a far larger number of neurons and neuronal connections than is the case for beta or theta rhythms alone.

What about larger inter-organism resonance like the cloud of fireflies with their little lights flashing in sync? Researchers think their bioluminescent resonance arises due to internal biological oscillators that automatically result in each firefly syncing up with its neighbors.

Is this group of fireflies enjoying a higher level of group consciousness? Probably not, since we can explain the phenomenon without recourse to any intelligence or consciousness. But in biological structures with the right kind of information pathways and processing power, these tendencies toward self-organization can and often do produce larger-scale conscious entities.

Our resonance theory of consciousness attempts to provide a unified framework that includes neuroscience, as well as more fundamental questions of neurobiology and biophysics, and also the philosophy of mind. It gets to the heart of the differences that matter when it comes to consciousness and the evolution of physical systems.

It is all about vibrations, but it’s also about the type of vibrations and, most importantly, about shared vibrations.

Tam Hunt is an Affiliate Guest in Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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How Do Women Become White Supremacists? July 28th 2020

“People see them as nice white ladies, and they’ve weaponized that,” says Seyward Darby, the author of the upcoming ‘Sisters in Hate’

E.J Dickson

The Ku Klux Klan protests on July 8, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The KKK is protesting the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee, and calling for the protection of Southern Confederate monuments.

In the years following Trump’s election, the deadly Charlottesville rally, and shooting massacres such as the those in Christchurch, New Zealand, El Paso, Texas, and Poway, California, many people have tried to address a virtually unanswerable question: What is the process by which a relatively mild-mannered, disaffected young white man becomes a violent white supremacist?

While various factors have been postulated — a racist, patriarchal culture, combined with permissive attitudes toward toxic masculinity and radicalizing platforms like 4chan (and later 8kun) certainly all play a role — the question becomes even more complicated when you talk about white women (more than half of whom famously voted for Trump in November 2016). After all, one of the primary tenets of white nationalism is the biological inferiority of women. Why would a woman embrace such a worldview, let alone one that waxes nostalgic for the days when women were little more than well-coiffed breeding machines?

Writer Seyward Darby doesn’t have a definitive answer to this question, but as she points out, white women have long served as figureheads for far-right movements, from Phyllis Schlafly to National Socialist Women’s League leader Getrud Scholz-Klink. “If you think of it as women negotiating power and seeking power wherever they can find it and harness it and augment it, anti-feminism offers some women that,” Darby says. “Whether you’re talking about leading a movement or having a platform or simply being part of the conversation, I think anti-feminism can feel empowering to some women.”

How Social Distancing Could Lead to a Spike in White Nationalism

Military Rules Cadets’ Hand Gestures Were a Game, Not White-Power Signs

Darby is the author of Sisters in Hate, a fascinating yet highly disturbing deep dive into the toxic world of female white supremacists. Based on her 2017 piece for Harper’s, the book not only tracks the history of women in the far-right, but also follows three women who were or are currently key players in the white-nationalist movement: Corinna Olsen, a bodybuilder and former amateur porn star who became a skinhead and, later, disavowed the movement and converted to Islam; Ayla Stewart, a former vegan feminist who started a tradwife blog and became best known for her “white baby challenge” that urged white women to have as many children as possible; and Lana Lokteff, a racist Holocaust denier who hosts the alt-right channel Red Ice, which was banned from YouTube in 2019.

In the context of this cultural moment — which is calling for the uplifting of marginalized voices and the smashing of white patriarchal values — the idea of a book that profiles three neo-Nazis seems something of an ill-conceived project. But Sisters in Hatedoesn’t attempt to humanize these women or grant them any reprieve; it’s an unflinching and often stomach-turning look at their radicalization, as well as the gradual process by which their horrific views became part of the mainstream.

“While at no point I felt like it was important to humanize these people,” Darby tells Rolling Stone, “I did want to see them as multidimensional to understand how they became what they became and the forces they allowed to push them in that direction — and the ways in which that’s not that dissimilar to the mainstream.”

Rolling Stone: What got you interested in writing about female white supremacists in the first place?Seyward Darby: The origin of it all was really Trump’s election and the immediate aftermath, even before, to a certain extent, the so-called alt-right, the new name for white nationalism, was in the news. People were talking about it and were sort of bewildered by it. And I was struck by how when it was described, it was almost exclusively talked about in terms of the angry white men involved. And that’s all true. It is a bastion of toxic masculinity, and white nationalism always has been, but it struck me as probably inaccurate that women wouldn’t be a part of it. It was just a simple question of, where are the women? On top of that, the exit polls for the election showed that a lot of white women had voted for Trump, and people seemed very upset and surprised by that. I wasn’t under the illusion that every woman who voted for Trump was a white nationalist, but it seemed there was something going on with white women and white femininity that we needed to interrogate.

How did you convince your subjects to talk to you? I understood why Corinna would talk, because she was long out of the movement, but how did you convince Lana and Ayla?I decided to approach this really forthrightly. I was very honest in my initial emails to them about who I was and what I believed  — for instance, that I was not going to be convinced of their worldview. But I also tried to be frank about the fact that I genuinely wanted to understand what got them to that point. I also benefited from the fact that I started this research a month after the election, when a lot of white nationalists were buoyed by Trump taking office. Lana, for instance, told me she thought the alt-right was going to become a political party, and people were moving to D.C. People were approaching the moment in an almost celebratory way. That probably helped somewhat, because they felt they had something to be proud of. As soon as my article came out in Harper’s in 2017, right before Charlottesville, after that, Lana always continued to answer questions if I sent them, sometimes cryptically, but didn’t want to engage in any more conversation. And she criticized the piece in YouTube videos, and Ayla criticized it on her personal site. I think they, for whatever reason, thought the article would be sympathetic to them, and as soon as they realized it wasn’t, they used it as an opportunity to drag it.

How did it affect your reporting for this book that two of your main subjects backed out?I wouldn’t say they backed out exactly. They participated in the Harper’s piece, and then with the book, when I pitched it, I was pretty clear about the fact that I wasn’t sure if certain people would talk to me again or for the first time. In some ways, as a journalist, I felt I’m not getting everything I could possibly get out of this and it was sort of demoralizing to hear, “Nope, I don’t want to talk to you.” But at the same time, to me it was such a part of the story because white nationalists have always been so much about controlling their own message, controlling their own image. This was a perfect example of that, of not being interested in a narrative they couldn’t control.

On top of that, there’s been a debate in the media over how to cover this space. A lot of people think, “Don’t write about it, don’t give it oxygen, don’t give these people a platform.” I think that really misunderstands what the far right considers a platform. They have so many platforms and so many ways of reaching people on the internet, through various social networks. To not acknowledge that and not acknowledge the many ways they engage in stagecraft and propaganda is to really misunderstand how the movement functions. The other thing I will say is I got very good at digging through internet archives. Both had been digital citizens for a long time — Ayla had many blogs, Lana had various websites. I spent a lot of time combing through the internet, looking for pieces of their past lives, and I was able to speak to people who knew them in the past before they were radicalized. I felt like I was taking a lesson from historians, who dig through letters and archives to gather stories about people who are deceased. It was a similar issue of, how do I fill in the gaps?

You’re a white woman who grew up in the South. How did that play into how you approached reporting this out?I mentioned it in my initial email to a number of these women, explaining I consider myself liberal, I consider myself a feminist, but also saying I want to understand your worldview and I feel personally connected in some ways to this because of where I come from. My family has been in the South for a long time, I have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy and owned slaves. I wanted to understand the present moment in the context of the past and vice versa. I do remember Lana saying something along the lines of, “You approached me in a different way than most people do, and also you’re from the South.” She was very quick to say “it’s not because you were a woman.”

A lot of the book focuses on the misogyny of the movement and why women would join it and operate against their own interests in doing so. What’s the answer to your question, according to your reporting?It’s such a complicated subject. I’m still wrapping my mind around the fact that any woman would want to engage in anti-feminism, which is ingrained in white nationalism. That said, over time anti-feminism has often had female figureheads. Phyllis Schlafly most famously, but other people over time. I think if you think of it as women negotiating power and seeking power wherever they can find it and harness it and augment it, anti-feminism offers some women that. Whether you’re talking about leading a movement or having a platform or simply being part of the conversation, I think anti-feminism can feel empowering to some women, even though we know anti-feminism is not beneficial to women.

The other thing to think about is the ways in which anti-feminism has always been tied up with race in this country. If you look at the opposition to the ERA, a lot of white-supremacist groups were aligned with more conservative groups and religious-homemaker groups. When you think of power in the U.S., we don’t think enough in an intersectional way, but some white women saw themselves as in a hierarchy as closer to white men than anybody else. So if you think about it as negotiating power, they wanted to maintain that status, which involved almost a clarion call to white men to say, “We’re not trying to supplant you, we’re trying to keep gender relations as they are,” and that allows them to stay where they are in the power hierarchy. White nationalism as a movement, a big theme, and propaganda is about women’s intrinsic value as wives and mothers. So for women who might be seeking a sense of meaning or a degree of power they don’t have, this is a movement that says we value you in terms of how you look and who you are and what your body enables you to do, at least on its face. It’s a pro-natalist movement that encourages women to have as many babies as possible, and that can be alluring to some people.

What was the most shocking thing you witnessed in your reporting?That is such a difficult question. Something that keeps coming up, and something that other people in reading it have remarked on, is the fact that immediately after Charlottesville and Heather Heyer’s killing, the far right started to spin conspiracy theories about her death. Some were along the lines of “James Fields is a plant planted by our enemies,” but the more horrifying one to me had to do with the idea that she had actually died because she was overweight and had a heart attack. They somehow managed to graft the conspiracy-theorizing that defines this movement with the anti-feminism, body shaming, eugenicist thread of things that runs through this movement. … To go beyond saying “the person who did this wasn’t one of our guys,” to saying “this is somehow her fault. If she were a healthier woman, or a better white woman, this wouldn’t happen to her,” I found that so deeply upsetting.

Were you able to identify any humanity in your subjects or humanize them in any way given their horrific beliefs?A key goal of this project for me was to address the fact that when we talk about the hate movement, we’re very quick to “other” it and put this label of extremism on it, that it’s an outlier, almost. But the ideology had so clearly bled into the political conversation of 2016, and I was interested in finding points of familiarity, ways in which people who are in this movement are actually not so different than people in the mainstream, in terms of what they believe and the people they are in the world. There are lots of assumptions about people in this movement: that they’re all uneducated, or from the South, or really religious. There are so many ways we try to put them neatly in a box and push it to the side. So, while at no point I felt like it was important to humanize these people, I did want to see them as multidimensional to understand how they became what they became and the forces they allowed to push them in that direction, and the ways in which that’s not that dissimilar to the mainstream.

What was so disturbing to me is how you describe Ayla’s trajectory. She was a vegan and a feminist who gradually drifted into white nationalism. It reminded me of the phenomenon of cult-hopping, where some people jump from cult to cult. How common is that in white nationalism? How many of these women start out as seekers?Anyone who joins the hate movement is a seeker to some degree, and maybe there are circumstances that make them particularly primed to be recruited. They’re seeking something in that moment — maybe it’s power, maybe it’s meaning, maybe it’s money because they see a potential profit in running a subscription-based platform. That seems like a common thread among people. What they’re seeking can be really different. Corinna was seeking a sense of belonging. Ayla was seeking a creed. She had cycled through so many different religious and political beliefs, and considered herself a feminist and was a big supporter of Dennis Kucinich and was anti-death penalty and pro-immigration. Lana was primarily interested in seeking power and influence. I think she’s a person who likes the spotlight and likes attention. So that notion of seeking is common … and I think that it’s important to recognize the familiar place from which they might start, because that’s where you also start thinking about how to combat this. If you start thinking about how to prosecute someone for a hate crime or how to shut down a bigoted platform or how to pull someone out of the movement, that’s a treatment for the problem, as opposed to preventing it. If you recognize where people are coming from and the ways in which that might be familiar to the mainstream, you can start thinking about mainstream.

We’re in a cultural moment where there’s a needed emphasis on elevating the voices of BIPOC. What is the argument, then, for writing a book focusing on three female white supremacists?That’s certainly something I have grappled with, and a common criticism is, “Why are you writing this book at all?” I feel like as a country, we’ve had so much difficulty reckoning with the history of racism, and part of doing that is elevating the voices that have been forgotten or censored or subdued over time, but I think reckoning with racism means fully understanding the dimension it has taken in this country, and the people who have shaped that. If you think about the future only from the present — if you say, “From here on out, we’re gonna do better with X” — you’re not dealing with everything that’s come before, and the ways the past shapes the present. With the hate movement, especially in the post-9/11 era, people have been very wary to address it, to think of it as a national security threat, as something we really need to be dealing with. On top of that, women have been really written out of the history of hate … and they’ve really served as bridges to the mainstream because people see them as nice white ladies, and they’ve weaponized that. For me, this all comes back to the many ways in which the reckoning happens, and I’m so thrilled to see that happening now, but I also think we’re doing a disservice if we don’t look at the ugly side of things and try to understand what it is, as opposed to making assumptions about it that don’t go very far.

We have an election coming up. Do you have any insight in how this will play out in light of the reporting you’ve done?I wish I had a crystal ball, but unfortunately I’m not that witchy. I think that, as opposed to trying to look at polls or guessing how swing states will go or how white women will vote this time, I’m not one of those people who spend their lives studying it. I think two things: Heading into it, we shouldn’t underestimate the ways white supremacists, nativists, and xenophobic voices can shift the ground pretty quickly. We’re in an unprecedented moment in terms of the pandemic and how badly it’s been handled by federal and state governments. We’ll see what that means going into the election, but in 2016 we saw Clinton leading up until she wasn’t, and we shouldn’t assume the negative forces in the country couldn’t find a way to assert themselves.

There’s also the notion of backlash. The 2008 election is a good model. We had our first ever black president and the streets just erupted with joy. And in the first year Obama was in office, there was a huge uptick online of white-supremacist propaganda and recruitment. I think in some ways, the moments where there are a lot of people who take hope in the future and how far they’ve come, there will always be backlash of some kinds. Backlash feeds on things like elections. … Let’s say Trump loses. We should be thrilled about that, but we shouldn’t assume there won’t be some kind of backlash in terms of some upswell of support for hate. That could still be coming. I’m definitely not fun at dinner parties, because I’m always the pessimist in the room.

That was sort of my takeaway: My husband watches a lot of MSNBC, and there’s a very victory-lap feel to the coverage. But the book makes clear that so many of these ideas have become so mainstream that it would be foolish to discount the role these women may play in keeping Trump in power.We have these very basic assumptions about white supremacists: You use a certain type of language or believe a certain type of thing. That’s true to a point, but over time they’re canny. When they talk about how their heritage is being destroyed by tearing down Confederate statues, or any number of things that we’re seeing go mainstream in the Republican Party, they all have common roots. On the one hand, no, not everyone who is a white supremacist is necessarily using slurs, because they recognize the power they gain in seeming “normal,” and they benefit from that.

This interview has been condensed and edited. 

In This Article: extremism, nazis, sisters in hate, White Supremacist, white supremacy 

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End of the Office: The Quiet, Grinding Loneliness of Working From Home July 25th 2020

Before Covid-19, many of us thought remote working sounded blissful. Now, employees across the world long for chats by the coffee machine and the whirr of printers

The Guardian

• Simon Usborne

Many people live in flats that are entirely unsuited to working. Photo by Dan Douglas / Superveillance / Getty Images.

Dahlia Francis is sitting on a small couch at the foot of her bed, in her shared flat, on a housing estate in south London. She wears her new uniform of pyjama bottoms and a Zoom-ready plain T-shirt. Her room used to be a living room. Now the only communal space is the kitchen, where Francis’s three flatmates occupy a small dining table. They, like almost half of Britain’s workforce, are also working from home.

Francis, who is 29, is a credit controller for a charity in central London. She commuted there, by bus and tube, for a little more than a year. There were baking competitions and quizzes and a kitchenette, where gossip and tea flowed freely. Now the kettle is silent and the cubicles are empty. They are likely to remain so for the rest of the year.

For the first few weeks after her office closed in late March, Francis was too busy to consider her new circumstances. Then they hit her – and got her down. Days spent in her bedroom hunched over a laptop, centimetres from where she slept, blurred into endless weeks. She has become lonely.

Francis has worked for a tool hire firm and a betting chain, as well as for charities. The offices she remembers have taken on a different shape in her mind. “I used to think of a desk as like a kind of prison cell, where I was chained for eight hours a day,” she tells me over the phone. “It was always like serving time. But, at this point, my desk would be my saviour.”

Lockdown has not so much redrawn the workplace of millions as it has chewed it up like a broken printer. Working from home, a mode traditionally viewed with suspicion by bosses and with envy by commuting bureausceptics, has become the norm for those whose livings are tied to computer screens.

As weeks become months and offices remain closed, many are predicting their permanent decline. Buildings that for decades have defined urban geography, diurnal rhythms and the meaning of work may never hum in the same way to the sounds of keyboards and fluorescent lighting.

“I’ve spoken to about eight startups that have already got rid of their office,” says Matt Bradburn, the co-founder of London-based People Collective, which advises companies on human resources. “And we’re talking companies of 50 to 100 people.” Elsewhere, firms including Twitter and Facebook have said they will allow employees to work from home for ever.

The potential demise of commutes and the soul-sapping trappings of office life is a cause of celebration for many among the 49% of workers now toiling at home. But for people such as Francis, whose flat is unsuited to work, offices provide space to share ideas, socialise and maintain a work-life divide that has become hopelessly blurred.

According to a survey by the global financial services company Jefferies, 61% of more than 1,500 UK respondents said they would return to work immediately if they could. Facebook says half of its employees will work from home by 2030, but Mark Zuckerberg said only one in five were enthusiastic about doing so. More than half “really want to get back to the office as soon as possible”, he told the Wall Street Journal.

When Bradburn polled his network of more than 5,000 HR bosses, he asked for the biggest reasons their teams had shared for wanting to go back to the office. Seventy per cent cited social and mental health issues, including feelings of loneliness. “I think young people in particular really need that connection,” Bradburn says.

The effects of working from home have been little studied, partly because remote working was pretty rare until this spring. The proportion of the UK workforce who worked “mainly” at home went from 4% to 5% in the UK between 2015 and 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics. Permanent home working was vanishingly rare.

“It’s always been a pretty backwater topic,” says Nick Bloom, a British economics professor at Stanford University in California and an expert in home working. The last time Bloom’s phone rang so much was 2013, he says, when Marissa Mayer, then the chief executive of Yahoo, banned remote working. “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” read a leaked memo to staff.

The assumption has been that remote workers slack without direct supervision. But do they? In 2010, a Chinese travel agency with 16,000 employees came to Bloom in search of evidence. Ctrip, which assumed workers would prefer being at home, was spending big money on offices in Shanghai. It wanted to know what remote work might do for the bottom line. “Their proposition was that they’d save on rent, but lose on productivity,” Bloom says.

Bloom devised a trial – the first of its kind – involving 250 members of a Ctrip call centre. Half of the group were selected at random to work from home for nine months. The other half would continue to work in the office and the productivity of both teams would be measured.

None of Ctrip’s assumptions were right. Productivity in the home group went up by 13%. Without the distractions of the office, agents were making more calls and taking fewer breaks and sick days. “They were truly stunned by the results,” Bloom says of Ctrip. Its executives calculated not only that they could save millions in rent, but also that they could make $2,000 (then about £1,300) more in profit annually per employee.

Since April, more than half a million people have listen to The Sound of Colleagues, which pipes simulated office noise into their homes. Photo by Maskot / Getty Images.

But the experiment also measured happiness. When Ctrip polled staff, half of the home-based group wanted to go back to the office. “Loneliness was the single biggest reason,” Bloom says. Plus, they were not in lockdown conditions: only people with a spare room took part; none had children at home or flatmates; and they still worked one day a week in the office.

Bloom is now constantly fielding calls from anxious executives. “They have said productivity has been great and they’re thinking of abandoning the office,” he says. “I’m counselling that it’s shortsighted and high-risk.” Bloom had always been supportive of remote working, if not full-time, even after the Ctrip experiment. “Now I feel like I’ve gone from being an evangelist for working from home to an evangelist for the office,” he says.

Erin Mackenzie, 23, knows what it can be like to work remotely full-time without the stresses of lockdown. Last summer, she got a junior marketing job with an online education company based in the Middle East. Mackenzie, who lives in a small house in a small town 50 miles north of New York City, thought working from home would be great.

After four months of long days alone at the tiny desk in her bedroom, Mackenzie had a panic attack. She had lost weight and become depressed. “At first, I thought it was because the job was demanding, but I realised it was more the isolation and not being able to interact with people,” she says. “I hadn’t realised I’d relied on that so heavily for my mental health.”

Mackenzie also felt suffocated by the digital monitoring, which was already becoming standard in big firms. Hers was relatively light. An agenda app would track tasks and alert faceless bosses when they were done. Response times to chats were noted. “It definitely added to me feeling like I didn’t have set hours and the anxiety of it all,” she says.

If offices were to evolve to extract as much as possible from human resources, there are concerns that firms would use technology to tighten the screws further in our homes. Interest in the software offered by Teramind, a Florida-based employee monitoring and analytics firm with more than 2,000 clients, has tripled in lockdown. When downloaded to employees’ computers, Teramind’s “agent” can measure time spent on different windows. It can play back or live-stream a view of an employee’s screen and record his or her every keystroke. It can also raise a flag if certain predetermined words are typed.

Before lockdown, 70% of Teramind’s clients were concerned about security – leaks of sensitive information, for example – while 30% saw productivity as the priority. “Now, it’s flipped,” says Eli Sutton, the firm’s head of operations. But he rejects the suggestion of Orwellian overtones. “I can say first-hand that employers have better things to do than to spy on you all day,” he says. “Teramind is an extra set of eyes to make sure distractions aren’t causing issues.”

Will Gosling, who leads Deloitte’s consulting on “human capital” in the UK, says: “We’re at the beginning of a very big ethical debate about this. We were already seeing businesses wanting to get more data on employees and the pandemic has brought it into sharp focus … but they need to support and build health and wellbeing.”

Trade unions worry that working from home will challenge privacy and rights, making it harder for employees to organise or be aware of how colleagues are being treated, particularly in the most onerous fields of white-collar work. There are questions about liability. Mental health is part of the picture. “Employers have a responsibility to ensure worker wellbeing and that doesn’t end just because people are not in the office,” says Tim Sharp, the senior policy officer for employment rights at the Trades Union Congress.

Mackenzie quit after the panic attack and got a job with an insurer. She immediately felt better, even while enduring a two-hour commute to Manhattan for her training. She now works in a smaller office a short drive from home – or, rather, she did until the pandemic. It helps that she now works for a better, kinder company. Her fiance is working at home, too. “Without him here, I probably would have crumbled,” she says.

At their best, offices are crucibles for ideas and lifelong friendships, particularly among younger workers with small homes but big social circles. The Office was not just a comic study of business park malaise – it was a love story. Working from home may boost productivity for a while, “but it’s so costly in terms of creativity and inspiration”, Bloom says. “We’re all suffering from Zoom overload and feeling worn down.”

Flick Adkins, who is 28, counts some of her colleagues as her best friends. For three months, she has been cut off from them while working from the flat she shares with five other people in north London. She works for LRWTonic, a market research company, and takes a lot of private calls. She has to sit cross-legged on her bed, stacking her laptop on part of her vinyl collection. She has settled on 20 records as the optimal height.

Adkins’s now empty office has a ping pong table and a coffee machine, where she would chat with friends before starting her day. On Fridays, she and her 20 mostly young colleagues would go out for lunch and have drinks after work.

Like Francis, Adkins feels lonely, down and unmotivated. “Having an office was symbolic of normality,” she says. “I loved just being at my desk and hearing the buzz and all the conversations … I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve said: ‘I don’t know much longer I can do this.’”

Last month, Adkins’s boss, Anna Dunn, floated with her team the idea of ditching the office for good and saving £200,000 a year in rent. “I said that the money would be distributed to them in a bonus, to some degree,” Dunn, 40, says from her kitchen. She, too, misses the office. “I thought there might be this desire to stay remote, but not one person does. They all want to go back.”

The sounds of the office have a new resonance. More than half a million people have tuned into The Sound of Colleagues, a web page and Spotify playlist of workplace sounds, including keyboards, printers, chatter and coffee machines. Red Pipe, a Swedish music and sound studio, created it in April as a joke, but its data suggests that people keep it on in the background.

Progressive employers are racing to find ways to recreate the joys and perks of office life. Google is laying on cookery classes and mindfulness sessions, as well as offering $1,000 (£780) to each employee for equipment. Lauren Whitt, Google’s wellness manager and resilience lead, says demand has grown for her team’s services, which include video counselling and therapy by text for people who lack privacy. “We’re also seeing more families having more access [to these services],” she adds.

If reports of the death of the office have been exaggerated, everyone agrees it won’t look the same. Bloom envisages a new landscape of smaller offices, with employees alternately working at home for half the week to bring down costs and make physical distancing more viable. Budgets for nice interiors will fall. “I think the office will be more suburban, more spacious and nastier-looking,” he says.

Francis would not care. When I speak to her, she has taken a week of holiday. She had anxiety before the pandemic, which partly expressed itself in a need to be busy all the time. But, after three months of sometimes 12-hour days and a deepening sense of unease, burnout has become a worrying prospect. Not that she can really escape her place of work. “I’m just sort of winging it this week and not planning too much,” she says from her bedroom couch. “I just need a bit of time to gather myself.”

Simon Usborne is a freelance feature writer and reporter based in London. He was previously a feature writer and an editor at The Independent.

Sex Reassignment Doesn’t Work. Here Is the Evidence. Posted Here July 25^th 2020

Mar 9th, 2018 15 min read

COMMENTARY BY

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D. @RyanTAnd 

Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., researches and writes about marriage, bioethics, religious liberty and political philosophy.

To provide the best possible care, serving the patient’s medical interests requires an understanding of human wholeness and well-being. XiXinXing/Getty Images

Key Takeaways

McHugh points to the reality that because sex change is physically impossible, it frequently does not provide the long-term wholeness and happiness that people seek.

Unfortunately, many professionals now view health care—including mental health care—primarily as a means of fulfilling patients’ desires, whatever those are.

Our brains and senses are designed to bring us into contact with reality, connecting us with the outside world and with the reality of ourselves.

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Sex “reassignment” doesn’t work. It’s impossible to “reassign” someone’s sex physically, and attempting to do so doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially.

As I demonstrate in my book, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” the medical evidence suggests that sex reassignment does not adequately address the psychosocial difficulties faced by people who identify as transgender. Even when the procedures are successful technically and cosmetically, and even in cultures that are relatively “trans-friendly,” transitioners still face poor outcomes.

Dr. Paul McHugh, the university distinguished service professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explains:

Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.’ In that lies their problematic future.

When ‘the tumult and shouting dies,’ it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb. The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over 30 years and conducted in Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered—documents their lifelong mental unrest. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.

McHugh points to the reality that because sex change is physically impossible, it frequently does not provide the long-term wholeness and happiness that people seek.

Indeed, the best scientific research supports McHugh’s caution and concern.

Here’s how The Guardian summarized the results of a review of “more than 100 follow-up studies of post-operative transsexuals” by Birmingham University’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility:

[The Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility], which conducts reviews of health care treatments for the [National Health Service], concludes that none of the studies provides conclusive evidence that gender reassignment is beneficial for patients. It found that most research was poorly designed, which skewed the results in favor of physically changing sex. There was no evaluation of whether other treatments, such as long-term counseling, might help transsexuals, or whether their gender confusion might lessen over time.

“There is huge uncertainty over whether changing someone’s sex is a good or a bad thing,” said Chris Hyde, the director of the facility. Even if doctors are careful to perform these procedures only on “appropriate patients,” Hyde continued, “there’s still a large number of people who have the surgery but remain traumatized—often to the point of committing suicide.”

Of particular concern are the people these studies “lost track of.” As The Guardian noted, “the results of many gender reassignment studies are unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants.” Indeed, “Dr. Hyde said the high drop-out rate could reflect high levels of dissatisfaction or even suicide among post-operative transsexuals.”

Hyde concluded: “The bottom line is that although it’s clear that some people do well with gender reassignment surgery, the available research does little to reassure about how many patients do badly and, if so, how badly.”

The facility conducted its review back in 2004, so perhaps things have changed in the past decade?

Not so. In 2014, a new review of the scientific literature was done by Hayes, Inc., a research and consulting firm that evaluates the safety and health outcomes of medical technologies. Hayes found that the evidence on long-term results of sex reassignment was too sparse to support meaningful conclusions and gave these studies its lowest rating for quality:

Statistically significant improvements have not been consistently demonstrated by multiple studies for most outcomes. … Evidence regarding quality of life and function in male-to-female adults was very sparse. Evidence for less comprehensive measures of well-being in adult recipients of cross-sex hormone therapy was directly applicable to [gender dysphoric] patients but was sparse and/or conflicting. The study designs do not permit conclusions of causality and studies generally had weaknesses associated with study execution as well. There are potentially long-term safety risks associated with hormone therapy but none have been proven or conclusively ruled out.

The Obama administration came to similar conclusions. In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revisited the question of whether sex reassignment surgery would have to be covered by Medicare plans. Despite receiving a request that its coverage be mandated, it refused, on the ground that we lack evidence that it benefits patients.

Here’s how the June 2016 “Proposed Decision Memo for Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery” put it:

Based on a thorough review of the clinical evidence available at this time, there is not enough evidence to determine whether gender reassignment surgery improves health outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries with gender dysphoria. There were conflicting (inconsistent) study results—of the best designed studies, some reported benefits while others reported harms. The quality and strength of evidence were low due to the mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, potential confounding, and small sample sizes. Many studies that reported positive outcomes were exploratory type studies (case-series and case-control) with no confirmatory follow-up.

The final August 2016 memo was even more blunt. It pointed out:

Overall, the quality and strength of evidence were low due to mostly observational study designs with no comparison groups, subjective endpoints, potential confounding (a situation where the association between the intervention and outcome is influenced by another factor such as a co-intervention), small sample sizes, lack of validated assessment tools, and considerable lost to follow-up.

That “lost to follow-up,” remember, could be pointing to people who committed suicide.

And when it comes to the best studies, there is no evidence of “clinically significant changes” after sex reassignment:

The majority of studies were non-longitudinal, exploratory type studies (i.e., in a preliminary state of investigation or hypothesis generating), or did not include concurrent controls or testing prior to and after surgery. Several reported positive results but the potential issues noted above reduced strength and confidence. After careful assessment, we identified six studies that could provide useful information. Of these, the four best designed and conducted studies that assessed quality of life before and after surgery using validated (albeit non-specific) psychometric studies did not demonstrate clinically significant changes or differences in psychometric test results after [gender reassignment surgery].

In a discussion of the largest and most robust study—the study from Sweden that McHugh mentioned in the quote above—the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pointed out the 19-times-greater likelihood for death by suicide, and a host of other poor outcomes:

The study identified increased mortality and psychiatric hospitalization compared to the matched controls. The mortality was primarily due to completed suicides (19.1-fold greater than in control Swedes), but death due to neoplasm and cardiovascular disease was increased 2 to 2.5 times as well. We note, mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years. The risk for psychiatric hospitalization was 2.8 times greater than in controls even after adjustment for prior psychiatric disease (18 percent). The risk for attempted suicide was greater in male-to-female patients regardless of the gender of the control. Further, we cannot exclude therapeutic interventions as a cause of the observed excess morbidity and mortality. The study, however, was not constructed to assess the impact of gender reassignment surgery per se.

These results are tragic. And they directly contradict the most popular media narratives, as well as many of the snapshot studies that do not track people over time. As the Obama Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pointed out, “mortality from this patient population did not become apparent until after 10 years.”

So when the media tout studies that only track outcomes for a few years, and claim that reassignment is a stunning success, there are good grounds for skepticism.

As I explain in my book, these outcomes should be enough to stop the headlong rush into sex reassignment procedures. They should prompt us to develop better therapies for helping people who struggle with their gender identity.

And none of this even begins to address the radical, entirely experimental therapies that are being directed at the bodies of children to transition them.

Sex Change Is Physically Impossible

We’ve seen some of the evidence that sex reassignment doesn’t produce good outcomes psychosocially. And as McHugh suggested above, part of the reason why is because sex change is impossible and “it proves not easy nor wise to live in a counterfeit sexual garb.”

But what is the basis for the conclusion that sex change is impossible?

Contrary to the claims of activists, sex isn’t “assigned” at birth—and that’s why it can’t be “reassigned.” As I explain in “When Harry Became Sally,” sex is a bodily reality that can be recognized well before birth with ultrasound imaging. The sex of an organism is defined and identified by the way in which it (he or she) is organized for sexual reproduction.

This is just one manifestation of the fact that natural organization is “the defining feature of an organism,” as neuroscientist Maureen Condic and her philosopher brother Samuel Condic explain. In organisms, “the various parts … are organized to cooperatively interact for the welfare of the entity as a whole. Organisms can exist at various levels, from microscopic single cells to sperm whales weighing many tons, yet they are all characterized by the integrated function of parts for the sake of the whole.”

Male and female organisms have different parts that are functionally integrated for the sake of their whole, and for the sake of a larger whole—their sexual union and reproduction. So an organism’s sex—as male or female—is identified by its organization for sexually reproductive acts. Sex as a status—male or female—is a recognition of the organization of a body that can engage in sex as an act.

That organization isn’t just the best way to figure out which sex you are. It’s the only way to make sense of the concepts of male and female at all. What else could “maleness” or “femaleness” even refer to, if not your basic physical capacity for one of two functions in sexual reproduction?

The conceptual distinction between male and female based on reproductive organization provides the only coherent way to classify the two sexes. Apart from that, all we have are stereotypes.

This shouldn’t be controversial. Sex is understood this way across sexually reproducing species. No one finds it particularly difficult—let alone controversial—to identify male and female members of the bovine species or the canine species. Farmers and breeders rely on this easy distinction for their livelihoods. It’s only recently, and only with respect to the human species, that the very concept of sex has become controversial.

And yet, in an expert declaration to a federal district court in North Carolina concerning H.B. 2 (a state law governing access to sex-specific restrooms), Dr. Deanna Adkins stated, “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.” Adkins is a professor at Duke University School of Medicine and the director of the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care (which opened in 2015).

Adkins argues that gender identity is not only the preferred basis for determining sex, but “the only medically supported determinant of sex.” Every other method is bad science, she claims: “It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female.”

In her sworn declaration to the federal court, Adkins called the standard account of sex—an organism’s sexual organization—“an extremely outdated view of biological sex.”

Dr. Lawrence Mayer responded in his rebuttal declaration: “This statement is stunning. I have searched dozens of references in biology, medicine and genetics—even Wiki!—and can find no alternative scientific definition. In fact, the only references to a more fluid definition of biological sex are in the social policy literature.”

Just so. Mayer is a scholar in residence in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of statistics and biostatistics at Arizona State University.

Modern science shows that our sexual organization begins with our DNA and development in the womb, and that sex differences manifest themselves in many bodily systems and organs, all the way down to the molecular level. In other words, our physical organization for one of two functions in reproduction shapes us organically, from the beginning of life, at every level of our being.

Cosmetic surgery and cross-sex hormones can’t change us into the opposite sex. They can affect appearances. They can stunt or damage some outward expressions of our reproductive organization. But they can’t transform it. They can’t turn us from one sex into the other.

“Scientifically speaking, transgender men are not biological men and transgender women are not biological women. The claims to the contrary are not supported by a scintilla of scientific evidence,” explains Mayer.

Or, as Princeton philosopher Robert P. George put it, “Changing sexes is a metaphysical impossibility because it is a biological impossibility.”

The Purpose of Medicine, Emotions, and the Mind

Behind the debates over therapies for people with gender dysphoria are two related questions: How do we define mental health and human flourishing? And what is the purpose of medicine, particularly psychiatry?

Those general questions encompass more specific ones: If a man has an internal sense that he is a woman, is that just a variety of normal human functioning, or is it a psychopathology? Should we be concerned about the disconnection between feeling and reality, or only about the emotional distress or functional difficulties it may cause?

What is the best way to help people with gender dysphoria manage their symptoms: by accepting their insistence that they are the opposite sex and supporting a surgical transition, or by encouraging them to recognize that their feelings are out of line with reality and learn how to identify with their bodies?

All of these questions require philosophical analysis and worldview judgments about what “normal human functioning” looks like and what the purpose of medicine is.

Settling the debates over the proper response to gender dysphoria requires more than scientific and medical evidence. Medical science alone cannot tell us what the purposeof medicine is.

Science cannot answer questions about meaning or purpose in a moral sense. It can tell us about the function of this or that bodily system, but it can’t tell us what to do with that knowledge. It cannot tell us how human beings ought to act. Those are philosophical questions, as I explain in “When Harry Became Sally.”

While medical science does not answer philosophical questions, every medical practitioner has a philosophical worldview, explicit or not. Some doctors may regard feelings and beliefs that are disconnected from reality as a part of normal human functioning and not a source of concern unless they cause distress. Other doctors will regard those feelings and beliefs as dysfunctional in themselves, even if the patient does not find them distressing, because they indicate a defect in mental processes.

But the assumptions made by this or that psychiatrist for purposes of diagnosis and treatment cannot settle the philosophicalquestions: Is it good or bad or neutral to harbor feelings and beliefs that are at odds with reality? Should we accept them as the last word, or try to understand their causes and correct them, or at least mitigate their effects?

While the current findings of medical science, as shown above, reveal poor psychosocial outcomes for people who have had sex reassignment therapies, that conclusion should not be where we stop. We must also look deeper for philosophical wisdom, starting with some basic truths about human well-being and healthy functioning.

We should begin by recognizing that sex reassignment is physically impossible. Our minds and senses function properly when they reveal reality to us and lead us to knowledge of truth. And we flourish as human beings when we embrace the truth and live in accordance with it. A person might find some emotional relief in embracing a falsehood, but doing so would not make him or her objectively better off. Living by a falsehood keeps us from flourishing fully, whether or not it also causes distress.

This philosophical view of human well-being is the foundation of a sound medical practice. Dr. Michelle Cretella, the president of the American College of Pediatricians—a group of doctors who formed their own professional guild in response to the politicization of the American Academy of Pediatrics—emphasizes that mental health care should be guided by norms grounded in reality, including the reality of the bodily self.

“The norm for human development is for one’s thoughts to align with physical reality, and for one’s gender identity to align with one’s biologic sex,” she says. For human beings to flourish, they need to feel comfortable in their own bodies, readily identify with their sex, and believe that they are who they actually are. For children especially, normal development and functioning require accepting their physical being and understanding their embodied selves as male or female.

Unfortunately, many professionals now view health care—including mental health care—primarily as a means of fulfilling patients’ desires, whatever those are. In the words of Leon Kass, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, today a doctor is often seen as nothing more than “a highly competent hired syringe”:

The implicit (and sometimes explicit) model of the doctor-patient relationship is one of contract: the physician—a highly competent hired syringe, as it were—sells his services on demand, restrained only by the law (though he is free to refuse his services if the patient is unwilling or unable to meet his fee). Here’s the deal: for the patient, autonomy and service; for the doctor, money, graced by the pleasure of giving the patient what he wants. If a patient wants to fix her nose or change his gender, determine the sex of unborn children, or take euphoriant drugs just for kicks, the physician can and will go to work—provided that the price is right and that the contract is explicit about what happens if the customer isn’t satisfied.

This modern vision of medicine and medical professionals gets it wrong, says Kass. Professionals ought to profess their devotion to the purposes and ideals they serve. Teachers should be devoted to learning, lawyers to justice, clergy to things divine, and physicians to “healing the sick, looking up to health and wholeness.” Healing is “the central core of medicine,” Kass writes—“to heal, to make whole, is the doctor’s primary business.”

To provide the best possible care, serving the patient’s medical interests requires an understanding of human wholeness and well-being. Mental health care must be guided by a sound concept of human flourishing. The minimal standard of care should begin with a standard of normality. Cretella explains how this standard applies to mental health:

One of the chief functions of the brain is to perceive physical reality. Thoughts that are in accordance with physical reality are normal. Thoughts that deviate from physical reality are abnormal—as well as potentially harmful to the individual or to others. This is true whether or not the individual who possesses the abnormal thoughts feels distress.

Our brains and senses are designed to bring us into contact with reality, connecting us with the outside world and with the reality of ourselves. Thoughts that disguise or distort reality are misguided—and can cause harm. In “When Harry Became Sally,” I argue that we need to do a better job of helping people who face these struggles.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal

More on This Issue

The U.K. Rightly Pushes Back on Gender Transitioning for Minors

Covid and Mental Health

Covid and Mental Health July 22bd 2020

Even if you don’t personally live with the same problems that many of us do, then a moment’s reflection will reveal how the current crisis of physical health will inevitably bear on mental health too. With millions infected by Covid-19 and hundreds of thousands dead around the world, no area of life has gone unaffected: businesses closed, jobs lost, friends separated, relatives grieving. And these are merely the more obvious effects. Beyond the lost lives and livelihoods there is a ubiquitous worry about getting sick, plus a pervasive sense of uncertainty, insecurity and gnawing anxiety that has seeped through the locked-down economy. In the UK, around nine million people are expected to be furloughed, many of them facing an agonisingly precarious future. Sinking incomes have already translated into around a million new claims for universal credit, a new benefit that was synonymous with delays and hardship before the sudden crisis hit it.

Meanwhile, those who are still in demand from employers have different problems, whether it’s NHS and care staff with inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE) or manual and service workers who can’t afford not to work, can’t do so from home, and must now set off with no greater protection against the virus than gratingly cheerful government advice about “staying alert” and, if possible, somehow getting there without catching the bus. No wonder that even those without any history of mental illness are starting to feel the strain.

Beyond control

“Because there’s no vaccine or known way of getting to the other side, the level of uncertainty is through the roof,” explains therapist Simon Coombs. “At the moment, we have no control. So for someone who’s never really struggled… they’ve really been dropped in at the deep end.”

Jon, an office worker from Sheffield in his late 30s, had previously supported friends and an ex-partner through various issues with their mental health. But, until the coronavirus pandemic, he had never struggled himself. “I feel quite naive now,” he says, “because I thought that looking after people who weren’t well meant I understood what it was like to feel so anxious and depressed.” He laughs. “I really didn’t.”

Finances weigh heavily on his mind. Laid off from his job because of Covid-19, Jon has relied on bits and pieces of freelance work to get by. But these are few and far between, and when he and his flatmate requested a rent reduction from their landlord, they were rejected. “I’m already living off my savings,” he says. “And trust me, there isn’t much of them.”

A persistently low mood came first, then problems with sleep. Normally a fairly regular sleeper, Jon has recently been averaging two to three hours a night, worrying about money and work and feeling so anxious “it makes me physically nauseous.” “Then the next day I feel like a zombie—I can’t do anything except lie in bed or sit on the sofa looking at my phone,” he says. “I would say, 100 per cent, that this is the lowest point of my life by far.”

“I live in a flat with no garden and I’m not really near any substantial green space, so I’m spending a lot of time on my own indoors,” he continues. He has a flatmate (who he gets on with), but her job has moved entirely to home working, so she’s busy during the day: “I don’t like to bother her,” Jon explains. Now, for the first time in his life, Jon is seriously considering seeing a therapist.

A British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy survey underlines that Jon is not alone. Ninety-eight per cent of counsellors said that coronavirus has come up in therapy with both new and regular clients. A minority reported a significant increase in clients since lockdown began, which is pretty striking given the impossibility of in-person appointments, and the need for new patients to navigate the whole process online. The picture is just as grim in surveys of patients rather than practitioners. Rethink Mental Illness found that 80 per cent of those living with severe conditions had felt their mental health worsen due to coronavirus; 28 per cent said their health was “much worse.”

Loss, debt, ongoing economic uncertainty and anxiety about personal health will all create a need for counselling after lockdown ends, as over 20 organisations representing 65,000 professionals—including the British Psychoanalytic Council, Cruse Bereavement Care and the Association of Child Psychotherapists—wrote in an open letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock in May. But “supporting the nation through the coronavirus crisis” with the help of counselling and therapy, as the professionals urged, is not looking like a straightforward task. For one, many practitioners are self-employed themselves, and likely to be struggling to keep their own businesses afloat. And for clients, access is always limited. Though therapists charge a range of fees, the average is somewhere between £50 to £120 per hour, with low-cost options limited; even these can cost up to £20, and £10 sessions with trainee psychotherapists are few and far between. Shut out from receiving private therapy, those living in poverty are often left to endure long NHS waits alone. One 2018 survey found some patients had waited up to 13 years for support, with waits of many months common. And as demand grows, the waiting lists will now soar in parallel.

“I can barely afford rent,” Jon says. “How am I supposed to pay for therapy?”

Talk Talk

Long a taboo, mental health has suddenly been something of a buzzphrase over the last few years, with stigma-busting campaigns such as Time to Talk making headway in confronting stereotypes. Indeed, “talking” is at the heart of many campaigns: Get Britain Talking, for example, urged ITV viewers to open up.

Wider media interest is rising too—a 2018 Mind survey found coverage had rocketed by 22 per cent in a mere 12 months. There have been more news reports, more interviews where celebrities “open up” and more storylines on TV soaps. Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton have made mental health central to their platform, promoting “kindness and self-care” through their Heads Together campaign, and both William and his brother Harry have spoken publicly about their struggles after the death of their mother in a way that would have been unthinkable for the stiff-upper lip royals of past generations.

It’s hard to criticise such campaigns—it’s better to talk than stay silent. But by focusing on milder conditions and general “wellbeing,” the new interest still tends to look away from the experience of many with more severe or chronic conditions—personality disorders, schizophrenia and others. “Kindness and self-care,” whether promoted by the younger royals or not, is unlikely to much change the life of someone experiencing psychosis.

But are words replacing action? All the new positive talk has come in parallel with a long squeeze on NHS finances and outright cuts to many welfare services. You might be eager to talk about your mental health, but even if you can persuade a GP this is a good idea, it’ll often be months until you see a psychiatrist or NHS psychotherapist. Former prime minister Theresa May’s efforts to reduce the “stigma” around talking about mental health made an important point, but was it just a coincidence that she pushed that theme quite so hard after long years of austerity? “It is always wrong for people to assume that the only answer to these issues is about funding,” May said. Perhaps, but funding matters, too. All the talk about talking took responsibility away from the state and pushed it back onto individuals.

Though a lot of noise has been made about mental health spending in the last few years, much of it has been hot air. Having been savagely squeezed, the trumpeted largesse to mental health trusts has often done nothing more than make up for previous cuts, often inadequately. Shortages are rife, with a 30 per cent slump in the number of beds for mental health patients. In the past 10 years, the UK has lost 6,000 mental health nurses—nearly 11 per cent of the workforce. In 2019, the UN special rapporteur on health released a report that concluded that austerity measures in the UK had significantly contributed to poor mental health.

There have also been ongoing issues with “off-rolling” patients once they leave hospital. Secondary services—community mental health or crisis and recovery teams—have long supported people after discharge. But according to a report from Manchester Mind published in October 2019, cuts to services now routinely place this responsibility at the door of GPs who are ill-equipped to deal with serious mental illness. When people have no one to turn to who knows how to support them, it predictably leads to more intense distress—and in some cases death, whether from suicide, neglect of physical health or from accidents such as drug overdoses or alcohol abuse. All this forms the backdrop to the emerging mental strain from the pandemic, and threatens to combine with it to produce the perfect storm.

A little less conversation

No part of the NHS was prepared for coronavirus. In 2016, when an operation named Exercise Cygnus simulated an influenza pandemic in the UK, the findings were stark. There were serious gaps in resources, including a lack of ventilators, PPE and critical care beds—all problems the NHS has faced since the pandemic hit. But away from the respiratory care “frontline,” less thought was given to the preparedness of mental health services, and they were never likely to fare well. And indeed, in late April, a survey commissioned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that 23 per cent of psychiatrists had no access to PPE at all, and that only half of those who had wanted tests had been able to get one.

The suffering isn’t restricted to hospitals. Access to services in the community has also decreased; some staff have had to take on outside caring responsibilities or have been ill themselves, leading to shortages. And with face-to-face appointments out of the question, much now relies on patchy provision of digital or phone consultations.

“Stay at home” messages have certainly played an important role in tackling the spread of the virus, but they have also contributed to many eschewing medical services they really need. One woman I spoke to told me that she’d avoided A&E after needing a self-harm wound sutured. “In normal circumstances I definitely would have considered it serious enough to go to A&E,” she said. “But, as I’m sure lots of other people who have presented at A&E with a mental health crisis can attest, you don’t always get a great reception there when you’ve self-harmed, and I just couldn’t face it at this point. I didn’t want to feel like I was wasting their time, or like I shouldn’t be there, or like I was putting other people at risk by going to hospital.” She had her own concerns about catching the virus too, worrying she’d have a higher chance of contracting it if she went. She dealt with her cuts herself.

Sean Duggan, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network, confirms that referrals, which typically come through GPs, have dropped off recently. “We went through a stage where there was a bit of capacity in the system, not so many people referring [to GPs],” he says. He suggests “it was a combination of people frightened to refer and deciding to stay at home to protect themselves and the NHS—they were self-caring instead.” But now, Duggan believes, mental health services need to prepare for things to change fast, with “a huge demand on all of our services.” “I worry that we’ll predict a surge in demand for mental health services [and prepare for it], but that the demand will be even more than that,” he says. “The problem is that we don’t know, and I’m worried about that.”

Many who have suffered with mental health problems in the past will now be retraumatised or triggered by isolation or worry; problems left untreated in lockdown will foment and worsen; and—meanwhile—insecurity, hardship, isolation and grief will push previously “stable” people into distress. Although it’s impossible to know how many more people are going to be affected, many conversations I’ve had suggest that there may already be a rise in the number of people seeking help who had previously had no contact with mental health services before now.

If patients were sometimes waiting years to access therapies and services before, how long will they have to wait now—and how will the services cope? An optimist might point to the hero-worship of healthcare workers, and the way that a resistant Boris Johnson eventually conceded to exempt the health and care staff from the “NHS surcharge” imposed on overseas workers applying for leave to remain. This might be taken as evidence that political self-interest, if nothing else, will finally move the government to show some generosity towards public services.

But the virus, the lockdown and the furlough scheme will plunge the government deep into the red, which will make it harder to hold out much hope that decent funding will be provided on a sustainable basis. And it’s not just money that prevents governments from supporting mental health programmes, but also a lack of understanding. Johnson has shown a questionable grasp of mental health issues: in a much-criticised Telegraph column last year, the prime minister asserted the one reliable “cure is work,” suggesting anyone struggling should be inspired by Winston Churchill’s “almost superhuman production of books, speeches and articles,” which “pitchforked off his depression.” This is offensive bluster, of course, but in the Covid-19 economy the reality is that many people will have no work. And with no certainty around who will be able to access services, or the kind of care we’ll receive when we do, many are wondering what—if anything—they can do to improve their situation.

When someone is struggling to cope, they need more than the tips for general wellbeing beloved of some campaigns. In and of themselves, they are no bad thing: it goes without saying that taking care of your health and doing things that make you calm and happy are good. If taking a bath makes you relax after a difficult day, bathe away; drink your herbal tea, talk to your friends, learn to knit, buy that mindful colouring book. But the new battalion of mental health talking heads—celebrities, politicians and princes—are likely to be shielded from hardship and inequality; it is time we heard much more from those who truly are at the sharp end.

As those of us with severe or chronic conditions can tell you, the mainstream idea of “self-care” is not going to make a difference; the same goes if you’re homeless or don’t have a job, if you experience daily racism or find yourself forced to choose between heating and eating. “Be kind to yourself” might be a nice sentiment, but it’s almost meaningless: a toothless slogan that says absolutely nothing about people’s real lives and experiences. Yes, it’s good to talk. But as we begin to discuss the sheer scale of the unanswered need, we must be fully prepared for an awkward conversation. by Emily Reynolds June 2020.

Brain Gain: A Person Can Instantly Blossom into a Savant—and No One Knows Why

Some people suddenly become accomplished artists or musicians with no previous interest or training. Is it possible innate genius lies dormant within everyone?

Scientific American

• Darold A. Treffert

Savant syndrome comes in different forms. In congenital savant syndrome the extraordinary savant ability surfaces in early childhood. In acquired savant syndrome astonishing new abilities, typically in music, art or mathematics, appear unexpectedly in ordinary persons after a head injury, stroke or other central nervous system (CNS) incident where no such abilities or interests were present pre-incident.

But in sudden savant syndrome an ordinary person with no such prior interest or ability and no precipitating injury or other CNS incident has an unanticipated, spontaneous epiphanylike moment where the rules and intricacies of music, art or mathematics, for example, are experienced and revealed, producing almost instantaneous giftedness and ability in the affected area of skill sets. Because there is no underlying disability such as that which occurs in congenital or acquired savant syndromes, technically sudden savant syndrome would be better termed sudden genius.

The Case of K. A.

A 28-year-old gentleman from Israel, K. A., sent his description of his epiphany moment. He was in a mall where there was a piano. Whereas he could play simple popular songs from rote memory before, “suddenly at age 28 after what I can best describe as a ‘just getting it moment,’ it all seemed so simple. I suddenly was playing like a well-educated pianist.” His friends were astonished as he played and suddenly understood music in an entirely intricate way. “I suddenly realized what the major scale and minor scale were, what their chords were and where to put my fingers in order to play certain parts of the scale. I was instantly able to recognize harmonies of the scales in songs I knew as well as the ability to play melody by interval recognition.” He began to search the internet for information on music theory and to his amazement “most of what they had to teach I already knew, which baffled me as to how could I know something I had never studied.”

K. A. has a high IQ, is now an attorney and has no history of any developmental disorder. He makes part of his living now doing musical performances.

The Case of M. F.

This 43-year-old woman woke up one night in December 2016 with what she called “the urgent need to draw a multitude of triangles, which quickly evolved to a web of complex abstract designs. I stayed up into the morning with a compulsive need to draw, which continued over the next three days at an intense level.” She had no prior interest or training in art. By the third day she was working on a piece of art she named “the Mayan,” which took her two weeks to complete. Three months later she had created 15 pieces whose styles were reminiscent of artists including Frida Kahlo and Picasso. She presently spends about eight hours a day on her craft in addition to her work as a real estate agent. Incorporated into most of her pieces of art is mandalic style of which she was totally unaware prior to her sudden art ability.

The Case of S. S.

When she was in her mid-40s, S. S. began noticing changes in her perception of the physical world around her. She said when she looked at things like trees and flowers, she started to see colors, textures and shadows in ways she had never seen before. This new way of seeing things compelled her to express her “new vision” on paper. She had never painted before in her life and was not comfortable with a paintbrush, so she bought a cheap set of pastel pencils at Hobby Lobby, found a photograph of a gorilla on the cover of an old National Geographic magazine, and sat down to draw it. The result—a rich, complex pastel painting with uncanny realism—stunned her friends and family, particularly in light of the fact she had never shown an aptitude for art or even an interest for that matter, and she never took an art class growing up.

From that point forward drawing and pastel painting began to consume her every waking moment. Her “new vision” wouldn’t allow her to just sit around and marvel at the beauty of this “new” world. She felt she had to act on it—she must act on it. From the very beginning this gift of seeing things in a new way was inextricably tied to a compulsive desire to reproduce that new world on paper. It became an obsession that all but took over her life. “I found it nearly impossible to put down my pastels and do things I needed to do,” she stated, “I was spending way too much money at Hobby Lobby and art supply stores. I was almost frenzied.”

Even now, when she needs to focus on other more pressing things in her life, S. S. must put the pastels and art aside and store them away in a place where she is not tempted by them, sometimes for months at a time. She worries that “starting a new painting could completely derail her.” In the case of S. S., as with other cases of sudden genius, there is no history of autism or CNS injury.

The Uniqueness of Sudden Genius

Many people pick up a new skill or hobby, especially later in life. So what is different here?

—The skill has an abrupt onset with no prior interest in or talent for the newly acquired ability.

—There is no obvious precipitating event or CNS injury or disease.

—The new skill is automatically coupled with a detailed, epiphany-type knowledge of the underlying rules of music, art or math, for example—none of which the person has studied. They know things without ever having learned them.

—The new skill is accompanied with an obsessive-compulsive (OCD) component; there is the overpowering need to play music, draw or compute. It is as much a force as a gift, as is usually the case with both congenital and acquired savant syndromes.

—There is a fear the gift and OCD is evidence of losing one’s mind, and a tendency to hide the new ability from others rather than display it.

—I have 14 such cases now. Ten are female and four are male. Age of onset of the new skill averages 47.2 years. The new skill was art, painting or drawing in nine cases; mathematics or calendar-calculating in four; music in one.

These cases came to my attention via unsolicited e-mails by people seeking explanation or advice from internet searches. We are in the process of exploring these cases further with a detailed survey instrument.

Daniel Tammet, a prodigious savant, is author of Born on a Blue Day. The way Daniel can describe his inner world so articulately has given scientists a personal, verbal window into the brain that they never had before. In a documentary filmed at the Milwaukee Art Museum he states: “The line between profound talent and profound disability seems to be really a surprisingly thin one. Who knows there may be abilities hidden within everyone that can be tapped in some way.”

Indeed, the acquired savant particularly, and now the sudden savant, reinforce the idea that not only is the line between savant and genius a very narrow one but also underscores the possibility such savant abilities may be dormant, to one degree or another, in all of us. The challenge is to tap those special abilities without head injury or CNS incident but rather with some nonintrusive, more readily available methods.

We are working on that.

Darold A. Treffert, a psychiatrist, met his first savant in 1962 and continues research on savant syndrome at the Treffert Center in Fond du Lac, Wis. He was a consultant for the 1988 movie Rain Man and maintains a Web page with information about savant syndrome.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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This post originally appeared on Scientific American and was published July 25, 2018. This article is republished here with permission.

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The Charmer July 17th 2020

Most of us have come across them at some point – the kind of people who can walk into a room full of strangers but then leave with 10 new friends, a lunch date for the next day, and the promise of an introduction to an industry insider.   

Charmers. What makes these lucky individuals so effortlessly likeable when many of us have to work so hard at it? While many would have you believe social grace or winning people over is something of an artform, there is a surprising amount of science behind it too.

The factors that determine our success with other people, and the impressions we make upon them, can start even before we meet them. Research has proven the people we meet often make judgements about us based purely on the way we look. Alexander Todorov, a professor of psychology at Princeton, has shown that people can make judgements about someone’s likeability, trustworthiness and competence after seeing their face for less than a tenth of a second.

Armed with his natural charm, James Bond has been able to get away with anything (Credit: Getty Images)

“While some things, like dominance, are highly related to morphological features, there are things like trustworthiness and even attractiveness which are highly dependent on facial expressions,” says Todorov, whose book Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions explores this phenomenon.

Making a snap judgement on something so superficial might seem rash, but we do it all the time without even realising. And it can have serious implications. For example, it might influnce who you vote for. One study showed that facial appearance can be used to predict the outcome of elections to the US Senate. Similarly, facial characteristics associated with competence have also been successful in predicting the outcomes of elections involving Bulgarian, French, Mexican and Brazilian politicians.

The judgements we make about someone’s face can influence our financial decisions too. In one experiment, borrowers who were perceived as looking less trustworthy were less likely to get loans on a peer-to-peer lending site. Lenders were making these judgements based on appearance in spite of having information about the borrowers employment status and credit history at their fingertips.

Put on a happy face

Of course, while you may not be able to control the physical features of your face, it is possible to alter your expressions and smile. Todorov has used data-driven statistical models to build algorithms that can manipulate faces to look more or less trustworthy, allowing him to tease out the features that we trust the most.

According to his work, as a face becomes happier, it also becomes more trustworthy.

  People will perceive a smiling face as more trustworthy, warmer and sociable

“People will perceive a smiling face as more trustworthy, warmer and sociable,” explains Todorov. “One of the major inputs to these impressions is emotional expression. If you look at our models and and manipulate the faces to become more trustworthy or extroverted, you see the emotional expression emerge—the face becomes happy.”

The factors that determine our success with other people, and the impressions we make upon them, can start even before we meet them (Credit: Getty Images)

For those situations where our first impression has not been as good as we might have hoped, there is also hope – we can still win people over so they forget that initial snap judgement.

“The good news is that we can very quickly override our first impression made based on appearance,” says Todorov. “If you have the opportunity to meet someone, the moment you have good information about them, you will change the way you perceive them.” If you can impress someone, they will often forget about what they thought when they first saw us, even if it was negative.

Channel your charm

This is where charm can come in. Olivia Fox Cabane, an executive coach and author of The Charisma Myth, defines charm as likability and “how delightful it is to interact with someone.”

Contrary to popular depictions, being likeable can have its benefits in business. Entrepreneurs with better social skills are more likely to be successful and workers who are well liked are better at getting their way at work. A study by the University of Massachusetts, for example, found that internal auditors who were well liked and provided an organised argument were more likely to have managers agree with their proposals, even if manager would otherwise tend to disagree with the auditors position if they had not met them.

Suzanne de Janasz, an affiliated professor of management at Seattle University, says interpersonal skills are becoming increasingly important in the workplace as organisations have done away with older, hierarchical structures in recent years.

“It’s become more germane, more critical, to have the ability to work in teams and influence with or without an actual title,” she says.

Having a happier facial expression can make you appear more trustworthy (Credit: Social Perception Lab/Princeton University)

Best of all, it’s possible to train yourself to be charming. Jack Schafer, a psychologist and retired FBI special agent who is a likeability coach and author of The Like Switch, points to Johnny Carson as a quintessential example of someone who preferred being alone, but who learned how to be extremely sociable for the camera. The late host of The Tonight Show would go years without giving interviews and once told the LA Times that 98% of the time he went home after the show rather than choosing to socialise with the glitterati.

“Carson was an extreme introvert who trained himself to be an extrovert,” says Schafer. “As soon as the show was over he curled up and went home, but on TV he was famous for smiling and laughing and making jokes.”

Raising eyebrows

So what can the rest of us do to be more charming? Schafer says charm starts with a simple flash of the eyebrows.

The three major things we do when we approach somebody that signals we are not a threat is an eyebrow flash a slight head tilt, and a smile

“Our brains are always surveying the environment for friend or foe signals,” he says. “The three major things we do when we approach somebody that signal we are not a threat are: an eyebrow flash – a quick up and down movement of the eyebrow that lasts about a sixthof a second – a slight head tilt, and a smile.”

So now you have made your entrance – hopefully without gurning like a maniac – experts agree that the next key to likability is to make your interaction about the other person. That means not talking about yourself.

“The golden rule of friendship is if you make people feel good about themselves, they’re going to like you,” says Schafer. Cabane agrees, but says it can only work if you show a geninue interest in what they are saying.

“Imagine the other person is a character in an indie flick,” she suggests. “Those characters become more fascinating the more you learn about them. You’ll find yourself observing and showing genuine interest in their mannerisms and personality.”

Focus on the different colours in their irises. By maintaining that level of eye contact, it will give the impression of interest

If that fails, she says interest can also be faked. “Focus on the different colors in their irises,” she says. “By maintaining that level of eye contact, it will give the impression of interest.”

Schafer suggests making empathic statements that might reflect some of what the other person is feeling.

“I once saw a student in an elevator who looked pleased with himself,” he explains. “I said ‘It looks like you’re having a good day.’ He went on to tell me about how he just aced a test he had spent weeks studying for. That entire exchange made him feel good about himself.”

If you know more about the person you’re speaking with, you can be even more effective.

“Instead of direct flattery, you want to allow people to flatter themselves,” he says. “Once I find out your age I can say something like, ‘you’re in your 30s and write for the BBC? Not many people can do that so young’. Now you’re giving yourself a psychological pat on the back.”

In a networking situation – something many people dread – you may have heard something about the person you’re speaking with, allowing you to bring up specific topics that are relevant to them. “You can say, ‘I heard that this great thing happened for you, I’d love to hear the story,’” suggests de Janasz.

Find common ground

De Janasz also suggests emphasising common ground, even when your opinions diverge. Charming people are often skilled at finding common ground with the people they interact with, even when there’s not much to go on.

Psychologist and retired FBI agent Schafer points to Johnny Carson as someone who preferred being alone, but learned to be extremely sociable for the camera (Credit: Getty Images)

“When you disagree, try to really listen to the other person rather than setting up your response, which research shows smart people tend to do,” she says. “It might seem like you totally disagree but on closer examination you might agree on a few things, at least in principle.”

She adds that it’s always a good idea to keep up with current events, and industry news, since those are the things most people have in common. Schafer also advises looking for common ground contemporaneously (You’re from California? I’m from California), temporally (I’m hoping to visit California next year) or vicariously (My daughter works for a firm in Silicon Valley).

Watch their body

Another key to likeability is to mirror the body language of the other person. When people are conversing and they begin to mirror one another, it is a signal that have a good rapport, says Schafer.

“So you can use that and mirror them so you can signal to them that you have good rapport,” he says. It is also a good way to test how the conversation is going – if you change your own position and the other person copies you, it is probably going well. Anyone working in sales might want to use that moment to start their pitch.

Schafer recommends revealing details about yourself little by little – like bread crumbs – so each new piece of information acts as “curiosity hooks” to keep their interest going

If you are looking to give your relationship with your new best friend some longevity, it might also be worth using something Schafer refers to as the Hansel and Gretel technique. A common mistake that many of us make is to overwhelm new people with too much information about ourselves, which can put them off. Instead, Schafer recommends revealing details about yourself little by little – like bread crumbs – so each new piece of information acts as “curiosity hooks” to keep their interest going.

“You gradually release information about yourself to keep the relationship alive,” he explains.

A quick flash of your eyebrows can send the right signals, just remember to smile too otherwise you might look weird (Credit: Alamy)

There will be, however, situations where you will need to get someone to like you unnaturally fast. If that’s the case, Schafer, whose 20 years at the FBI included getting people to divulge secret information, has strategies for getting people to answer personal questions.

Presumptive statements like “You sound as if you’re 25 to 30”, will often lead the other person to respond with a confirmation like, “Yes, I’m 30”, or a correction, “I’m 35”. Another approach might be to use quid pro quo, where offering personal details of your own life usually results in reciprocation.

Research has found that the quicker I can get someone to answer personal questions, the quicker that relationship is going to advance

“Research has found that the quicker I can get someone to answer personal questions, the quicker that relationship is going to advance,” says Schafer. “So if I’m selling something, the more quickly I develop rapport and get you to say all sorts of intimate details about your life, the faster you will treat me as a friend and the faster I can get to my sell.”

If all else fails, simply spending time near someone can make him or her like you, even in extreme circumstances. Schafer opens his book with an anecdote from the FBI about a foreign spy who was in American custody. Everyday Schafer sat in his cell quietly reading the newspaper until eventually fear gave way to curiosity and the spy wanted to start a conversation.

“So initially it was proximity and duration,” says Schafer. “And then I gradually introduced intensity, leaning toward him, increasing eye contact, et cetera.” It took months, but Schafer ultimately got what he wanted.

So next time you walk into a room filled with new faces, with a bit of effort it might be you that everybody wants to get to know.

Covid 19, Growing Evidence The Virus Was Man Made & Driving People Mad July 14th 2020

Doctors may be missing signs of serious and potentially fatal brain disorders triggered by coronavirus, as they emerge in mildly affected or recovering patients, scientists have warned.

Neurologists are on Wednesday publishing details of more than 40 UK Covid-19 patients whose complications ranged from brain inflammation and delirium to nerve damage and stroke. In some cases, the neurological problem was the patient’s first and main symptom.

The cases, published in the journal Brain, revealed a rise in a life-threatening condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (Adem), as the first wave of infections swept through Britain. At UCL’s Institute of Neurology, Adem cases rose from one a month before the pandemic to two or three per week in April and May. One woman, who was 59, died of the complication.

Covid-19 may cause brain complications in some, say doctors

Read more

A dozen patients had inflammation of the central nervous system, 10 had brain disease with delirium or psychosis, eight had strokes and a further eight had peripheral nerve problems, mostly diagnosed as Guillain-Barré syndrome, an immune reaction that attacks the nerves and causes paralysis. It is fatal in 5% of cases.

“We’re seeing things in the way Covid-19 affects the brain that we haven’t seen before with other viruses,” said Michael Zandi, a senior author on the study and a consultant at the institute and University College London Hospitals NHS foundation trust.

“What we’ve seen with some of these Adem patients, and in other patients, is you can have severe neurology, you can be quite sick, but actually have trivial lung disease,” he added.

“Biologically, Adem has some similarities with multiple sclerosis, but it is more severe and usually happens as a one-off. Some patients are left with long-term disability, others can make a good recovery.”

The cases add to concerns over the long-term health effects of Covid-19, which have left some patients breathless and fatigued long after they have cleared the virus, and others with numbness, weakness and memory problems.

One coronavirus patient described in the paper, a 55-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric illness, began to behave oddly the day after she was discharged from hospital.

A neuroscientist explains: the need for ‘empathetic citizens’ – podcast

She repeatedly put her coat on and took it off again and began to hallucinate, reporting that she saw monkeys and lions in her house. She was readmitted to hospital and gradually improved on antipsychotic medication.

Another woman, aged 47, was admitted to hospital with a headache and numbness in her right hand a week after a cough and fever came on. She later became drowsy and unresponsive and required an emergency operation to remove part of her skull to relieve pressure on her swollen brain.

“We want clinicians around the world to be alert to these complications of coronavirus,” Zandi said. He urged physicians, GPs and healthcare workers with patients with cognitive symptoms, memory problems, fatigue, numbness, or weakness, to discuss the case with neurologists.

“The message is not to put that all down to the recovery, and the psychological aspects of recovery,” he said. “The brain does appear to be involved in this illness.”

The full range of brain disorders caused by Covid-19 may not have been picked up yet, because many patients in hospitals are too sick to examine in brain scanners or with other procedures. “What we really need now is better research to look at what’s really going on in the brain,” Zandi said.

One concern is that the virus could leave a minority of the population with subtle brain damage that only becomes apparent in years to come. This may have happened in the wake of the 1918 flu pandemic, when up to a million people appeared to develop brain disease.

“It’s a concern if some hidden epidemic could occur after Covid where you’re going to see delayed effects on the brain, because there could be subtle effects on the brain and slowly things happen over the coming years, but it’s far too early for us to judge now,” Zandi said.

“We hope, obviously, that that’s not going to happen, but when you’ve got such a big pandemic affecting such a vast proportion of the population it’s something we need to be alert to.”

David Strain, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School, said that only a small number of patients appeared to experience serious neurological complications and that more work was needed to understand their prevalence.

“This is very important as we start to prepare post-Covid-19 rehabilitation programs,” he said. “We’ve already seen that some people with Covid-19 may need a long rehabilitation period, both physical rehabilitation such as exercise, and brain rehabilitation. We need to understand more about the impact of this infection on the brain.”

Comment The State and global elite state systems have to stoke up fear of Covid. Logically we may be seeing here, people with brain issues only detcted because they have had Covid.

There is a new and growing body of research supporting the view that life experience changes DNA. Ludicrous lockdown has undoubtedly increased Britain’s alarmingly high level of mental illness.

I suspect multi culture, feminism and economic insecurity has dome a lot to change peoples DNA along the route to all sorts of mental health problems, including psychosis. Robert Cook

No Psychology Without Consciousness July 14th 2020

Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, evolution has been the grand unifying theory of biology. Yet one of our most important biological traits, consciousness, is rarely studied in the context of evolution. Theories of consciousness come from religion, from philosophy, from cognitive science, but not so much from evolutionary biology. Maybe that’s why so few theories have been able to tackle basic questions such as: What is the adaptive value of consciousness? When did it evolve and what animals have it?

The Attention Schema Theory (AST), developed over the past five years, may be able to answer those questions. The theory suggests that consciousness arises as a solution to one of the most fundamental problems facing any nervous system: Too much information constantly flows in to be fully processed. The brain evolved increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for deeply processing a few select signals at the expense of others, and in the AST, consciousness is the ultimate result of that evolutionary sequence. If the theory is right—and that has yet to be determined—then consciousness evolved gradually over the past half billion years and is present in a range of vertebrate species.

Even before the evolution of a central brain, nervous systems took advantage of a simple computing trick: competition. Neurons act like candidates in an election, each one shouting and trying to suppress its fellows. At any moment only a few neurons win that intense competition, their signals rising up above the noise and impacting the animal’s behavior. This process is called selective signal enhancement, and without it, a nervous system can do almost nothing.

We can take a good guess when selective signal enhancement first evolved by comparing different species of animal, a common method in evolutionary biology. The hydra, a small relative of jellyfish, arguably has the simplest nervous system known—a nerve net. If you poke the hydra anywhere, it gives a generalized response. It shows no evidence of selectively processing some pokes while strategically ignoring others. The split between the ancestors of hydras and other animals, according to genetic analysis, may have been as early as 700 million years ago. Selective signal enhancement probably evolved after that.

The arthropod eye, on the other hand, has one of the best-studied examples of selective signal enhancement. It sharpens the signals related to visual edges and suppresses other visual signals, generating an outline sketch of the world. Selective enhancement therefore probably evolved sometime between hydras and arthropods—between about 700 and 600 million years ago, close to the beginning of complex, multicellular life. Selective signal enhancement is so primitive that it doesn’t even require a central brain. The eye, the network of touch sensors on the body, and the auditory system can each have their own local versions of attention focusing on a few select signals.

The next evolutionary advance was a centralized controller for attention that could coordinate among all senses. In many animals, that central controller is a brain area called the tectum. (“Tectum” means “roof” in Latin, and it often covers the top of the brain.) It coordinates something called overt attention – aiming the satellite dishes of the eyes, ears, and nose toward anything important.

All vertebrates—fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals—have a tectum. Even lampreys have one, and they appeared so early in evolution that they don’t even have a lower jaw. But as far as anyone knows, the tectum is absent from all invertebrates. The fact that vertebrates have it and invertebrates don’t allows us to bracket its evolution. According to fossil and genetic evidence, vertebrates evolved around 520 million years ago. The tectum and the central control of attention probably evolved around then, during the so-called Cambrian Explosion when vertebrates were tiny wriggling creatures competing with a vast range of invertebrates in the sea.

The tectum is a beautiful piece of engineering. To control the head and the eyes efficiently, it constructs something called an internal model, a feature well known to engineers. An internal model is a simulation that keeps track of whatever is being controlled and allows for predictions and planning. The tectum’s internal model is a set of information encoded in the complex pattern of activity of the neurons. That information simulates the current state of the eyes, head, and other major body parts, making predictions about how these body parts will move next and about the consequences of their movement. For example, if you move your eyes to the right, the visual world should shift across your retinas to the left in a predictable way. The tectum compares the predicted visual signals to the actual visual input, to make sure that your movements are going as planned. These computations are extraordinarily complex and yet well worth the extra energy for the benefit to movement control. In fish and amphibians, the tectum is the pinnacle of sophistication and the largest part of the brain. A frog has a pretty good simulation of itself.

With the evolution of reptiles around 350 to 300 million years ago, a new brain structure began to emerge – the wulst. Birds inherited a wulst from their reptile ancestors. Mammals did too, but our version is usually called the cerebral cortex and has expanded enormously. It’s by far the largest structure in the human brain. Sometimes you hear people refer to the reptilian brain as the brute, automatic part that’s left over when you strip away the cortex, but this is not correct. The cortex has its origin in the reptilian wulst, and reptiles are probably smarter than we give them credit for.

The cortex is like an upgraded tectum. We still have a tectum buried under the cortex and it performs the same functions as in fish and amphibians. If you hear a sudden sound or see a movement in the corner of your eye, your tectum directs your gaze toward it quickly and accurately. The cortex also takes in sensory signals and coordinates movement, but it has a more flexible repertoire. Depending on context, you might look toward, look away, make a sound, do a dance, or simply store the sensory event in memory in case the information is useful for the future.

The most important difference between the cortex and the tectum may be the kind of attention they control. The tectum is the master of overt attention—pointing the sensory apparatus toward anything important. The cortex ups the ante with something called covert attention. You don’t need to look directly at something to covertly attend to it. Even if you’ve turned your back on an object, your cortex can still focus its processing resources on it. Scientists sometimes compare covert attention to a spotlight. (The analogy was first suggested by Francis Crick, the geneticist.) Your cortex can shift covert attention from the text in front of you to a nearby person, to the sounds in your backyard, to a thought or a memory. Covert attention is the virtual movement of deep processing from one item to another.

The cortex needs to control that virtual movement, and therefore like any efficient controller it needs an internal model. Unlike the tectum, which models concrete objects like the eyes and the head, the cortex must model something much more abstract. According to the AST, it does so by constructing an attention schema—a constantly updated set of information that describes what covert attention is doing moment-by-moment and what its consequences are.

Consider an unlikely thought experiment. If you could somehow attach an external speech mechanism to a crocodile, and the speech mechanism had access to the information in that attention schema in the crocodile’s wulst, that technology-assisted crocodile might report, “I’ve got something intangible inside me. It’s not an eyeball or a head or an arm. It exists without substance. It’s my mental possession of things. It moves around from one set of items to another. When that mysterious process in me grasps hold of something, it allows me to understand, to remember, and to respond.”

The crocodile would be wrong, of course. Covert attention isn’t intangible. It has a physical basis, but that physical basis lies in the microscopic details of neurons, synapses, and signals. The brain has no need to know those details. The attention schema is therefore strategically vague. It depicts covert attention in a physically incoherent way, as a non-physical essence. And this, according to the theory, is the origin of consciousness. We say we have consciousness because deep in the brain, something quite primitive is computing that semi-magical self-description. Alas crocodiles can’t really talk. But in this theory, they’re likely to have at least a simple form of an attention schema.

When I think about evolution, I’m reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quote, “Do what you can with what you have where you are.” Evolution is the master of that kind of opportunism. Fins become feet. Gill arches become jaws. And self-models become models of others. In the AST, the attention schema first evolved as a model of one’s own covert attention. But once the basic mechanism was in place, according to the theory, it was further adapted to model the attentional states of others, to allow for social prediction. Not only could the brain attribute consciousness to itself, it began to attribute consciousness to others.

When psychologists study social cognition, they often focus on something called theory of mind, the ability to understand the possible contents of someone else’s mind. Some of the more complex examples are limited to humans and apes. But experiments show that a dog can look at another dog and figure out, “Is he aware of me?” Crows also show an impressive theory of mind. If they hide food when another bird is watching, they’ll wait for the other bird’s absence and then hide the same piece of food again, as if able to compute that the other bird is aware of one hiding place but unaware of the other. If a basic ability to attribute awareness to others is present in mammals and in birds, then it may have an origin in their common ancestor, the reptiles. In the AST’s evolutionary story, social cognition begins to ramp up shortly after the reptilian wulst evolved. Crocodiles may not be the most socially complex creatures on earth, but they live in large communities, care for their young, and can make loyal if somewhat dangerous pets.

If AST is correct, 300 million years of reptilian, avian, and mammalian evolution have allowed the self-model and the social model to evolve in tandem, each influencing the other. We understand other people by projecting ourselves onto them. But we also understand ourselves by considering the way other people might see us. Data from my own lab suggests that the cortical networks in the human brain that allow us to attribute consciousness to others overlap extensively with the networks that construct our own sense of consciousness.

Language is perhaps the most recent big leap in the evolution of consciousness. Nobody knows when human language first evolved. Certainly we had it by 70 thousand years ago when people began to disperse around the world, since all dispersed groups have a sophisticated language. The relationship between language and consciousness is often debated, but we can be sure of at least this much: once we developed language, we could talk about consciousness and compare notes. We could say out loud, “I’m conscious of things. So is she. So is he. So is that damn river that just tried to wipe out my village.”

Maybe partly because of language and culture, humans have a hair-trigger tendency to attribute consciousness to everything around us. We attribute consciousness to characters in a story, puppets and dolls, storms, rivers, empty spaces, ghosts and gods. Justin Barrett called it the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, or HADD. One speculation is that it’s better to be safe than sorry. If the wind rustles the grass and you misinterpret it as a lion, no harm done. But if you fail to detect an actual lion, you’re taken out of the gene pool. To me, however, the HADD goes way beyond detecting predators. It’s a consequence of our hyper-social nature. Evolution turned up the amplitude on our tendency to model others and now we’re supremely attuned to each other’s mind states. It gives us our adaptive edge. The inevitable side effect is the detection of false positives, or ghosts.

And so the evolutionary story brings us up to date, to human consciousness—something we ascribe to ourselves, to others, and to a rich spirit world of ghosts and gods in the empty spaces around us. The AST covers a lot of ground, from simple nervous systems to simulations of self and others. It provides a general framework for understanding consciousness, its many adaptive uses, and its gradual and continuing evolution.

Michael Graziano is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. He is the author of The Spaces Between Us: A Story of Neuroscience, Evolution, and Human Nature.

Police Care UK calls for a dedicated mental health strategy tackling trauma-related stress in UK policing. Posted July 11th 2020

Police Care UK has today called on police chiefs and the health authorities across the UK to co-develop a national strategy that tackles the serious mental health issues affecting police officers and staff, and volunteers across the UK.

This follows the publication of the University of Cambridge’s study, the job & the life , funded by Police Care UK, which shows that nearly 20% of frontline personnel in the UK are currently suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder or complex-post-traumatic stress disorder , and more re-experiencing traumatic incidents or suffering from fatigue and anxiety as a result of their job.

Police Care UK Chief Executive, Gill Scott-Moore said, “These findings show that the trauma that police officers and staff are exposed to on a daily basis is having a detrimental effect on their health. As yet, there is no comprehensive strategy to tackle the issue of mental health in policing, and that has to change.”

The report, published today, shows that there are real issues around the treatment of mental health injuries, a service-wide stigma about seeking help for mental health issues, and a lack of understanding about the effects of trauma exposure in policing.

Gill Scott-Moore added, “The service has real challenges around recognising and responding to the signs and symptoms of trauma exposure and is heavily reliant upon generic NHS provision that isn’t equipped for the specialist treatment needed. That’s why we believe that policing cannot fix this alone – it needs to be considered a major health issue by public health authorities across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, with a unified approach to tackling it made a priority and funding for treatment needs to be made available by government”

With more than fifty employers covering policing in the UK, all of whom have a different approach, there is a postcode lottery when it comes to attitudes towards those exposed to trauma, access to treatment, and the dignity shown to people experiencing trauma related stress.

Trauma exposure is consistent across the UK, so why isn’t access to care and treatment? Given over 300,000 personnel work in policing, with more former personnel who are still living with the impact of trauma exposure, Police Care UK believes this constitutes a major health issue that is yet to be addressed.

Police Care UK therefore urges the health authorities in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland to work across policing to develop a policing mental health strategy that addresses the fundamental issues around trauma exposure, delivers consistent pathways to appropriate treatment, and tackles the stigma within the service.

Living, Lying & Dying – Brain Lock With Covid19 July 11th 2020

The UK will not join the EU Covid-19 vaccine scheme, the UK’s ambassador to the EU Sir Tim Barrow has said.

Sir Tim said if the UK joined the scheme it would have no say on decisions including on price or which manufacturers to negotiate with.

The UK would also be unable to “pursue parallel negotiations with potential vaccine suppliers”, he said in his letter to the European Commission.

The EU scheme aims to secure supplies of potential coronavirus vaccines.

The European Commission plans to enter into agreements with individual vaccine producers on behalf of the bloc’s member states as part of the multi-million pound programme.

In return for the right to buy a specified number of vaccine doses in an agreed timeframe and price, the Commission will finance a part of the vaccine producer’s upfront costs.

Reacting to earlier reports the UK will opt out of the initiative, the Wellcome Trust said countries “urgently” needed to work together “if we’re to stand any chance of delivering global equitable access to a Covid-19 vaccine”.

Comment The World Health Organisation ( WHO ) Special Envoy to Europe, David Nabaro, has declared that a vaccine is many years off and that we must learn to live with the pandemic. Herd immunity is the only option. The virus, like HIV, will be with us for a very long time.

There is a psychological condition colloquially known as ‘Brain Lock’, a key aspect of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Most British people have been slavishly compliant with ludicrous lockdown. They are in brain lock, seemingly oblivious of the consequent greater threats to their existence = and one is not just referring to whether or not they catch a cold. The main victims of the bio engineered Covid19 cold virus are the elderly and those suffering from foul crowded living conditions, religious bigotry, pre existing conditions like diabetes and obesity – conditions made no better and probably worse by lockdown.

Experts – and how the ignorant British ‘Uni’ educated population bend the knee to higly paid so called State chosen experts – outside the government box have concluded that only 5% of the population have been exposed to Covid 19, which is why 95% do not have antibodies. Thus these ‘know alls’ insist that there will be a second spike so we must continue with the two metre rule and masks. When this fiasco and deception began – there is no evidence, as Swedish data indicates, that lockdown achieves anything but massive economic/soscial damage – we were told masks could do no good. Now you can’t even use Britain’s public transport without them. Of course the masks are emblems or totems to reinforce fear.

No one must be allowed to forget the invisible menance defined by the even greater and very real invisible menace of those who run the British Police State.

That ruling elite is as arrogant as ever, not caring about stupid statues of its ancestors being thrown in the river. They would rather us forget where their family fortunes came from. Idiotic BLM activists don’t see how they are being manipulated. If they think that they re being allowed to challeng the system, they should wonder why they don’t get the same heavy handed police and propaganda reponse as Tommy robinson and his supporters.

The ruling elite act as always, with minds focused on ever growing their wealth arrogantly spreading their poison world wide – pretending to care about disease ravaging the old Third World where they put in dictators, never hesitating to bomb when required. They have no shortage of lackeys. Robert Cook

This is the right way to challenge someone’s thinking July 3rd 2020

If you want to share your perspective in a way that gets heard, and acted upon to create positive change, try these three steps.

By Dorie Clark3 minute Read

It’s natural to feel angry when someone says or writes something that we find offensive. Lashing out may feel satisfying in the moment. But if our goal is actually to change the person’s mind or get them to reconsider their approach, assailing their intentions or labeling them (an idiot, a classist, a narcissist, etc.) is often counterproductive.

Over the years, I’ve occasionally gotten emails from newsletter readers upbraiding me for various reasons. One woman, reacting to a reference to “recent business travel” shortly after the pandemic began, declared my email to be “insensitive and harmful . . . You should be ashamed of yourself. This email offends me.”

Another, angry that I cited an example of someone’s boss yelling at them as a “setback,” declared that my writing reeked of “first world, white-privilege traumas.” When people feel offended—whatever the cause—they may not always be polite.

One reader who wrote to me recently, however, was so thoughtful and deft in her critique, I was inspired to parse it and examine exactly what she did. With her permission, I’m excerpting diversity consultant Theresa Kneebone’s message to me.

It exemplifies three lessons we can all learn about how to communicate more effectively when our goal isn’t simply to express outrage, but instead to challenge someone’s thinking effectively.

Don’t assume intent

One of the fastest ways to alienate people is to insist that you know what they really meant, i.e., “You said X, which means you’re obviously Y.” But of course, we don’t have perfect windows into other people’s consciousness. Theresa’s note started not with an accusation, but with an ask for clarification. “When I got this message, I felt confused,” she wrote. She went on to say, “I felt I must have missed something and didn’t want to misread what you are trying to say.” It’s much easier to engage with someone who is asking genuine clarifying questions, rather than imputing motives to you.

Express understanding for the person’s situation

If you’re feeling offended, empathy for the person causing it is probably not your first impulse. But it’s far easier to reach someone if they feel you understand where they’re coming from, or why they felt their action was appropriate at the time. As Theresa wrote to me, “I know in these times, it is difficult to say the ‘right thing’ and that not everyone feels they want to speak out on a topic that is not their area of expertise.” That’s essentially a signaling mechanism that shows others they’re not going to be derided, but instead that you can have a true conversation.

Explain why the conversation matters

It’s easy to dismiss criticism as the carping of a few outliers with an agenda. So if you want to be heard, you need to explain why the issue actually is significant, ideally in terms they will understand and appreciate. As Theresa wrote to me, “I often coach executives that in the absence of a clear, transparent message from them, employees, colleagues and clients will create their own narrative out of the information they can glean or observe. I fear that is what is happening here.”

Note her subtle use of social proof here as well, in which she mentions that she coaches executives. She’s making it clear that she’s not just a random person with an opinion, but an expert in her field. The more credentials you can marshal (if the person is not already aware of them), the better.

When you’re the one being critiqued, it can be hard to hear, especially if the person delivering it seems outraged. “I teach a lot of diversity and inclusion classes,” Theresa says, “and in that context, when we talk about feedback, people can get very hung up on the approach as a way of qualifying how seriously they will take the feedback—’Too angry’ or ‘Too emotional’ or ‘Rude.’ I coach them not to miss the meaning because they are focused on the ‘who’ and the ‘how.’ Not everyone is able to deliver perfect feedback when feeling angry or hurt.”

She’s right, of course. Even someone angry may have a useful and valid perspective we can learn from. But—truth be told—if someone I don’t know well, and whose opinion I haven’t asked for, starts to berate me, my response isn’t to listen politely. It’s to crush them. I suspect I’m not alone.

If you actually want to share your perspective in a way that gets heard, and acted upon to create positive change, the three strategies above are some of the most effective I’ve seen.

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Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. She is the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and Stand Out. You can receive her free Stand Out self-assessment.

10 Facts about a Woman’s Brain

“There is no such thing as a unisex brain,” says neuropsychiatrist Dr. Louann Brizendine of the University of California in San Francisco and author of “The Female Brain.”

Despite the trumpets of women’s lib, science suggests sex differences are innate. Women, apparently, are not curvy versions of men sporting high-heeled shoes.

Here are 10 things every woman-loving man should know.

She changes every day based on her cycle

Affecting up to 80 percent of women, PMS is a familiar scapegoat. But women are affected by their cycles every day of the month. Hormone levels are constantly changing in a woman’s brain and body, changing her outlook, energy and sensitivity along with them.RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU…

About 10 days after the onset of menstruation, right before ovulation, women often feel sassier, Brizendine told LiveScience. Unconsciously, they dress sexier as surges in estrogen and testosterone prompt them to look for sexual opportunities during this particularly fertile period.

A week later, there is a rise in progesterone, the hormone that mimics valium, making women “feel like cuddling up with a hot cup of tea and a good book,” Brizendine said. The following week, progesterone withdrawal can make women weepy and easily irritated. “We call it crying over dog commercials crying,” Brizendine said.

For most women, their mood reaches its worst 12-24 hours before their period starts. “It is not entirely an issue of free will,” Brizendine stressed.

She really is intuitive (though not magic)

Men can have the uncomfortable feeling that women are mind readers or psychics, Brizendine said. But women’s intuition is likely more biological than mystical.

Over the course of evolution, women may have been selected for their ability to keep young preverbal humans alive, which involves deducing what an infant or child needs — warmth, food, discipline &mdash without it being directly communicated. This is one explanation for why women consistently score higher than men on tests that require reading nonverbal cues. Women not only better remember the physical appearances of others but also more correctly identify the unspoken messages conveyed in facial expressions, postures and tones of voice, studies show.

This skill, however, is not limited to childrearing. Women often use it tell what bosses, husbands and even strangers are thinking and planning. [Clueless Guys Can’t Read Women]

She avoids aggression

Stressful situations are known to spur the “fight or flight” response in men, but researchers have suggested that women, after sensing a threat, instinctually try to “tend or befriend.” That is, they skirt physical responses in favor of forming strategic, even manipulative, alliances.

Women may have evolved to avoid physical aggression because of the greater dependence of children on their survival, suggests Anne Campbell of Durham University. (In ancient hunter-gatherer days, men only needed to do the deed to spread their genes, while women had to stay alive long enough to birth and raise the young.)

“It is not that females are not aggressive, it is that they are aggressive in different ways,” said evolutionary psychologist Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan. They tend to use more indirect forms of confrontation, he told LiveScience. [The History of Human Aggression]

She responds to pain and anxiety differently

Brain-imaging studies over the last 10 years have shown that male and female brains respond differently to pain and fear. And, women’s brains may be the more sensitive of the two.

The female brain is not only more responsive to small amounts of stress but is less able to habituate to high levels of stress, said Debra Bangasser of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, describing her recent research looking at molecular changes in the brain. Bangasser’s research was conducted in rats but is considered potentially applicable to humans.

Stress sensitivity may have some benefits; it shifts one’s mental state from being narrowly focused to being more flexibly and openly aware. But if the anxiety is prolonged, it can be damaging. Such findings may help explain why women are more prone to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders, the researchers told LiveScience.

The research was published in the June 2010 issue of Molecular Psychiatry.

She hates conflict (but lack of response even more)

Women may also have evolved extra-sensitivity to interpersonal cues as a way to avoid conflict, a state that can feel intolerable to women, according to Brizendine. The flood of chemicals that takes over the female brain during a conflict — especially within an intimate relationship — is almost on the same order as a seizure, she explains.

Possibly because of their overachievement in “mind reading,” women often find blank expressions, or a lack of response, completely unbearable. A young girl will go to great lengths trying to get a response from a mime while a boy will not be nearly so determined, Brizendine said. For females in particular, a negative response may be better than no response at all.

She is easily turned off

“A women’s sex drive is much more easily upset than a guy’s,” Brizendine said.

For women to get in the mood, and especially to have an orgasm, certain areas of her brain have to shut off. And any number of things can turn them back on.

A woman may refuse a man’s advances because she is angry, feeling distrustful — or even, because her feet are chilly, studies show. Pregnancy, caring for small children and menopause can also take a toll on a woman’s sex drive (although some women experience a renewed interest in sex after The Change.)

Best advice for a turned-on dude? Plan ahead.

“For guys, foreplay is everything that happens three minutes before insertion. For women, it is everything that happens 24 hours beforehand,” Brizendine said. [Top 10 Aphrodisiacs]

She is affected by pregnant brain

Progesterone increases 30-fold in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, causing most women to become very sedated, Brizendine said. “Progesterone is a great sleeping pill.”

A woman’s brain also shrinks during pregnancy, becoming about 4-percent smaller by the time she delivers, according to a 2002 study published in the American Journal of Neuroradiology. (Don’t worry; it returns to normal size by six months after delivery.)

Whether pregnancy causes women to think differently is controversial — one recent study linked memory problems to pregnancy hormones — but some researchers have suggested the changes prepare brain circuits that guide maternal behavior.

These circuits likely continue to develop after birth. Handling a baby releases maternal hormones, even among females who have never been pregnant, found researchers at Tufts University. While measured in rats, the finding offers a chemical understanding of the bonding that can occur among foster moms and children.

The study was published in the journal Developmental Psychobiology in 2004.

She is affected by mommy brain

The physical, hormonal, emotional and social changes facing a woman directly after giving birth can be monumental. “And because everything else has changed, she needs everything else to be as predictable as possible, including the husband,” Brizendine said.

Over the course of evolution, it was rare for our maternal ancestors to be full-time mothers, said Brizendine, because there was always kin-folk around to help with child rearing. And a mother needs a lot of support, not only for her own sake but for the child’s as well. Her ability to adequately respond to her infant can impact the child’s developing nervous system and temperament, research shows.

One way Mother Nature tries to help is through breastfeeding. Nursing may help women deal with some types of stress, studies suggest. (Too much stress, however, can disrupt lactation.) One study even found that breastfeeding might be more rewarding to the female brain than cocaine. The research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2005.

She goes through adolescence twice

No one wants to go through adolescence again. Its physical changes and hormonal fluctuations not only create mood swings and physical discomfort but nagging questions about self-identity as well.

Women, however, lucky girls, get to do just that. They go through a “second adolescence” called perimenopause in their 40s. It starts around age 43 and reaches its pinnacle by 47 or 48 years old. (Men’s hormones also change as they age, but not nearly as abruptly.) In addition to erratic periods and night sweats, a woman’s hormones during this transition are so crazed she can be as moody as a teenager.

The duration of perimenopause varies from two to nine years, with most women leaving it behind by age 52. [7 Ways the Mind and Body Change With Age]

She loves risk during the mature years

Once The Change has finished, and the body moves into its “advanced” stage, the female brain gets a second wind. While men start to show increased interest in relationships as they age, the mature woman becomes ready to risk conflict — especially if her nest is now empty.

She may continue to feel motivated to help others, but her focus might shift from her immediate family to local and global communities. She may also feel a strong desire to do more for herself, and her career, after decades of care-taking, explains Brizendine.

Whether she sows her newly wild oats with whirlwind travel, going back to school, or by playing the field depends on the individual, of course. But for many 50-plus women the twilight years are characterized by an increased “zest” for life and a hearty appetite for adventure.