A percentage of veterans (and by extension, some civilians) who have experienced traumatic events have a built-in coping mechanism that appears to repress traumatic memories in order to make life more satisfying and livable. And the strategy works well for them!

“Going back to the days of Sigmund Freud, psychiatrists and mental health experts have suggested that repression of traumatic memories could lead to health problems. Yet we have found little evidence that repression had an adverse health impact on combat veterans exposed to psychological trauma many years later.”

Joseph Boscarino, Ph.D. and Tulane University investigator Charles Figley, Ph.D., have been studying the effects of repressed memories in Vietnam war and other war veterans to help understand the relationship between repressed memories and physical ailment and longevity.

For years I had worked under the belief that horrific traumatic experiences should “come out” to be resolved or relieved of their emotional charge – and that suppressing those memories was tantamount to denial – leading to terrible life consequences. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients, many of whom were veterans. For those who chose to disclose their traumatic emotional baggage, swift release of the psychic energy often produced a noticeable increased sense of well-being and life satisfaction – that lasted.

However, according to Boscarino and Figley, a percentage of veterans (and by extension, some civilians) who have experienced traumatic events have a built-in coping mechanism that appears to repress traumatic memories in order to make life more satisfying and livable. And the strategy works well for them!

In these cases, “Repression is a self-regulator and a method of memory management,” Dr. Figley said. “In other words, ‘keeping your stressful memories inside or it will kill you’ is a myth.”

To both practitioner and veteran, I would say – “If what you are doing is working well for you, no need to ‘rock the boat’ for the sake of therapy.” Like my old pappy used to say, “If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it!”

To that I would add – just because you experienced traumatic events does not necessarily mean you need therapy to “resolve your issue” or that you must have repressed memories that will affect you physically if not properly dealt with – usually by expressing them. Maybe all you need to do is continue to do what you’re doing now. Sometimes the hunt for repressed memories itself is more traumatic than the memories sought after – and can cause more psychological damage than repressing the memories.

However (and this is important) – if someone close to you suggests therapy, take them up on the idea. And if you suddenly find yourself acting out for no reason whatsoever – like losing your temper when your wife tells you she’s going to brew another cup of coffee or sit in a different chair – or maybe you start losing sleep at night due to recurring nightmares – consider therapy to relieve you of some suppressed emotional charge. The investment may just make the difference between “just getting by” emotionally and loving and living your life to the fullest.

You can either learn or remember.

You can either learn or remember. Researchers at Duke University used functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) to demonstrate this competition in a group of college age adults. Their evidence is compelling. Many psychological studies have also shown that you can either listen for new information or consider your response to that information (remembering similar past events). One or the other – not both simultaneously.

New OR old rather than new AND old. You can either listen to your partner’s complaint OR search your memory for a snappy comeback – not both simultaneously.

The problem, of course, arises when the switch is turned to focus the brain on remembering when learning is indicated – or visa versa. Too many times I’ve come back with a response to my wife’s information that was completely off or indicated that I was not intent or focused on what she was saying. Rather, I was “remembering” similar information – and probably getting side-tracked by a mind tangent – rather than “learning” I was “remembering”. Oops!

“I can do that, daddy!” My father heard these words often from me as a kid – especially after a short demonstration of a skill he was trying to teach me. He’d invariably turn the task over to me whereupon the task would get horribly bungled because I had no clue what I was doing. I was remembering a similar task rather than paying attention to the lesson at hand. The switch was in the wrong position. Oops!

So how does one manually turn the switch from one state to the other? Certainly this could be a valuable skill for many tasks including academic learning, attending to the needs of a partner, or learning how to operate equipment.

Read the rest of this entry »

Even with advanced degrees in physics and mathematics, iTunes and the iPod Touch did her in.

My mother recently sent me an iPod Touch that she could not figure out how to use. She is a very intelligent woman in her seventies with advanced degrees in physics and mathematics. But iTunes and the iPod Touch did her in. The instructions were so arcane and confusing she just gave up and sent the thing to me.

I’m no genius – just younger than she is – and able to figure the iPod Touch out after some time with the instruction manual and lots of trial and error (mostly error). And the iPod Touch is not the only thing I find confusing as I get older.

My telephone has become a subject of considerable confusion as it adds more and more “features” – when all I want to do is talk on it. Now my phone tells me where I am (here), keeps my calendar (so I won’t forget), shows me pictures of my family (the same pictures I keep in my wallet), takes lousy pictures and video (“is that a picture of me?”), does text messaging (numbers to letters – no kidding!!), and plays my music (isn’t that what the iPod is for?). It has so many features I forget sometimes how to place a simple phone call – and that’s why I have the damned thing in the first place! I’m so confused!! Is it my age? Am I just “getting older?”

Read the rest of this entry »

I know we don’t like to hear that we are “no better than the beast” but, hey – if the shoe fits…

“We like to think of our decisions as willful acts, but that may be an illusion. Many decisions may be much more directly and automatically driven by what our brain is sensing,” says Maurizio Corbetta, M.D., the Norman J. Stupp Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. (Tosoni A, Galati G, Romani GL, Corbetta M. Sensory-motor mechanisms in human parietal cortex underlie arbitrary visual decisions. Nature Neuroscience, advance online publication on Nov. 9.)

Mark Twain, in his essay “What Is Man?” argues that humans do not command their minds or the opinions they form. “You did not form that [opinion],” a speaker identified as “old man” says in the essay. “Your [mental] machinery did it for you – automatically and instantly, without reflection or the need of it.”

I hear a lot about “free will” and I often wonder just how “free” it is. Further, I wonder, when you make a choice, how much of your “higher” mental faculty was involved in its making compared to how much animal instinct was involved? I suggest that most of the time our animal brain is in charge – and that choices made are made based on the “basest” part of us – the part we call the animal part.

I know we don’t like to hear that we are “no better than the beast” but, hey – if the shoe fits…

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s good for our overall health to laugh and give thanks often, find moments of peace, and to practice joyfulness.

Why do we have positive emotions? What purpose other than making us “feel good” do they serve – especially as they relate to survival of the species? The survival value of negative emotions seems fairly obvious: Fear helps us avoid attackers, and disgust alerts us to poisons, and so forth. But what possible survival or evolutionary good are joy, contentment, gratitude, and curiosity?

University of North Carolina psychologist Barbara Fredrickson studies the behavior of young patas monkeys, who love to play tag on the savannahs of West Africa, as both an example and metaphor for her “broaden and build” theory of positive emotions. When they are being chased, young patas monkeys will  fling themselves on to saplings, which bend and catapult them in unexpected directions.

The young monkeys are engaging in what appears to be pointless fun – just for the sheer joy of it. In fact, their joy and play are creating a reserve of body memories that later could keep them alive. In adulthood, when fleeing a predator, they will fling themselves on to saplings, which bend and catapult them to escape.

Fredrickson’s theory is positive emotions are life savers. Fredrickson believes these emotions increase cognitive flexibility, conquer harmful negativity, and create a reservoir of resilience that helps us cope with life’s challenges. She has published her studies in a new book, Positivity (Crown Publishers).

Read the rest of this entry »