Tag Archives: emotional distress

Adversity’s Silver Lining

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A little trauma actually strengthens your resilience.

A little trauma actually strengthens your resilience.

Mark D. Seery of the University at Buffalo published a paper on the psychological effects of adversity vs resilience. He concludes that a little adversity is actually good for you. But, how much is “too much” adversity depends on each person’s resilience. Many studies have shown that traumatic events can cause long-lasting psychological damage.

The common wisdom is “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – which is not supported by scientific evidence. Quite the contrary, most evidence points to the opposite – that which doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, at least psychologically.

However, Seery contends that a little trauma actually strengthens your resilience – a bit like exercise traumatizes yet strengthens muscles. Just like in the case of strengthening muscles by traumatizing them (to build muscle, one must damage muscle cells a little), a few traumatizing events in one’s lifetime can strengthen their resilience after future traumas.

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Fear Memory Deletion?

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This research strongly suggests that the emotional content of long-term memories can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

This research strongly suggests that the emotional content of long-term memories can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

Another study, this time from the Universiteit van Amsterdam, demonstrates that memories – most particularly long-term fear memories – are encoded when they first happen and then again whenever we re-store those memories. There is a short period of time in which the brain must chemically “prepare” and then “store” the memory. Whenever we bring the memory back to mind, it must go through the same process to re-store it in the brain. In both of these labile phases, the memory is vulnerable to change.

This research strongly suggests that memories are not, therefore, permanent structures in the brain. Their emotional content can be removed by interrupting the labile phase of long-term memory storage.

I wrote about the brain’s file cabinet in another post (Click here to read). Basically, the brain requires a chemical to access memories and to code them back after accessing them. It’s as though we take each memory, like a file, out of the long-term memory cabinet, close the cabinet, look at the file, use it, then open the cabinet again to put the file back in. If I understand Kindt’s research correctly, interrupting that process at the “putting back in” phase can, in theory, stop the perpetuation of the effects of fear memories by eliminating the fear in the memories.

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More than Global Warming

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A wealth of evidence has shown that small amounts of carbon dioxide can provoke a panic attack (PA) in certain anxiety-prone individuals.

A wealth of evidence has shown that small amounts of carbon dioxide can provoke a panic attack (PA) in certain anxiety-prone individuals.

The Public Library of Science (PLoS ONE) recently published a study showing that inhalation of carbon dioxide (CO2) triggers emotional distress and a panic response in healthy people. The researchers wonder if panic is an inborn survival-oriented response. The results may better our understanding and help prevent some emotional disorders.

A wealth of evidence has shown that small amounts of carbon dioxide can provoke a panic attack (PA) in certain anxiety-prone individuals – like those diagnosed with panic disorders (PD). Panic may be an inborn behavioral response to a metabolic distress – like the triggering of a CO2 level monitor in the brain.

To test whether CO2 effectively controls emotional states, the research team of the Academic Anxiety Center at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands (Griez et al) conducted a study in healthy volunteers breathing increasing amounts of CO2.

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Increased Stress

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Stress can be easily managed by you from within you.

Stress can be easily managed by you from within you.

2009 “Perceptions of Stress in Adults”, a part of APA Study, Stress in America survey results show that adults continue to report high levels of stress and many report that their stress has increased over the past year. Additionally, many adults are reporting physical symptoms of stress.

75% of adults reported experiencing moderate to high levels of stress in the past month (24 % extreme, 51 % moderate) and 42 % reported that their stress has increased in the past year. 43 % of adults say they eat too much or eat unhealthy foods as a result of stress. 37% report skipping a meal because they were under stress.

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Take a Shower!

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Feeling blue? Try a nice hot shower!

Feeling blue? Try a nice hot shower!

Whenever someone has felt a cold or the blues around our house, my wife’s first instruction to them is, “Go take a nice hot shower.” I’ve felt amused and have sometimes chuckled over her patent response to illness. How can the same “cure” be applied to so many physical and emotional conditions?

My own skepticism aside, her “cure” usually works a wonder.

And it seems her instructions have been borne out by scientific evidence. Researchers from the University of Michigan have “discovered” what my wife has known for years – that washing can influence mental health.

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Parallel Trauma

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Teenagers tend to pick up the "vibes" of their friends more strongly than do younger children or adults.

Teenagers tend to pick up the “vibes” of their friends more strongly than do younger children or adults.

It is a well-studied and known phenomenon – teenagers pick up the “vibes” of their friends more strongly than do younger children or adults. During adolescence, we bond very closely to friends. We pick up on their hurts and joys, sharing them in a much more psychologically intimate way than at other times in our lives.

I believe we may also pick up our friends’ traumas and make them our own. More than once have I worked with a client reporting childhood, teen, or young adult trauma that later turned out to be “ghosts” – imaginings based on a friend’s childhood trauma introduced to the shared sensitivities of an intimate group of young friends.

In other words – a false memory. Still, a memory with all the power and influence of a real trauma. And I, as the clinician, treated the symptoms of that trauma as though the original trauma belonged to my client. My client “owned” it, so why not treat it as thought it belonged to my client? Made sense to me. The mind is unable to differentiate between real and imagined when it comes to trauma.

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Honoring Emotion

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Honor your emotions

Even those who profess to have no emotional energy about something may still feel something physical (a sensation) related to an emotion.

I think addressing physical symptoms is the key to healing just about any emotional issue that includes a physical aspect. Addictions, colds, allergies, irrational fears, weight issues, and a host of others I find respond well to healing modalities like Rapid Eye Technology (RET) and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), when focused on “What do you feel in your body when…?” rather than “How do you feel (emotionally) about that?”.

Emotions are so nebulous and esoteric for most people, I think. However, even those who profess to have no emotional energy about something may still feel something physical (a sensation) related to an emotion.

For example, I once worked with a lawyer who had absolutely no emotional responses to “How do you feel about your impending divorce?” But his body was wracked with pains of all sorts that he could not explain. And even for those aches and pains he could explain (over-exercise, etc.), they ALL responded to RET’s Instant Release Technique – but ONLY if I asked “what sensations do you feel right now in your body [as we're talking about the divorce]?”. He had four sessions and turned his life around completely (fortunately, his wife did RET sessions at the same time, so they felt they were working together to rescue their marriage – which they both felt was worth preserving after 40+ years).

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About Physical Sensation and Therapy

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Sight and touch are connected in the brain.

Sight and touch are connected in the brain.

Reported in Medical News Today, a study by University of Southern California shows a direct relationship between sight and feeling. When you see something, you tend to feel it also. Further, when you recall the sight of something, you also retrieve the memory of how it feels to touch what you saw.

I suggest that not only do you feel the sensation of the items you see, you also feel the sensations you felt at the time you saw whatever it was you saw. It’s a memory “package” that includes all sensory and emotional elements involved in the experience.

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5 Steps to Recanting Abuse Charges

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"I'll say and do whatever it takes to get out of here..."

"I'll say and do whatever it takes to get out of here..."

And Why You Shouldn’t Fall For Them!

An analysis of recordings of jailhouse telephone conversations between men charged with felony domestic violence and their victims have helped psychologists better understand why some victims decide to recant and dismiss charges against perpetrators.

“The existing belief is that victims recant because the perpetrator threatens her with more violence. But our results suggest something very different. Perpetrators are not threatening the victim, but are using more sophisticated emotional appeals designed to minimize their actions and gain the sympathy of the victim. That should change how we work with victims.” -  Amy Bonomi, associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University and study lead author.

The study outlines 5 steps perpetrators used to convince their victims to recant their stories and reverse the charges against them. I recognize these stages as I’ve seen them used. Knowing these stages can put you in a strong position to avoid falling for them.

Step 1 – Heated Argument – in which the perpetrator tries to argue his actions against a strong and resistant victim – “You hurt me and you’re not getting away with it this time!” “Well, if you’d just do what I tell you, I wouldn’t have to hit you, bitch!”

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Post Trauma Embitterment?

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Chronically blaming others could be a symptom of post-traumatic embitterment.

Chronically blaming others could be a symptom of post-traumatic embitterment.

“Persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person’s physical health…. When harbored for a long time, bitterness may forecast patterns of biological dysregulation (a physiological impairment that can affect metabolism, immune response or organ function) and physical disease.” – Carsten Wrosch, professor, Concordia University Department of Psychology and member of the Centre for Research in Human Development.

Michael Linden, head of the psychiatric clinic at Free University of Berlin considers chronic bitterness as a mental disorder, labeling it Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED).

Trauma can show up in a number of scenarios individualized to each person – trauma to one is not necessarily trauma to another and visa versa. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been well studied and documented, effective treatments of which have been noted in this blog. PTED, however, is not yet accepted as a mental condition. In fact, many don’t see embitterment as a treatable condition – rather, most might simply say, “get over it” or “move on.”

My experience with post-traumatic stress has been that some people can’t simply “get over it” – in fact, they are securely stuck in the trauma. Embitterment could grow out of that trauma just as a number of other symptoms can.

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