Tag: brain science

Do antidepressants do more harm than good?

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

Link to study (Primum non nocere: an evolutionary analysis of whether antidepressants do more harm than good).

I have seen a good deal of criticism leveled at this paper, but its reasoning seems sound to me and worth considering.

From the paper: “Ultimately, we come down on the side that the benefits of antidepressants are generally outweighed by their costs, though there may be specific populations where their use is warranted.” (Emphasis mine)

Most of the criticisms I have read of this paper are based on anecdotes (they worked for me) or attacking the journal that published the paper or that they didn’t do any studies of their own. Note that the authors’ argument is not based on a particular experiment but rather on the “…principle of evolutionary medicine that the disruption of evolved adaptations will degrade biological functioning.” Note also that their conclusions are qualified: “Because serotonin regulates many adaptive processes, antidepressants could have many adverse health effects.” And: “We conclude that altered informed consent practices and greater caution in the prescription of antidepressants are warranted.”

I tend to agree with this conclusion and though I have seen anti-depressants do much good, it is almost certainly true that they are over prescribed and very unlikely that they do no harm at all. Thus, the conclusion “…that altered informed consent practices and greater caution in the prescription of antidepressants are warranted” seems well-justified, even if some of the reasoning leading to that conclusion may prove to be wrong.

For Buddhists, there are many other practices to try before resorting to anti-depressants. For FIML practitioners, we would hope that in many cases partners will realize that depression is a symptom of living in a crazy world.

A study that supports FIML

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

454 words

This study–Preventing the return of fear in humans using reconsolidation update mechanisms–supports FIML practice, which works by having partners volitionally interfere with neurotic responses as they occur, thus preventing reconsolidation of the neurotic memory (habitual response).

Truthful data supplied by a FIML partner provides much better (updated) information to the partner inquiring about their incipient neurotic reaction than that partner has had up to that point. This new non-neurotic information that is “provided during the reconsolidation window” results in neurotic responses “no longer [being] expressed”, often within just a few sessions.

The linked study is about fear, but I bet the findings will apply to all sorts of neurotic responses. In FIML practice, we have defined a neurotic response as a “mistaken response” or one not based on good data or evidence.

The technique used in the study produced “an effect that lasted at least a year and was selective only to reactivated memories without affecting others.”

Since most FIML partners will continue doing FIML practice for more than a year, the effects of FIML sessions and follow-up sessions dealing with neuroses should last as long or longer. If an old neurosis regains its power, skilled FIML partners should be able to deal with it rather quickly.

FIML posits that neuroses are very often the result of nothing more than mistakes in listening or speaking. This means that we can expect proto-neurotic mistakes to arise with great frequency (several per hour in most conversations). And this means that FIML partners will want to continue using basic FIML practices whenever they interact.

Another point: the linked study concludes that the effect of their technique is “selective only to reactivated memories without affecting others.” This seems to be the case with FIML practice as well. Memories are not being erased by drugs or other kinds of physical interference. Rather, they are being upgraded during the crucial “window of reconsolidation”. This upgrade does not directly change other memories, though in FIML practice since core neuroses are being confronted, effects will be widespread throughout the organism, causing beneficial changes in personality, behavioral strategies, autonomic responses, ancillary neuroses, and so forth.

I, for one, do not see any other way than FIML practice to deal with the plethora fundamental mistaken interpretations that occur in all human minds and with great frequency. Traditional talk therapy or the more common drug therapies used today can only deal with very general aspects of the fundamental cause of neurotic suffering–humans tend to make a great many mistakes when they speak and when they listen and these mistakes tend to compound and turn into ongoing mistaken interpretations (neuroses) of the self, the world, and people around us.

Mirroring, eye problems, and ADHD

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

In a couple of earlier posts, I introduced the idea of mirroring and how mirroring affects us and our understanding of others. In most human interactions, mirroring is combined with linguistic behavior and semiotic assumptions. We have called these three taken together LSM (Linguistics, Semiotics, Mirroring). There is more to what happens between people than LSM, but it is useful to highlight just those three factors because they give us a way to gain quick insight into many situations. (For the earlier posts, see Mirror neurons and LSM and How greed is mirrored in social groups.)

What I want to discuss today is how certain American assumptions about what constitutes proper mirroring can lead to very serious mistaken interpretations. Most of us know that American culture requires people to look directly at each other when they speak. We associate a direct gaze with forthrightness, honesty, sincerity, respect, and more. Most parents openly teach their children to look directly at any adult who is speaking to them, to not avert their gaze or let their eyes dart around while they are listening.

This cultural prescription is so widely known and accepted, many Americans don’t even realize that it is not a universal human trait. In many cultures, a direct gaze is a sign of aggression and children are taught not to do it. In those cultures, children are taught to look down or look toward the person but not directly into their eyes. If children in those societies act in the way American children are supposed to, their teachers will think they are defiant and need to be disciplined.

Anyway, one way the requirement for a direct gaze in American culture causes a truly serious problem is a good many children are physically not able to do it.

One fairly common reason some children are not able to do it is they have problems with eye alignment (strabismus). Something like 1/20 children have strabismus and very often their condition is not even noticed, not even by their eye doctors. Strabismus causes eye-strain and difficulty in holding a steady gaze. Children with strabismus often look inattentive–they may tip their heads to the side, seem not to notice things (because they really don’t see them); they may close one eye or appear to be fidgeting, or worst of all “acting disrespectful” to their teacher or other adults. And, sadly, this all too often leads to a diagnosis of ADHD.

Far too many doctors who prescribe medication for children accused of (diagnosed with) ADHD do not know that strabismus could be the actual problem. Now, strabismus is definitely not ADHD, so when a child with strabismus is medicated for a brain problem, they are being harmed twice–once for the wrong diagnosis and failure to treat the actual problem and once for giving them dangerous meds when they don’t need them.

It gets worse. Strabismus is only one type of eye problem that can lead to a misdiagnosis of ADHD. The National Resolution of the NAACP claims: “…current research indicates that approximately 1 in 4 children has [eye] vision disorders that….mimic attention deficit disorder…” (Source)

Spend a few minutes perusing this page ADD/ADHD Attention Disorders, Eyesight, Vision, Diagnosis, Treatment and you will find many links and descriptions of this problem, which to this day is still hardly recognized in the USA.

Now that means that a good many children in American schools are being diagnosed with and treated for ADHD when all they have is a problem with their eyes. Simple eye problems may also be the cause of misdiagnoses for dyslexia, learning disability, developmental disability, ODD, and more.

Back to mirroring. The core problem with misdiagnoses of strabismus is these children have trouble doing the American direct gaze thing. Their eyes don’t work that way. Many of them just can’t do it. They are physically not able to mirror a direct gaze, which supposedly shows how honest and respectful they are.

This causes teachers, parents, and even doctors to form a mistaken impression of these children. Rather than notice their eye problems, these people (and it usually takes all of them) have relied on the erroneous cultural understanding that people can be reliably judged by how steady their gazes are.

What a tragedy of ignorance. Welcome to the human race. Ponder the above for a moment–doctors, teachers, and loving parents in concert can so completely misunderstand their own mistaken views of human nature and/or cultural demands that they actually prescribe medications to treat the brain of a kid with eye problems. This state of affairs shows really well how deeply entrenched cultural assumptions are. Our cultural requirement for a direct gaze is so deep in us most Americans are incapable of seeing an eye problem even in their own children/students/patients. All they see is a failure to mirror in the prescribed way and from that they conclude that medication for the brain is what is needed.

I wonder if Asian cultures (which do not require direct gazes from children) are doing better in school stats simply because they are not causing harm to students who have strabismus or other eye problems. I lived in East Asia for a long time and was often struck by how much more variety of facial and ocular expression is allowed in those societies than in America.

In Asia, the inevitable social hierarchy requires obedience, loyalty, and showing up. Clean clothes and a washed face also help, but the main requirements are obedience, loyalty, and showing up most of the time.

In contrast, in America our hierarchies also require direct gazes. The problem with this begins in school–bright kids with eye problems are treated for behavior problems. But it continues in adult life–those same kids grow up and enter the world of work. For the moment, ignore all of the problems caused by misdiagnosis and resulting poor education and other misunderstandings. Let’s just focus on the eyes of those adults–most of them still have the same problems. It’s a strain for them to mirror the American direct gaze. They couldn’t do it when they were kids and they still can’t do it as adults. So, just as they were misdiagnosed as kids, they will be misjudged as adults. They will appear shifty, uncommitted, inattentive, dishonest, disrespectful, etc. Something is not going to look right to far too many Americans. This means we have a culture that has evolved a social hierarchy where people without eye problems have a stronger hold on our hierarchies than they deserve. And this means we are wasting talent and putting people in high places just because they can do the direct gaze thing. Pretty fucking stupid, if you want my opinion. But it’s a great example of how deeply we can be affected by cultural mirroring.

The mother of all neuroses

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

I suppose you could make a sort of syllogism out of this post:

Humans tend to speak and listen from a self-centered point of view.

This tendency causes them to misinterpret the people around them.

These misinterpretations cause more of the same and suffering.

Therefore it is best to correct them.

FIML practice (or something just like it) corrects them.

The mother of all neuroses is our tendency to speak and listen from a self-centered point of view. I don’t mean selfish, but just self-centered in the sense that our bodies and selves are often, inescapably, of primary interest to us.

This tendency causes us to interpret more of what we hear as pertaining to us than it does. This is a mistake. Neuroses are built upon mistaken interpretations.

When we listen we all have a tendency to listen to how much what we are hearing applies to us. If someone says something judgmental, for example, we will probably wonder if it applies to us, even if they are speaking to a third person. In other cases, we may wonder if something being mentioned is our fault, is a concern to us, is there something we can do about it, and so on. A primary concern we all have, and often must have, is how does what we are hearing concern us?

A similar dynamic is at work when we speak. If we are speaking with someone and see that they may be thinking of something else while we are speaking, most of us will tend to infer that they are thinking of something else (often correct) and are not interested in what we are saying (often incorrect). The second part of that is the self-centered part. By making that inference, we have taken a bit of sort of reasonable data (maybe their eyes are looking away) and made more out of it than was true (they are not interested in what we are saying).

When speaking, we also tend to believe that we are being understood in the way we intended, that our listener understands our references, that our reasoning is as clear to our listener as it is to us, and so on.

In all of these cases, we are doing something very natural, indeed all but unavoidable–we are working from a point of view centered around our self, our body, our experiences, our understanding, our feelings, our ears, our eyes, etc.

This makes all of us little neurosis factories because this tendency causes us to make more self-referential (self-centered) interpretations than are true.

There is an almost mathematical beauty to that because this condition arises simply from the way we are.

Since self-referential interpretations naturally will accumulate and compound, it follows that we would do well to clear them out of our minds.The only way to really catch a mistaken interpretation (self-centered or otherwise) is to catch it as it happens.

This is what FIML practice does by allowing us to query and be queried during the dynamic “moment” (a few seconds) of speech as it is happening. Only FIML practice (or something just like it) allows us to stop a conversation and with real data points analyze it for a much richer understanding of its deep context, semiotic associations, emotional states, and so on. FIML works so well because it depends on the objective data point of what was actually said and heard as agreed upon by both partners.

(Note: advanced FIML partners will be able to access and discuss incidents that happened further back in time than a few seconds. It is important, though, for partners to remember that discussions like this must be based on sound FIML practice in the moment. Practice during the moment, based on clear data points, is the building-block of all other FIML practices. This is the only place where partners can establish a reliable vocabulary, mutual understanding, and mutual trust. Please see How to do FIML for more.)