> Ellie:
> The validity of the toxic mind theory is in the scientific evidence put
> forth in the paper, and not in the success or failure of the various
> therapies.
>
> Peter:
> Spoken like a true idealist. :)

Liza:
Heh, heh :D Yes, I think we all know some people in the diet world who
don't seem
to care WHAT the results of their fringe diets are in real life, just as
long as their sacred theory is not challenged. :)

HOWEVER, that being acknowledged, there is also, in my opinion, some merit
to giving real consideration to a theory which, perhaps only in theory
alone, seems to be a MOST useful, sensible, intelligent, insightful,
and elegant explanation of things. I can think of a number of theories like
that, which don't seem to have worked  --  yet  --  in real life. But one
wonders, with brilliant theories of this sort, whether with perseverance
and patience and faith, the petty foibles and shortcomings of the humans
who are attempting to live out the theory, might one day finally ease off a
little, and the theory might actually turn out to have been a real
lighthouse,
or guiding light, or inspiration, or indication of a correct direction or
path, or a blueprint, or something of that nature. A number of (in my
opinion
anyway) utterly brilliant theories about human nature and life in our
universe, are currently out there floating around, and have been for
centuries in some cases, just waiting for the right person or group of
people to figure out how to apply them. So, just because somehting hasn't
worked yet is no reason to dismiss it as destined to failure.

Peter:
> the
> unsuspecting public who reads your article and gets inspired to invest
> hope, time and money into them but who instead of getting well risk
> ending up as disillusioned, therapy casualties who probably would have
> been better off not having entered the treacherous world of
> (psychodynamic) self-improvement in the first place.

Liza:
As always Peter, I appreciate the way you think, and the fact that you want
to protect people from jumping into something that might end up being a
total waste for them; or worse, confuse them EVEN further (and this is
spoken by someone who is just downright confused an embarassingly lot of
the time :) ). And I agree,
there are a lot of really dumb attempts at therapies out there. Awesomely
dumb.

And, I most CERTAINLY would not exclude the entire Mental Health
Establishment from
that judgement. As a matter of fact, the world of self-help and
self-improvement is really quite benign, compared to the utter HORRORS that
are perpetrated upon people in
the legally sanctioned world of the mental health system. Anyone who knows
ANYTHING at ALL about this chilly nether-world just shudders at the thought
of it. The
ugliest, most barbaric legacy of the cruelest physical and mental abuse of
people continues almost completely unchecked and unchanged over human
history -
total violations of human rights including weird drugs, electric shock,
lobotomies and the creepiest surgical experimental procedures, unrestricted
utter neglect and abuse of adults and children. And in the outpatient world
of
the Mental Health System, the most frighteningly twisted things are done by
"experts" in the name of mental "health." The world of the Mental Health
System, with all its employees, from the psychiatrists and psychologists on
down to the orderlies in the hospitals, is a dangerous one. Talk about
confusion.

Compared to that world, the alternative world of "self-help" support groups
and whatnot is really a huge step in the right direction, although I agree
that it, too, is just a lot of foolishness most all of the time. But benign
foolishness, for the most part, in my opinion.

> Ellie:
> Persons who have recovered from this endogenous toxicosis by means of
> experiential therapy, primal therapy, and self-help measures have been
> relieved of a variety of physical disorders and generally enjoy good
> health.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been counseling people, as a
nutritionist, for about 23 years now. What I mean by counseling them, is
that I act as their coach by providing them with information about
nutritional biochemistry, what is currently known about human nutrition and
food science and so on; and we embark on a course of trying to figure out
what it is that their body's signs and symptoms seem to be indicating about
what nutrients it needs more of, what is perceived by it as
irritants-toxins-allergens and so it needs less or none of these, what is
happening with sleep, what is happening with physical activity, and THEN -
the most rewarding part: what might possibly be getting in the way of
getting all these other factors of health straightened out and cleaned up.

It seems that it's just impossible for people to get any of the other
factors cleaned up, unless they tackle the underlying psychological reasons
for their unhealthy
habits (which is why most people find it so extremely difficult to make
lifestyle changes for any length of time, unless they somehow are lucky
enough to have the resources to address this other stuff.

As far as the "primal" aspect of it, or what Ellie's paper seems to be
addressing, I am excited by her whole concept of neurotoxin build-up, for
two reasons. First, I've seen in my work that people do, in fact, seem to
be able to think and function better, when they have a certain kind of
"venting" kind of experience (that I'll describe in a minute); and second,
it makes theoretical sense to me that a body that employs a mechanism of
the temporary storage of toxins which it has absorbed either through the
ingesting of toxic substances, or through the inhalation of them, or
through the absorbtion of them through the skin; which are then stored in
the adipose tissue, or inter- or intra-cellular spaces, and finally
discharged when there is enough energy available to do this (such as on a
fast; or on a very clean diet in a very clean environment with a lot of
rest; or some in other similar situation where enough energy is available
for "detox" to occur) - it seems to me that a body that detoxifys in this
way might also use the same mechanism for storing, again temporarily, toxic
substances in the brain and
central central nervous and immune system (the same system, by the way) and
that it would then "detoxify" in much the same manner as it detoxifies the
rest of the body - in other words, when there was less of a burden on the
normal energy demands, enough of a "clean" environment and "restful"
situation (like a "fast" of the psychology) - so that "detox" could occur
here too.

It just makes sense to me theoretically. So I like that Ellie has done some
research, and more is being done in the very exciting field of
psychoneuroimmunology, to show what happens with the neurochemistry of the
brain and central-nervous and immune system.

Here's an example of one client of mine. She was a highly visible, very
successful, very fast-track, fast-paced, ambitious, accomplished
politician. Very driven. But she was constantly sick, hugely overweight (a
very
big woman - over 6 feet and just under 300 pounds), had multiple allergies
so there was almost nothing she could eat that didn't give her sometimes
very severe symptoms that would land her over and over in the hospital, had
been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and had been struggling with it,
getting progressively worse, with more complications, for about two years,
when she came to me. She had also just been diagnosed with Type II
diabetes. Always fatigued, always running, she drank excessive amounts of
caffeine throughout the day, to keep her going.

The first task was to figure out why was she running? Why has she been
driving herself all her life? When did it start? Why could she not stop, or
rest? Who was she, really, once she stopped running?

In her case, at least at this first stage, what she needed to "get out" of
her system was not in fact fear, or rage, (as has been discussed in these
posts), but in her case there was just so much sadness - she cried and
cried so much - about having lost herself over the years, about how
profoundly tired she was, about the price she'd paid for what she'd
accomplished, about finally getting a little glimpse that maybe it might
finally be safe enough to stop running. And after each time she'd sob and
sob for an hour, she'd end up clear-eyed, obviously VERY relieved of
something - some burden, and eager to make the major changes in her life
that would allow her to get the sleep
and rest she needed, and more and more live a life that was based on what
she loved to do, not what she was being driven to do for irrational
reasons.

There were many stages with her reclaiming her health, and all the diet
changes were always accompanied or preceded by the "venting" or "emotional
detoxing" of
something or other. Like for instance a while later on down the road, maybe
70 pounds
lighter and having long ago given up caffeine, sugar, and other stimulants
and problem foods; she found herself one evening, at a dinner party, eyeing
cheesecake at another table, and realizing that she was deciding to order
some. Turned out she had been trapped across the table from an ambitious,
cut-throat egomaniac, who was using her rank and taking advantage of her
being captive at the table to accomplish an evil, dirty deed, and she
couldn't figure her way out of the situation. She remembered thinking that
the
cheesecake would be by far the only good thing about the whole horrible
evening. So that session, when she saw me, she spent an hour discharging
rage
- not only at this particular man at this particular dinner party - but at
a whole
long laundry list of similar events that she remembered over the years -
times she had been trapped in situations she couldn't figure her way out
of, and when food had been the only good thing. After that session, all
SORTS of things fell into place for her - meaning that she became able to
see all sorts of ways that food had been an "out" when she had felt trapped
in many different ways in her life.

Anyway, that is a little bit about one client's experiences with detoxing
emotions (or, as Ellie is pointing out, emotional "chemicals"), and how
this seems to go hand-in-hand with detoxing other irritants from the body.

> Ellie:
> There are many reasons for the poor track record of various therapies.
> The most important, I think, is because therapists do not help the
> client redirect anger during the session. A person could be in primal
> therapy and have a primal but not direct anger toward early abusers.

Liza:
Based on my own experience, I really haven't found that it matters much at
all if the person even KNOWS what or at whom they are directing their
anger. My approach, which seems to work very well, is that AS LONG AS THE
PERSON IS ACTUALLY MAKING REAL CHANGES IN THEIR LIFE - changing to more
rational behaviors, or changing basic attitudes in a way that they want -
that the emotional release that comes spontaneously as a result of real
action like this, in real life, is exactly the kind of release that they
need to do.

I use young children as the model for this - a child will cry
and scream and throw a fit and release all kinds of volcanic-like rage and
frustration, and then be as bright as a daisy. You very often have no clue
what it's about - neither do they - it just kind of happens and you know
its honest, and
happening for a good reason, and the best you can do is just be there and
hang out with the child and remain calm and loving and unruffled and real,
and when it's done, it's done, and something has been resolved that allows
the child to go on and resume functioning in life  a little better. It's a
natural process, (that of course, like most of our natural processes, is
usually tampered with and messed-up by misguided adults).

> Peter:
> Primal therapy is very much about redirecting not only anger but also
> need and fear
>
> Yes, fear is a sign anger is trying to emerge and a good time to
> redirect it.

I think there are different emotions that need to come out, and get pent
up, and sometimes I've seen them come out all by themselves, and other
times I've seeen them come out overlapping each other or side-by-side, or
every which way. I don't think it matters, as long as the process is just
encouraged to happen however it wants to happen itself, and isn't
"interfered" with the way we like to do with things. My opinion (for
whatever its worth) is that "directing" it one way or the other, because we
think it belongs there, probably just makes us feel like we're doing
something, and most likely mostly just gets in the way. And I also don't
think fear is a sign that anger is trying to emerge, or vice versa. I think
they are two different emotions. I KNOW that I sometimes feel fear, just
all-out icy terror, scared to DEATH. It has nothing in the world to do with
anger trying to emerge. I'm just scared out of my gourd. (Like, for
instance, try bungee jumping, or parachuting. And try to tell me that what
you feel is anger trying to emerge. :D And by the way, if you feel that you
are a person who is somehow locked into a lot of timidity, and fear seems
to get in the way of you doing what you wish you could do, I highly
recommend activities like parachuting for discharging, or getting rid, of
fear! You will shake like a LEAF, sweat till you're soaked through, pee
your pants, and many other very obvious and exhilirating symptoms of heavy
detoxification of fear. My rules for effectively discharging fear (taught
my children this about rides at the amusement park, and life in general):
1) You must keep your eyes open 2) You must smile (even if it is the last
most frozen fear smile you ever make before you die of fright), and 3) You
must make LOUD noise (not allowed to scrunch up and tighten up and stuff it
in so tight that all you've done is add to your already huge overload of
"fear neurotoxins" waiting to be eliminated :)

Well, this is a very large post. Hopefully it's not too long to make it
through to the list.

Now I think I'll go eat some more horseradish - my latest thing I cannot
get enough of.
That and cilantro. Weird.

Love,  Liza


--
[log in to unmask] (Liza May)