| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| RikR |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 07:25:47
I was reading a synopsis of research on childhood development alterations of the nervous system that would help predict later life stress induced illness. It was confirmed some years ago that children having adverse in-utero or childhood experiences would have permanent, negative changes in their nervous systems. These changes would lower stress tolerance and make the person more likely to have over arousal health problems.
Here is the new research confirmed through multiple, large scale studies: how a child’s nervous system develops is not only based on what happens to them but even more importantly what does not happen. A family can look stress free and fairly normal but unless certain stages of the child's development are addressed the nervous system will not develop properly.
Here is one I found very interesting, if parents are able to provide the child with consistent positive feelings these produce chemicals that promote cellular brain growth. At some stages children are producing several billion new neuronal connections per minute. If parents are anxious, detached, absent or not capable of providing the required emotions the child's emotional and stress systems will be impaired.
And here is one stated as critical: babies are unable to self regulate many internal processes, including blood pressure, heart rate, hormone production etc. They require the cathexis (physical & emotional bonding) to teach their bodies how to self regulate. Through mirror neurons or some other unknown process just as the child shared the mothers physiology in utero we now know that even after birth the child remains connected to both parents internal systems for self-regulation....primarily the mothers.
There is no doubt that outright neglect or abuse causes damage but for the first time it is understood that a distracted, emotionally labile, stressed, anxious, ill, over committed, self-involved or absent parents alter the child's ability to self regulate in permanent ways.
While this lessens as the child ages any absence of the parent, especially the mother in the first 6 years creates developmental problems. This absence can be physical or emotional. With many parents working full time the child is disconnected from critical developmental steps necessary for a healthy nervous and emotional system. It was also found that care-giving by relatives did not provide the connections then child needs – it only occurred with a fully involved, emotionally stable and available parent.
While fathers can be adequate physical primary care parents it is the mother that shares certain DNA strands with the child that was found to be most critical in nervous system development.
Simply children need a stable, fully involved mother, in the home or with them until around the age of six. At this age the father starts providing more of the neuronal development through independent exploration, problem solving, physical activity, self esteem through life potency and skills development.
Children who lack these developmental necessities are more prone to illness, less stress hardy, lack certain life skills and can suffer psychological difficulties.
|
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| pspa123 |
Posted - 03/24/2013 : 08:48:30
Birdie wonderful posts, and so very true at least for those of us who need much more than what James calls the top down methods. |
| RikR |
Posted - 03/24/2013 : 05:49:27
Mixing stress sensitivity with a wounded child that has to prove themselves and you have a recipe for TMS
If that child is not taught self love and self-compassion the stress builds more as we can be driven past our thresholds and boundries |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 03/24/2013 : 02:21:48
Chickenbone, that was the same to me: I always wondered why I felt so cut off, seperated, empty and sometimes alienated. It really helped me a little to understand the why even though it did not change how I felt and how I am feeling.
With this brittle fundament "normal" stressors of life can get extremly stressful. And even traumata later in life are more probable to lead to a full-blown PTSD because the "inner safe harbour" kids normally developped by internalizing an attatchment figure was not able to develop properly. This lack of inner representations (also descriped as ability to mentalize by Fonagy) often results in conditions like being overly in your mind (heavy-headed), suffering frome the more severe range of psychosomatic disorders, being overly anxious, developping addictions to calm one self down or to fill the inner emptiness or even showing some ADHD-like behaviour (I am sure some children being diagnosed with "ADHD" have early attatchment issues). It even leads to symptoms related to either the flight or fight or even more probable to the collapse/freeze-response (because very young children and babys are not able to flight or fight, all they can do to reduce unbearable stress is to shut down the system). There is, conscious or unconscious, a really huge desire to be touched and in contact with other human beings. But that's exactly the same thing that - also often unconscious - triggers a big fear and is very frightening (what then can trigger TMS-symptoms).
But it is definitely possible to work on re-connecting to the own body and emotions and even to other people! Probably that won't happen over night, but learning a new language also needs some exercicing and time!
I try some kind of "pacing" to get back into contact with beloved people and with myself (even noticing that I am not really embodied and in deep contact with others needed a lot of time!). Trying to be more in my body and to get its messages, trying to care for myself, what do I really need right now? And how does this feel? And where do I feel this? For me it's really a bit like learning a new language. But I am also curious about this journey. So for me it's not only a TMS-jorney, it's more a journey to get connected with life.
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 03/23/2013 : 21:24:54
Birdie, I think we are kindred souls. I could really relate to what you were saying. I never, until now, knew what it was that made me feel so separated from other people.
I don't blame anyone for my difficult early life circumstances. I don't think my family, my caregivers, hospital staff, etc. ever realized why I was the way I was. No one ever deliberately treated me badly, even the woman who physically abused me for toilet training purposes, thought she was doing the right thing. I am sure, to them, I was just a very unappealing child. They all thought they were doing the right thing. If I have resentment, it is toward the entire sad human condition.
And Dr. James, I commend you for your decision to practice what you preach. Mental health for your children. Economics has a way of hitting the reset button on human existence. I think that when this huge consumption binge fueled by easy credit finally collapses, which I think is not too far off, people are going to realize how they have been "had" by governments and special interest groups and get back to the basics of living. They will finally see what a sick society we have created for ourselves. I can hope, can't I? |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 03/21/2013 : 11:12:24
Couldn't agree with you more Dr. James, child rearing has been abdicated to a governmental curriculum, TV and computers. |
| Dr James Alexander |
Posted - 03/21/2013 : 05:38:26
i think this is entirely real, and suggests a great calamity which we as a culture are doing in regards to our child rearing practices. Most researchers dont want to make too many statements about the brain effects on children being raised in day care centres as they will incur the wrath of the many people who are reliant upon them (and fear being painted as anti-feminist misogynists). It is an awful dilemma for working parents, and is not their failing as much as it is the failing of our culture that has geared the basic set up such that we need to have certain income levels- or do we? We chose to leave good paying jobs behind in a capital city and went to live in the countryside with our 2 small kids when we realised we were just paying other people to raise them. We had to live on a much smaller income, but as our financial needs were fewer i the bush, it wasnt such a problem. For years, i worked just part time and my wife worked only occasionally, just so that we could actively raise our kids.This did not occur to us as a possibility, until it did. In a brilliant book by economist Clive Hamilton called 'Affluenza' (probably the best social psychology book i have read), he cites research which reveals that around 30% of Australians are self-identified 'down-shifters', i.e people who have chosen to reduce their income level and economic standard of living in order to have a better quality family life. Obviously, a lot of people find different ways of doing this. However, the ability to do this voluntarily is obviously only really possible in an affluent society- it is a luxury afforded by affluence. I believe middle-class America is suffering extreme financial hardship at the moment, so there is probably a need to earn whenever this is possible. But, the effects on children of not being mothered by their mums is a real concern.
James |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 03/21/2013 : 01:37:02
Chickenbone, I have a very similar story. Spent the first months of my live in hospital and as you say: only the nurses were allowed to come in. And I seriously doubt that every time a baby cried a nurse cared for the baby...So the very early attempts of the baby to connect and to bond were frustrated.
I was also told that I didn't want to be held and I got totally stiff if somebody wanted to touch me. My aount and later my stepmother felt deeply rejected by my behavior, they didn't understand this. Doctors at this time had told them that babies are kind of "stupid" and don't notice what's going on around them so it will be no problem what happened to me. Even the fact that I was beaten up several times by my very jealous step-sister who liked to push my head against the wall and throw me off the baby changing table was no problem, because babys are stupid and forget everything.
(Unfortunately my behavior lead my care givers to the conclusion that I must be "genetically bad" and not a nice child because all childs want to cuddle so if I didn't want and also showed some other not normal behavior that must be the proof I am a bad child. I even wanted to sleep in my own bed from the first day on I came back home. Too bad I had to go back to hospital because I got seriously ill again and too bad I lost my mother twice in the first year. My real mum died and with 8 months I was given away from my aunt who rose me up until that time.
Not so much has changed for me until now: I can barely stand physical contact with my husband, I am sleeping alone. By the same time I suffer from separation fear. Nice combination 
And every time it comes to a situation of separation which probably triggers these old memories my TMS is skyrocketing...no wonder.
I really try to be confident now that I will able to overcome some of these early issues even though I was told I have to live with that "imprint" for my whole life. They'd rather like to give me some psycho-drugs...that really makes me angry. Nobody says this will be easy...but hopefully it will be possible.
Chickenbone, often these early abandonments were imprinted as bodily feelings of collapse (because when the baby is alone and cries and nobody cares it learns that it is completely helpless and that often triggered a parasympathicus-driven "freeze-state", disconnecting the self from the feelings and the body. This state often causes beliefs which are based on these bodily experiences and fears: to be rejected completely and to be "not right", to have no very right of existing.
I am only speaking for me here and what was the case for me.
Ok, I know some people here think that being traumatized must not lead to further problems, several examples were given here. But every human is different and I find the main thing is: not to give up. Try to accept the things you cannot change and try to change the things you're able to change. And I am really hopeful that some of these issues can be changed, the human brain and the body are constructed for adaption and change.
I came to the point to see this as a kind of my "personal life task". I was born into these life and I made these experiences and know it's my "task" to deal with this as positive as I can. Every human beeing has its burden and to deal with these burdens in a positive manner (what does not mean to supress it as all people here know what that this can result in ) but in fact to find a constructive way to make it an experience which is integrated into ones biography in a meaningfull way. Ok, don't like to look up for grammar and correct terms so on, but I guess it's clear what I wanted to say.
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| RikR |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 19:45:47
The reserch links you have to buy a mambership. The book: When the body says no
Has a lot of this information in easy to read terms |
| njoy |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 19:24:22
Rik, do you have some links so we can learn more?
*****
"It's worth considering that tms is not a treatment but rather an unfolding of the self, and a way of living as an emotionally aware and engaged soul." Plum |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 17:23:42
I have always wondered about this issue. I was only 2 and a half pounds when I was born and not expected to live. In 1949, a lot of premature babies did not make it. In fact my mother and were included in a big study. I spent the first 6 weeks of my life in a bubble. In those days, only the nurses were allowed in. I am told that after being taken home, I was not very good to live with. I cried most of the time and did not want to be held. Although my mother loved me dearly, I always had trouble bonding with her. I have often wondered how much this affected me. I guess I will never know. |
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 14:52:24
Thanks a lot RageSootheRatio, I checked Laurel Mellin out on amazon and her book "Emotional Brain Training : Getting Started with EBT" (kinde version) is...for free  !
I will probably add some new tools to my tool-cocktail I am already using!
I am actually not able to get into a job so I have the "luxury" of time where I can use the techniques throughout the day.
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| RageSootheRatio |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 14:28:17
Yes, Birdie, you got to the right place ... "Developmental Skills Trainings" (DST) is the old name ... the new name for the program is Emotional Brain Training (EBT) (so you were at the right site www.ebt.org ). (They changed the name when the whole program was updated a couple years ago)
I first learned about EBT from someone else on THIS board quite a few years ago. I started with the first introductory course, "Wired for Joy". The courses can be done by telegroup (they recommend that) or on one's own. I've worked on the material both ways and found it very helpful, all in all. Laurel Mellin, founder of the program has also written several books, the latest of which is called Wired for Joy. It is very much based on the idea of "neuroplasticity" and tries to combine the latest in neurology, stress science and development into a clinical program. It was first developed more than 30 years ago, out of the University of California, San Francisco and has been revised many times since then, based on new research and clinical feedback.
I've done many many MANY things over the years, some on my own, some in more formal ways. I would definitely say that DST/ EBT has been one of the most life-changing and most helpful, because it seemed to truly get to my "core" /bottom-most issues, and in a gentle way. I think I said this on another thread but the whole program seems to me to be one big "elaboration" of regulation, limit-setting and nurturing skills. As I had a lot of developmental "holes" the program VERY much helped me and I only wish I had started it when I was a LOT younger. Maybe that would have *prevented* my TMS from developing in the first place!
Having said that, I don't think *I* could have used EBT, alone to "cure" my TMS. (I had already used Dr Sarno's approach with good effect on my chronic sinus headaches) by the time I first learned about it. But it has been extremely helpful along my journey and I definitely benefited from many of their ideas, including their approach to journalling. It is all about rewiring "the limbic brain" which I appreciated, as I had already done lots of "cognitive" approaches which didn't really address what I really needed.
Hope this was helpful.. if this sounds interesting to you, maybe check out Laurel Mellin's books first .... my favourite of hers is The Pathway (even though it's not the most recent.)
RSR
|
| Birdie78 |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 13:52:15
RageSootheRatio, I only found one article about it:
http://www.ebt.org/sites/default/files/images/DST_White_Paper.pdf
I'm dealing with this developmental issues for my whole life and despite many years of therapy wasn't able to "fix" these development related problems (and I guesss that's also the root of my TMS)...so I'd like to know a bit more about it.
Did you benefit from this approach?
Perhaps this approach also provides some tools one can do on its own (don't like to do any further therapy...my health insurance is not paying any more)
Kind regards from Germany sends Birdie |
| pspa123 |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 08:21:42
And how do researchers determine whether a parent provided a child with consistent positive feelings? a questionnaire? A hidden camera? |
| RageSootheRatio |
Posted - 03/20/2013 : 07:37:17
and because lots of people do not have ideal (or even good enough) in utero or childhood development, that is why the advances in the understanding of neuroplasticity are so important. And that is why I have gotten so much out of Developmental Skills Training, which seeks to "complete" the development many of us did not get. |
|
|
