(800) 379-9220, (732) 246-8439     Highland Park, Jersey City, Freehold       Margaret Nichols Ph.D., Director

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Issue 5 - March 2007

Welcome to Issue Five of Growing, the newsletter of the Institute for Personal Growth. This is an exciting issue because it includes articles, news, a meditation, and poems by IPG staff member Neil Selden and spoken-word performance artist, Dujuana Sharese.

It may seem strange to see poetry in a ‘mental health’ newsletter, but it is in keeping with the newest paradigms in psychotherapy. It is clear that while ‘talk therapies’ like cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic approaches achieve a certain effectiveness, they have limitations because they engage only the ‘thinking brain,’ the neocortex.

But neuroscience advances have demonstrated the essential role played by parts of our brain/body that don’t reason, analyze, talk, or remember consciously. The subcortical regions of the brain, our muscles, digestive system, even our immune systems are impacted by events in our lives and in turn they control us more than we know. Brain imaging studies provide science-based reasons to believe in the efficacy of techniques that were once considered ‘flaky’ - hypnosis, body work, meditation, and EMDR, for example.

And so – why not poetry? Bessel van der Kolk, the international expert on trauma and PTSD, tells of being in South Africa after apartheid had just ended. He witnessed communities of survivors of police/military atrocities gather together in rituals that involved dancing, singing, and testifying to their personal experiences in front of witnesses. These gatherings were highly effective in healing trauma. Perhaps our modern therapy theories need to include methods that are innovative and ancient at the same time - methods like movement, poetry and stories, and music.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Growing.

Peace
Margie Nichols, Ph.D.

FOR LOVERS: Keeping Valentine’s Day Year-round
By Cindy Bink, L.P.C.
Staff Psychotherapist at IPG

I love being a lover’s counselor. There is such great power in a room of lovers. But like the Star Wars movies, this power can be used for many purposes. Great love or great hate can generate great energy that can be used for good or bad.

I also love observing lovers begin the counseling process. They wonder if the power of their love has completely fizzled out, or if some spark can be re-ignited. Usually they look to me as their counselor to tell them if their relationship is worth salvaging. Perhaps I’m too optimistic but I don’t believe we ever lose love completely, it just gets clouded, we can’t see it, or we decide to give up, because it takes too much work to bring it back in focus. Most lovers new to counseling are angry and disappointed at each other because they miss the time when they felt happy just to be in each other’s presence. They long to be back in that blissful state of their romance, and think, if they only could improve their communication skills, they would find it again. They are not that far off, according to Harville Hendrix, the author of Getting the Love That You Want. The key to re-creating that newness or romance is to experience your partner from a new perspective through communication. Here is my short interpretation of the communication steps Dr. Hendrix calls "Intentional Dialoguing." Try it first with a simple problem you're having with your lover, and then move on to other issues and see what happens.

• Step 1: Don’t talk when both of you want to kill each other. In order for communication to be productive at least one of you needs to be clearly committed to making the relationship better. If you’re feeling the need to let your partner know how f****d up they are, you are not in the right place to improve your relationship. Give yourself some time to calm down. Usually in every relationship there is one person who has a hard time with this. They’re the ones that will talk long into the night, even when it is clear it isn’t helping. So give yourself some time to get ready, and then ask yourself, "Am I committed to hearing what my partner has to say?" When you are, move onto Step 2.

• Step 2: Stop talking. If only one of you stops talking, the other will have the opportunity to be heard and seen. Being seen or heard by your lover is one of the greatest experiences of our lives. Sometimes I think that simply listening (witnessing) a person’s experience in therapy does more for them than all the counseling skills I learned in graduate school. It’s easy and simple. Be quiet, zip-lock your lips, and then move to step three.

• Step 3: Empty your brain while you partner unloads. The only way anyone can deeply listen is to empty one’s mind of what they want to say and what they already know about the person they’re talking to. This works in any relationship. Imagine swimming under water for a great distance, coming up for air and taking a long deep breath in. You are breathing in your partner’s words. Or see yourself as an empty glass being filled by your partner’s words. Pretend you don’t already know everything about them and can no longer read their mind. Just kidding, we all know you can’t read his or her mind, right? I promise you, if you do just this, you will have a completely different experience of your partner.

• Step 4: Let them speak and then repeat what you hear. After your partner has plenty of time (as much as they need), repeat what you heard. If they are talking too long and you don’t think you’ll remember it all, ask them to stop for a while so you can repeat what they have said. Go with your gut on this one. If your partner is in the middle of some heart-wrenching story, exploding with emotion, don’t stop them. Sometimes people just need to vent and allowing them the opportunity to talk can release a lot of relationship tension and make it better for you in the long run. So when you are clear they have finished, begin telling them what you heard. Ask them to let you say it all without interruption. Let them know that they will have a chance to correct you once you finish. IMPORTANT: This is not the time to bring in your impressions or personal opinions about how wrong they are. Remember you’re only a vessel at this point, receiving you partner’s words.

• Step 5: Make sure you get it right. After you have repeated what your partner just told you, make sure you got it right. If not, try it again. You may be surprised at the nuances you missed that were really important to him or her. So stay calm and keep at it. Eventually you will get it right and remember, just because you think you know your partner, doesn’t mean you do.

• Step 6: Do it again! Is there more? If they have something to add, let them say it. Sometimes when they hear you repeat what they just said, it reminds them of other things they wanted to say. Believe me, this won’t go on forever. You may think it will, but it won’t. In the beginning your partner may be so amazed you’re letting them talk, they may not come up for air for several minutes. Give them time and then give them more time. I can’t tell you enough how great it is for someone to be heard after sometimes years of arguments that left him or her feeling misunderstood.

• Step 7: Pull it all together in a summary. This can be the hard part. You have to make sure you get the full picture of what your partner is going through. Summarize the whole thing, pulling it all together. Then, check in with them to make sure you got it. You are almost there. Keep going.

• Step 8: It doesn’t help to tell someone that they shouldn’t think …what they think. Let them know what makes sense to you. Hopefully you really did empty your brain and heard something that you never did before. You’ve stepped into the shoes of your partner and left your own self behind. There should be plenty that makes sense to you now about why your partner feels the way they do. Let them know what does. For example, if you never realized that your partner thinks that every time you tell a joke at a party you’re insulting them, it might make sense to you that they would hate going to parties with you. Get it? After you tell them what make sense to you, ask them if they felt you understood some of what they were trying to say to you. This is called validation.

• Step 9: Can you feel me? Now pretend that you are not you. You are your partner, with all their personality traits and worries. Look through their eyes and let them know what you would be feeling if you were them. Here is an example. My partner was poor their whole life. If I was poor my whole life I might be anxious around money since I would know what it is like not to have any. The main task here is to get a sense of what your partner may be feeling in their experience and then let them know.

• Step 10: You’re finished! Congratulations! You have completely understood your partner. Now it is your turn. and …….I’m sorry our time is up. Just kidding.

• Step 11: Your turn! Now you get to tell your partner about your experience, and they should follow these same eleven steps. But remember - Hendrix calls this "Intentional Dialoguing." That means you are not just ‘letting loose’ on your partner. You are sharing your experience, so that you can understand each other and hopefully have your needs met. Your communication needs to be responsible and helpful while at the same time open, honest and as deep as you can get.
Go for it!

WOMEN'S INTUITION – It Can Save Your Life
By Penny Regensburg, L.C.S.W.

A woman is approached by a man stating he would be more than happy to help her with her groceries. Intuitively, the woman experiences a sense of danger. She senses a sick feeling in her gut. This is her intuition telling her it is not a good idea to indulge this man’s request. She chooses to ignore what her intuition is telling her. This is a mistake that leads to her being raped and nearly murdered one half hour later.

Women are raised to be nurturing, kind, and obliging. This is a social norm that does not always serve us well. We go into automatic pilot and say "yes" when we want to say "no." Many times when a stranger is nice to us, we strive to be seen as equally as nice. We do this by listening to others instead of listening to ourselves. We are systematically taught as children to look outside ourselves for validation, always worrying how others perceive us. This leaves us vulnerable, negates our power, and puts us at the mercy of others.

"Intuition," as described in the Webster Dictionary, is the power of knowing immediately and without conscious reasoning. The root of the word intuition means "to guard, to protect." The power of intuition is innate and priceless. Unfortunately, many women don’t bother to listen to their intuition. This disregard and lack of trust of our intuition could lead to physical and emotional trauma, even death.

So, not trusting herself, the woman obliges the stranger, and the moment the first grocery bag passed from her finger tips to the well dressed stranger’s, he knew she was his. Now, in possession of her groceries, and her power, the stranger is confident in his control over her. He has her right where he wants her. The stranger’s agenda was not to help the woman, but to do her harm. His intent was to profile her to see if she was an easy target. This seemingly insignificant exchange assured the stranger that the woman was willing to trust him.

A number of doubts go on in the victim’s mind at this point, not only doesn’t she trust the stranger, but more importantly she, in no way, trusts herself. Her lack of self esteem, feelings that others know better, and her desire to be considered kind and friendly has lead her to make a crucial mistake.

Intuition is often defined as having a "gut feeling," or an "internal voice." Women will dismiss this internal voice, and more times than not, will rely on cognitive logic alone. What they don’t realize is that their gut feeling (intuition) is a cognitive process that works much faster than this prodding of logic that they so readily respect. Women’s intuition is initially our best form of self defense; it is vital to personal safety.

Penny Regensburg is a highly experienced black belt in martial arts, as well as being a psychotherapist at IPG. She has developed and runs a six-week training course for women called "Secret Warrior Self Defense" which utilizes intuition to avoid attack but also teaches skills to enable a woman to ward off attempted attacks, including from those larger and stronger than herself. For more information, call Penny at 800-999-0076.

THE NEUROSCIENCE OF EMOTIONAL HIJACKS
Or Why We "Lose It"
By Margaret Nichols, Ph.D.

"Emotional Hijacks": What they are and why they occur
We’ve all had these moments:
• someone says something to us and we immediately feel hurt way out of proportion to the words spoken;
• certain people trigger fear in us and we are momentarily ‘paralyzed,’ unable to assert ourselves;
• our partner leaves their underwear on the floor and we feel murderous rage at what should be just annoying behavior.

Sometimes there are patterns to our overreactions; sometimes we even know why they occur – this comment reminds us of a schoolyard taunt hurled at us years ago, that person reminds us of our father. But we are helpless to prevent our emotions from spilling over, again and again.

Emotional "overreactivity" – whether it be hurt, fear, anger, or even numbness – is something that happens to all of us at least occasionally. When our emotions are frequently extreme in relation to the life events that seem to trigger them, our disturbance may reach the level of a ‘mood disorder.’ Anxiety disorders, anger impulse problems, even depression - all these conditions involve specific types of overreactions to life events. People who suffer from mood disorders often feel at the mercy of their feelings, as though they are just being buffeted around by them like a hurricane.

But even those of us without mood disorders can have ‘emotional hijacks’ that make us behave irrationally and sometimes do or say things that are counter-productive. Neuroscience is providing an explanation for how these out-of-proportion emotional moments – sometimes called "emotional hijacks" – occur.

To understand these moments, it helps to think of the model of the human brain as the three-part, or ‘triune brain.’ The first part of our brain to evolve was the ‘reptilian brain,’ responsible for all our basic body functions and also wired for survival reactions – ‘fight, flight, or freeze,’ which for animals is quite literal; all animals, including us, have three alternatives when endangered: we can run away, attack and defend, or ‘play dead,’ and all three strategies have survival value in certain situations.

The second part of our brain to develop is what is called the ‘paleomammalian brain,’ or ‘the emotional brain.’ The emotional brain, also called the ‘limbic system,’ receives information from all the senses – sight, sound, smell, touch – as well as internal body experiences. The emotional brain also stores emotionally-charged memories – experiences that provoke delight, fear, shame, etc. in us. Mostly, these memories are stored in what is called ‘implicit memory’ – memories that you aren’t conscious of. And they are stored as physical and sense memories more than word memories.

So, for example, when you smell the delicious aroma of your mother’s pasta gravy your emotional brain activates past memories of eating her pasta as a child, and you begin to move toward the table – but your conscious mind is not actually ‘having’ those memories. And when you freeze at the sight of your boss’s face, your emotional brain may be activating implicit memories of your tyrannical father – even though you are having no conscious, or explicit, memories of Dad. Reacting to ‘Dad’, your emotional brain tells your body to behave as you did back then, when the memories first occurred – instead of behaving in a way that is appropriate to what is happening here and now.

When you are propelled towards the savory pasta your emotional reactions are probably not harming you – but if your fear of your boss overwhelms you, you might behave in inappropriate or destructive ways. This is called an "emotional hijack."

How does the brain control "emotional hijacks"?
The last part of the "triune brain" to develop is the "neomammalian brain." The neocortex , also called the "thinking brain," analyzes the same information from the outside world and from our bodies that the emotional brain processes. If the thinking brain arrives at a different conclusion, it moves quickly to suppress the response of the "emotional brain." So, for example, a moment after your boss’s face paralyzes you, your neocortex may send a message saying, "False alarm! …this guy’s your boss, not your Dad, and you get along with him. Chill out."

Part of why emotional hijacks occur is that information about the world and our internal sensations reaches our emotional brain faster than it reaches the neocortex. In the picture below, the visual image of the snake reaches the emotional brain and triggers physical activation in the body. This direct route to the limbic system is quick but sloppy – it is instantaneous, but the information is not fine-tuned. The neocortex, on the other hand, takes longer to work but is more careful and precise.

Let’s say the snake turns out to be a rubber snake. Your limbic system might trigger a sensation of fear and an instinct to run, but then a split second later your neocortex, which ‘sees’ the more complicated picture, will override your fear – "oh, it’s not a real snake, I don’t need to be afraid."

But imagine that you have a snake phobia or have had a terrible experience with a snake in the past. Your first, ‘quick and sloppy’ response might be so overwhelming that the neocortex is not capable of overriding the fear – you might not even be able to process the information that the snake is not alive.

Trauma and emotional hijacks
The neocortex – the ‘thinking brain’ – usually overrides inappropriate emotional responses; otherwise we would be constantly overreacting to life events. But certain responses are difficult to suppress. In particular, traumatic memories can control our reactions to the world in undesirable ways.

Traumatic experiences are stressful experiences that overwhelm the individual, activating arousal at extremely high levels, and that produce intense impulses to act that are thwarted; e.g. trauma involves negative experiences while being trapped and helpless. Remember the reptilian brain and its ‘fight, flight, or freeze’ function? In trauma, we must freeze – and this sometimes has disastrous consequences for the brain. Peter Levine, author of ‘Waking the Tiger,’ likens the body’s state during trauma to having both the accelerator and the brake of a car pushed to the floor at the same time. This tremendous build-up of conflicting energy ‘burns’ traumatic events into the limbic system as powerful implicit (unconscious) memories that can be activated by almost imperceptible triggers, and then we may re-experience the physical sensations and emotions of the original trauma without realizing what is happening to us.

Most importantly, ‘trauma’ doesn’t always have to stem from a horrific experience. During childhood, when our brains are fragile and still forming, commonplace negative experiences can be encoded as traumatic memory. Having a parent who was critical and overly harsh, being taunted by other children, losing a favorite grandparent, failing at school, or even being hospitalized for a tonsillectomy – these are all experiences that the brain may register as traumatic if they occur in childhood. It is the deeply entrenched neurological residue of these events, that we may not see as important or may not even consciously remember, that form the basis of severe or recurrent emotional hijacks.

How to deal with emotional hijacks
First, cut yourself a break. You had little control over what happened to you in childhood, and if you had a certain temperamental susceptibility to trauma and enough bad experiences in childhood and adolescence, you may have a very hard time controlling your over-reactivity in adulthood. There is no reason why you "should" be able to control yourself. Have some respect for your animal nature! Those fight/flight reactions got hard-wired for a reason.

Awareness can help. We all recognize that certain bad experiences bother us more than others. Some negative occurrences seem to be "processed" more than others. In other words, something has happened to the memories, both implicit and explicit, that reduces the emotional and physical vividness of the events. Memories that are "unprocessed" may on a conscious level "feel as if they occurred yesterday," or, on an implicit level, trigger unconscious physical and emotional re-enaction of the original event. Processing turns a potential trauma into simply a bad experience.

Part of the processing of bad memories, unhappy events, etc., takes place during REM sleep, the part of the sleep cycle where we dream. In fact, recurrent nightmares can be a sign of unsuccessful processing attempts.

But part of successful processing is what neuropsychologists call developing a "coherent narrative" of the event; in other words, it makes sense to you and becomes a logical part of your life story. Traumatic events are ‘burned into’ the emotional brain – it takes effort to translate them into a rational story about ourselves in our thinking, conscious brain. So having a conscious awareness of your traumatic experiences, and understanding them from a psycho-social viewpoint, seems to be related to making those events less powerful in our here-and-now lives.

Once you understand your hijacks and know them to be irrational, you can use the thinking brain, especially areas of the frontal lobe, to help control them. Meditation can help strengthen these brain functions, partly because it encourages the development of an ‘observing self’: a "you" that sees the rest of you react to the world. Sometimes just the simple act of watching yourself react changes your reaction and slows down the overreaction.

As you get better at noticing the precursors and triggers of emotional hijacks, you can often ‘self-talk’ in your mind (e.g. ‘this is about stuff that happened a long time ago, not now’) and calm yourself down. If this doesn’t work, you can learn to remove yourself from the trigger – take a ‘time-out’ – until your limbic system (and your body, which has just gotten itself ready for fight or flight) settles down and relaxes a bit. Exercise, yoga, tai chi, and other methods that address the activation of the body can be very successful in helping you stay more level and non-reactive. Self-help books on overcoming childhood wounds and trauma may boost your efforts. Of course, serious trauma or persistent mood overreactivity may require professional help – EMDR and cognitive therapy are usually recommended, and medication can sometimes be useful.

So, while emotional hijacks seem mysterious and a bit frightening, they are usually controllable. It takes some effort to address this kind of emotional reactivity, but it is well worth it in order to feel in control of yourself again.

THE GIFT OF REMEMBERING
By Neil Selden, L.C.S.W.
Staff Psychotherapist

"If one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us." These words are spoken to a group of boys who are suffering the death of a companion they had treated brutally, spoken by Alyosha, the youngest and most spiritual brother in Dostoevsky’s masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov, a novel considered by some to be the greatest ever written.

"One happy memory from childhood can save us." How can a happy memory save us? And is it only happy memories that can save us? How can a memory save us, and save us from what?

Deborah Kerr, speaking to Cary Grant, in the movie An Affair to Remember, remarks wistfully: "Winter must be hard for those who have no memories to keep them warm."

Probably the most ancient method for finding happiness through our memories is the practice of meditation, which can enable each of us to become a so-called "spectator of one's own spectacle," able to witness our own destiny, moment by moment, day by day, with impartial calmness and complete tranquility. Peace, love, joy and gratitude are the gifts of becoming spectator of one's own spectacle, discovering gratitude and joy in the happy, sad, sweet and often painful memories that arise from the unconscious when we allow it to reveal effortlessly pieces of the innumerable images stored deep within us.

For many years now I have given a few minutes of my morning meditation to the unfolding of whatever memories my unconscious bestows, first from the present moment backward to the past, then from whatever earliest childhood memory arises and forward in leaps and bounds toward the Now. Like someone sitting on the bank of a river and watching the fragments of memory, broken branches and bits of wreckage, I try to watch what flows past the mirror of my mind, neither resisting nor clinging to whatever memories and feelings are carried into and out of my awareness.

Imagine sitting in a theatre or movie house and watching all kinds of beautiful and terrible stories unfold, feeling deeply with the characters, yet grateful for the power of the entertainment to remove us from our anxieties. Part of our enjoyment arises from being unburdened; during those hours, the burden of thoughts we have learned to think, the shoulds, the mustn’ts, the regrets, the fears of what tomorrow may bring, the always, the never, the beliefs and all manner of distorted cognitions – the shlep bag of words unspoken, actions not taken – for those hours of being a spectator we are liberated.

Memories can help us immeasurably to experience the same liberation, to be, whenever we find it serves our existence and the existence of others, a spectator of our own spectacle.

It’s easy to understand how positive memories can create good feelings, because the nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a real experience and a vividly visualized experience. Yesterday’s delicious kiss on the lips by a lover can bring a rush of joy or gratitude. But how can the painful experiences that the unconscious may upsurge bring gratitude?

It may take years of practice for most of us, but the more we watch the passage of happy or painful memories, without trying to escape them or grapple with them intellectually or bind them to our heart, the more profoundly grateful we can become for the aliveness, the vulnerability, the child-ness we haven’t lost and can never lose. Those terrible moments when we have been helpless, trapped and vulnerable can, over time, transform that vulnerability, that aliveness, into compassionate action that relieves the suffering of others.

All this became a lived reality for me only after many years of daily meditation, a practice aimed at attaining concentration and oneness to serve all beings. Memories of suffering – both in childhood and in my adult life – have become painful but grateful reminders of the openhearted little boy I am learning to allow myself to be, again and again, when it is safe and I am with compassionate people, especially my beloved partner Lee, and when life is not asking me to work for others as a benevolent emptiness, living in dynamic quietude, ready to help rich and poor, good and bad, enemy as well as friend.

         If you want others to be happy,
         practice compassion.
         If you want to be happy,
         practice compassion.
      However innumerable created beings are,
      I vow to emancipate them all.
      However inexhaustible delusions are,
      I vow to extinguish them all.
      However immeasurable Dharma Teachings are,
      I vow to master than all.
      However endless the Buddha’s Way is,
      I vow to follow it.
         There is no need for temples,
         No need for complicated philosophies.
         Our own heart is our temple;
         The philosophy is kindness.
            –Dalai Lama

IPG NEWS
What's New At The Institute

• We now have six AASECT-certified or certification eligible sex therapists at the Highland Park and Freehold offices of IPG, and one AASECT certified sex therapist in Jersey City.

• We have two or more practitioners trained in EMDR at all offices as well.

• Debbie Williamson, R.N., our Assistant Director, has added a special support group for post-operative transgendered people; call 800-379-9220 for info.

• Margie Nichols, Ph.D., IPG's Director, has published chapters in two books that came out in 2006: the fifth edition of Principles and Practices of Sex Therapy, edited by Sandra Leiblum, Ph.D., considered the standard text in the sex therapy field; and the landmark Sadomasochism: Powerful Pleasures, edited by Peggy Kleinplatz, Ph.D. and Charles Moser, M.D., Ph.D.

• Plans for the summer include hiring part-time staff to analyze the now-substantial body of data from our Internet Male Sexuality Study as well as re-analyze the Female Sexuality Study data now that we have over 1500 respondents.

If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to fill out our sexuality survey:
Female Sexuality Survey    Male Sexuality Survey

LEGALLY INSANE:
Mental Health News We Find Funny Or Interesting

The Illusion of Free Will — Or "My Insula Made Me Do It"

Why is it you can have a $2,000 Visa bill that you know you shouldn’t increase but somehow you can’t resist that Zirconium necklace you saw on the Shopping Channel? Or you have determined to eat better this year, but when the waiter brings the dessert cart to your table you grab the Sudden Death Triple Chocolate Cake?

Scientists have known for some time that humans often attribute conscious, volitional choice to decisions that their unconscious brains have already made. Now, thanks to advances in brain imaging technology and studies of brain-damaged individuals, we can identify a part of the brain that is involved in "irresistible urges."

Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, says: "Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force… The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it."

In the 1970s the physiologist Benjamin Libet wired volunteers’ brains to an EEG machine that measured brain waves while he told the volunteers to make random motions like pressing a button or moving a finger. Libet found that the brain signals associated with the movements occurred half a second before the volunteer was conscious of deciding to move. In other words, the conscious mind "decided," for example, to wiggle a pinky after the brain had already set the wiggling in motion.

Libet’s results have been reproduced many times over the years. These findings suggest that while part of our mind may actually make choices, it is not the logical, analytical conscious mind that we think of as "us," but rather mental processes that we can’t consciously access.

Many of these mental processes involve parts of the unconscious emotional brain that process pleasure and pain, not the conscious "thinking" cerebral cortex. The nucleus accumbens drives us towards pleasant events, real or anticipated, and the insula can be activated by things that provoke disgust or pain. So the nucleus accumbens lights up when thinking about the zirconian necklace, while the insula glows when the VISA bill comes to mind. And people vary in how strong or weak these parts of the brain are. Researchers at Stanford last year took M.R.I.s of subjects in an experiment where the subject was shown both an object – say, a DVD player – and then its price, and asked whether or not they would buy the item. The areas of the brain responsible for registering desire for the object versus disgust or pain at the price lit up on the M.R.I. scans – and predicted what choice the subject would make a few seconds later.

Once again, brain activity not accessible to consciousness preceded subjects' "choice"; in this case spending choices. So those of us with hyperactive nucleus accumbens and lazy insulas rack up those big bills, while those who are wired in the reverse are the savers and tightwads.

The insula is not only associated with pain and disgust, however. Recently, the journal Science reported studies of people with brain injuries that involved the insula and uncovered a startling finding: those with insula damage who had smoked cigarettes prior to their brain injury lost their cravings to smoke – in some cases, they said it was like they "forgot" that they smoked. So the insula may be involved in the intense cravings that drive those addicted to chemical substances – nicotine, but perhaps also alcohol and other drugs.

All this research is suggesting that the conscious mind may be like a monkey riding the tiger of the emotional, subconscious brain: the tiger acts and the monkey frantically tries to make up stories that explain the tiger’s behavior and sound like the monkey is in control. Dr. Dan Wegner of Harvard, who has done experiments showing that humans attribute control to events they could not possibly be causing, says about our belief in free will:

"It’s an illusion, but it’s a very persistent illusion; it keeps coming back. Even when you know it’s a trick, you get fooled every time. The feelings (that you have made conscious choices or caused certain events) just don’t go away."

(Information culled from several articles appearing in the New York Times in December 2006 through February 2007.)

51% Of Women Live Without A Spouse: A Woman Without A Man is Like a Fish Without a Bicycle

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of Census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000. Moreover, in 2005, married couples with or without kids became a minority of households for the first time in Census history.

At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods of time. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

"This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people's lives," said Professor Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group.

William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington, described the shift as "a clear tipping point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women. …For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage."

(Excerpted from a story by Sam Roberts, New York Times, 1/16/2007)

Coffee: The New Miracle Health Food

For years, coffee has been viewed as a guilty pleasure by some, and a major health hazard by others. In the past decade, however, a growing body of scientific evidence supports the notion that moderate coffee consumption offers a number of perks for the body and brain.

Although scientists once believed that coffee might increase the risk for a variety of cancers, this theory has been disproved. As it turns out, regular consumption of the brewed beverage appears to offer a measure of cancer protection.

The news that coffee consumption may actually be healthy, contrary to the long-standing perception of it as a bad habit to be eliminated, parallels recent findings about cannabis – a.k.a. pot or weed. Researchers at the Scripps Institute in California found that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, may prevent Alzheimer’s disease better than any existing medication.

Maybe it’s time to get over the green tea craze. Latte and a joint, anyone?

To Cut or Not to Cut: HIV Transmission and the Controversy over Circumcision

In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatricians recommended against the routine circumcision of males, citing potential hazards as well as benefits. But Jay Berkelhamer, M.D., the group’s current president, says it is time to reconsider this recommendation.

Data from a number of studies of HIV transmission done in Africa and New Zealand show that circumcised males are up to 60% less likely to contract and transmit the virus through sexual contact. In fact, two studies of circumcision and HIV transmission in Africa were recently halted due to the overwhelming evidence that circumcised males have less risk of becoming infected with the AIDS virus.

While other factors make it difficult to compare sexual transmission in Africa with transmission in the U.S., the research has been compelling enough that Edgar Schoen, M.D., a consultant to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in California, has called the Academy’s 1999 position "derelict and irresponsible."

If the Academy changes its position, it will come under fire from anti-circumcision activist groups, some of whom have called the procedure, ordinarily done on infants who cannot consent, a human rights violation.

(Information culled from Contemporary Sexuality, February 2007, a publication of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists)

POETRY IN EMOTION: Reflections from the Spirit

"Nan’s Work"
By Neil Selden

"Salvation: In Memory of Mesh"
By Dujuana Sharese

She considered it the deal of a life time

It was the perfect arrangement

One He could not refuse

Flawless, well planned, scribed with honest intent
   No small print
   No need for lawyer review

Quid Pro Quo for her Soul

She bargained for her life, pleaded…
   She needed to teach them economics
    Teach them self love
    Teach them self sufficiency

She bargained for her life
   To see them mature

She bargained and pleaded, screaming action for reaction
   Dipped her being in holy water
   To cleanse the congestion in her ears

And the congregation saaaid…
   Live by the manual
   Live right
   Then you will be sure to meet Christ

The bills come at the beginning of the month
   These are the files to checking, saving, and mutual funds
   Keep the house clean
   Believe in Christ
   Wear a condom
   Protect one another
   Don’t lose yourself in a lover

And the congregation saaaid…
Gurl, you better act proper
Don’t you want to live in the Kingdom?
All you need is a bible and a good man
Then He will be sure to open the gates of eternal Freedom

For the congregation saaaid…
   Tithing will reap benefits in 7 fold…

All she could think of was seeing her children turn 18 yrs old

For the congregation saaaaiddd
   Wear skirts
   Don’t curse
   Live right
   Love Christ
   Don’t Sin

All she could think about was did I take 12 or 13 pills in the cocktail of medicine

She Listened.

While her body weight decreased

She Listened.

While she searched for comfort
As her organs rejected in boisterous demonstrations

She could only assume
She would be watching from a distance soon

Lawd
As you know I have done things
To the best of my ability
For I needed to feed my seeds
Some were unlawful
But I did it to honor the cohesiveness of my family

Lawd
Please listen…
I got the greatest deal for you
One you have never heard before

Lawd
This is a supreme arrangement…

I will never ever sleep with a woman again
I promise to condemn
Homosexuality with ever ounce of venom
If you allow me see my kids turn 18
Before you call me to heaven


I promise
I won’t renege
I promise
To be obedient
I promise…


         God see how strong my kids are
       They are all set to start college in 90 days
            I instilled your name
         My Family will take care of them
         Until you bring them back to their
              Mother again


Dujana Sharese
2007

FREE ASSOCIATIONS: Editorial Comments
What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been
Margaret Nichols, Ph.D.

The Institute for Personal Growth opened its doors in late 1983 in a two room office on Raritan Avenue in Highland Park. Since 1976, when I was still a graduate student, I had been involved in efforts to provide what is now called "gay-affirmative" psychotherapy. Psychiatrists had only removed homosexuality from their index of mental illnesses in 1973, and that vote had passed by a narrow 51%. So most practicing counselors still believed that same-sex sexual orientation was a perversion produced by dysfunctional families.

Frustrated by the old-fashioned views of most existing psychiatric clinics and hospitals, I decided to start my own agency to provide an alternative, non-homophobic viewpoint. So IPG’s original ‘mission’ was to serve sexual minorities. From the beginning, we attracted talented therapists and enjoyed great success. By 1985 a dozen therapists worked at IPG and we had expanded our offices. We were having fun, learning a lot, and doing well by doing good.

Then AIDS struck. As a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Health Care Providers Association, I’d had insider knowledge of the disease since 1982, when it was called "GRID" – Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease. And by 1984 I had friends and colleagues, including one IPG staff member, Dr. Lew Katoff, diagnosed with AIDS or ARC (an acronym no longer used that signified "AIDS Related Complex"). I was in close contact with some of the founders of GMHC, the nation’s first and largest AIDS service organization. GMHC was desperately looking for a group in New Jersey to help with our state’s huge AIDS problem, because the New York based agency was confronted with numerous requests for help from ‘across the river.’

IPG was the logical choice to start such a program. In 1985 we incorporated a ‘sister’ non-profit agency, the Hyacinth Foundation. Along with people from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and the New Brunswick community, by early 1986 we trained volunteers and starting running support groups and ‘buddy’ services. We had only a $10,000 foundation grant – IPG donated space, telephones, and most importantly, almost everyone on the staff donated time. I stepped down as Hyacinth’s Executive Director at the end of 1988, and Hyacinth ‘spun off’ as an independent agency. But Hyacinth still operates today as New Jersey’s largest HIV service organization, and without us it would never have existed.

The "Plague Years" seem like a nightmare to me now – I cannot count or remember the names of all the people I knew who died. IPG lost two staff members, Lew Katoff and Curt Schulze, who had been one of our first therapists and worked for us nearly ten years before his death. I lost my best friend in 1996, just before the ‘drug cocktails’ transformed HIV from an almost always fatal disease to a mostly chronic one. And, unbeknownst to me at the time, the AIDS epidemic prepared me for what was to be the worst catastrophe of my life later on.

During the 1990’s, IPG weathered a different kind of plague: managed care. A colleague once described managed care as a "financial re-distribution program" that transferred money from health care providers to stockholders of insurance companies. It was a disaster for mental health consumers most of all, of course, limiting both the amount of care they could receive as well as their choice of therapist. It was a financial tsunami for IPG, and we barely survived.

But there was a silver lining in it for us. IPG’s clientele had already grown to include many ‘mainstream’ people who were attracted to us because of our reputation for excellence. But managed care tipped the balance, and for the last ten years or more our clients have been pretty evenly balanced between sexual minority consumers and – everyone else. With the change in clientele has come a change in staff, as well – and we are stronger and better for it. In part because of our change of focus, IPG has been on the cutting edge of developments in neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, sex therapy and innovative forms of treatment informed by advances in scientific knowledge.

In 2004 my beloved daughter Jesse died four days before her tenth birthday. Within nine months my precious son Cory was hospitalized following a near-fatal breakdown triggered by Jesse’s death. While no one is ever prepared for the death or serious illness of a child, I’ve realized in the last three years that, ironically, surviving the AIDS epidemic made my grief slightly easier to bear. For one thing, I had already survived the shock of seeing young, beautiful people whom I loved struck down out of the blue, dying before they even had a chance to savor life, for absolutely no good reason. I had long ago given up the illusion that life is fair, just, benevolent, predictable, or controllable.

And a year and a half ago I adopted two sisters, now aged twelve and eight, who had survived six years of neglect, starvation, and physical and emotional abuse after being abandoned to an institution in Guatemala. Cory is thriving, and with Alejandra and Diana and a ‘village’ of created family and friends, we’ve worked to reconstitute a new family. My experiences of the last three years have propelled me to concentrate on the mysteries of trauma and loss and how one recovers from these things, and both my own practice and IPG have benefited from this focus.

And while ‘happy’ is not a term I’d necessarily ever use to describe myself anymore, ‘wiser’ certainly is. This is what I know:

Or, as the Grateful Dead sang: "...What I want to know is: Are you kind?"

Peace
Margie Nichols