I am beginning to return to some of my notes in 1999 to find out relatively speaking where I am today on some of issues. I have not edited this.

Saturday, December 18, 1999

For a variety of reasons I will attempt to explain my present position regarding psychiatric treatment as it pertains to the general population including all illnesses with a psychological component (i.e chronic pain, hypertension, diabetes, migraine and ulcerative colitis)

1.    In every instance of psychiatric illness there is a balance between the biochemical manifestations of disease (insomnia, abnormal appetite, and loss of perspective) and the psychological manifestations of disease (self harming, attitude, harming others, and all psychopathic behaviors). Much of my work is centered on appreciation and development of awareness of the nature of the balance. In my opinion, this requires an intensive look inside. We are very much in debt to Stella Chess who conducted a research project that spanned over 30 years. The results were counter to previously held theories of mental illness. The most striking finding was that a healthy personality occurs most readily when children and young adults are experienced and responded to by significant others in depth, with compassion and with honesty. Severe but correctable behavioral problems result from a superficial and punitive or ingratiating approach to child rearing. When a child is respected for their unique place in life’s scheme then there is no need to lash out with destructive behaviors. She found that children who were appreciated for their unique personality rather than their behavior improved dramatically even into young adulthood.

2.    The look inside is our 4^th Step in AA and now in chronic Pain Anonymous. It is the most difficult Step to approach and master because it asks us to look inside and particularly at character defects. An early theologian, St John of the Cross, believed that spiritual development is beset by a dark night of the soul. In this phase of development, doubts and fears all kinds appear. But our fears are the clues to many of the 4^th Step issues. It is stunning that we see the thread of God’s blueprint. In science it is called insight but in spiritual matters it is a dramatic looking inward. We experience without words the true nature of ourselves. We see ourselves with our most troublesome fears, anxieties, and hopeless feelings. But only through this process are we willing to accept the meaning of the Third Step. The turning over to God our will and our lives is absolutely necessary to navigate the dark night of the soul.

Bottom Up vs. Top Down

 The whole idea of bottom-up vs. top-down is a perplexing problem to put into words.  I would rather not be seen as picking a fight with the top though I do believe that I am at the bottom.  But it is not as simple as that.  To me this whole situation of bottom-up vs. top-down springs from evolutionary processes.  For instance, we all know that we are very individualized beings throughout the mammalian kingdom and that is true of the plant kingdom as well.  So we as humans are fiercely competitive but also at the same time communal and live in groups a great deal of harmony as a rule.  There seems to be an overarching yin-yang[1] in our life on this planet.  In other words we are highly individualized but would eventually  be homogenized and lazy group in a few generations.  We would not compete with each other to see who can make things better.  But we fight over many things as ego driven individuals.  In an evolutionary sense  it would appear to be all very similar would be a long-term disaster but a short-term nirvana.

A friend has asked me what part of the brain is responsible for dominance and control over another part of the brain in the bottom of the top down process.  This I do not really know.  I suppose with very long term and careful analysis of fMRI's we could find some area of the brain.  But I am more inclined to think there is a more complex issue between the right to left side of the brain.  Complex tasks seem to fire in areas of the brain remote to each other that defy exactly how the brain is wired.  But perhaps wiring is a short sighted view. I am looking at some researchers claims that there is a field effect responsible for communication between individuals.  Thus a school of minnows moves erratically but in unison with each other as though they are operating within the same electromagnetic field.  These are also suppositions however.  But they are interesting to think about.  My insistence on continuing with the supportive person group over the years has been an uncanny feeling that I get when in the double circle. I feel something that I cannot explain which I hope is a non verbal communication between the members of the group.  So perhaps brain wiring is simply part of the system and we are communicating within our brains through a variety of field effects.

So I am following some theoretical leads from the physicist, David Bohm, who passed from us in 1992 but has been kept alive in literature by people who believe that there implicate order to the universe.   Before his death he called upon human beings to meet in small groups in order to bring wholeness to the world.  It was obvious of his distrust of our leaders to help us save the planet and each other.  His belief was that we were so fragmented that we were in danger of destroying ourselves. I was encouraged by this and have been trying to develop an interest in small groups.  As you might have read the book the Power of the Double Circle you would see that it calls for something that David Bohm called dialogue as opposed to shallow discussion.  

Since I first attended the National Training Labs in Bethel Maine over several summers I became aware that the groups that I was in would occasionally reach something different from the usual discussion.  At that point I felt both awe and puzzlement.  Now I look back and see that we had reached dialogue.  Now I define for myself, at least, dialogue which is the combined knowledge and feeling of knowing deeply each other and seeking common ground and solutions.

I now believe that group process is this profound knowing and feeling of each other that yields a continuing rebirth of our common ground in common purpose is human beings.  Otherwise we are fragmented committees seeking to react carefully to each other’s ego and win the meeting.

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[1] In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also yin-yang or yin yang, 陰陽 yīnyáng "dark—bright") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary,interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. (from Wikipedia)

Top Down Encounter

     At the suggestion of a friend I experienced a brief visit with an administrator at HealthStreet Gainesville office. Without an opportunity to explain the nature of my visit I was told that our Supportive Person Group would not be appropriate at their establishment. HealthStreet was brought into existence at Washington University in St Louis, Mo some 20 years ago but according to the Gainesville Sun came into existence in Gainesville in 2011. One of their featured offerings is a paternity test for $350.00. While there I saw no clients and the staff was in a meeting. Healthstreet is spreading across the USA like an ameba.

"HealthStreet, a brand new community-based effort to assess the medical and social services needs of Alachua County residents as well as present opportunities for them to participate in research studies....." Gainesville Sun

As Kurt Vonnegut once said ".....and so it goes."

The Gist of My Argument

Although I have been working on this problem for a number of years have not been able to put it into words that found a large audience. I have never been able to reach a large number of people at one time. But I know that I have been helped by one person at a time over a long period of time. Imagine placing yourself in the double circle within the inner circle.  Now imagine having a person behind you to help you see what is going on in your circle and help you find your thoughts about the whole issue of being in group.  You can privately discuss with him or her what is happening to you.  You can focus on what you are feeling which is probably anxiety.  But you do not know for sure what is making you anxious.  Is it the strangeness of the group or is it the strangeness of your thoughts?   So you depend on this person to help you understand your world in the group.  You have placed your trust in this person because the format of the group is asking you to place a trust in the person  behind you.  Now you have gained additional strength of having more eyes and ears focused on the issues.  This is very simple but it can be very demanding and very doubt raising.  Everything flows from  how you begin to feel the presence of the person behind you and their support of you.   As a group goes on you will get your turn to reverse the experience and be in support of them.  This is a dramatic change in perspective and hopefully will help you move in and out being supported and then being able to be of support. 

But there is a further unfolding.  If your ego is in command and running your life  you will probably seek out the best supportive person rather than understanding that all the people there are available to support you; but it is not a contest.  So this is in no way a hierarchy but rather an experiment in learning to go deeper than your own ego and trust a process of accepting support simply on the basis of the sincerity of that support.   But you must trust your own willingness and openness to recognize sincerity. 

I missed posting yesterday because I was paying more attention to the pain in my feet than to problem  at hand.  Sometimes pain takes over consciousness and runs everything else off.  Today I will attend a chronic pain seminar at the Senior Center.  Meanwhile someone in a meeting took me up with the the decision to make contact with the Islamic Center.  I was very grateful because I would rather go with someone rather than alone.  Both he and I are studying how to go about the contact with the Islamic Center.

  Taking Care Of Each Other

I promised myself that I would blog daily hoping something useful would come out of all of this.   Writing is such a chore.  But I am still working on what the fabric is.  I expect to see the Warden of FSP tomorrow.  I hope to visit with a friend who works there. In spite of advice to the contrary I still hope that I can get this program of the Double Circle to correctional officers.

 I took a friend to the doctor yesterday and I mention this because of the sequence of events.  Of course he had tried several other people first which is understandable because I am not that  accommodating.   Nevertheless he told me that he had to see a doctor in Lady of theLakes but the doctor could see him sooner if he went to Ocala.  He first had to get an MRI of his neck which was the  source of a great deal of pain.  We got there in time and the doctor saw him and told him that he could not relieve his pain except with a prescription because he had a large metastatic tumor in his neck along the spinal cord.    So he was referred to a radiation oncologist and will soon see such a person probably in Gainesville.  We are so fragmented but, when you stop and think about it, if we did have wholeness. it might be much more efficient.  If we are more efficient then we would even need less people to do all the dumb things that they are doing.    And some of the things are not even the so dumb so I should not  be cynical. Ultimately we will just be taking care of each other and allow the machines and computers and the virtual reality gadgets to operate the planet.  Perhaps we should have been taking better care of each other all along.  So I will return to my study of David Bohm. He is free and readily available on YouTube.    Give it a look and tell me what you see..

Consciousness

       What am I conscious of?  It is moment to moment  awareness.  It can move systematically or subtly but it is always changing.   But do I have an underlying unconsciousness that guides me?   For that I must totally immerse myself;  but the range moves frighteningly from dog in  heat to an image of Jesus.   At the moment I am trying to focus on what my resting consciousness is.   Do I have a resting consciousness or restless consciousness?  There are some research which indicates that men cycled through a sexual waxing and waning every 90 days.  I have not ever  kept count. Thank God the roller coaster is slowing down because of aging and more aging.

Last week, Louis my son, sent me  a text about David Bohm  who apparently passed in 1992 but has created a great deal of recent discussion through his talks with Krishnamurti  and others.  The thing that caught me was the talk about fragmentation and wholeness.  He believed since the 1970s that we are fragmenting to our ultimate peril and should be seeking wholeness.  Several long talks by Bohm and others are readily available on YouTube.  I will let you decide whether to look into it.  But I could not avoid it because I now realize why I have been going to AA, the Presbyterian Church, and the Catholic Church on a regular basis.  I certainly have felt the fragmentation as psychiatry has come apart.  I felt the fragmentation  in my own life.  So I have been looking for Wholeness  with a  capital W.   yesterday I told my a group that I was going to go by the Islamic center  and seek common prayer unless somebody stop me.  Nobody stopped me.  So I am committed.