Years back a now-deceased member of my extended family suffered with periodic bouts of depression. When in that state she would spend days in her room, in bed, shades drawn. On one level I found the tendency curious. Part of me wondered, somewhat along the lines of that Zoloft advertising campaign, why such an individual wouldn’t turn from the darkness to the light.
New research has found a link between emotional states and preferences for types of stimulation.
Across five experiments the authors found that consumers felt more pleasure from tactile attributes of products when they were in negative states, and more pleasure from visual aspects when they were in positive states. [source]
Hmm. Interesting. As mentioned previously, I do some volunteering at a children’s grief center, and that place has dozens upon dozens of stuffed animals available for holding and snuggling.
As for the tendency to stay in a comforting darkness when feeling down but seek brightness when up, the research authors mention other studies on animals and sprinkle in a bit of evolutionary-psychology speculation:
One way the brain encourages correct behavior is to use the mammal’s affective state to change the pleasure response to major sensory channels….
Mammals that are in a positive state are primed for visual exploration, to fulfill goals of protection and territorial expansion. “Animal studies have shown that excited organisms have heightened visual systems and make more visual explorations,” the authors explain.
They add that tactile sensation becomes more pleasurable when we are down to encourage other types of behavior.
When feeling down a person has typically suffered a loss and/or is ill. It makes sense to conserve resources and refrain from drawing attention to yourself by people outside your close associates. Seek shade and shelter and the company of close associates, if any. Stay home, limit your exposure to the potential for future loss until healed.
When feeling up and fully charged — this is the time to explore, to take chances, to head into bright openness.
Interestingly, it seems there is a bi-directional influence as well. Think rainstorms during movie scenes. Oh-oh, someone is sad or about to be so. Birthday party? Blue sky and colorful balloons. Seasonal affective disorder, etc.
Hmm.
What’s on the menu and what’s off, in terms of acceptable foods and behavior? Crack upon the black cover of the Bible and find out.
In Leviticus the Bible god takes on the role of divine dietician and informs his people what to eat and what not to eat. He also outlines how his people are to behave in specific circumstances: How best to sacrifice an animal, how to treat a menstruating woman (run!), etc. The commandments in this part of the Bible are clearly spelled out, so no believer in this god should have difficulty understanding and obeying
Here are eight examples for your erudition.
1) Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into he tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die. (10:9, King James Version)
This would be step one in a one-step rehabilitation program for an alcohol problem. Actually — step 2. The first step is to get them to enter the Tent of the Meeting.
2) Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you. (11:22-23)
Pigs are unclean, but locusts are a-okay? And how many flying creeping things have four feet? I can’t think of any. Ants have six as do dragon flies. This must mean that ant tacos and dragonfly Alfredo are “clean.” They are on the menu.
3) Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth upon all four, or whatesoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat; for they are an abomination. (11:42)
Why would the LORD place so many abominations in his creation? They’re culinary land-minds, for Christ’s sake! And why doesn’t the LORD just come out and say WHY something is unclean, instead of having to list them all? Personally, one of my favorite meals is grilled abomination over a bed of forbidden pasta.
4) If a woman have [sic] conceived a seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days . . . . But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks. (12:2-5)
What is the lordly logic behind the birthing of a baby girl making a woman unclean for twice as long compared to a baby boy? Wouldn’t a baby boy be more unclean due to his penis and scrotum and the greater surface area for dirt, real or spiritual (unreal) to accumulate on?
5) As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hysop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water….(14:6)
If your wireless network crashes, try this: Combine one eye of newt, two toad warts, three spider legs, and blend until smooth. Spread the resulting goop atop your router, and re-set. Did it work? No? Your mouse must be possessed.
Why do 21st century minds cling to their superstitions while overlooking the glaringly real superstitious roots of their now somewhat more refined religious voodoo?
6) And of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot…(14:17)
You put your left foot in.
You put your left foot out.
You put your left foot in.
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey-Pokey.
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what its ALL about.
7) And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. (17:10)
What about a rare steak? Can you be cut off from your people for ordering a t-bone seared on the outside, just warm and pink in? And there’s coagulated, cooked blood in the nooks of a hamburger patty. I’ve had countless steaks and hamburgers–even during my years as an altar boy–yet have never felt the Lord’s face against my soul.
8) And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times. (16:14)
Seven times and exactly seven times. Six times is no good. Before going to bed check the front door 5 times, wash your hands 10 times, and say 20 Hail Marys. Or ask your doctor to prescribe Zoloft or to refer you to a psychologist for some sessions of the cognitive-behavioral sort. This will help alleviate your obsessive/compulsive need to ward off perceived dangers.
Do preachers, by promoting the idea of a god to be feared, create the need for anxiety-reducing religious rituals, customs, and sworn allegiance?
My advice:
Put your left foot forward.
Take your right foot back.
Put your left foot forward.
Take your right foot back.
Then boot the hocus-pocus
and the preachers out the door.
That is the better cure.
[recycled material - first appeared here]
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a serious condition. I would call it a “mental” condition or ailment, but I don’t like that term. It can perpetuate an outdated body/mind dualism. That aside, one of the symptoms of GAD is chronic worrying. A new treatment from the cognitive behavioral branch of psychotherapy called “worry exposure” (WE) has recently been tested. And it was a success, as the news release concludes -
This is the first study to show that a stand-alone exposure in sensu technique – WE – is efficacious in the treatment of GAD.
Wonderful news. As a humanistically-oriented ape I welcome treatments that reduce suffering and increase the quality of life for my kind. But as a skeptical primate I also wonder, Just how successful was that success?
The answer, it seems, is fairly successful. But I’m not sure. Of the subjects in the WE treatment group, 48% were measured as achieving “high end state functioning.” Whatever that means. But the WE group was only one of three. There was also a control group and a group that was treated with an “empirically supported stand-alone treatment,” applied relaxation (AR). How many of the AR group reached the threshold endstate? For that group the number was better: 56%.
As for the control group — that very important number was not provided. To determine that a treatment is effective it is imperative to know how much better the treatment group did/does than those in the placebo or control group. It is one thing if proportion of subjects in the control group reaching the deemed “success” threshold was 10%, something completely else if the number was 40%.
How successful was that successful treatment? I, for one, want to know.
[recycled material - first appeared here]
Here are three quick hits about advances in psychological science as it pertains to mental illnesses. I’ll share a summarizing paragraph from the news release and comment on what I find must noteworthy about it.
1) ADHD and the Reach of the Placebo Effect
Now a recent review of research by University at Buffalo pediatric psychologists suggests that such medication, or the assumption of medication, may produce a placebo effect — not in the children, but in their teachers, parents or other adults who evaluate them.
[emphasis mine - source]
This is a great example why the tightest research is not only blinded (the subjects unaware as to whether they are receiving the true treatment or the placebo), but double blinded. Double blinding adds this layer of error prevention: those doing the measuring/evaluating are also unaware of whether individual subjects are receiving the real or sham treatment — and so their own expectations do not infiltrate the methodology and corrupt the results.
2) Schizophrenia and the Importance of Null Results
Research co-led by an academic at the University of Hertfordshire, concludes that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is of no value in schizophrenia and has limited effect on depression.
[emphasis mine - source]
Positive results are noteworthy. But so are negative. Unfortunately, “our variable-manipulation generated results” is perceived as somehow more scientifically relevant than “our variable-manipulation resulted in no change.” But both are equally important. Yet the second class goes unreported/unacknowledged far too often.
Somewhat tangentially, this result makes sense to me. Primary characteristics of schizophrenia include delusions and disorganized thought. Cognitive therapy, in a sense, relies upon re-organizing a person’s thoughts and emphasizing a more functional perception of reality: things that people with schizophrenia struggle mightily with. IN using it you play to their weaknesses.
3) Depression and Missing Scientific Precision
[I]n acute therapy patients respond better to both drugs than to a sham drug. There is greater alleviation of symptoms, and in some cases they recede to such an extent that some patients no longer fulfill the criteria for a depression diagnosis. As far as relapse prevention is concerned, there is at least an indication that patients benefit more from duloxetine and venlafaxine than from a sham drug. In contrast to duloxetine, there is also proof in the case of venlafaxine that the drug provides more effective protection than placebo against a renewed occurrence of depressive symptoms (recurrence prevention). In the direct comparison of venlafaxine and duloxetine, neither drug displays superiority over the other with regard to alleviating depressive symptoms.
[emphasis mine - source]
While the above research-finding summary is specific — a good thing — it lacks precision. Good science and good science writing is precise. So okay, the drug treatments outperform placebo, but by how much? Are these essential numbers (and what is more precise than numbers) left out because the general public is math-averse? Or because findings such as this one seem so much more hum-drum when the actual effect-sizes are disclosed?
[recycled material - first appeared here]
Hold onto your politically-correct hats — today I’m going to suggest that maybe poverty isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s not the big problem it’s cracked up to be.
First, the research that got me thinking. In a statistical study about factors associated with well-being in Costa Rica, Mariano Rojas discovered this -
[O]nly 24 percent of people classified as ‘poor’ rated their life satisfaction as low. Furthermore, 18 percent of people in the ‘non-poor’ category also reported low life satisfaction. It is therefore clear that poverty alone does not define an individual’s overall well-being and it is possible for someone to come out of poverty and remain less than satisfied with his life. On the other hand, a person can be satisfied with his life even if his income is low, as long as he is moderately satisfied in other areas of life such as family, self, health, job and economic.
This finding agrees with other research into the importance of money to happiness. Namely, it is negligibly important. (Further evidence we aren’t Homo capitalists by nature.) Once above a limited threshold, in fact, money seems to matter not at all. The most important contributing factor to life satisfaction? Personality traits. But I digress.
From his findings Rojas concludes,
There is more to life satisfaction than money, and public policy programs aiming to tackle poverty need to move beyond simply raising people’s income to also improving their quality of life in other areas.
What are the other areas? Family, health, job . . .
Here’s the thing about poverty as a variable: it is frequently a short-cut term. When people talk about poverty as being a problem, they don’t necessarily mean a lack of money. Instead, it it a bucket of a word. Inside the bucket, if we bother to look, we find a host of lifestyle factors: family, neighborhood, crime, drug use, social resources, education, healthcare, etc., etc. To do good science, and generate effective public policy, we need to know which of these variables truly matter. We need to get specific.
A pie-in-the-sky push to eliminate poverty is often presented as a panacea for eliminating all of societies woes, from decreasing crime to increasing longevity in minorities and everything in between. But as the above study and others suggest, even for lowest-income individuals, a lack of money itself isn’t likely the biggest issue. And in an effort to help, it is smart to focus on the bigger issues.
We should remember, by the way, that poverty is relative. Being classified as poor in India is substantially different than in being “poor” in this country. On the bell-curve of affluence for a given population, the poor are on the trailing edge. No matter how affluent the average.
Rather than “eliminating poverty” (by disfiguring the bell curve of affluence?) the focus should instead be on more specific issues. Healthcare. Jobs. Family variables. Social resources.
Lastly – and this may make a few readers gasp in horror – perhaps some of we liberals need to more tolerant of the existence of less-fortunate individuals. If being poor is not causing a significant degree of suffering, then we may be wise to back off the issue. Our resources could be put to better use — more precise use, in the least. Otherwise we might merely be attempting to treat our own feelings of discomfort and guilt at the recognition that some people are not as well off as we are.
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