Saturday, December 26, 2020

Complex PTSD: How we "Catch" It. How we Recover from it.

Substantially revised for clarification 03-11- and 04-05-2021.

In my experience working with hundreds of survivors since 1987, abuse, functional abandonment (i.e. being repeatedly ignored, discounted, dismissed and/or denigrated) and/or physical and emotional neglect in early life conditions, in-doctrine-ates, instructs, imprints, socializes, habituates, and normalizes a lingering state of Learned Helplessness, Dread & the Victim Identity into a default mode network in the developing brain by the time the child is four or five. Children need to be -- and sense that they are -- seen and heard by those upon whom they depend for their very survival in the first few years of life. To know a borderline is to know someone who simply wasn't able to do that then or henceforth.

Abused, neglected and ignored children know that their parents and older siblings cannot see, hear, feel or otherwise sense them. And it terrifies them. 

Having no other frame of reference, the child matures physically... but remains everlastingly fearful of but dependent upon others (even when they assert they are not) and racing around the same sort of Karpman Drama Triangle with almost everyone in later life they raced around on with their sick, senseless families when they were infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. Because, in fact, they are dealing with adolescence and adulthood stuck in the minds of small children who are -- for damned good reasons -- absolutely certain that they are going to abused, neglected, abandoned or ignored One More Time. 

Is there a way to get off that thing and "grow up" to be a healthy adolescent or adult? IME, yes. See Dis-I-dentifying with Learned Helplessness & the Victim I-dentity (and not-moses's answers to a replier's questions there), Re-Development, and the rest of...

A 21st Century Recovery Program for Someone with Untreated Childhood Trauma... because there's a LOT one can do without spending a fortune on psychotherapy, as well as to speed up the process if one is in therapy or at least at the fourth of the five stages of therapeutic recovery.

ADDED the day after the original posting with a bit more "emphasis," as well as referential and resource information:

IME as both a recovering borderline, someone who has worked with quite a few of them, and someone who has known well over a hundred... one will have to encounter a mental health professional who understands what BPD really is and what the person "infected" with it did and didn't get in infancy, toddlerhood and the pre-school years that left her stuck in a furball in Erikson's first four stages of psychosocial development.

At the risk of repeating myself... the adolescent or adult borderline grew up in a world that was deaf, dumb, blind and senseless to the very young child's dire need to feel seen, heard, felt and sensed by those upon who that child depends for its very survival. When that happens, the child's body matures, but it's brain remains jammed full of neural networks that know little or nothing about being comfortable in one's own skin and have extreme difficulty trusting anyone who reminds them in any way of those who let them down to begin with. 

The vast majority of licensed psychotherapists I still encounter to this day don't really get that because they blew through Child Development 501 and 502 ignoring what people like Donald Winnicott, Margaret Mahler, Alice Miller, T. Barry Brazelton, Daniel Stern and Alan Schore wrote about years ago in books few of them had time to read.

(Do our psych schools turn out competent "jungle guides" or do they turn out licensing-test-passing "mechanics?" Forgive my digression.)

Sadly, in my experience this is the case among those who learned the mechanics of DBTACTSEPt and even the very "high-tech" SP4T  (probably the four best psychotherapies for BPD at this time), but failed to learned the art because they don't actually understand what the hell happened.  

(And let's not even talk about the mechanical nature of EMDR. Way too many of those "therapists" were little other than wrench twisters a decade ago. Hopefully, they are are more artful now.)

Further, IME, I haven't seen many people with "good-enough-parent-less," CPTSD-driven Borderline Personality Disorder emerge from their conditioning, instruction, imprintingsocialization, habituation and normalization to being blind, deaf, clueless and senseless in a world wherein Damned if You Do & Damned if You Don’t, Double Bound, Learned Helplessness & the Victim Identity is The Way It Is & Always Will Be... unless they learn how to re-experience and re-process the emotions they experienced during the first five years of their lives with something like the 10 StEPs + SP4T as those emotions come up organically in the course of living life, NOT just "in session."

Because the brain and mind of the borderline has to be Re-Developed to the extent it can be all the way back to birth and even into the last trimester of gestation if the pregnant mother was toxified with stressors herself.

This is NOT to say that these therapists aren't trying to do the best they can on the basis of what they know, nor that trauma-trained psychotherapy is a waste of time. It is NOT. What I AM saying is that very few of them really know the nature of The Problem... and one may waste valuable time with those who don't.

Added later in response to watching Jordan Peterson's response (from about the 2 hr 4 min mark to 2 hr 11 min mark) to a question from the audience at one of his lectures:

Peterson is accurate in his understanding of our reactive patterns of behavior (see below). But like so many people who come from authoritarian culture organization imperatives (which virtually all Abrahamic evangelicals and fundamentalists do) he ignores the obvious cause of BPD as an IFSM response to having been some combination of neglected, ignored, abandoned, discounted, disclaimed, rejected, invalidated, confused, betrayed, insulted, criticized, judged, blamed, shamed, ridiculed, embarrassed, humiliated, denigrated, derogated, scorned, set up to screw up, victimized, demonized, persecuted, picked on, vilified, dumped on, bullied, gaslit..., scapegoated..., emotionally blackmailed, defiled and/or otherwise abused by others upon whom they depended for survival in the first few years of life.

Peterson is a gifted propagandist who is obviously (see the comments on that YT page) singing to the authoritarian choir. But from the POV of those who deal with BPD in the psychotherapeutic trenches, he's about 30 years behind the curve. He needs to read Alice's books, for sure. And come to grips with why there's a Dissociative Splitting between "Parts" that are "Inner 2-Year-Olds" vs. "Inner 13-Year-Olds."

Because those of us who have done that tend to be more successful in helping BPD sufferers to get to and stay at the fourth and fifth of the five stages of psychotherapeutic recovery than those who have not and are still locked in Theo Millon's, Sharon Ekleberry's, Aaron Beck & Art Freeman's, Bill Meissner's and Otto Kernberg's nicely descriptive -- but almost uniformly blind, deaf, dumb and senseless as to the obvious causes and still predominant -- professional literature on the topic.

All one really has to do is a) read Margaret Mahler's. T. Barry Brazelton's, Daniel Stern's, Don Winnicott's, John Bowlby's, Richard Schwartz's and Allan Schore's books on early life attachment and maternal attunement (or lack thereof), and b) watch infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers with their confusing, clueless, over-limiting and/or emotionally disconnected parents at a place like the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center to grasp what the hell is going on.

BPD, btw, is (IME, anyway) far more common among the children of evangelical & fundamentalist, Abrahamic religious, as well as severely substance-abusing, parents than it is among the children of parents who were not distracted extremists during the patient's first five years of life. (Well, to me, anyway, duh.)

Published Resources

Friday, December 11, 2020

40 Cult Intervention Questions for those past Total Denial but not yet at Acceptance

Consider first that the active cult member who is still locked in the first of the five stages of therapeutic recovery -- or the first five of the levels on any Cultic Pyramid -- is highly unlikely to be willing to submit to such an "examination." In my considerable experience around cults of numerous different types and the members and former members thereof, one has to be in the second of the five stages of recovery and the sixth or seventh of the Pyramid levels to be an appropriate candidate for use of these. But for such people, honest answers can be counted upon to help move them to the third of five stages of recovery, as well as OUT of the cult.

1. Am or was I unhappy with my life as it was?

2. Was I depressed or anxious about things I couldn’t understand, control or overcome?

3. Have I been looking for “The Answer” for more than a year?

4. Did the leader of the group and others in it seem to have “The Answer?”

5. Did I feel “high” or elated or “clear” or incredibly focused & energetic once I knew “The Answer?”

6. Was my mind “consumed” with “certainty” and thoughts about “the way things ‘really’ are?”

7. Did I feel like was finally “in control of my destiny?”

8. Did I feel like I knew what to do in every situation?

9. Did I want to talk, act and be just like the leader or those near him or her?

10. Did I want to tell everyone I knew about my new experience?

11. Was I often reciting the “wonderful doctrines” to others outside the group?

12. Was I willing to pay for more seminars, classes and study materials sold by the group?

13. Was I willing to tithe 10 percent or more of my income to the group?

14. Was I excited about performing with others in the group on stage?

15. Did I want to be the seminar leader or trainer or worship leader?

16. Was I spending more and more of my free time volunteering in some way to “help carry the message?”

17. Was I spending so much time volunteering that I was losing sleep, neglecting my family, taking less care of things outside the group and becoming irritable toward others?

18. Did I become willing to be criticized – sometimes harshly and in front of others – to move “up” in the group?

19. Did I become willing to take group work home and do it on my own time?

20. Did I become willing to take group work to my job and do it on my boss’s time?

21. Did I start to feel worn out – even “burned out” – and constantly fatigued?

22. Was I getting colds more often, but still feeling like I had to “suit up and show up?”

23. Was I staying home from my job to “rest up,” but suiting up and showing up for the group?

24. Did I find myself willing to criticize others “below my level” – sometimes harshly and in front of others – to earn the respect of those above me to move “up” in the group?

25. Did my boss warn me about my lagging performance or conduct at my job?

26. Was I “getting so much” out of what I was doing with the group that I had moments when I didn’t care if I lost my job?

27. Was a big part of “getting so much” all the sex and romance I was into with other members of the group?

28. Was I involved in a sexual or romantic relationship with a married partner… or while I was married?

29. Did I finally lose my job?

30. Did the group help me get a new one working with other group members?

31. Was I encouraged to or have to move in with other group members?

32. Did I borrow a lot of money from the group or senior members of it to survive?

33. Was I encouraged to see my family as “sick” or a “dangerous influence?”

34. Was I encouraged to break contact with my family?

35. Did I start to feel confused and “lost” in the group?

36. Did I start to think about getting out but wonder how, now that I was so deeply involved and dependent upon the group?

37. Was I disturbed over my conflicts about what I was told vs. what I saw in the others around me?

38. Was I losing sleep over my conflicts about what I was told vs. what I saw in the others around me?

39. Did I start to cry or have a breakdown?”

40. Did I come to a decision to get out but find myself thinking, “There’s really no way, is there?”

Intervention Questions are very common technique used in the worlds of both substance abuse and behavioral addiction (e.g.: gambling, workaholism, sex, love, Internet, etc.). Coming from a decade plus working in professional addiction treatment, and later over two decades in psychotherapy for all manner of traumatic experience resulting in Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it is as plain as the nose on my face that cult dynamics are -- to a considerable extent -- addiction dynamics. And that various well-proven components of addiction treatment can and should be employed to finesse recovery from cultic abuse including Religious Trauma Syndrome.

Dissociation, Memory Retrieval, "Resociation" & Reprocessing

One may not need to grind through everything here to understand the topic and what one can do about it, but one will certainly know a lot more than the average duck -- and even many psychotherapists -- if they do:

Dissociation as Defined by Frankel with a Modern Explanation 

Three Definitions of "Splitting" in not-moses's reply to the original poster on that Reddit thread (which includes a brief DID bibliography)

"Unreachable" Trauma in those with Dissociative Disorders and the rest of not-moses's reply to the original poster on this Reddit thread

Small Children learn how to Dissociate because they NEED to

Dissociation vs. Overwhelm in 4 "Fs"

Dissociation & Repression of Early Childhood Sexual and Other Abuse

Splitting & Rebounding vs. "Pure" Dissociation in not-moses's reply to the original poster on that Reddit thread, but be sure to read the original post first

Inner Children, Alters, Dissociated Parts & IFST in not-moses's reply to the original poster on that Reddit thread, but be sure to read the original post first

Connecting the Dots from Abuse... to Compensation... to Dissociated, Diverse Identities

Dissociated Fragments (see also the ensuing commentary)

When Fragmented Selves Act Out

Van der Hart's Theory of Structural Dissociation (this one is pretty complex, but for those willing to Google all the concepts they don't understand, it can be very enlightening)

Parallel-Distinct Structures of Internal World and External Reality: Disavowing and Re-Claiming the Self-Identity in the Aftermath of Trauma-Generated Dissociation

How Dissociation Causes Polarization... & Vice-Versa

Selective Dissociation in not-moses’s discussion with the original poster on that Reddit thread

Breaking Through the No-Memory Barrier

When the Memories & Affects Start to Break Through

Moving from Memories & Symptoms to Emotional Release in not-moses’s reply to the original poster on that reddit thread

Why Memory Retrieval is So Important

Recalling memories from a third-person perspective changes how our brain processes them. (The article in ScienceDaily is right here, btw.)

Counterproductive Emotional Flooding in Traumatic Memory Processing

False Memory Syndrome or Not? in not-moses's reply to the original poster on that Reddit thread

"False Memory Syndrome " is evidently Back in Vogue including not-moses's reply to a replier there

An amazon.com review of Tavris & Aronson's Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) re: "False Memory Syndrome "

Would "They" Ever Understand the Frags?

The best of the recent crop of much easier to understand books on recovering from dissociation include... Dick Schwartz's No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model, Richard Kluft's Shelter from the Storm: Processing the Traumatic Memories of DID / DDNOS Patients with The Fractionated Abreaction Technique, and Frank Puttnam's The Way We Are: How States of Mind Influence Our Identities, Personality and Potential for Change

Thursday, December 3, 2020

The Kult of the Kamikaze & It's Current Relevance

I used to be surprised when I discovered that many Millennials (and even some Gen Xers) are unaware of the Japanese Kamikaze attacks on American aircraft carriers and other warships largely during the 10-week battle for Okinawa from April to June, 1945. When told what it was all about, many were flummoxed to hear that nearly 4,000 Japanese aviators flew to their violent deaths in the attacks. (By comparison, the total estimated number of militant Islamic suicide bombers since the advent of the Islamic Jihad in the late 1970s is just over 4,000 in a half century.)
And then ask, "How did the Japanese government get them to do that?"

The answer has been a bone of contention for 75 years. Some assert that a natural patriotic spirit combined with the "typical discipline" of the Japanese people made for a generous pool of volunteers. Others claim the phenomenon was the result of cynically organized emotional blackmailgaslighting and other types of typical cultic manipulations, including powerful coercion of adolescents already predisposed to putting the culture before their individual interests. (See the Wikipedia entry.)

Considering its obvious relevance to the events of 9-11-2001, and having plowed into several of the major and minor media articles that appear on Google when one searches their way into the topic, I was surprised myself to find that none of the "big names" -- like Jon Atack, Joel Kramer, Michael Langone, R. J. Lifton, Joost Meerloo, Margaret Singer in A Basic Cult Library -- have perused the matter. So I read what I could find and came up with a preliminary thesis:

Contrary to the popular notion generally seen when the motives of Jihadists and 9-11 "aviators" are examined, the Kamekazis were nowhere near as driven by patriotism and sense of duty to their culture as has been supposed for three generations. And moreover, similar circumstances may be the case among at least some of the Jihadists.

Because there are first-hand accounts of extreme coercion and even complete lack of election among those who were trained but either never flew a mission or survived when they did. Some even reported Soviet Communist-style pressure including threats against prospective trainees' family members, along with the same sort of intense, North Korean-style, group dynamic, conform-or-die-right-now peer pressure so often seen in Asian style meditation and 20th century "human potential" cults inducing "nowhere-else-to-turn" Learned Helplessness.

I propose that thesis as a starting point for further research on the basis of Michigan State University Prof. Hans Toch's Social Psychology of Social Movements on Cults & Political Parties, a widely accepted book published 55 years ago. Moreover a book that was widely trotted out after 9-11. for sure. And ask the following: 

If it was possible for those at the ninth and tenth levels of a Cultic Pyramid in Japan in 1945 to put together a force of over 20,000 adolescents to not risk but surely give their lives to defend those at the top, what's to stop someone else from doing it now?


Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Ego Decompensation & Emotional Blackmail in Thought Reform

The mass induction of ego decompensation (a.k.a. "mental breakdown") combined with emotional blackmail has been a staple of cult manipulation for at least 500 years in the radical Hindu world TIKO. (See Emotional Blackmail & the FOG of Fear, Obligation & Guilt.)

I can't trace mass ego decompensation back any further than John Wesley's early "Methodism" in the late 1700s in the Xtian universe. But "Puritan" John Calvin was clearly using FOG two and a half centuries earlier. (See Sargant, Wesley & the Evangelical Method and The Increasingly Cultic Developmental Path of Pseudo-Xtian Sin, Shame and Guilt.)

The Red Chinese used both widely during the massive thought reform campaign of the early 1950s. (See many of R. J. Lifton's books including and since Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.)

I was conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, imprintedsocialized, habituated, and normalized to both as a child in the Pentecostal Church, as well as a young adult member of The Center for Feeling Therapy and Erhard Seminars Training (est) cults.

The The Human Potential Movement Gone Awry version of ED is described in Five Days IN The Forum: The Brainwashing in Detail.

Susan Forward's Emotional Blackmail has proven to be highly useful in the process of post-cult recovery for me and others I have worked with.


Other Resources

Psychiatric Casualties of Mass Marathon (LGAT) Trainings

After-Effects of Being Groomed into Learned Helplessness

Is Hypnotic Regression the Guru's Most Powerful Tool?

A Basic Cult Library

Recommended on Religion from Outside the Box