Showing posts with label trauma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trauma. Show all posts

Continuous Traumatic Distress is a condition Palestinians live in, it is not a disorder. The violence of apartheid occupation is the disorder.

47% of the known fatalities caused by Israeli War against Palestinian Civilians are children.
There are many more buried under the rubble.


Continuous Traumatic Distress is a condition Palestinians live in, it is not a disorder. The violence of apartheid occupation is the disorder.





Dear Representative, 


I recently wrote to you urging you to support the South African application for an adjudication at the International Courts of Justice.


I present the following 25 minute interview with two psychologists working in the area of children and trauma in war zones, with particular reference to conditions in Gaza and The West Bank, and a representative of Save The Children.


In this interview, a new condition is described - Continuous Traumatic Distress, without the adjective 'disorder'. Imagine being deliberately and intentionally traumatised every day, 247, year after year. Where is the true 'disorder'


I respectfully suggest you view this important interview, so that you understand clearly the condition Palestinian Children are in, and have been in for decades.


Can you think about a child who grows up in a war zone who cannot even imagine peace or at the very least the cessation of violence because that is all they have ever known, because the child has internalised that state so deeply, he or she has no concept of anything else?


Millions of children are now utterly dependent upon the International Community to now take action to stop the violence of the Israeli State in Gaza, The West Bank, the occupation, the illegal settlements. As these interviewees state, as things stand, there is nothing the Humanitarian community can do to help those children right now, until the violence is stopped. 


These children need safety from violence as the first step towards improved condition, as the only way to ensure all appropriate aid is provided to them, to meet their unmet needs.


I urge you once again, having viewed this interview, having understood the realities of life for these children, to at the very least demand our Governments take the action required to force Israel to cease this atrocious violence or be held accountable at the ICJ and the ICC.


-----




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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News Media, Our Billions, Their Billions, Blair indicted? who is in charge here?

This life is a jam, not a rehearsal.

We are sensitive, because that is how biology grows... through sensitivity.

Being bullied undermines sensitivity, always.

I understand that live in a Violent Hierarchy, where large powerful groups of people and institutions wage war, often through proxies, militarily, economically, culturally and ideologically seeking degrees of 'full spectrum dominance.'

That is not Healthy.

At all.

On any level.





It's bio-illogical.

Nature or Living systems are not competitive fora,  they are all fully fledged mutli layered co-operating diversities.

--


The historical situation of emerging from within oppression, to resist and recover full health.

That is 'where' we are.... the 'when' is always now.

So here's a behavioural over-view, a massive generalisation, yet I think one that is helpful as a focussing tool

It is understood, that in some cases, some traumatised or brutalised or neglected children or individuals can learn dysfunctional behaviours, thought sets; and in turn they craft controlling mechanisms to manage a chaotic life, which are internalised and later on expressed in the will to control others to meet perceived needs of the controlling, wounded party.

This will influence the children born to such a parent, so as to habituate the next generation to hierarchy, power, violence as normal...unconsciously... behaviourally.

So too with communities.   Suspend all judgement, just for the next few paragraphs amd walk with me a little, as I explain.l

What can happen to a family to turn it into a dysfunctional unsafe place is scaled up at the State level.. the same dynamics, different expressions due to size, complexity etc... both bad situations..

Europe is littered, as is every other continent, littered with traumatmised and marginalised communities, oppressed by more powerful communities..We call the States and 'demographics' - everything is expressed as socio-economic status...

The existing system is rooted in bullying, in hierarchies of power.

It has everywhere attack the egalitarian pre-conquest cultures. None have been spared. Contact with industrialised peoples leads to extinction...

It is to be expected that leaders and ruling groups within this Competing Powers set-up are violent operators.

Concentrated private Wealth has always been the primary political party, (we call them the Oligarchy) and it was they who first replaced the Kings, and it was they who opened and maintained Parliaments of Owners,  and who pursued general Education by the State, and the financing of wars via Taxation and borrowings, and later on, after WWI and II, they ceded limited powers to Democratic assemblies, begrudgingly..

Now, they - the owning class, the Oligarchy - are clawing back more of that power, and wealth which the believe is theirs by right, and by the might of their billions, and so it goes.

Until someone decides the break the cycle in his or her life...

Until many choose that, quietly, robustly and then choose solidarity...

The Billionaires have their billions - we tax payers have ours, and we need to not be fighting each other, divided to vote for which bully we choose to be ruled by.... really...

We need to be using our Billions to regulate the Oligarchy, because their businesses all operate within the commons, and must be forced to be honest, transparent and safe for the commons. It really is that simple.

That's how we can frame the next step in Democracy...

---
Some days I think that the news media's role is to deliver stress to our brains.

And distraction, entertainment, fine.

Honesty about power, the kind that makes a robust man laugh - not a chance!

Then I remember the Worshipful Company of Stationers (and Newspaper Makers), the Star Chamber and censorship of printed materials in 14th Century England.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Stationers_and_Newspaper_Makers

--- War and News Makers...

Nuremberg.

the ultimate legal, criminal responsibilities lie with those who ordered the war.

Given that to marshall the logistics for war is a deliberate and complex operation, why did the citizens not act to prevent the politicians from committing War Crimes, at that stage?

The preparation of an illegal war is as much a war crime as the rest ....once combat commences, there is no way to undo...

it is not logic, nor is it advisable though it is common to undict a trooper and not have the troopers entire command chain in the dock with him.

If a War Crime occurred, then the FULL picture of command liability is essential in confronting what took place, and how...the context must be understood, not to mitigate, nor to deflect, but to focus liability where it is...

We NEED this information in the public domain, in order to be able to prevent it from happening

It has to be that future military commanders whould understand that any time a politician issues an illegal order, they have the duty reject the order, then to arrest that politician, and hand him or her to the custody of the Civil State.

It has to be that following illegal orders breaks the millitary code, and the order issuer can be arrested by the subordinate.

Illegal military orders ought be seen as treason against both the home people and the target peoples...

If we truly want peace, we must be robust about it.

Arrest Blair, Cameron, May - see who wants to go to war after that.





Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Inside the Mind of Jimmy Savile : a response

In an article in the Guardian, Oliver James asks that we try to see into the mind of Jimmy Savile as part of our effort to prevent more predatroy behaviour emerging across Society as a whole.

There is of course the usual range of comments, including those that treat the emergence of someone like Jimmy Savile as a genetic disorder, as an inhumane  monster or another reason to 'lock them up' or execute them.... as well as a few well reasoned comments, and stories from survivors of childhood mistreatment, abuse about their minds and experiences.

I quote from one reasoned commentator, rogergdavidson as the starting point for this article:

"If all the people at the BBC who saw what Savile was doing had been able to discern that he was a sociopath and compulsive sex abuser - that he clearly had serious personality problems - they might have realized the potential scale of what he was doing, and also the harm it would cause, and someone would hopefully have been more likely to take action."

What this means in reality is that in a societal culture that tends to avoid examining and understanding the nature of emergent and predatory pathologies, such as Savile, Blair, Bush, Henry the 8th, Nillsen, Bundy, the banksters, gansters, terrorists, et al, demonstrate, is in part because these people are part of a wider pathology of Power (and the issue of childhood trauma, abuse and deprivation or mistreatment is fundamentally linked to the issue of WHY some people seek power over others, both in terms of it's genesis and outcomes) and in part because there is a cultural revulsion and an emotional response (both anger and fear) which avoids looking atrocities in the face.

"THE ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable."
Quoted from : The opening lines of Trauma and Recovery : the aftermath of violence - from domestic abuse to political terror, by Judith Herman

1. The BBC is an hierarchical power structure in itself, and it is part of a larger hierarchical power structure - the establishment.

People within the BBC are subject to two distinct and connected threads of Power.

The immediate thread is observed when employees expose adverse behaviour in someone higher up, in that it will often have an impact on their careers, and their lives, that the higher up has allies and power he or she can bring to bear on the whistleblowers.

The wider thread is the BBC's place in the UK Power structure, which it has occupied since it's inception, as an arm of State propaganda.

This can be seen, for example, in the manner that the BBC refused to present the case against Pope Benedict in any substantial detail, in spite of massive evidence, and calls from thousands of Survivors, and from Geoffery Robinson no less, during his State Visit in 2010. It enables Tony Blair to articulate his insane perspective without any decent challenge. These are but two examples, and there are many, many more...

2. This speaks of a societal culture of Power that has a profound impact on the lives of all those who live within it's influence. The emergence of such hierarchically violent societies is directly related to childhood mistreatment (which is often seen as 'normal' ), and to post traumatic inter-generational patterns
In the anthropological research there is a constant and reliable predictor of hierarchical violence in any Society : the degree to which the biologically mandated child-mother bonding process is disrupted , The two are profoundly connected. They feed into each other.

Over the past 40 years, this initial research has been consistently corroborated and confirmed by newer research and understandings about child development and trauma (we now consider trauma to be any event or sequence of events that have an affect on a child's development from 'in utero' through birth, infancy, toddlership, childhood)... some of this understanding comes from Survivors, some form the detailed research into endocrinology, neuro-biology, neuro-chemistry, pre-natal and ante-natal studies, how children learn, indergenerational trauma patterning and much else besides.

To put it in simple terms:

When a person is traumatised, and cannot resolve the issues related to the trauma, they adapt a 'coping mechanism' to survive: the coping mechanism is often a necessary attempt to maintain some form of control over events and people in order to feel safe.

When a community, a family or indeed a Society, is traumatised, and cannot resolve the issues related to the trauma, they may each in turn adapt a 'coping mechanism' to survive: the coping mechanism is often a necessary attempt to maintain some form of control over events and people in order to feel safe. It may be driven by the unconscious, and it may well have conscious elements.

In either case, if that group of people, or Society build Institutions, or social structures, those entities will have within them the psychology of the unresolved trauma issues. And in their attempt to create safety, they may well cause harm to those the perceive as a threat.

None of this is to suggest an 'excuse' for any adult who perpetrates, predates, causes harm, abuses or manipulates other people to meet perceived needs.

Adults are volitional, we do choose our actions, and we are ALL accountable for those actions....
However, in order to PREVENT more repeating cycles of trauma and abuse we have to understand them, and we have to be 100% honest about what has happened, Survivors must be listened to and understood, and perpetrators must be put in positions where they cannot cause any more harm.

Punishment as 'revenge' is futile: it has NEVER prevented further abuse in meaningful and societal terms.
Nuremberg was an utter failure. Bullying is rife in our schools. Ridding Iraq of Saddam has blatantly made life for most Iraqis worse. The war or Drugs has increased the trafficking, and the incarceration rates of recreational and addict 'users' is growing year on year.

I understand the reactive responses of people, and institutions, who refuse to engage with this most important subject matter. Power and trauma. For some it's a matter of their own conditioning, for Institutions it's a question of their desire to maintain and expand their power, for others the sheer horror of what we are seeing across the world is beyond words, and terrifying.

However, that said, unless we - the adults - get to grips with what Savile is telling us, with that trauma and power is telling us, then we are in for a bumpy ride, and worse than that, far worse, we are committing all our children, and their children to come, to even more turbulence.

That is unconscionable.

That, in my opinion, would be the most egregious failure of responsibility of all.

______________

A note of clarification:

"In a child's life (as in any other) there are things that ought to happen, that don't, and things that ought not happen, that do"  Gabor Mate

These can range from, for example, a pregnancy where the mother is under chronic stress from external or personal effectors (where the mothers endocrine flows impact the development of the foetus) to a birth trauma (where damage to healthy tissue goes unresolved), to emotional coldness and to a sense of abandonment (leaving the child to cry it out..), to the loss of one or both parents or living an inadequate caring environment, to outright abuse by parents, siblings, in school, amongst peers.... to intense religious or ideological indoctrination....

Some predispositions emerge from stress in the in utero situation. Some may well be genetic. yet the child is not born to be the monster.

All of these, and more, can happen in a child's life, and the signs of distress can be missed, or diagnosed as 'problems' : and not all children will react or respond in the same way.

Statistically, we can say with some degree of certainty, that there will emerge from a population of children who are mistreated, abused, traumatised those who become part of the continuing pattern of predation, and that if their distress symptoms are missed, or the children are treated as 'problems' : bad, shamed, loathed, and punished, then more damaged and predatory adults will emerge, It doesn't take many to cause havoc in a community.

We can also say with a degree of certainty that many who do not become predators will show signs of that stress in terms of health outcomes in later life. The Adverse Childhood Study by the CDC in the USA, amongst many others, shows this to be the case for addiction, obesity, heart disease, diabetes etc.
If the signs, the symptoms of distress, are understood and the adult worlds response is empathic, concerned, caring and well informed, that the patterns can be broken before they become too ingrained.

We can prevent much of the repeated abuse cycles, and we can prevent the emergence of serious health issuers if we understand their roots, and act responsibly and responsively ....

This is a cultural response ability we desperately need to create.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Some thoughts on War as a policy of State Power

"True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution."

and

"restoring a sense of social community requires a public forum where victims can speak their truth and their suffering can be formally acknowledged. In addition, establishing any lasting peace requires an organized effort to hold individual perpetrators accountable for their crimes. … If there is no hope of justice, the helpless rage of the of victimized groups can fester, impervious to the passage of time. Demagogic political leaders well understand the power of this rage, and are only too willing to exploit it by offering to an aggrieved people the promise of collective revenge. Like traumatized individuals, traumatized countries need to remember, grieve, and atone for their wrongs in order to avoid reliving them."

Judith Herman : Trauma and Recovery

http://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Recovery-Aftermath-Violence-Political/dp/0465087302


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SONG FOR 1914 : THE CHILDREN WHO GO TO WAR

THE DEADLY GAMES OF POWER, THE PRIZE THE WINNER SEEKS
THE DUTY BOUND ARE MADE TO MURDER, THEY LOSE THIS GAME FOR KEEPS
THIS SLAUGHTER IS PURE CRUELTY, ALL WAR IS CHILD ABUSE
TO PREPARE THE CHILD HE MUST BE BROKEN, IT’S BEST WE FACE THE TRUTH.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, OUR FATHERS WERE TALKED TO WAR WITH PRIDE
LED BY POWER AND DUTY, FOR THEIR COUNTRY AND THEIR GOD THEY DIED
AND SO THEY BELIEVED, THEY HAD TO, OR THEY’D NEVER HAVE LEFT THEIR HOMES,
TO BE BILLETED IN WET TRENCHES, SOME BURIED BY BOMBS, SO MANY LEFT TO DIE ALONE

TO SERVE THE IMAGINED GLORY OF KAISERS, KINGS AND GENERAL STAFF
THEY RODE IN LINE, SANG IN LINE, THEY DIED IN LINE AND STILL THEY LAUGHED
THAT UPPER LIP, THAT STOIC SMILE, THAT SENSE OF DUTY HELD, AND LOST SO MANY LIVES
WHERE MEN WERE MURDERED IN THEIR THOUSANDS, AND DESERTERS WERE REVILED

YET THE DESERTERS WERE THE HONEST ONES, THEY SHOWED THEIR FEAR FOR REAL
NO MAN OUGHT GO TO WAR, WHERE THERE IS NO BEAUTY THERE TO BE REVEALED
ONLY THE BLINDED WILL GO THERE, ONLY THE BROKEN CHILD
ONLY THE MAN TRAINED TO KILL, ONLY THE BROKEN MIND

GRACE IN DANGER IS A LIE, IT’S A BLOODY, DIRTY CONFIDENCE TRICK
GRACE IN PEACE IS RESISTANCE TO THAT DREADFUL YET STILL CONSTANT MYTH
THAT WAR BRINGS A BETTER PEACE, A BETTER WAY OF LIFE,
THAT WAR IS SOMETIMES A NECESSITY, A NECESSARY SACRIFICE.

'TIS TIME TO END THESE FALSE APPRAISALS, 'TIS TIME TO TELL THE TRUTH
THAT THE POWER THAT WILL MURDER IS FOUNDED ON ACCEPTED CHILD ABUSE
THAT THE TRAUMA UNRESOLVED WILL CONTINUE TO CAUSE HARM
UNTIL THAT WOUND HAS HEALED WE WILL CONTINUE TO GO TO WAR.

______________

Two items that my readers might wish to explore, to investigate for yourselves, the truth of this piece.


1. Stefan Molyneux: a Radio Chat with a Veteran... moving, honest, revealing, worth hearing...

2. The Cycle of (Legal) Violence?
Child Abuse and Military Aspirations
MA Research Paper by Christopher Khawand
Florida International University 2009 - On the linkage between adverse childhoods and Voluntary Enlistment in Military...




Kindest regards
Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Abuse and Resolution: an Urgent Question of Maturity

"The abused abuser is no defence - just a devious way of getting a lighter sentence. It is no excuse. "

I hear this often, and feel that more needs to be said or written on this.... as a Survivor,  I am absolutely focussed on prevention...

If we want to prevent abuse, we have to understand how and why it emerges. Otherwise we end up dealing with abuse AFTER a child has been abused, which is way too late....

There are writers, researchers and scientist/pratictioners who have outlined the dynamics of abuse and trauma (PTSD patterns) and the context of natural child development being disrupted very well, such as Alice Miller, James Prescott, John Bowlby, Gabor Maté , Marshal Rosenberg, Vincent Feletti, David Chamberlain, and others.

The basic theme is this : certain biologically mandated experiences and processes are necessary for the development of caring self empathy (sense of self) and caring empathy for others. these biological processes start with the child-mother bonding process, in the womb, at birth, infancy and toddlership... if these mandates are disrupted across a society, then statistically we see a massive increase in abuse, distress, psychological dysfunction.

In the research there is observed a direct relationship between the degree of disruption of the child-mother bonding processes and the degree of violence, hierarchy, religiosity, territorialism and abuse.

All of theses are further complicated by Trauma Events, such as war, poverty, racism, sexism, religion, climactic events esp. where there is no healing/recovery mechanisms and people are forced to cope with the situation.... the coping mechanism is appropriate in the midst of a trauma event, yet it becomes toxic if maintained after the event, if the trauma response becomes chronic... as we see in intergenerational trauma patterning, where the adverse affects of the trauma are passed down through the generations and are expressed even in a situation where the original trauma is but a dim memory, a story of legend or history..

The chronic stress associated with Hierarchically Violent Societies is profoundly damaging, even if the people within it become adjusted to it....

In order to prevent future abuse, it is necessary to support parents in ways that enable the child-mother bonding to be recognised and responded to with support.

It's also necessary to challenge all Government support for War (Trauma),

It follows that it's also necessary to challenge the status of Religious and State Indoctrination,

It becomes obvious that we need to alter State Education so that it becomes a forum for nurturing self empathy, autonomy and response ability (at core, Education needs to be democratised so the children take responsibility and are supported in developing that sense of responsibility, not through sanctions and bullying, but through respect and example...) and that it helps prepare children for becoming effective, nurturing parents as well as preparing them for a life of work...

It's also necessary to LISTEN to Survivors, for their insights are amongst the deepest in this area... as is their motivation to challenge abuse wherever it occurs.

Too often, 'normal' folk shy away from Survivors insights, from the darkness of their experiences at the hands of abusers, and this tends to lend weight to those who HYPE the issue, who contort the issue in ways that make it less likely to be resolved as part of a political ploy.

'Normal' folk also tend to have such a strong reaction and with it a desire to harm abusers, to punish them, which has nothing to do with the Survivors needs, nor the work needed to ensure prevention - it's usually an unconscious reaction of avoidance... it's easier to think of the abuser as someone to abuse (punish, kill, etc etc) than it is to face the pain, terror, harm and shame a Survivor has lived through and walk with the Survivor as a companion in their recovery.... and to then seek to understand how the abuser became the abuser and seek ways to prevent further emergences as best as possible.

If we are not focussed on prevention, then abuse will continue. Punishment is applied only to those few, and it is a minority, who get caught or are exposed.

Punishment satisfies a public's immature demand for justice and abandons all future children to potential predation as a hidden cost. This is unacceptable, morally and intellectually.

It's long past time for the discourse on abuse to mature, for those concerned with this issue to step up to the plate and confront it with clarity, commitment, maturity and grace.

I also think that abusers neurological 'wiring' and behaviour emerges out of their experience - they were not conceived with this in place. There is some evidence that certain kinds of trauma in utero and birth and infancy can alter a persons neurology in ways that if not recognised, and therefore modulated or attended to, can become the basis for the developing psychopathy.

In all cases of abuse perpetrated by an adult, we have to face the fact that the adult abuser has CHOSEN to abuse, that there is an element of volition and that this brings with it accountability, before those they have victimised and the community at large and that this accountability and consequences cannot be softened by our awareness.

Our awareness is about PREVENTION, about spotting the signs early on and modulating those children who show signs of psychopathy, of instituting a deeper society wide awareness of the need and basis for empathic parenting and empathic governance - they go together... this awarness is not to be taken to soften the consequences of those who have abused others, to excuse them.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

More notes on the trauma roots of the Dominant Culture...



More notes on the trauma roots of the Dominant Culture...

The following are some of the symptoms of PTSD.

    Difficulty regulating emotions and impulses
    Emotional numbing
    Anger and aggression
    Substance addictions
    Behavioural addictions
    Self-harming behaviours
    Dissociation

How many of these apply to cultural norms as evinced in the behaviour of those who rule, those who determine how 'Economics' operates, those who are scripture bound, to ideologies and/or Faiths, to criminal behaviour endorsed by the State and other Governing structures? 
"This intrinsic dynamic is observable in all religions. Religions were obviously created not by people respected in childhood but by adults starved of respect from childhood on and brought up to obey their parents unswervingly. They have learned to live with the compulsive self-deception forced on them in their earlier years. Many impressive rituals have been devised to make children ignore their true feelings and accept the cruelties of their parents without demur. They are forced to suppress their anger, their TRUE feelings and honor parents who do not deserve such reverential treatment, otherwise they will be doomed to intolerable feelings of guilt all their lives. Luckily, there are now individuals who are beginning to desist from such self-mutilation and to resist the attempt to instill guilt feelings into them. These people are standing up against a practice that its proponents have always considered ethical. In fact, however, it is profoundly unethical because it produces illness and hinders healing. It flies in the face of the laws of life. "

Alice Miller
The same applies to the Institutions of Governance, of Banking, of Corporate 'business'.... and the current UK Governing group, the 'coalition partners' and their so-called 'opposition' Labour are demonstrating this by their behaviour and justification of their policies.

The people who built these structures, and the vast majority of those who work within them form a large part of the cultural meme/behaviour that is replicated, generation after generation, BECAUSE there is almost no acknowledgement within Governance of the adverse realities these structures impose on those who have the least power; rather those who have the least power are chosen for castigation and punishment, in a vicarious desire of the power holders, at every level, from the executive to the front line, to ameliorate their own symptoms of distress, the existence of which they deny, yet which, at the unconscious level, drive their behaviours.

"I became aware of my patients’ deeply entrenched resistance to remembering these painful events: they were extremely reluctant to feel the tragic situation they had been in as children and to take it seriously. Some of them described acts of monstrous cruelty with a complete lack of emotion, as if they were something that was only to be expected. They believed their parents had loved them and that as children they had richly deserved severe punishment because they were so insufferable. The regularity with which true feelings were denied or split off made me realize that almost all of us tend to deny, or at least play down, the pain caused by the injuries we suffered in childhood. We do this because we still fear punishment at the hands of our parents, who could not bear to accept us as we truly were. These childhood fears live on in the adult. If they remain unconscious, that is if they are not identified as such, then they will retain their virulence to the end of our lives. Unfortunately, these fears also live on in those who advance theories that camouflage childhood reality and that concentrate instead on the nature of “psychical structures.” This approach began with Freud and was later taken over by C.G. Jung and others. Like present-day “spiritualist” interpretations, these theories all served one purpose: to allay the fears of the maltreated children these therapists still were. "

Alice Miller

The resolution of all this can only emerge AFTER full acknowledgement - until that occurs the past will drive the present behaviour, and will be 'justified' with whatever means is deemed culturally acceptable - full employment, democracy, etc etc..

Capitalism is an unresolved post Christian dynamic.

Power, guilt, shame and coercion are the fundamental memes of Capitalism.... as they were, and remain to this day, of Christianity

It's easy to ditch a false religion at the surface, much harder to address the unconscious scars that remain until they are fully acknowledged, and steps are taken to move into recovery and healing.

I know this from my own experience, when I tried for years to adopt Bhuddism, Paganism, Dao-ism and other -isms as a way to recover from my Christian indoctrination,  yet was unable to alleviate my symptoms of guilt, shame and fear. It wasn't until I started to acknowledge and address my experiences as a child, from the perspective of that child, in the presence of an 'enlightened witness' that I was able to start to recover..

As Judith Herman points out, the safety issue is crucial.

The key to healing from traumatic experiences in childhood is achieving these ‘stage-one’ goals of personal safety, genuine self-care, and healthy emotion-regulation capacities. Once these have become standard operating procedures, great progress and many new choices become possible. Importantly, the first stage of recovery and treatment is not about discussing or ‘processing’ memories of unwanted or abusive experiences, let alone ‘recovering’ them. As much as I describe and understand history, I need to feel safe to proceed.

The same applies to entire communities caught up in trauma cycles, for example Israel/Palestine... or Northern Ireland ..

Likewise with the dominant culture, especially where that culture is based on Power Relationships and Utilitarianism as opposed to Empathic Relationships and Conscious Awareness of Interdependence. Until we feel safe enough, we cannot begin to address the underlying issues in detail.

Which is what Christian based Counselling projects for Survivors of Clerical Abuse, for example, cannot achieve. Nor could 'Democracy' as touted by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq between 2004 and 2012 achieve.... in these cases, it is obvious why the people who seek help do not feel safe, and therefore cannot proceed.

After centuries of War as States established themselves, and fought with each other, we now live with a culture that portrays war as 'good vs bad', with sacrifice, glory and bravery in combat as key 'positive' elements to be admired, is it the case that this culture has not yet resolved the issues related to mass trauma, that in fact that this culture is founded on unresolved PTSD issues? Just as the major Religions were?

If so, then the resolution of that culture's problems are a matter of concern for all of us because the issues are tractable - that is to say they can be dealt with, worked on towards healing and recovery. PTSD is no mystery. It is well understood. As is the resolution of PTSD.

If we don't, at the very least, attempt to resolve them then it will become our children's problem.

Is that the inheritance we wish for our children? Is that our gift to them?

Do we hold to our 'belief systems', our 'hatreds and fears' rather than address the matter with all our available energy?

What then is the meaning of our 'love', if we refuse this essential task?


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY : A presentation

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY
A Talk given on May 23rd 20122 @ Inspiring Minds Forum,  Mango Landin', London

  1. The Psychology of any emergent or given Society/Community/Family is both revealed, and perpetuated, in how that group treats it's children, and especially it's most vulnerable people... address that and you can change the whole society. Failure to address this where it is toxic ensures it's continuation.  Eg: Aboriginal Residential Schools were intentionally designed to alter Aboriginal Society forever. Compulsory Schooling has the same purpose.   John Taylor Gatto “Underground History of American Education” www.johntaylorgatto.com
  1. Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, David Cameron, George Osborne, George Bush, Richard Nixon, Tony Blair etc  : What happened to these people when they were ‘in utero’, at birth, when they were babies, infants, toddlers, children, teenagers…. that they turned out like they have? This is a crucial question for each of us and for our culture. Alice Miller “For Your Own Good” http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm
  1. The disruption of the biologically mandated child-mother bonding process sets up a chain of events, leading to emergent violence. Attachment ‘theory’ research on primates.

    The flow is as follows: if the child is not related to in ways that nurture self-empathy, then the development of a loss of self-empathy occurs. With that loss comes a loss of empathy for others, a sense of disconnection is felt and with that comes more fear, compounding the fear the trauma generated.

    The compounded, layered fear leads directly to a perceived (often unconscious) need to control others and to control the environment.

    As all natural organisms are autonomous, self directing growing beings, so too they will resist, to one degree or another, efforts to control them. That resistance generates the use of violence or coercion to impose or retain that control.

    In human family or society, if this pattern starts, and is not resolved, then each successive generation will impose that control, and those who hold Power will seek to enhance it, learning as time passes, and the children will grow up in an environment that they will 'adapt' to, the situation demanding the internalisation of that psychological need to control. Anthropology – James Prescott - http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html

  2. What baby/child/person would not be angry, confused or frightened at not experiencing the experientials our biology has mandated? Think of the child left to cry him/her self to sleep in a room away from his or her parents, to scream and cry until finally exhaustion brings sleep. Is this not a common practice in our culture? What of the resignation, the suppression of that rage, the loss of self empathy which ensues from that suppression which is a common outcome of such a practice? Adrenaline, Cortisol vs Oxytocin

    Thus the need to control then gets transmitted through the structure of that family or society and over time becomes codified, normalised, embedded, institutionalised. Empire, Hierarchically Violent Societies.
             SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS
  1.  Why has neither the general public nor the secular authorities not moved to confront the Vatican on it’s record of child abuse within it’s Organisation? Linkage of Hierarchical Power Systems.
  2. What does this tell us about our Society? Psychological core or root.
  3. Why has natural birthing been replaced with ever increasing utilisation of ‘ceasarian section’ as an elective procedure, as a matter of choice? http://www.birthpsychology.com
  4. What does coercion of children speak of?   Insecurity, mistrust, fear.
  5. Why is Society left out of the therapeutic process? http://www.davidsmail.info/talk01a.htm

Social-Behavioral Characteristics Of Affectionate/Nurturant And Non-Affectionate/Non-Nurturant Primitive Cultures by James W. Prescott

James W. Prescott is a developmental neuropsychologist and a cross-cultural psychologist who received his doctorate in psychology from McGill University, Montreal, P.Q. Canada. He served as Assistant Head, Physiological Psychology Branch, Office of Naval Research (1963-1966); as Health Scientist Administrator, Developmental Behavioral Biology Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH (1966-1980); and President, Maryland Psychological Association (1970-1971). He was the recipient of the "Outstanding Contributions To Psychology Award, Maryland Psychological Association (1977); the CINE GOLDEN EAGLE AWARD for his contributions, as Scientific Director, to the award winning Time-Life film, "Rock A Bye Baby" (1971); and has given expert testimony on the origins of human violence, particularly domestic violence, before the Senate of Canada; the U.S. Congress; and many other legislative and professional organizations.

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
1. Martrilineal
2. Polygyny has low incidence
3. Women's status not inferior
4. Low avoidance of In-Laws
5. Low incidence of Mother-Child households
6. Small community size
7. Low societal complexity
8. Large extended family
9. Wives are not purchased
10. Slavery absent
11. Grand-parental authority over parents is absent
12. Subsistence is primarily by food gathering
13. Low class stratification
14. Political integration at community and family level
15. Metal working is absent

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
16. High infant physical affection
17. Low infant physical pain
18. High infant indulgence
19. High reduction of infant needs
20. Immediate reduction of infant needs
21. Low infant/child crying
22. Prolonged breast-feeding over 21/z years
23. Low child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior
24. Low child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior
25. High smiling, laughter, humor
26. Low anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood
27. High number of food taboos during pregnancy
28. Abortion permitted
29. Strength of desire for children is low

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
30. Premarital coitus permitted
31. Extramarital coitus permitted
32. Post-partum sex taboo less than one month
33. Sex disability absent
34. Castration anxiety is low
35. Low sex anxiety
36. Narcissicism is low
37. Low exhibitionistic dancing

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
1. Patrilineal
2. Polygyny has high incidence
3. Women's status inferior
4. High avoidance of In-Laws
5. High incidence of Mother-Child households
6. High community size
7. High societal complexity
8. Small extended family
9. Wives are purchased
10. Slavery present
11. Grand-parental authority over parents is present
12. Subsistence is primarily by food production
13. High class stratification
14. Political integration at state level
15. Metal working is present

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
16. Low infant physical affection
17. High infant physical pain
18. Low infant indulgence
19. Low reduction of infant needs
20. Delayed reduction of infant needs
21. High infant/child crying
22. Breast-feeding less than 21/a years
23. High child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior
24. High child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior
25. Low smiling, laughter, humor
26. High anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood
27. Low or no food taboos during pregnancy
28. Abortion highly punished
29. Strength of desire for children is high

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
30. Premarital coitus punished
31. Extramarital coitus punished
32. Post-partum sex taboo greater than one month
33. Sex disability present
34. Castration anxiety is high
35. High sex anxiety
36. Narcissism is high
37. High exhibitionistic dancing

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
38. Low adult physical violence
39. Low or no warfare
40. Low military glory
41. Bellicosity is low
42. Low or absent killing, torture, mutilation
43. Low personal crime
44. Incidence of theft is low

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
38. High adult physical violence
39. High warfare
40. Military glory emphasized
41. Bellicositiy is extreme
42. High killing, torture, mutilation
43. High personal crime
44. Incidence of theft is high

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS
HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
45. High God is mainly absent
46. Low or no religious activity
47. Superordinate justice absent
48. Supernatural are benevolent
49. Fear of humans rather than fear of supernatural
50. Belief in reincarnation absent
51. Low ascetecism in mourning
52. Witchcraft low or absent
53. Religious specialists are part-time

NOTE: The above social-behavioral characteristics of primitive cultures have been derived from: R.B. Textor (1967) A Cross-Cultural Summary, HRAF Press New Haven.

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS
LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES
45. High God is present
46. High religious activity
47. Superordinate justice present
48. Supernatural are aggressive
49. Fear of supernatural rather than fear of humans
50. Belief in reincarnation present
51. High ascetecism in mourning
52. Witchcraft highly present
53. Religious specialists are full time

Matrilineal cultures are those where inheritance follows the female line; Polygynous cultures are those where men have several wives and is a measure of sexual exploitation and control of women by men; High desire for children is a measure that reflects exploitation of children: high value of male and female fertility; and use of children as economic resource, thus, its linkage with abortion being punished. Presence of a Supernatural (High God) with high religious activity in low affectionate/nurturant cultures reflects the need for "divine love" when human love is absent or significantly diminished. Similarity, God is made unto the image and likeness of man — violent cultures have violent Gods; peaceful cultures have peaceful/benevolent Gods.

------------------------


BIOLOGY

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN NATURE AS A WHOLE?

FALSE LOGIC OF THE ‘EXCEPTION’?

H.ORMONES - THE HEART AS  HORMONAL REGULATOR, OCYTOCIN, ADNERALINE, CORTISOL, DISRUPTION OF NATURAL STRESS MECHANISMS

THE HEART AS A COGNITIVE ORGAN OF PERCEPTION – HOW THIS WORKS, BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY.

ADAPTATION AS A LEARNING PROCESS:  NOT ‘HIT AND MISS’, NOT ‘RANDOM’, BUT EXTREMELY PRECISE.

NEUROPLASTICITY – WHAT DOES THAT TELL US ABOUT ‘ADAPTATION’?

BEHAVIOUR

TRAUMA CYCLES AND BEHAVIOURS – COPING AND RECOVERY.

SOCIETAL BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS – HOW THEY EVOLVE.

INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA PATTERNS – WHY THEY PERSIST.

INSTITUTIONALISATION – GLORIFICATION OF WAR, POWER, HATRED, PROPERTY.


ANTHROPOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY – PARENTING, MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD, EXPERIENCE OF CARING IN EMPATHIC ABORIGINAL SOCIETIES, BACTERIA, EMPATHY AS A BODY-SENSORY EXPERIENCE,

WHY ARE WE DIFFERENT? WHAT ARE WE DOING AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?

CHILD ‘REARING’ – POISONOUS PEDAGOGY, ELITE PRACTICE.

TRADING ON PARENTS FEARS – WHAT ARE THOSE FEARS?

JAMES PRESCOTT’S WORK WITH JOHN BOLWBY,AND BEYOND …

RESURGENCE IN ABORIGINAL MOTHERING, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

SOLUTIONS

PARENTING – TRUST IN OUR BIOLOGICAL MANDATE.

IF PARENTS CAN UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION THEY ARE PLACED IN AND HOW IT CAN HARM THEIR CHILDREN, WILL THEY ACT ON WHAT THEY KNOW?

WILL THEY ACT CONSTRUCTIVELY OR DESTRUCTIVELY?

COMMUNITY – HOW NATURE FUNCTIONS.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION WE ARE IN – AVOIDING THE COMFORT OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES, FANTASY OR IDEOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS, STICKING TO RELIABLE PROOFS.

EMPATHY AND SELF EMPATHY IN SELF GOVERNANCE.

RAISING CHILDREN WHO WILL RESPOND RATHER THAN REACT.

REALISM : START WITH SELF, EXTEND OUTWARDS LOCALLY.

TIME AND PROCESS, NATURE AS A CUE, AND AS A SOURCE OF CLUES.

CONFRONTING ‘RECEIVED WISDOM’ WITH DATA, EXPERIENCE, EMPATHY.

NOTE : Another component of the heart-brain communication system was provided by researchers studying the hormonal system. The heart was reclassified as an endocrine gland when, in 1983, a hormone produced and released by the heart called atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) was isolated.

This hormone exerts its effect on the blood vessels, on the kidneys, the adrenal glands, and on a large number of regulatory regions in the brain. It was also found that the heart contains a cell type known as 'intrinsic cardiac adrenergic'' (ICA) cells. Theses cells release noradrenaline and dopamine neurotransmitters, once thought to be produced only by neurons in the CNS.

More recently, it was discovered that the heart also secretes oxytocin, commonly referred to as the 'love' or bonding hormone. In addition to its functions in childbirth and lactation, recent evidence indicates that this hormone is also involved in cognition, tolerance, adaptation, complex sexual and maternal behaviours, learning social cues and the establishment of enduring pair bonds. Concentrations of oxytocin in the heart were found to be as high as those found in the brain.





Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

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