Regulating – The Next Level

Regulating: A Paradigm Shift – The Next Level

Hi. I’ve been out of reach. It has been too long since I last posted with you. Now the summer is over. Hard to imagine. I know things have been very hectic for you. It has been a very busy time for me too. I’m doing a lot of research these days about the change process. It’s an extremely exciting time, for me, and for my patients. Lots of wonderful scientific breakthroughs. It has been a tough time too trying to help others. Rewiring is very complex. What keeps me excited is the scientific renaissance that’s taking place at the moment as far as real healing is concerned. But, for the present, I’ll mention one facet of my work with people. Here’s my current reflections for you. Hope you enjoy.

Recent clinical science is changing the face of patient treatment. Important segments in helping people require that we mutually share in the emotions of other people. Contemporary psychology and psychiatry since the 1990s, unfortunately, have been operating under an old model. Going it alone, a one-person non-relational model, no longer works based on the modern neurosciences. This modern shift requires a new capacity to be in touch with each other emotionally, what I describe as having a mindful regulation. This vital turn describes the importance of two points. First, our capacity to know another person and her mind is a required ability – it’s a new brain skill that must be perfected. Unfortunately, most people today are giving no evidence of having this capacity on the interpersonal level.

The potential to know another person’s mind and to regulate that person is now, according to the brain sciences, no longer a given. In my clinical work, sharing in the mind and emotions of others is vital and requires special learning. I suggest that knowing another person requires the ability to mindfully regulate the other on the emotional level. Understanding each other’s emotions and subjective states now has become an extremely important aspect of two people learning how to stay connected. The other option is that we stay disconnected and experience conflict and symptoms in our present relationships. There’s more involved.

The second part of the shift that I’m describing, and the other important piece of our paradigm change is to learn how to regulate each other, or more specifically, how to regulate another person with precision. Also knowing how to do this can no longer be expected as a given. This second piece also requires a different kind of skill, like learning how to play tennis, so that the process of mutually participating in the life of another, two minds, and immersed in the feelings of others, requires a certain level of expertise. We need training. There is no other option.

For example, the way we communicate our minds and our emotions to someone is a central part of our human and scientific complexity. Equally as important, our entire human DNA is deeply rooted in the genetics of neural plasticity, which means that as we learn how to connect together in regulating ways, we can then expect to see our brains and our medical biological systems begin to stay (rewire) in healthy and normal ways. There is a lot on the line, a huge price to pay, if we ignore this process of mutual regulation.

And let me include a third piece of the paradigm shift and I’m describing. I will say more about this in the days to come. But for now it’s important that we understand a little neurochemistry. It is extremely crucial that we get a sense of the important impact that mutual regulation has. For example as scientists I describe the important part of the brain as the autonomic nervous system.

What I know now as a specialist is that the human body is directly connected to the autonomic system’s arousal from the earliest days of development. One example would be how our early development is shaped by the mutual exchange with our earliest caregivers. Our autonomic arousal system appears on line from the earliest days of our development, and the brain’s development is specifically based on the emotional communication with our caregivers and our attachment history.

As a clinical scientist I’ve also discovered that the right hemisphere is deeply connected to the autonomic nervous system. I’m asking my patients to track their arousal system on a day-to-day basis. I want to know how they’re feeling on the level of their brains and their bodies. We know that life itself, and the stresses we go through, will specifically appear imprinted on our brains and in our day-to-day interactions with others. These relations are medically coded in the brain and the body. So one of the important things that we all must learn is to manage our neuromedical systems together with the brain of a mature and regulated person. This has the potential to change the brain of two people, especially the neurobiological systems that take place on the conscious and unconscious levels. Cognitive neuroscience is comfortable with the word non-conscious. It’s now part of our daily vocabulary as we discuss the complexities of the human brain and body.

I’ve also discovered that the autonomic nervous system requires a certain kind of regulation on two levels: my parasympathetic nervous system and my sympathetic nervous system. Without the regulation process in place, I now develop a certain kind of insecure attachment: I avoid you; I may feel calm at the moment; or I feel extremely excited; I then will feel depressed or anxious. Based on these new findings in terms of the brain sciences, I believe it’s safe to say that all mental health problems are related to counseling needs, and the majority of medical problems, have deep roots in the autonomic nervous system and it’s dysregulation.

The autonomic nervous system requires a certain kind of mutual regulation in a specific and safe context. As we know, this usually takes place below our conscious awareness. However, once the nervous system becomes dysregulated, then we struggle with our defense mechanisms in place, and what I call the firewall dilemma. I recently had this problem with my computer recently, that I use to access certain scientific databases. Unfortunately my anti-Norton virus was blocking my ability to download my new Microsoft 8.1. I wonder why I never have this problem with my Mac computer. Oh well, I’ll get back on track. Once dysregulation sets in motion, and now has infected the autonomic nervous system, then we as people develop non-conscious strategies to protect ourselves in a relationship with each other, our medical health suffers; my brain and body are now dysregulated on subcortical levels, and unfortunately, I can see the relational impact in the human brain and body on the following complex medical systems.

For example, the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal corticoids are deeply affected by the central nervous system. These lower brain areas now have direct contact with the heart, the endocrine system, and a host of medical subsystems. Dysregulation also affects the central nervous system. The impact is also felt from dysregulation on the sympathetic nervous system, as well as the periaqueductal and Polyvagal systems of the lower regions of the human brain. In essence, my mind, heart, and body are impacted by the relational problems I experience on a daily basis. Don’t worry. There’s hope.

In other words, relating to others will have a direct impact on conscious and nonconscious medical subsystems. It would also appear that chronic dysregulation will have extreme negative impact on my individual and interpersonal levels. Ongoing dysregulation, until real change takes place, unlike surface coping, will essentially take its toll on all these (and mine) complex conscious and non-conscious biological systems. I ask my reader to be patient with me, and excuse the complexity of the human sciences. However, it’s important that we understand the value of mutual regulation, and what we can do to create a talking cure on the medical and interpersonal levels. The stakes are high.

And finally, our insecure attachments now are deeply rooted in medical subsystems on the complex neurobiological levels. The parasympathetic nervous system and the central nervous system have branches that also maintain the firewalls of disconnection that are kept separate and potentially create more human diseases, and are the direct result of the break up of so many relationships today. So the number one objective for my work with patients today on the day-to-day level is to teach them how to manage their arousal levels, the autonomic nervous system, through mutual regulation. It’s not too much to ask.

Thank you for listening (and reading). And, in the days to come, I will cover in my next two posts how to recreate a talking cure (please check out my 2 books, now available in Kindle)in my life and yours, in much more intimate and relational ways. As you know by now, we can no longer ignore the interactive process of mutual regulation. A cure is what we’re shooting for. Now is the time for a game change.

PS. I’m currently working on a draft for a new book on how the brain, when regulated, will change our human and medical systems. Don’t worry; the book will be for the general reader (I hope). Remember, mutually reconnecting is about science too. Relationship is the key. Your loved ones will thank you. See you soon. Please don’t stay away so long. Let’s learn, like playing tennis, how to regulate!

Take care.

Dr. Archie Johnson

The Place of Science for Understanding Relationships: A Bracket Change

It was more than a decade ago when I started my clinical psychotherapy practice; I began to see all sorts of complicated patients. What first took me by surprise was that many of these individuals had come from enormous amounts of therapeutic time with professional and experienced therapists. Many came in for marital or couples treatment. Some came alone. I saw how much pain these people were still experiencing. There was very little to no resolution. I was concerned. So these folks eventually started seeing me. What could I do that was different? What could I say that even the most experienced therapists and PhD’s have not explained or already acknowledged? What could I offer hurting people that was more definite? And that ultimate heartfelt conclusion was why I began to write my two volumes, the talking cure (Amazon). I wanted to offer hurting people a new perspective on the cure process, that was deeply rooted in the scientific method, that took much of what I said out of my personal opinion and placed it back at the center where it needed to be, in the scientific method. And this is where ultimately clinical questions must emerge, in the best of clinical experience and in the scientific method. Otherwise, we’re left with mere supposition and sometimes conjecture. My argument here is for a new method of integration between these two and extremely important disciplines: science and therapy. Both are extremely necessary.

I remember one couple came in after seeing many other therapists for about two years. This particular couple was in the same problematic place that it was before, with very little improvement and healing. That brought to my attention how desperately clinicians need to provide something different and scientific to help people deeply change. I began to revisit the scientific training that I had in my different graduate disciplines and previous training. As a result, I began to think that a new look at science and its findings could be the actual best tool to provide for hurting people. Hence, while science alone can never be our sacred cow, the scientific method offers us a tremendous perspective that counters opinion alone and transcends human subjectivity (epistemologically different), and what others may think provides the final standard for arbitrating truth claims (law is a good example), especially in the clinical office on a daily basis, working with hurting and most often, with traumatized people.

It’s time to put the scientific method back at the center, especially when we are talking to people in conflict. It is one thing to share my opinion with you, and quite another when I have science to bolster my perspective. Or, as I should say, science should form the way I think, and you as well, especially when we’re talking about treating illnesses and also the common cold. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad advice (it sounds good with bad intentions) and information taking place in the market square of ideas. Science does have a significant role to take. But let’s be clear. I’m not speaking of the perennial drive toward naturalism. Science needs some meta requirements. Perennial naturalism is a modern view of scientific extremists, those men and women who believe that science and science alone has the final answer to everything. I am not arguing for that extreme position. Instead, I am suggesting that the scientific method must be at the center of our interpersonal decisions as they pertain to relationships and how to cure and mutually regulate them. Life is too short to waste our valuable time, while watching as bystanders, how many people remain in their pain, and in their very traumatize states for what appears to be more than a lifetime. I am more convinced that everyone who lives on planet earth must have some level of posttraumatic stress disorder. Think about it.

So where do we go from here? The place of science is very critical to guide us on our way to providing people a true healing experience. Here’s what I discovered: if we learn how to relate to each other in the present, then we can rewrite the brain’s complex memories and file systems that continue to block true healing and mutual regulation now in our lives. The focus has to be on the here and now. The past is the past, but we must learn from it. However, there is a specific science approach to creating new relationships in the present context that bypasses opinions, hunches, and one’s subjective experiences, about what is true and how to heal a broken relationship. The Bee Gees sang: “How do you mend a broken heart?” Love is not blind, if we learn how to heal each other (it’s always together) in the present moments of relationships, no matter how painful and tragic our experiences have been with one another. That’s what science today can deeply teach us, and why I am now so thoroughly convinced that a new clinical and scientific approach can help restore marriages, broken relationships, infidelity, betrayal, and all those files that remain dissociated in our lives today, that energize our walls of self protection with each other. I hear Pink Floyd in the background. Repression and denial no longer are necessary. Dissociation can be now reversed, the abnormal kind, if we learn how to allow the hard sciences to change our views about each other, so that a talking cure can really and finally emerge, for you no matter what you’re going through. In my next upcoming post, maybe it won’t be so long and delayed, I will explain how this works on both sides of the human brain, the desperately needed link for our happiness and for our future. Maybe, science can point the way. I sure hope so.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reflect. See you soon.

Dr. Archie

The Negative Effects of Divorce on Children Across the Lifespan

I’m working with some people who are going through the difficulties of divorce. I hurt for them. People, who once were so in love, are now in the midst of deep pain and anger. Why? I only want to address one facet of this dilemma at the moment. Let me provide some moments of reflection.

There are certain mistakes that parents make when they look at the emotional lives of their children. Kids are deeply connected in their relationships with friends and family on many levels. A number of stressful things can affect their children, especially poverty and wealth, physical problems, socioeconomic comics status, or peace and violence in the community. Many factors have different effects. But, some things remain as constants. Parental breakup is damaging, regardless how parents attempt to make it the “good’ divorce (as some states try to mandate). There is no way to get around it. Divorce is painful.

Stressful events in the lives of children affect them differently at various stages in their development. Based on clinical science, we know for sure that the divorce of parents or remarriage, will affect children and the same way as serious illnesses, periods of parental unemployment, or hospitalization for a period of time. Kids have emotional brains as well. They feel the impact.

So any changes in life that threatens children’s secure bubble, can create affective trauma for kids. Based on their social network, especially their parents, there may be some hopeful regulation. It is true the kids are resilient, but let’s make no mistake, that divorce creates deep emotional indigestion in the lives of hurting children. We need to have a special understanding of the emotional lives of children. The empirical data is available.

Children have a deep need to feel loved and secure. The parental divorce will challenge this security. It may take a few days, or a few months, the final impact may even take a year or so later, but the negative effects of divorce will eventually appear in the lives of children (some private or public types of negative symptoms) as an absolute fact. It’s important that two parents learn how in therapy to have a strong emotional life, a secure bubble, that they are psychologically healthy in the best sense. Kids need a bubble too.

Most parents take for granted that they’re healthy when they are not. Rather, it’s important that mothers and fathers use their children in a good sense as reflective mirrors, because by looking at the emotional lives of their children, then parents can have a better sense in how they’re doing on the psychological barometer. In other words, let your kids teach you about their emotions. Listen well. Pay attention. Let them teach you. And please learn how.

Some parents say to me that they don’t believe that they have any problems. They are too confident. Arrogant may be the term. I often say to them, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “Why don’t you come and sit down, and let me evaluate you? I’m sure we’ll find something wrong.” The painful reality is that denial will only take us so far. Our house of cards will fall, if we allow our kids to deeply impact us. And we should. Our kids will see to it. Most of the time, they don’t pull any punches.

Kids will then reveal how they are doing, if we learn how to pay attention. Their emotional lives are the fact checkers. Very quickly the child will no longer feel secure and protected when that divorce is looming like that perfect storm: too much ice and way too much pain. Parental repression will let them down every time. Parents need to express and deeply face their real vulnerabilities, and where they fail. It’s important. The defenses no longer work. The kids recognize them. Perfection, of course, is never the objective. All we’re shooting for is being good enough. Unfortunately, when divorce sets in, parents, most of the time, get a failing grade.

Typically, and it is very common, parents facing divorce lose their ability to reason and be objective. The 1979 movie, Kramer versus Kramer, is an great example of this current problem and the downward trend of divorce. Instead of maintaining love and respect for the kids among the parents, the children get caught in the struggle (much too often) between very angry and bitter parents. The kids don’t know what to do with the emotional storms they are now subjected to. It hurts. They do. Many times, and with the parent they live with, the child shares the actual negative feelings of that parent’s pain and bitterness. It’s also true with the other parent as well. Kids can read situations well, especially during times of separation. Of course, that then becomes a terrible situation for the child. What is the child supposed to do? The attachment has been broken.

Some parents slip into situations that they no longer spend much time with their kids, nor give much attention to them during the separation and the divorce. The stress is so high. The child begins to feel this separation very deeply. Therefore, the children not only experience the loss of the secure bubble of their former united family, but they learn to experience their own set of independence and detachment like the distancing parent. It becomes a no win situation, while the kids sit on the bench and become spectators. As that song by the group Pink Floyd, children learn to put more emotional bricks in their fragile walls of self-protection. Of course, the walls represent their own layers of emotional protection from the pain of their parent’s separation, and the child’s newfound decision is to never hurt like that again. It soon becomes a lifetime experiment. In other words, the children’s secure bubble has been breached. This painful resolve becomes inevitable in separation and divorce situations, while the band plays on. We can hear the kids sing in harmony: “Play me a song Mr. Piano man. Play a song for me.”

I suggest that in most separation and divorce settings, children should receive their own type of therapy from a highly trained clinical professional. The ideal is that the children would see someone who is a child therapist. Unfortunately in our area, our therapeutic resources are very limited as far as child expertise is concerned. My main point is that divorcing parents have a huge responsibility to micromanage the emotional lives of their children, not to control them, or to tell them how to feel, but to teach and love them (to teach them how to love) by learning how to help them self-regulate. This is built on the presumption that parents know how to do that for themselves. But in my clinical experience, I don’t see this happening on a large scale at all. And a divorce (happy or not) threatens this mutual participation process. Two brains must learn how to rewire together, and this is so true between a child and her two parents. Regulation begins from the top down, from a healthy parent teaching a child how to regulate his or her emotions in the exchange between the parent and her child. And this process takes learning. And it has huge dividends.

A little boy once shared a dream with his doctor when he was 12 in child therapy. In the dream, he went into a field with his favorite dog. His dog dug up a car that was buried in a grave. The car was one of his favorite cars from the younger time in his childhood. The car represented a happy time in his life, years before. It was not until therapy uncovered the hidden meaning of the car. The car represented how he felt previously to his parent’s divorce, when he was seven years old.

His parents divorced when he was about eight years old. From a clinical perspective, the boy’s life from 8 to 12 had fallen apart. The boy at 12 was diagnosed as clinically depressed. The depression drastically affected his private and social life, including his performance at school. It wasn’t until the little boy was able to deal with the complex and painful experiences that he had remembered when his parents divorced, did those conversations between he and his doctor begin to unpack the hidden emotional suffering of that 12 year old little boy. His parent’s divorce was very traumatic for him. The child needed to find new meaning (like the car) to be recreated in his life. But his parent’s divorce produced a terrible emotional state for those 4-5 years that he deeply repressed, and which led to his major depression and his very real struggles in school. As the little boy started to admit, “divorce is really terrible, doc!”

When divorce hits, children identify the unhappiness and the anger that they feel in their confusing circumstances. And it is vitally important that both parents get in touch deeply with their emotional brains, and for parents to recognize the psychological pain in their children’s lives. There is no place for safety when this reality hits. And if you want more emotional space, NASA won’t be much help.

To deal with the divorce, children often prefer to stay in their fantasy life. It’s much easier for them. Reality is hard. We all know that. Narcissism has no place. In many ways, we can see children detaching, becoming more anxious, and some even revert to occasional enuresis. In other words, children learn to deeply deny what’s really going on in their emotional lives, when their parents divorce, and when parent fail to provide that emotional bubble for their kids. No wonder why kids hide behind their walls of protection. It makes sense to all of us.

It’s important that parents don’t get lost in their own worlds of fantasy, by denying that their kids are affected at all by the separation and the divorce. For many children, probably for all, divorce is extremely traumatic. It changes their lives in critical ways. And too often it’s not do good. But the good news is that something can be done. There is hope. But, it takes a lot of work. In reality, though, when parents divorce, the kids further detach. I believe that it is essential that children become deeply involved in some ongoing counseling or intense child therapy. I prefer the latter. Unfortunately, too often parents are unwilling and ill equipped to deal with the underlying roots of their own emotional pain and suffering. Parents are hurting too. Let’s not forget. Sometimes, we need a clinical expert to give us some new direction to heal, and some new tools to rewire. Isn’t that what the Hippocratic Oath is all about; and parents should share in the vision of what can be done to restore their children to optimal health. Believe me, it’s not too late. Carole King would be happy. Look her up.

My advice for separating and divorcing parents is to develop a sense of new motivation for treatment and to craft a real sense of ownership for the reconstruction and a new narrative for the lives of your hurting children. This is so essential that it’s worth repeating. Parents must put away their ambivalence about going to therapy, even when the court (the legal system) applies pressure for the parents and the children to become deeply involved in treatment. I don’t care how smart you are or how you feel that you have it all together. You don’t. No one does. Don’t let your pride get in the way of doing the right thing. It is my utmost plea to all parents, especially the divorcing ones, please become deeply involved in the emotional restoration of your children’s psychological life. And if it at all possible, that two parents (even if your divorced) strongly consider professional help, with the possibility for reconciliation and restoration of your marriage. Make family therapy a nonnegotiable, for yourselves and for your children.

The children of divorced parents are truly victims. They did not ask for the separation of the two most important people in their lives. Too often, the kids become reactive to the trauma that began to take place in their life. For many children, the pain is unbearable and had lead to significant acting out mechanisms in the present, as well as it has produced significant problems on an emotional and social level. I know you must see it. These radical changes also take place in the classroom. In a professional perspective, I see these problems all the time. Kids who had no previous problems before the divorce, often have significant learning problems that appear now as ADHD or oppositional defiant
Disorder. For the other kids, the effects of the divorce create a critical new kind of internalization of the emotional life of the child. But on all levels, divorce creates an ongoing ripple (it’s clinically true) in the lives of hurting children. There is a lot that can be done. There’s a lot at stake. Guilt is not the issue. But, if you want to see your kids stay happy, then you must create something new in the lives of these hurting children. It’s not a mission impossible!

In an ideal world, parents would never divorce. But, we know that’s not how it is. From a psychological perspective, that ideal from a scientific perspective still serves as an invaluable new bubble for the lives of children, since they never asked for the divorce in the first place. They are the victims of unwanted and very sad circumstances.

The song by Billy Joel, “don’t go changing to try to please me, I love you just the way you are” needs some adjustment. I would like to offer a new thought for that number one hit from that former generation. We must learn how to go with the flow of life if that means that we need to sacrifice our own selfishness for the sake of the emotional lives of our children. This is my passionate plea to you. Healing your kids is really worth it. Don’t ignore it any longer. In recent clinical research, we discover how vitally important it is for two parents to stay together, so that their children will grow up healthy, wealthy, and wise. At least from my perspective, two out of three isn’t so bad! It’s time that we create the new balance, by considering how to stay together as parents, and to continue to strengthen the emotional lives of your children. And please remember parents, what you do now will last forever. Your children will be deeply grateful.

Thank you so much for being there.

Dr. Archie

The Relational Center – Our Deep Longing for Relatedness – What’s Really Going On Inside?

Welcome back. It’s been a few weeks. Life has been real busy with new projects and patients. I am doing some exciting brain research at the moment. My focus at the moment is more on searching through the clinical and neurobiological databases. In the meantime, I want to share some current reflections for a deeper understanding of the complexity of people and relationships. Here are some current thoughts for your appreciation.

When I was training as a postdoctoral clinical psychoanalyst in New York, I discovered what I call the relational core that exists at the very heart of every human being. What many doctors in modern psychiatry and clinical psychology describe as psychopathology and personality disorders, I see something a little deeper, something else going on. I am looking at people as if I am looking through a very powerful electron microscope. I soon discovered that within every human being, at the very core, that there is an extremely deep longing to connect with others. I also see a very detached human personality as well. As I’ve suggested before, I believe that this underlying need for deeper connection is driven by medical genetics and is critically hardwired, through the social dimension. We have the capacity to connect with each other at the deepest levels. But, I believe that something is fundamentally wrong in every human life, as my two-track theory (connection and disconnection) explains, that needs a new kind of intensive treatment to reach those hidden parts, and ultimately, this kind of treatment involves a new brand type of cure. Here’s what I have in mind.

Our need for others is at the heart of every human personality. What I learned the most was that the core of everything we call psychopathology, in my view, is an insecure attachment that originates in the earliest examples of relationship. To further describe this ultimate human need for connection also requires that we understand that without mutual regulation in the present, we learn to expect rejection and detachment from ourselves and others. This painful reality appears in my (and yours) interaction with people, maybe nonconsciously. It takes place in the present (in milliseconds) in a push and pull fashion. We long to deeply relate with others, but we also pull and push people away (it feels so normal), and we create our own internal and private world that is closed off from new and deeper levels of pain and rejection, but it also keeps us from enjoying deeper aspects of relatedness.

Relationship provides the necessary look at what’s really going on inside, via the electron microscope, that reveals our self-protection and our deepest longing for a certain and curative connection. Clinically I describe these as schizoid states that exist at the fundamental core of the human personality. I have found a new way to reach this underlying dynamic. Of course, the change project requires mutual regulation for it to visibly appear. Most people I know unfortunately are afraid of connection. They live life visibly withdrawn, emotionally isolated, they function at marginal levels, and their behavior is quite eccentric. Others appear more social. But once you look through the microscope, these folks have difficulty knowing how to function as a friend, as a spouse, as a fellow worker, with any deeper sense of emotional and relational involvement. We should also consider from my doctor’s perspective that patients who were diagnosed as narcissistic, or borderline, also suffer from a deep fear of connection and attachment. Let’s not make the mistake of seeing others from a surface view. In my previous posts, I describe this insecure attachment as a right hemisphere problem. Why psychoanalytic treatment fails with these types of people, is that we have not been able before to plumb the depths of the individual’s relational style. Also, As we now know, psychopharmacology or psychiatric medications will not reach the deepest parts of our personalities, our longing for meaningful relatedness. Something more is required.

I also believe that substance abuse problems and addictions are also connected at the deepest level within the human fear to relate. Many people experience relationships as insatiable, destructive, and obsessive. Others would prefer to painfully swallow their relationships due to the deeper hunger of the human psyche. We try to put on our invisible shields to protect ourselves from each other, through our layers of relationship. For many, their sense of self now is so fragile and vulnerable that any more relationship feels like a tremendous attack against their deepest longing and thirst for connection. It becomes a huge struggle.

Mutually regulated relationships are the final answer. So why do we settle for less? In many ways we don’t. We prefer to suffer with the devil we know rather than the devil we don’t know. I know now how to help contact the deepest part of the human personality, that is walled off and shielded from more hurt and from any more pain. There’s no getting around it. We must bring that level of vulnerability to the surface in a very safe environment that helps each one of us become very human and mature in our approach to relationships. There is a basic fault, like the core of every planet. As a little boy reminded me last week, the core of the planet Mars died hundreds of thousands (millions) of years before. That’s why no one can live in a safe environment on the planet Mars. When I asked him, “what is the future state of planet earth and its fundamental core?” He said, “don’t worry doc, planet earth has a few billion years left before we will ever have a same experience like Mars.” After he said that, I felt a lot better. I saw the analogy.

Most people I know don’t enjoy deeper levels of relationship. They don’t have a regulating framework to produce something new in their lives. This is a critical time for everyone. We don’t have to settle for personality disorders any longer. A narcissistic or borderline approach to making life work doesn’t have to be our final resting place. Maybe what we call major depression and anxiety disorders reveal a deeper sense of self that is so fragile and vulnerable. We no longer have to settle for the splitting of our self through repression and dissociation. I’m sure in the past that made all the sense in the world. Now it’s no longer viable. There is a price to pay. Modern external and moralistic approaches to life clearly do not work. And something more then a 12-step model is surely available now. We needed the something more now more than ever. Addictions no longer have to be substitutes for intimate relationships. Something real is available.

Let’s put away our behavioral and external approach to make life work. Life has always been about rich connection and relationships with others. Let’s know longer settle for false selves, or play out a role or wear a mask that makes us sensitive, guarded, and self protected. We need relationships. Don’t ever take that for granted. We need others as long as we have a need for oxygen. That covers a life time.

There’s much more info ahead, and more brain research as well. Thanks always for your attention.
See you soon.

Dr. Arch

The Scientific Evidence (Summary) for Hemispheric Dysregulation, and How this Critical
Disconnection Affects Psychiatric and Medical Problems Today – Part I

Some of my friends recently asked for more discussion in how my treatment with people unfolds. I want to take a few minutes (roughly 1300 words) to develop some new kinds of reflections about relationships (new brain stuff, at least for me) for 2014. My thoughts for this fresh approach developed when I was studying in London in one of my former psychoanalytic seminars. In my preparation for the course, and with many discussions with my psychoanalytic and London professor, I came away from that seminar with some new ideas about what I call a top-down approach to understanding psychiatric disorders and medical syndromes. Of course, healing relationships are my deepest concern. Like our internal organs, there are important differences in the brain that need special attention. Here are my preliminary thoughts. Please bear with this lengthy memo. It’s extremely vital to understand how to heal our broken relationships.

I believe that I can demonstrate from a psychiatric and medical perspective that the majority of major psychiatric disorders and medical syndromes originate in the disconnection of the left and right brain. Therapy will fail if we avoid this scientific direction. Also, and for another day, I will address the issue in how the mind and brain interactively function. But for the moment, I want to suggest that the center of neuropsychiatric disorders and medical problems (the relational problem) originate in the disconnection between the left and right brain of the human mammal.

The nature of psychiatric disorders in particular has been primarily defined by modern psychopharmacology. This is a huge mistake. We call these doctors reductionists. And as we continue to know for sure, the role of medication to help patients is minimal at best. Something more is needed. I think the next step in providing the something more has to do with our understanding how the left brain and right hemisphere communicate in relationships, especially when there’s critical dysregulation taking place between humans (relational conflict, for example), on the complex social and on the individual levels.

Research in the 1980s and 1990s focused its attention on primarily the left hemisphere. I think it’s pretty certain now, at least from a cognitive and medical perspective, that’s the left brain is not the primary hemisphere. And for sure, the right hemisphere is at the center of all neuropsychiatric and medical problems today. That’s why the social factor is critical.

We know today that the right brain processes emotion at 400 ms. The left-brain does so only at 1/50 of a second. Current research in neuropsychology neuropsychiatry has explained that neuropsychiatric disorders are no different from aphasia, agnosia, and other disturbances in higher mental functioning that focus on brain damage. For me, I am now thoroughly convinced that the right hemisphere is at the center of all major neuropsychiatric disorders (mental health) as well as the medical syndromes facing people today. Current treatment research continues to establish this point beyond contention. My Talking Cure (volumes I-II) provides the current evidence.

At UCLA in the summer of 2014, a major colloquium will be based on the ten-year advances that we have made in the cognitive neurosciences. The center of brain studies at UCLA also documents my emphasis on the right hemisphere as being the center of human psychopathology. For my more dedicated reader, I cite numerous references in my extensive notes in the Talking Cure, volume one.

It is true that much of popular literature continues to talk about how the right brain is the creative hemisphere, and the left-brain would be the more logical and concrete one. However, these too simple distinctions don’t hold up today in the brain sciences. There is much asymmetry taking place, especially with the right hemisphere showing more scientific and neurological precedent. Something amazing is taking place, in the social matrix, and I believe that especially as clinicians, we are now on the verge of seeing a new healing horizon in the treatment of complex neuropsychiatric and medical problems today. I am so excited to be part of this new adventure. I’m eager to explain to you these findings.

Here’s my lead premise: I’m convinced that some form of imbalance exists between the left and right hemisphere, from top to bottom, that is the root of all psychiatric, relational, and medical problems. I also believe the right hemisphere is at the center of every relationship problem. I will be brief here. I will extend my discussions in future blogs about the nature of dysregulation in the right hemisphere and how this impacts all social and relationship problems as well.

I would also suggest that to understand why people are struggling at complex levels, then we need to understand how our two hemispheres have reached dysregulated (problematic) imbalances. On one level, I would suggest that bipolar disorder and major depression are left hemisphere focused, especially since the right brain begins to deactivate (on PET scans) on many levels. The human problem is that we begin to see in the clinical and scientific literature how both hemispheres are not interacting appropriately, in what I call dysregulation. The right hemisphere, in the relational exchange, begins to experience significant neurobiological imbalance. And the imbalance appears in both hemispheres, but particularly the right one.

There is now ample evidence that bipolar disorder and depressive illnesses (and the rest) show more activation in one hemisphere then the other that I believe also has causal effects (the effect is felt on a relational level). I feel it, and so do you. I would propose that the right hemisphere, when this occurs, is experiencing significant imbalance in the moment based on past and present insecure attachment problems.

Let’s also keep in mind that the importance of the brain sciences of the two hemispheres can never be reduced to technical minutia: we must never strip the social dimension, since that alternative has no final bearing on life as it is. The most important reason I mention the differences between these two brains, the left and the right, is because of this outcome has tremendous impact on how we relate today to each other on social and individual levels.

Let us also remember, that the brain’s imbalance fundamentally is important because it affects how we live out our present relationships based on this hemispheric imbalance, and this impacts what types of problems we have now, and how we continue to relate to each other. That’s why we need to understand some of the scientific technicality of the brain, so that we can understand the importance of relationship, and how to create lasting security and attachment. Real hope is the byproduct.

Let me promote again my fundamental premise for this essay lest we forget: I am proposing that the imbalance of the right hemisphere and it’s dysregulation is the cause of our neuropsychiatric, interpersonal, and medical problems today – this imbalance currently affects our social problems and our lives with each other. Psychiatric and medical illnesses have their deep connections in the breakdown of relationships in the social brain. The roots of our human struggle are found in the breakdown of our past and present relationships, the bicameral brain, in the critical imbalance of the right (relational) hemisphere.

Therefore, the fundamental human problem becomes the ongoing imbalance in the human brain’s two hemispheres. I hope to devote a new book to this important subject in 2014. For the moment, I have accumulated over 2000 pages of research to substantiate my neuroscientific project. Now we can begin to understand how the complex problems of major depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar illness, the schizophrenia’s, the borderline personality disorders, began – and the whole host of medical problems that demand sophisticated treatment today more than ever. In my next blog, part two, I will begin to specify with more clinical evidence, how all-human relationships demand the talking cure. Mutual regulation is always my ultimate mandate. I believe that this is the most important scientific finding in the 21st-century, over the past 100 years, about the necessary regulation of the left and right hemispheres that is at the center of new healing for emotional, spiritual, psychiatric, social, and medical problems.

In my next offering, hopefully shorter, I will unfold the brain’s internal relational dynamics. It requires a twofold understanding.

Have a Happy New Year, 2014.
Thank you for being here.
Dr. Arch

When Things Go Wrong

Holidays bring on a lot of pain for so many people. It makes me hurt to hear sad stories. I know
most people I have talked to during the Christmas holiday have expressed some deep concerns about seeing their family and friends, especially since they haven’t seen or been around them for at least a year. There are many new challenges apparently when we’re with our love ones during this holiday time. One in particular theme that I heard a number of times in the last week, was the problem when people blamed themselves when things went wrong in their present relationships. Let me explain.

When things go wrong in our relationships it’s perfectly human to blame ourselves. It appears that the holidays bring on more and deeper engagement with others, since we haven’t seen our family and friends during the past year. So expect a deeper level of engagement, and disconnection, and the potential for heightened levels of disappointment. But in most cases, given the nature of our relationships, it’s much more complicated than that. In light of the new breakthroughs in the brain sciences, the left and right hemisphere, we need to take a closer look at what’s happening in every exchange between two people, to ultimately discern what’s going on (right or wrong) in the interaction. In other words, blaming oneself for a breakdown in communication implies three ultimate (and possibly unfounded) criteria.

First, to blame myself for the pain in the relationship is a clinical fallacy. Fundamentally, to blame yourself for the immediate pain in the relationship, further blocks the deeper reflection that must occur about the interactive process. As we learned thus far, if we want to understand regulation, then we must have a better perception of how to do it, and to be extremely empathic when we address each other. Blaming myself only blocks a deeper level of necessary reflection, and also further numbs the pain and the brain’s ability to feel the painful experience of disconnection. That’s the first step.

Second, to blame oneself for a relational disconnection only provides more pressure and guilt on the dispenser of connection in the first place. To initially feel guilt or shame over the disconnection in the present encounter further involves internal and clinical missteps. The woman who blames herself for her father’s lack of affection is missing a powerful piece of the psychological puzzle. By blaming herself she has developed some kind of control over the level of hurt and pain that she feels. “It’s not his fault,” she says, “it’s my fault. I just expect too much. That’s the problem.” As I said, this individual has a significant level of repression and denial taking place. For true love to cast out fear, she must face now how much her father has failed her in the present moment. To fail to do so, her personal strategy to stay out of relationship only activates more defensive systems in the brain that are designed to block the necessary relational oxygen to the psyche, so that true healing and cure can take place. This woman must face how much her father has failed her in the moment. That is the beginning of what perfect love tastes like.

And finally, to blame oneself for the pain in a current relationship only involves deeper levels of personal commitment to dysregulation and self-protection. We have learned thus far that the central nervous system, and particularly the parasympathetic nervous system, creates a memory and file system that has a difficult time forgetting and forgiving someone when there is interpersonal hurt involved. We have learned that the brain requires a second healthy and regulated brain to help us process the emotions and the hurt that still exist in the brain’s corpus callosum, what I call the mind’s filing system. The brain’s memory system and file system, once dysregulated, continues to maintain high levels of cortisol and arousal that potentially floods the brain’s ability to self regulate. In other words, the brain is no longer able to neutralize the painful memories and emotions that accompany them in the present context. That is why blaming oneself for the hurt of a present relationship misses the mark from a comprehensive regulating perspective. That’s what relationships are all about. And holidays tend to bring on more pain and hurt when family and friends reunite.

Do you blame yourself when your interaction with someone you care about creates disconnection? Do you feel responsible for all the pain in your relationships? Please fight for some normality in your current way of thinking. Let my thoughts earlier guide you along the way as you seek to have a balance between what you know is true and how you experience interpersonal pain in the present context of your emotions and when you’re with others. True healing is the final goal. I want every reader to continue to maintain hope. Please don’t give up. There is a new way to regulate. It must begin right now. And it starts now with you. Make some effort to heal a relationship with someone who you know. Remember, true healing takes place in the context when two minds work together in regulated form. Connection does not require ultimate perfection. All we’re shooting for, I suggest, is 20% to 30% – a richer regulated interpersonal exchange with someone we really care about. There is a new way to cure. It takes new learning. Thanks for reading. If I can help, please give me a call.

Happy holiday.
Dr. Arch

Our Ongoing need for deep connection

Here are some important principles for our lives. Please think deeply about
Each. If I can help, please call me.

As people we need to understand:

Our need for secure attachment.

Early patterns lead to secure, insecure, and resistant attachment. Patterns as
early as one year old reveal our developmental history throughout adulthood at
90% accuracy.

Origins of relatedness appear with our early caregivers.

The human brain tells the story – the unspoken is extremely important – it
explains the differences between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.

The right hemisphere is vital in understanding our emotional history – both now
and in the future

The disconnections that we experience together are rapid, subtle,
co-constructed, and generally out of our conscious awareness.

These patterns affect our moment to moment communication with other people and affects our
emotional narrative – we need to tell her stories to each other as the beginning
to understand our emotional attachment histories.

We need a new therapeutic action, the talking cure, to assess and fix the
problems on medical and relational dimensions.

Making Life Work

“I knew something was terribly wrong. But, I didn’t know where to go for answers.”

I hear this every day in my office.

A time to be thankful – a time to honestly face life

It’s time to be thankful for so many things: our families, good friends, and hopefully good health for most. Also, there are many other things to be grateful for. For example, we live in the freedom of the United States of America. That’s very important to me. For someone who has traveled abroad, and then became a graduate student in Europe, I am extremely grateful for the freedoms that we so deeply enjoy. Hence, I think that there are many things to be appreciative of. Especially at this time, I am reminded of the many personal and academic factors that have shaped my passion to communicate with you my reader about our complex human experiences. These require mutual regulation. Relationships are the key.

As you may know, in the past, I trained in a number of fields of academia to help others grow; I wanted to help others. I now practice as a clinical psychoanalyst. That’s maybe foreign to most. However, I soon discovered that there are many Nobel Prize winners and psychiatric department heads that recognize those highly specialized doctors that have become clinically trained and became, like me, certified clinical psychoanalysts. To these Nobel scholars and others, psychoanalysts are considered as some of the best-trained clinical mental health doctors on the planet, compared to other therapists. Psychoanalysts have trained like astronauts with NASA. The space shuttle astronauts came from various backgrounds: scientist, educators, medical doctors, and then they completed advanced intensive training to become experienced scientists to travel in space in the NASA programs. And the principal reason I took this extensive training was so that I can better provide at the highest levels deeper healing and substantive answers for troubled (hurting) people, who experience intense trauma and pain on a daily basis, and for many generations. I am especially thankful for the privilege of becoming a contemporary psychoanalyst. It took a long time, like a surgical residency, that required lots of intellectual and personal agony. By the way, upon graduation each psychoanalytic student was skilled in over 11 different new forms of clinically treatment. I was amazed. And as a Christian, I was especially delighted to be able to find a new way to integrate the comprehensive neurosciences with the relational turn in contemporary psychoanalysis. I believe that Christians should have an important stake in this new scientific treatment. And as you know, I’ve devoted 2 books to explaining just how, The Talking Cure.

I am so thankful for many things, especially people (friends and family). I’m so grateful that you’re taking the time to read my blog about what I think is important to change. Hurting men and women that are hopeless and many are struggling in our midst – this also saddens me. One friend just told me recently how thankful he was more than anything for being able to have football tickets to an upcoming college football game. I told him that I was glad that he did have those tickets, but we talked about how superficial that might sound to many, in light of the human suffering all around us, and surely there were better things, and more important things, to be thankful for.

He agreed, and acknowledged that he tends to be rather superficial in his approach to life. I get it. My professors taught me that there were people who were surface copers and troubled reflectors. I believe those options are not very personally appealing, and ultimately these external options in life cause more human problems, if we take them as our ultimate approach to life, as many do. I prefer instead to be an honest realist. Let’s learn how to face our pain together.

And by that, I mean that when we face life as it is, it can be rather unsettling. I have a friend whose name is Danny who is dying of cancer. I have some other friends who are going through some painful divorces at the moment. Life is very painful for them. I remember that the Bible says that Christ was a man of sorrows. I think we can understand why. Life most of the time, if we’re honest, is not particularly a bowl of cherries. For many, the pits seem to be the best alternative that they can expect.

There are many reasons to be thankful. If you are a Christian, then there is a sense of hope for this planet that seems so out of course politically and ethically. Christianity is no pain reliever either. Let me say, I’m not a very religious person; I prefer to use the word spirituality every single time. So to be especially thankful, I believe that we must take a hard look at life together, and face it as it truly is. Life on planet earth sometimes feel like a cheap hotel. It’s not exactly the place that you want to create the best life possible as a naturalist. I majored in philosophy in college. I remember reading tons of information in philosophical theology. I came across one of the leading atheists of our time. I enjoyed his immense intellectual acumen. Anthony Flew, the former leading atheist on the planet, converted to theism before he died about a year ago. He expressed in some interviews why he became a theist. It was because he was convinced about the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe. He concluded that there must be some kind of divine designer who created things in the first place, that the universe could not have created itself. Interesting. I wonder if Flew had some relationships that helped him reconsider? His right hemisphere, the social aspects of our social brains, showed him the right way. I’m grateful.

Here’s some personal tragedy. Steve, a friend I cared about deeply, recently passed away. He was 37 years old. He left behind a wife and 3 kids. That hurts. The doctors have not determined yet the cause of his death. At least I don’t know why. It’s very sad. You like me need some hope in the middle of tragedies like this one. And for most philosophers, real hope is not found in a God who is deeply involved in the world – due to his ontological (relational being) and detachment from the world. I don’t share this viewpoint. I believe that a relational view of God, a social model, is what provides the best compassionate answers for hurting people. A relational view, rather than the metaphysical one (God’s rational nature), is what points us is learning how to help each other go through the pain of losing someone together. Please pray for Steve’s family.

To find a deep cure, I suggest that we reexamine all of our views about God and others, including human suffering, from a relational point of view. Exodus 3:14 provides a relational exchange, a prime example for all of us, how the social God interacts with Moses in the middle of uncertainty and doubt. If we reject the philosophical principles that speak of the social God as a detached and impersonal deity, then we further distance ourselves from hurting people. God’s plan is to heal world (his ontological attributes of immutability), then we can carefully construct a new relational apologetic for people who are in great pain, and have an almost impossible time in being grateful. I am there sometime too.

If we learn to meet each other in authentic ways, then we can turn away from rational answers (the left hemisphere) to the problem with pain (the metaphysical vs. the conceptual), and offer a new kind of rich engagement with each other – I can relearn how to relate to my 2 friends who are getting divorced. I can better reflect on how to create a deeply meaningful conversation with my friends, family, and patients (and we can talk about something more meaningful than football tickets), who suffer from different types of dysregulation, and long for something more than superficiality. May I can learn again how to care for my grieving friends. Maybe it’s really possible.

If I understand how to think more relational, I can learn maybe for the first how to truly help others learn to change. I can also appreciate and show how to be more graceful to hurting people. In essence, I can retrain in how to have a greater appreciation for others who suffer from medical problems, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, narcissism, borderline personality disorder, and all the rest of the problems facing people today. I think that we all fall on the chart somewhere, sometimes.

Hence, let’s learn how to be grateful together for God and others. Everyone is hurting at some level. I’m glad you’re here. I’m deeply grateful.

Two brains are always better than one

Why do we have 2 brains? How are they different? That is the central question. Here are some recent thoughts.

In the past, doctors assumed the left brain was the dominant one. Obviously we think and speak, we enunciate through a particular language that is relevant to our context. We may be Americans, but the left brain we thought, and in many ways this defective view is still being taught, that the left brain took care of the majority of things that people do. The right brain was presumed to be silent in its role in the mammalian brain. Oh how things have changed scientifically. And they needed to in so many appropriate ways to shift the argument back to our original question? Why do we have a left brain and a right one? Or, as I prefer to think: why is the right brain (the social one) now at the center of human life? That question poses an interesting array of talking points. Here are some thoughts.

First, the 2 brain theory of emotion shows that there is a power struggle taking place between the left and right brain. Let’s think about the difference between generalizations and absolutes (rules, formulas, etc.). We now know that there is an asymmetry between the two hemispheres. And science now has established that the right hemisphere is the center of the mammalian (human) brain. Relationships and mutual regulation are essentially connected to the right hemisphere working like it should. That’s the problem. I believe that most medical problems and the majority of mental health ones are the result of the breakdown of the right hemisphere and the relational process. There is a new way to cure these
problems. Please read my books.

In my research in the next few months, I will devote an extra amount of time to understanding how my two brain theory operates at the highest levels, in especially healthy relational contexts. The goal: Let’s create a new set of relationships that are reflective of the relational brain so that we can provide the cure.

I know you are, me too, looking Forward to my new upcoming posts (maybe a new book) regarding the human brain and the context of relationships. Thanks again.

Back real soon

Regulating human suffering
Dr. Archie Johnson

“Where sickness thrives, bad things will follow.” The Hobbit

The biggest problem in people’s lives involves human suffering. It is my perspective that the problem of human pain covers over 90% of the questions I hear on a daily basis in my private practice. We need some fresh answers to address the metaphysical and conceptual questions about the plight of hurting and fallen men and women. Here are some new thoughts, at least for me.

The issue of human suffering is very complex. Jesus quoted Psalm 22: 1 when he said my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This psalm is quoted in Mark 15:34. The last breath of Jesus is an indication that the crucified Christ believes that his father deserted him.

This raises a number of questions as to why people suffer. In John 9, Jesus says regarding the blind man that no one sinned particularly as to why the blind man was born blind, but that the Man’s blindness is able to bring glory to God. How’s that possible? What does that mean?

The words of Jesus in John 9 raise a number of problems for the traditional view of suffering in contemporary Christianity. For example, contemporary philosophy and theology sharply divide the two natures of Christ by positing only that the human nature suffered the abandonment of God, not the divine nature. I believe that position is problematic as a solution to why humans suffer. This conclusion has more problems than its alternative option, that suffering is deeply involved with mystery. We know some things about human pain. Philippians 1:29 offers a different interpretation regarding human suffering.

I think a better answer is to conclude that both the father and the son suffered in the abandonment of Jesus, and that there is some reality within God the father that feels the pain of the loss of his only son. God the father does grieve the loss of his relationship with his son in the crucifixion in his terrible and traumatic death. Somehow, from a divine and human perspective, a total separation between God the father and son took place that historic day on Calvary. Both the father and the son know what it’s like to suffer.

We can conclude then that Jesus can say “I know what it’s like to be all alone and abandoned by my father” – he expresses the importance of the relational dynamic to heal, since Jesus now identifies with hurting people at the most fundamental and relational levels. Jesus can feel human pain, and really mean it. He too felt abandoned and suffered a terrible devastation in the divine relationship. How?

In other words, we blame ourselves for why a relationship is broken, or why a divorce takes place; this view tends to miss the helicopter ride perspective at the forest level. Based on the talking cure, our role in life is to mutually regulate, to transform two people in the context of relationships. To blame oneself becomes ultimately a one-person conclusion that is rooted in modernism and individuality, and not in a biblical understanding of relationship.

God also has a future, if by that we mean that all suffering people can look for a day that is coming with true radical change and hope. One way transformation is experienced now is to begin to develop new relationships with hurting people. And as you may know, something new will develop in the context of good relationships. That is God’s promise. The resurrection of the son is the present deposit of the future life With God and others in real community.

To begin to heal, we must learn how to identify with the life of Christ and his relationship to his father by developing new relationships with others, who are hurting and stubborn, and who are living in insecure attachments, while longing for the safety of that secure bubble.

Don’t blame yourself, for the suffering that you experience, because to do so, misses the solidarity that is found in a new relationship with Christ and his father. We must participate together in the divine nature. That’s what 2 Peter 1 describes.

Some fresh research needs to be done on the traditional Christian approach to human suffering. The problem is that the contemporary model leaves hurting people alone and isolated from the true healing essence of relationship – final ontology (the true meaning of life) is Trinitarian!

Human suffering? Now what? Relationships? It is my humble view that the standard answers to the problem of human suffering have failed in their metaphysical implications and their conceptual frameworks. A more relational view is necessary. I will attempt to describe one in my next, I hope, memo.
Thank you.

Arch

More to come

Relationships and Mutual Regulation

Relationship regulation (when 2 people learn how) is now galvanizing all new forms of clinical and medical treatment for everyone, and especially for Christians. Relationship transactions are at the heart of current pathogenesis (Our self-defeating patterns) and all those spiritual problems (they are the same) facing all sorts of people today. No one is immune from hurting. Human suffering touches everyone.

Attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, and developmental psychoanalysis (the heavy sciences I was trained in), now provide the curative foundation for spiritual, relational, and medical problems facing people today. There is a new remedy, a new sheriff, in town.

Regulation that is relational (there are important differences) now provides the cure for trauma and dissociation which all people experience in their present lives. This false reality needs serious repair. Without the cure, this condition leads to clinical depression, anxiety problems, and personality disorders. Treatment, the Talking Cure, is important. We now have the concise handbook to heal. No one is immune from facing the tragedies of human life and critical stress events.

There is now a unique kind of therapeutic action (that produces real change from major depression, anxiety, addictions, and relationship problems) that has the power to reach into both the implicit and explicit parts of the mammalian (human behavior) brain. Breakups are no longer the necessary outcome of dysregulated relationships. We now have new ways to reach all facets of the mind, the brain, and the body that can finally heal. And of course, we must learn how to reconstruct the necessary links to relate.

The answer to our human struggle (our neurotic struggles) is to begin to develop a shared focus on creating a new kind of therapeutic action (a cure) when we’re together, a special kind of healing that’s done in regulated relationships – especially when we come together to relate. Every meeting is essential.

I want to teach people in my curative workshops how to begin the healing process in everyone’s lives. We don’t have to settle. There’s no time to delay.
Self and mutual regulation is how we begin to connect. It doesn’t happen naturally. Mental health issues and medical problems now have some new options to cure. I devote a chapter to this crisis in volume II of the Talking Cure.

Happiness and real love is now available. However, it takes new learning. In my next blog, I will mention how the brain is wired to relate and what is required for people to stay connected with each other. With a thorough grounding in the science of regulation, our view of the outside world would be nonexistent. Selfishness would hold center stage.

The cure for hurting people is now. The talking cure has arrived. We now have new reasons to hope.

Please share your current thoughts and questions with me. Also, you are now able to take a deeper look inside my two-volume book on Amazon.com. Please tell your friends.

In the days to come, there will be some exciting revelations about the next steps for the Talking Cure, personal interviews, exciting conversations with others, and some upcoming workshops, as I seek to create (with your help) that next revolution for change. Please keep me in your thoughts in these upcoming days. I wish you much happiness. There are a lot of hurting people in my reading audience. Please don’t give up. See you in a few.

Thanks again

Dr. Arch

The Talking Cure Finally Appears

The problem of human suffering – is the central concern of my scientific views regarding the cure process. Currents substantial answers for hurting people are in short supply. People get lost in the shuffle. We need a cure!

Human pain is one of the most complex problems facing people today. In my experience, I think many well-meaning experts have not provided satisfactory answers to the questions of human suffering. One of the answers has been that human suffering cannot be explained on a philosophical level. Others believe that some type of pastoral answer is the only way to explain to hurting people why suffering exists on a daily basis in human lives.

In my view, the problem with human suffering covers many dimensions and academic disciplines, which include the medical, the theological, the philosophical, and of course the psychological. I think one of the dilemmas facing hurting people on the other side of the couch is that we are looking for answers in all the wrong places. We tried the medical answers, especially when our dear friend Katie stays in the hospital for over three weeks with a chronic disease called colitis. We then ask, what’s really going on?
Diseases need a cure!

To return to our original question, I believe it’s not reasonable to separate a philosophical answer from the personal or pastoral response. There are many reasons why many experts would try to separate the sophisticated responses to tragedy from the more personal aspects of the role of human suffering.

I am a Christian, as my readers should know by now. I’m not very satisfied with many of the theological responses that continue to spread in the marketplace of ideas. In a Philosophical seminar I attended at the University of Notre Dame in the late 1990s, I came away somewhat more confused about human suffering that even some of the most philosophically astute scholars in the world – those from Oxford, Cambridge, and throughout the United States – believed that ultimately there were no positive and final answers (the difference between positive and negative apologetics) for the role of human suffering in the world. 10 years later, I am totally convinced that there are positive answers for hurting people and human suffering in the world today if we take a relational approach to understanding the complex treatment process. We can learn a lot from modern medicine in this regard.

I want to take a pause from the above memo to say that something radical and new has just taken place in my life. The Talking Cure, volumes I and II, were released this morning on Amazon.com for publication. This is a milestone in my clinical career as I seek to answer the questions about offering a cure process for hurting men and women, boys and girls. I ask my readers to join me in taking a look at the two books on the Amazon website. This week I will address more specific topics related to pain and suffering and the healing process from my relational perspective.

It’s an exciting time. Ideas do have consequences. I would like to see a new revolution take place in my life and in your life for new meaning, happiness, and love.

Now is the day for the cure. There’s no time to delay. Please let me know your thoughts as you absorb the massive information that is included in both volumes of the Talking Cure. If you’re interested, please type in the search engine on Amazon.com, Dr. Archie Johnson. Both books will appear on their website. A Kindle edition will be available in the next 10 days or less.

I look deeply forward to your compassionate response.

Thanks,

Dr. Archie