September 20th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Recent studies buttress the unpalatable truth that falling in love is, in some ways, indistinguishable from a severe pathology. Behavior changes are reminiscent of psychosis and, biochemically speaking, passionate love closely imitates substance abuse. Appearing in the BBC series Body Hits on December 4, Dr. John Marsden, the head of the British National Addiction Center, said that love is addictive, akin to cocaine and speed. Sex is a “booby trap”, intended to bind the partners long enough to bond.
Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki of University College in London showed that the same areas of the brain are active when abusing drugs and when in love. The prefrontal cortex - hyperactive in depressed patients - is inactive when besotted. How can this be reconciled with the low levels of serotonin that are the telltale sign of both depression and infatuation - is not known.
The initial drive - lust - is brought on by surges of sex hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. These induce an indiscriminate scramble for physical gratification. Attraction transpires once a more-or-less appropriate object is found (with the right body language and speed and tone of voice) and is tied to a panoply of sleep and eating disorders.
A recent study in the University of Chicago demonstrated that testosterone levels shoot up by one third even during a casual chat with a female stranger. The stronger the hormonal reaction, the more marked the changes in behavior, concluded the authors. This loop may be part of a larger “mating response”. In animals, testosterone provokes aggression and recklessness. The hormone’s readings in married men and fathers are markedly lower than in single males still “playing the field”.
Helen Fisher of Rutger University suggests a three-phased model of falling in love. Each stage involves a distinct set of chemicals. The BBC summed it up succinctly and sensationally: “Events occurring in the brain when we are in love have similarities with mental illness”.
Moreover, we are attracted to people with the same genetic makeup and smell (pheromones) of our parents. Dr Martha McClintock of the University of Chicago studied feminine attraction to sweaty T-shirts formerly worn by males. The closer the smell resembled her father’s, the more attracted and aroused the woman became. Falling in love is, therefore, an exercise in proxy incest and a vindication of Freud’s much-maligned Oedipus and Electra complexes.
Writing in the February 2004 issue of the journal NeuroImage, Andreas Bartels of University College London’s Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience described identical reactions in the brains of young mothers looking at their babies and in the brains of people looking at their lovers.
“Both romantic and maternal love are highly rewarding experiences that are linked to the perpetuation of the species, and consequently have a closely linked biological function of crucial evolutionary importance” - he told Reuters.
This incestuous backdrop of love was further demonstrated by psychologist David Perrett of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The subjects in his experiments preferred their own faces - in other words, the composite of their two parents - when computer-morphed into the opposite sex.
Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, love is mostly about negative emotions. As Professor Arthur Aron from State University of New York at Stonybrook has shown, in the first few meetings, people misinterpret certain physical cues and feelings - notably fear and thrill - as (falling in) love. Thus, counterintuitively, anxious people - especially those with the “serotonin transporter” gene - are more sexually active (i.e., fall in love more often).
Obsessive thoughts regarding the Loved One and compulsive acts are also common. Perception is distorted as is cognition. “Love is blind” and the lover easily fails the reality test. Falling in love involves the enhanced secretion of b-Phenylethylamine (PEA, or the “love chemical”) in the first 2 to 4 years of the relationship.
This natural drug creates an euphoric high and helps obscure the failings and shortcomings of the potential mate. Such oblivion - perceiving only the spouse’s good sides while discarding her bad ones - is a pathology akin to the primitive psychological defense mechanism known as “splitting”. Narcissists - patients suffering from the Narcissistic Personality Disorder - also Idealize romantic or intimate partners. A similar cognitive-emotional impairment is common in many mental health conditions.
The activity of a host of neurotransmitters - such as Dopamine, Adrenaline (Norepinephrine), and Serotonin - is heightened (or in the case of Serotonin, lowered) in both paramours. Yet, such irregularities are also associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and depression.
It is telling that once attachment is formed and infatuation gives way to a more stable and less exuberant relationship, the levels of these substances return to normal. They are replaced by two hormones (endorphins) which usually play a part in social interactions (including bonding and sex) - Oxytocin (the “cuddling chemical”) and Vasopressin. Oxytocin facilitates bonding. It is released in the mother during breastfeeding, in the members of the couple when they spend time together - and when they sexually climax.
Love, in all its phases and manifestations, is an addiction, probably to the various forms of internally secreted norepinephrine, such as the aforementioned amphetamine-like PEA. Love, in other words, is a form of substance abuse. The withdrawal of romantic love has serious mental health repercussions.
A study conducted by Dr. Kenneth Kendler, professor of psychiatry and director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, and others, and published in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, revealed that breakups often lead to depression and anxiety.
Still, love cannot be reduced to its biochemical and electrical components. Love is not tantamount to our bodily processes - rather, it is the way we experience them. Love is how we interpret these flows and ebbs of compounds using a higher-level language. In other words, love is pure poetry.
It has been proposed that the quarks and leptons consist of more fundamental particles called rishons. The T rishon may be defined as having mass and charge e/3. The V rishon is neutral and has little or no mass. The rishons have spin 1/2, carry color charge, and combine in triplets or rishon-antirishon pairs. Thus the electron is a TTT, the neutrino VVV, the down quark TVV, and the up quark TTV. If the T has somewhat greater color charge than the V, the down quark would have a net excess of the color carried by the T. The antiup quark TTV would appear to have a net deficiency of the color carried by the V, or equivalently, an excess of anticolor, and behave as an antiparticle. Hence the TTV would appear to have an excess of color and behave as a particle, in agreement with observation. The leptons have no net color. There is no need for hypercolor.
All particle interactions consist of rearrangements of rishons, or creation or annihilation of rishon-antirishon pairs. For example, beta-decay occurs when a down quark changes to an up quark, emitting an electron and neutrino:
TVV –> TTV + TTT + VVV
The massless particle was originally called a neutrino; it was later defined to be an antineutrino. This model favors the first choice.
If the binding between rishons is much greater than the binding between quarks or leptons, then quarks and leptons could associate without losing their identity, just as atoms can form molecules. Lepton number is also conserved if the VVV is assigned a negative lepton number.
The second and third generations of the electron and the quarks might be formed by adding one or two TT pairs to the first generation. The second and third generations of the neutrino might be formed by adding one or two VV pairs to the first generation. The force binding the rishons is evidently so great that the separate rishon wave functions “fall” together into just one wave function, in which case there would be no internal structure.
The effective mass of the TTV is nearly equal to that of the TVV, which implies that the T-T bond has binding energy nearly equal to the bare mass of a T. The electron has three T’s and three bonds and hence should have little mass compared to a quark, as observed. The muon obtains most of its mass from the added TT and should have a mass comparable to that of a quark, as observed.
The boson carriers of the weak force presumably consist of the rishons required to form the decay products. The photon may consist of a colorless VV pair; for example red-antired. The gluon may consist of a colored VV pair, for example red-antiblue. Hence the weak force may simply be the color force carried by weak bosons; the electromagnetic force is the color force carried by photons, and the strong force is the color force carried by gluons, mesons, quarks, and possibly other hadrons.
A real TT would annihilate, while a virtual pair might help carry the strong force. A bare rishon, a TV, TV, TT, or VV would carry net color and, like the quarks, would not be seen in isolation.
The proton consists of two up quarks and a down quark, so the hydrogen atom has four T’s, four T’s, two V’s, and two V’s. If this typifies the whole universe, then there exist equal amounts of rishons and antirishons.
One might speculate further that the emission and absorption of virtual particles is just Hawking radiation. The spacetime itself around a rishon might have quantum states. The large spin of a rishon would eliminate the spherically symmetric S states, leaving three P states with the time coordinate expanded, and three P states with the time coordinate compressed. These might be identified with the three colors and three anticolors. The difference in the time coordinate would cause a slight difference in the reaction rates of rishons and antirishons, explaining why hydrogen is more abundant than antihydrogen. Another possibility is that the rishons and antirishons have opposite handedness and parity violation causes a difference in the reaction rates. The rishons themselves may be just quanta of spacetime. The V rishon might be the lowest P state, and the T rishon the next-highest P state. Thus the T and V would be similar, but somewhat mismatched, as observed.
If this sort of model is correct, it would be the basis of the long-sought unified field theory. The strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces are just the color force carried by intermediates, and the color force itself may be identified with quantum gravity of which ordinary gravity is the long-range limit.
Reference
Haim Harari, “The Structure of Quarks and Leptons,” Scientific American, p.56, April 1983.
We all know how smoking can be a hard to quit habit for thousands, if not millions, of people across the globe. Yeah, smoking sucks and you may be in the situation when smoking is more like a drug for you. Unfortunately for you, smoking can kill you, so it is best to quit as soon as possible. But… is NLP the answer?
According to studies, NLP has proven to be an effective method to quit smoking forever. However is not as simple as going through a session and Voila!! Problem solved.
Certains conditions must be met in order to NLP treatment to work. Let’s go over this conditions:
1.A true desire to quit smoking. This is crucial, but is often overlooked, you have to get in touch with yourself and make a true decision. This means you have to think for yourself also. If you’re being caried to a treatment, well..then it won’t work. Because it is not YOUR desire. Maybe you should read about all the real dangers of smoking, I’m sure then you will have a real reason to stop smoking.
2.External support. That’s right the first condition involved the inner world, but sometimes the outside world works against us. First and foremost your family and/or immediate surroundings must be supportive, this means that they will understand you and avoid any temptation to you. It is important for them not to mistake support with censorship. When we are told not to do something we crave for doing it.
An NLP treatment with those 2 conditions met, is very powerful. But is also very important to use a proper trained NLP practicioner that can truly help you. A lot of people get caught on prices, but price most of the time comes with quality. Ask all the questions you have to ask, and seek the best resource. A healthy mind and body is priceless, and once you become aware that is possible to quit smoking using NLP, you will find that everything is possible.
As conceive man
The human being is a bio - psycho - social, acting each of these areas as interdependent. The body always tends towards a balance and try as best you can reacomodarse after difficulties or both environmental and internal imbalances. There can be a separation between organic and environmental phenomena as serious reductionist thinking in this way. The paradigm from which we positioned implies mutual and reciprocal influences between the environment and the human body, as well as taking into account the cultural atravesamientos building the reality in which human beings, groups and organizations are being developed.
From the psychology of the Rio de la Plata trying desanudar or deconstruct the conditions of production of subjectivity to construct a reality given to a human being. This subjectivity (ways of being, thinking, feeling and acting) is not given but constructed or natural. So the task is to deconstruct rebuild a healthy reality, a reality with the active position, or to life.
New Hubble pics - how exciting! The latest of the new Hubble pics is of a black hole, which they’ve captioned as being in need of a home.
To get these new Hubble pics a team of astronomers, all from Europe, combined the power of the Hubble Space Telescope with that of the VLT (Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Cerro Paranal.
The new Hubble telescope pics are of a bright quasar that has no discernible host galaxy. The new pics show several quasars, strong radiation sources. The astronomers honed in on these quasars to study them by way of the Hubble because they know that quasars are often associated with active black holes. Only one of the many quasars they found delivered a black hole without a galaxy. Thus the new Hubble telescope pics.
Other new pics show the other quasars that these European astronomers found. In one you can clearly see the black hole’s host galaxy with its large spiraling tendrils.
In the past ten years the problem getting new Hubble telescope pics of black holes has been that the quasar shines so much more brilliantly than the host galaxy that observers can’t always see, or get new pics of, the black hole and its galaxy. This problem has been resolved now so new Hubble telescope pics of host galaxies are possible.
With the recent observation of 20 quasars, 19 were found to have host galaxies. One did not. What this means is that if the host galaxy really does exist it has to be no more than one sixth the brightness of traditional host galaxies, or have a radius that is at least 20 times smaller than most host galaxies. New Hubble telescope pics of this find are being studied now.
Sachem School District teachers completed another professional development activity thanks to the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. The program is called the Strategic Instructional Model (SIM) and looks at how teachers can improve literacy in low performing adolescents
The Strategic Instructional Model
Developed over 25 years of research, SIM works to help teachers recognize what lessons are of greatest importance and target those lessons towards a diverse group of learners. SIM rests on four philosophical principles:
• Low proficiency students can be taught in mainstream classrooms.
• Teacher’s aides, or support teachers, should concentrate on helping students develop learning strategies.
• Subject teachers should organize their lessons so that the material can be understood and remembered by low proficiency students.
• The students should be actively involved in deciding how to learn new strategies.
SIM works on two levels, one addressing the needs of the teacher and the other addressing the needs of the student. For teachers, SIM training provides a method for organizing information in ways that are most useful for students, so that they can understand what they learn and then be able to use it to accomplish tasks. For students, academic coaching develops learning strategies that can be applied to what they learn in school. These strategies range from learning ways to approach written texts, including informational readings and math word problems, as well as ways to express information in writing, as is often required on standardized tests.
Another important element of SIM is the way that it promotes teamwork among teachers, students, and parents. In deciding what content to teach to students, teachers and students work together to determine what information students need and what the best method of delivering that information is. This creates a feeling of comradery in the learning community and helps all stakeholders contribute to the overall success of students.
What Long Island Teachers are Saying About SIM
Many classroom teachers have welcomed SIM as a concrete approach to meeting the needs of their students. After observing a demonstration writing lesson conducted using the method, teacher Jill Kristoff comments, “The SIM sentence writing strategy is a very useful tool for children, teaching them grammar and sentence structure, as well as improving their writing; and because it is taught in steps, children of all abilities can be successful with it!”
What Long Island Schools Students are Saying About SIM
Students agree with their teachers that SIM offers them a lot of structure for understanding what they are learning. After observing the demonstration lesson conducted by University of Kansas teacher &ndash trainer Dottie Turner, one student said, “Ms. Turner helped me a lot with sentences. She taught me what a good sentence needs. Now my sentences are much better with details, and they are not boring.” Another student also believed that she had benefited from the demonstration lesson and expressed her pride in participating in a professional development experience for her teacher. She commented: “The demo lesson was helpful to my writing. It was also a lot of fun. Teachers were sitting in the back, but they were not watching me. They were watching Ms. Turner. I loved that lesson!”
The Sachem School District community hopes that SIM will help local teachers and students achieve higher statewide assessment scores by including all students in the learning experience. The Strategic Instructional Model meets the guidelines for the No Child Left Behind Act and studies have shown improved academic performance for all students. Long Island schools welcome this added tool for improving the achievement of their students and look
Much has been written regarding dreams and their meanings or purpose. Mankind has been fascinated with our dreams since the first dreamer awoke and wondered about what their visions meant. Since ancient times we have looked to our dreams to find signs of what our future holds. The first written dreams we know of were in 4000 BC. The earliest writings we have on dreams are primarily texts on their religious and spiritual significance.
Most people will spend about one third of their lives asleep. Our dreams are a real part of us but too often they are disregarded. Dreams can give us insight and understanding of our personal lives. They will help us to understand our past, present, and sometimes our future. All we need to do is to pay attention to our dreams and get to know them.
Dreams can hold a message for the future.
We have different types of dreams. Often our dreams consist of imagery from our most pressing thoughts and/or personal experiences. Sometimes, however, our dreams can be special. Our dreams can communicate with us if we allow them too. All we need to is listen.
I believe that there are two main types of prophetic dreams.
Those that come to us from our “deeper” self, who is much more aware of certain things than we are on a conscious level, and those who may potentially have come from an “outside” source.
Here is an example from my own dream experiences:
I dreamed of death. All I could remember from the dream was seeing a hand laying in gravels. The most noticeable thing was the ring on the hand. It was my ring. I recognized it without any doubt. Even though this was the only image I could recall from the nightmare I knew that the dream was about a death. I could feel it strongly when I woke up. I had all but forgotten the events of the dream but the emotions were still vivid.
The ring was an Army Boot Camp ring made very similar to a class ring. After I had the dream I never wore it again. Eventually I sold it to a friend of mine who had attended the same boot camp. A few years later I received a call. My friend had been murdered. He was found laying in rocks and dirt with that ring on his hand.
Did my dream forewarn me of this event? I think it is a possibility. What was the dream trying to communicate to me? I had assumed that the dream was about my death. I had also assumed that the ring was somehow a participant in my death. I stopped wearing the ring as though that would prevent the warned death. Perhaps the dream was simply telling me that my friend would die with that ring on his hand.
Whenever we have a dream that we consider to be prophetic or to have a “meaning” we are faced with the difficult task of interpreting just what the dream means. Dream Symbols most often have very definite meanings but these meanings can vary widely from one person to the next. That is why we cannot rely too much on definitions given in Dream Symbol Dictionaries.
In order to understand the meaning of the symbols within our own dreams we must come to a better and deeper understanding of ourselves. We have to learn what these symbols mean to us because that is how our dreaming mind sees them.
Anything within your dream can be a symbol. An example of a symbol in a dream is a snake. A snake can have many different meanings to different people. As with all other dream symbols they can also have a different meaning for the same person at different times in their life. You also have to look at the symbol in the context that it appeared. What other symbols were present in the dream?
The best way to gain a better understanding of what your dream symbols mean to you is to develop your own dream symbol dictionary. Keep as detailed of a dream journal as you can. Don’t just write down a narrative of what occurred but record your feelings and emotions too. As you continue to write in your journal and re-read your previous entries you will begin to see parallels with your dreams and your life. Gradually you will be able to recognize what the symbols in your dreams are really saying to you.
Rising proudly at over 7500 feet high ( 2300 meters ), Inca citadel of Machu Picchu was so inaccessible that the Spanish conquerors were never able to found it. But in 1911 Yale historian Hiram Bingham rediscovered it, and between 1912 and 1915, directed the National Geographic Society in a series of expeditions that ended in many archaeological finds that were transferred to Yale University, allegedly with the permission of Peruvian president, Augusto Legu
(The use of gender pronouns in this article reflects the clinical facts: most narcissists and most Asperger’s patients are male.)
Asperger’s Disorder is often misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), though evident as early as age 3 (while pathological narcissism cannot be safely diagnosed prior to early adolescence).
In both cases, the patient is self-centered and engrossed in a narrow range of interests and activities. Social and occupational interactions are severely hampered and conversational skills (the give and take of verbal intercourse) are primitive. The Asperger’s patient body language - eye to eye gaze, body posture, facial expressions - is constricted and artificial, akin to the narcissist’s. Nonverbal cues are virtually absent and their interpretation in others lacking.
Yet, the gulf between Asperger’s and pathological narcissism is vast.
The narcissist switches between social agility and social impairment voluntarily. His social dysfunctioning is the outcome of conscious haughtiness and the reluctance to invest scarce mental energy in cultivating relationships with inferior and unworthy others. When confronted with potential Sources of Narcissistic Supply, however, the narcissist easily regains his social skills, his charm, and his gregariousness.
Many narcissists reach the highest rungs of their community, church, firm, or voluntary organization. Most of the time, they function flawlessly - though the inevitable blowups and the grating extortion of Narcissistic Supply usually put an end to the narcissist’s career and social liaisons.
The Asperger’s patient often wants to be accepted socially, to have friends, to marry, to be sexually active, and to sire offspring. He just doesn’t have a clue how to go about it. His affect is limited. His initiative - for instance, to share his experiences with nearest and dearest or to engage in foreplay - is thwarted. His ability to divulge his emotions stilted. He is incapable or reciprocating and is largely unaware of the wishes, needs, and feelings of his interlocutors or counterparties.
Inevitably, Asperger’s patients are perceived by others to be cold, eccentric, insensitive, indifferent, repulsive, exploitative or emotionally-absent. To avoid the pain of rejection, they confine themselves to solitary activities - but, unlike the schizoid, not by choice. They limit their world to a single topic, hobby, or person and dive in with the greatest, all-consuming intensity, excluding all other matters and everyone else. It is a form of hurt-control and pain regulation.
Thus, while the narcissist avoids pain by excluding, devaluing, and discarding others - the Asperger’s patient achieves the same result by withdrawing and by passionately incorporating in his universe only one or two people and one or two subjects of interest. Both narcissists and Asperger’s patients are prone to react with depression to perceived slights and injuries - but Asperger’s patients are far more at risk of self-harm and suicide.
The use of language is another differentiating factor.
The narcissist is a skilled communicator. He uses language as an instrument to obtain Narcissistic Supply or as a weapon to obliterate his “enemies” and discarded sources with. Cerebral narcissists derive Narcissistic Supply from the consummate use they make of their innate verbosity.
Not so the Asperger’s patient. He is equally verbose at times (and taciturn on other occasions) but his topics are few and, thus, tediously repetitive. He is unlikely to obey conversational rules and etiquette (for instance, to let others speak in turn). Nor is the Asperger’s patient able to decipher nonverbal cues and gestures or to monitor his own misbehavior on such occasions. Narcissists are similarly inconsiderate - but only towards those who cannot possibly serve as Sources of Narcissistic Supply.
More about Autism Spectrum Disorders here:
McDowell, Maxson J. (2002) The Image of the Mother’s Eye: Autism and Early Narcissistic Injury , Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Submitted)
Benis, Anthony - “Toward Self & Sanity: On the Genetic Origins of the Human Character” - Narcissistic-Perfectionist Personality Type (NP) with special reference to infantile autism
Stringer, Kathi (2003) An Object Relations Approach to Understanding Unusual Behaviors and Disturbances
James Robert Brasic, MD, MPH (2003) Pervasive Developmental Disorder: Asperger Syndrome
