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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by pablo1 on July 20, 2004, at 2:00:23
Here's a guy who has an alternate explanation for how the brain works. Not as bizzare as he thinks it is perhaps.
http://stevenharris.com/theory/107.html
That page describes his cure for all mental disorders. Wait, hold the re-direct because this relates to medication and the cure is actually an enhanced version of ritalin withdrawl used to realign each brain cell (or any cell in the body) to get the normal healthy flow of inhibition and reward operating as it should in a healthy balance. Of course the conclusion is anti-medication but hear it out... pretty intereting perspective....The theory applies to the psychiatric med business in this way: Psychiatric Meds (PM's) only work by blocking some function or another in the brain. That can be a big relief to have anxiety or sadness removed when the feeling was not operating in a productive way. I personally think there is a lot of benefit in manipulating moods with medications because folks get stuck in ruts and dont know there are other ways to feel.
SO anyways his theory (which is revealed excruciatingly slowly) is that each brain cell acts on the principal of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. It's a natural balance kind of thing and the cells communicate with each other to make group descisions. This process is what we know as 'thinking' and sometimes it gets less logical with too much stress so you start to see self destructive tendencies (illogical operation of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance). All psychiatric problems can be explained by this simple principle.
The solution, bizarre as it sounds is actually a very traditional perspective. Though the logic is hard to follow: Too much pleasure becomes pain, and at that point, the switching from pleasure to pain becomes a learning trigger. It's enough of an impulse to lock in a real memory. I find in my neurosis, that I get into trouble when I try to avoid that critical flipping-point memory-creating moment and I internalize/repress what should have been a healthy (if painful) opportunity to learn, into a bottled up neurosis. It's understandable, I had a tough time as a kid, was exposed to who knows what sort of toxic chemicals and, well, I did what I was able to survive given the whole disfunctional family thing and my particular inborn abilities.
As we all know having seen shrinks over the years, the thing they are all keen about is uncovering and resolving past hidden traumas. I got sick of that a long time ago, it's really not easy to make progress in talk therapy working on that old crap. Possible perhaps but incredibly tedious and painful. IMO the only way to approach that is with some creatively expressive way to heal and make sense of it. I hate the idea of just going back to dwell on it for a good cry. And get more depressed. Anyways...
This guy's theory is that you can take advantage of the ability of too much good becoming pain by 'overdosing' on an hourly stream of a little bit of ritalin (normal daily dose actually) but taken day and night every hour. Within about a week, this creates a 'too much' scenario for the brain and becomes a withdrawl syndrome. That is the trigger to burn through all that old dysfunctional crap with a new memory that recognizes what is healthy or not. The treatment is supposed to bring up emotional issues and supposed to be very very uncomfortable but that's the pain that was avoided in the past so it's got to be felt if it's to be cleaned out.
Part of the treatment program is to have a month or at least a few weeks to go through this with supervision, a healthy diet and no coffee, cigs, etc. Sleep a lot and just absorb it without running away. It might need to be repeated in a year or more if the withdrawal didn't go into full effect. YMMV.
Now, my reason for keeping this in the med section is because I think i t'd be cool to do this preceeded by several months of psychiatric med roller-coaster riding. Actually this is what he went through: he had some problems, they gave him a pill, that caused other problems, the diagnosis multiplied to psychotic, institutionalized then he broke out of the system, went off on his own and fiigured this out.
But I think that'd actually help with this treatment plan to be twisted to all directions then eased into withdrawal and work through everything.
If nothing else it's a testament to the human mind, coming up with such nutty ideas that actually work (sometimes). I"m sure you all can relate to that situation!
neurogenesis
Posted by linkadge on July 20, 2004, at 8:33:15
In reply to Another view: brain theory, posted by pablo1 on July 20, 2004, at 2:00:23
I think this guy is a quack. He sounds like an ex stimulant addict that went on long drug binges.
In my mind, the one time emotional breakthroughs don't really last that long. Recovering from a mental illness is usually a slow and painstaken process. Anyone trying to subvert that neural healing process by overdosing on stimulants is crazy.
Linkadge
Posted by Cottonwool on July 20, 2004, at 10:17:20
In reply to Re: Another view: brain theory, posted by linkadge on July 20, 2004, at 8:33:15
Now I haven't read the link yet - but from the way you explained it - It seems like someone could go spend a paycheck on methamphetamines and smoke, snort, or eat it and experience what you just described! The only sense that makes to me is that - yes - if you overstimulate and it is overly painful your body/brain will learn to fix itself, meaning if you have a grain of sense you won't take meth again! This person sounds extreme - and I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone has a week to take off from life so they can binge on uppers and then another week to go through withdrawls. I know my boss/family wouldn't accept it.
Posted by pablo1 on July 20, 2004, at 11:01:39
In reply to Re: Another view: brain theory, posted by linkadge on July 20, 2004, at 8:33:15
It is a nutty idea for sure but he says it worked on him & he doesn't take any meds any more. I do like the idea of focusing on how to get the brain to balance itself after the treatment without continuing meds. And it sure makes sense that current psychiatric medications are very blunt instruments. Blunting is OK though, that's how people focus on one thing at a time, by tuning out distractions. The neurotransmitters work in the brain for temporary shifts in focus. Sometimes that means just a momentary wave of emotion at a passing thought (10-second half life <g>) and sometimes it's a months or years long neurotransmitter adjustment (like depression). In the end, your mind has to learn to control those neurotransmitters because it's really tough to get the right effect from any med; the body readjusts and things can get thrown further out of balance for unexpected reasons. It's just too complex for such a blunt instrument.
So, I don't know if I'd try his treatment but it's an interesting perspective. Interesting stepping point for discussion. What if a better way to do this was with smaller less intense treatments. Take a variety of meds and combos with the intent to sort of find your limits with each and rattle things back into place over a period of time. That's a very different way of using the same meds. Who knows maybe it does work.
> I think this guy is a quack. He sounds like an ex stimulant addict that went on long drug binges.
>
> In my mind, the one time emotional breakthroughs don't really last that long. Recovering from a mental illness is usually a slow and painstaken process. Anyone trying to subvert that neural healing process by overdosing on stimulants is crazy.
>
> Linkadge
Posted by pablo1 on July 20, 2004, at 11:22:10
In reply to Re: Another view: brain theory, posted by Cottonwool on July 20, 2004, at 10:17:20
> The only sense that makes to me is that - yes - if you overstimulate and it is overly painful your body/brain will learn to fix itself, meaning if you have a grain of sense you won't take meth again!
Yes, that's exactly the idea. What happens in a stressed out brain with psyciatric disorders is that we go ahead and give ourselves too much of one neurotransmitter or another (through natural means) even after it's harming us and doesn't help, we develop dysfunctional moods trying to avoid facing whatever pain that needs to be grieved but never gets resolved. So this treatment forces the issue to resolution.
People in good mental health know not to take things to where they become counterproductive. They know when to grieve and how to 'get over' things so they don't all build up. It's this normal balancing that we need to get back to; being able to make the right descisions and move forward with life.At least it's an interesting idea to consider the implications even if the treatment might not work, there could be something to this perspective.
Posted by SMHarris on July 27, 2004, at 12:31:39
In reply to Another view: brain theory, posted by pablo1 on July 20, 2004, at 2:00:23
First, I’d like to say “thanks” for putting in a good word about my writings. As for the interminably long time it takes to get to my point, that is a misrepresentation because the theory is actually many theories dealing with a wide variety of subject matter, and every time somebody tries to summarize “the idea” of the theory, they get something wrong (in this case it is an oversimplification in the terms of psychology with no explanation of the wide variety of changes in our system of classification and conception of disorders or of the philosophy of the basic units of perception and function required to grow a nervous system and experience it) but I very much appreciate the attempt as an effort to get people to look further into my website as a serious effort worthy of some consideration.
As for the being crazy or drugged debate, the magnitude of the subject matter leaves only two or three choices as for the interpretation: I am either crazy or a genius to attempt it, or that this is a work of fiction. In various ways I have played with that interpretation by exaggerating the grandiosity of my writings as an attempt to try to disarm that first impression as a game of sorts, but that does stop most from reading enough of the essays in order to understand the various arguments required to make a case for the deceptive simplicity of the basic concepts behind how the nervous system creates the mind.
The concepts required to be learned are so difficult that it is impossible for most to understand it and impossible for most of the minority who can understand it to believe that it is impossible without supplying an experiment that can show results that go against all of the current concepts of what medications are doing to the body and the brain (and the mind). But the deceptive simplicity of the treatment that I describe looks too simple to be true and those that enter my website from that essay do not read further to get the variety of pieces of logic required to argue for the possibility of this medication approach actually being able to do what is predicted.
The one who have argued that the Ritalin being used in the way described in my treatment is the same that taken with the current treatments for ADD and the other who agreed that I am an idiot or at loss of my faculties should be embarrassed for expressing ignorant opinions in a public forum without knowing what they are writing about. They expressed opinions about my theory without reading it because my hit counters show that nobody has looked at more than a few of my essays since the first mention of my website on this bulletin board (I have no way of telling if they read those essays they looked at either). This is a difficult topic and you will never understand any comprehensive theory of this subject matter without doing a little work. The statement about the Ritalin is ignorant because the only time frame that should be compared when comparing ways of using a drug should be that period of time that the drug remains in the body and Ritalin washes almost completely out of the body in two or three hours. The treatment I describe starts with a highest dosage in the body that is only 5-10% of that dosage used for children with ADD and that dosage is reduced in time. To say that this treatment is the same as the total dosage in a day is to speak nonsense.
During the time frame when those criticisms of my website were written, of those who followed the link through to my website from this bulletin board almost all of them only looked at the page describing the treatment but read none of the other essays explaining the theory behind the treatment and must have considered it too simplistic to have value. And, clearly those who criticized my theory did not actually read it, so they must have more interest in seeing their words posted and their ignorant opinions expressed than in actually doing the thinking required in a search for the truth.
Steven Michael Harris
www.stevenharris.com/theory
This is the end of the thread.
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