De Rerum Natura: Ainda a ciência diluída

De Rerum Natura: Ainda a ciência diluída: Minha resposta a Paulo Varela Gomes no Público de hoje:  Escreveu-me, em carta aberta, o meu colega da Universidade de Coimbra Paulo Vare...



E os animais? Tembém sofrem do síndrome de placebo? Ou será por interposta pessoa dos seus donos? É que a homeopatia é EXTRAORDINÁRIAMENTE eficaz em veterinária (recomendo o Prof. da Faculdade de Veterinária de Lisboa Doutor Meirelles).

A homeopatia não tem , obviamente, a máquina de recursos das farmaceuticas para tornar eficaz até a mais perniciosa molécula. Por isso, nunca houve grandes ensaios clinicos para a homeopatia.  Só a experiência real das pessoas e animais. Enfim... Portugal e as suas cabeças pensantes (já para não falar dos seus policymakers) sempre foram de um conservadorismo atroz. O conservadorismo não serve a ciência. Mas veja-se: enquanto o actual governo britânico alinhado com a supressão das alternativas procura banir a homeopatia do NHS, o governo suiço faz o oposto . Veja-se :  The Swiss Government's Remarkable Report on Homeopathic Medicine in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/homeopathic-medicine-_b_1258607.html 

CompLex Trauma on the Spot: "Complex Trauma: Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse" @ 2013 Australia's Mental Health Professionals' Network

CompLex Trauma on the Spot: "Working Therapeutically with Complex Trauma" @ 2014 Australia's Mental Health Professionals' Network

Fake it until you become it
Fingi-lo até sê-lo

Amy Cuddy:     Your body language shapes who you are

TEDGlobal 2012 · 21:02 · Filmed Jun 2012 

Impostores, Patinhos Feios et alli. Imposters, Ugly Ducklings et alli.

   

Olivia Fox Cabane @ http://foxcabane.com/

“VICTIM-BLAMING

 is not just about avoiding culpability—it’s also about avoiding vulnerability. The more innocent a victim, the more threatening they are. Victims threaten our sense that the world is a safe and moral place, where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. When bad things happen to good people, it implies that no one is safe, that no matter how good we are, we too could be vulnerable. The idea that misfortune can be random, striking anyone at any time, is a terrifying thought, and yet we are faced every day with evidence that it may be true.

(…)Research has found, not surprisingly, that people who believe that the world is a just place are happier and less depressed. But this happiness may come at a cost—it may reduce our empathy for those who are suffering, and we may even contribute to their suffering by increasing stigmatization.

(…)One way to help make the world a better place to fight the impulse to rationalize others’ suffering, and to recognize that it could have just as soon been us in their shoes.

This recognition can be unsettling, but it may also be the only way that we can truly open our hearts to others’ suffering and help them feel supported and less alone. What the world may lack in justice we can at least try to make up for in compassion.”

Juliana Breines  in http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/empathy

SAMSARA by Pan Nalin, 2001.

One dream

In my dream I’m about 4 yrs.’ old and it’s raining. I’ve been at my grandparents’ which was always a protective environment and a jolly and blissful time. But, somehow I am now all alone going down the street, Swains Lane. 

It’s dark about 8 o’clock in the evening in winter time. It’s raining and the steep’s so slippery that I fell down on the street side. There I stayed lying down. The sky is clear in spite of the rain falling and I can see the stars. It’s overwhelming: the sky is so hefty over me; the street is so steep and slippery that I can’t stand up. 

I am alone, so I can’t get any help. Yet I must stand up. I have to: there’s a cab coming up the street. I see it approaching and as I look up to the sky and, again, I can't raise. The feeling goes on and on. If I don’t stand up and run I will be run over by that cab. So I must and yet I can’t. I am ….going… to…. Then I wake up. 

Recurring dream as I was recurrently ill with throat infections.

Like a Blessing

"The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. 

There is no judgement or harsh perception directed toward you. 

Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. 

Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. 

Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of colour and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference."

in 

John O'Donohue,To Bless the Space Between Us

Free Eckhart Tolle's UNCOURSE Now 

@  http://www.soundstrue.com/tolleuncourse/ or http://www.eckharttolle.com/uncourse/

A Poem of God and the Devil

Cântico Negro

"Vem por aqui" - dizem-me alguns com olhos doces

Estendendo-me os braços, e seguros

De que seria bom que eu os ouvisse

Quando me dizem: "vem por aqui!"

Eu olho-os com olhos lassos,

(Há, nos olhos meus, ironias e cansaços)

E cruzo os braços,

E nunca vou por ali...

A minha glória é esta:

Criar desumanidade!

Não acompanhar ninguém.

- Que eu vivo com, ou mesmo sem,  a vontade

Com que rasguei o ventre à minha mãe

Não, não vou por aí! Só vou por onde

Me levam meus próprios passos...

Se o que busco saber nenhum de vós responde

Por que me repetis: "vem por aqui!"?

Prefiro escorregar nos becos lamacentos,

Redemoinhar aos ventos,

Como farrapos, arrastar os pés sangrentos,

A ir por aí...

Se vim ao mundo, foi

Só para desflorar florestas virgens,

E desenhar meus próprios pés na areia inexplorada!

O mais que faço não vale nada.

Como, pois sereis vós

Que me dareis impulsos, ferramentas e coragem

Para eu derrubar os meus obstáculos?...

Corre, nas vossas veias, sangue velho dos avós,

E vós amais o que é fácil!

Eu amo o Longe e a Miragem,

Amo os abismos, as torrentes, os desertos...

Ide! Tendes estradas,

Tendes jardins, tendes canteiros,

Tendes pátrias, tendes tectos,

E tendes regras, e tratados, de filósofos, e sábios...

Eu tenho a minha Loucura !

Levanto-a, como um facho, a arder na noite escura,

E sinto espuma, e sangue, e cânticos nos lábios...

Deus e o Diabo é que guiam, mais ninguém.

Todos tiveram pai, todos tiveram mãe;

Mas eu, que nunca principio nem acabo,

Nasci do amor que há entre Deus e o Diabo.

Ah, que ninguém me dê piedosas intenções!

Ninguém me peça definições!

Ninguém me diga: "vem por aqui"!

A minha vida é um vendaval que se soltou.

É uma onda que se alevantou.

É um átomo a mais que se animou...

Não sei por onde vou,

Não sei para onde vou

- Sei,  que não vou por aí!

José
Régio, in 'Poemas de Deus e do Diabo'

Petting, petting, petting 

"I sit and think:

Bearing so many forms, so many names,

I come down, crossing the threshold..."

I wonder if I know him

In whose speech is my voice,

In whose movement is my being,

Whose skill is in my lines,

Whose melody is in my songs

In joy and sorrow.

I thought he was chained within me,

Contained by tears and laughter,

Work and play.

I thought he was my very self

Coming to an end with my death.

Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him

In the sight and touch of my beloved?

This ‘I’ beyond self I found

On the shores of the shining sea.

Therefore I know

This ‘I’ is not imprisoned within my bounds.

Losing myself, I find him

Beyond the borders of time and space.

Through the Ages

I come to know his Shining Self

In the life of the seeker,

In the voice of the poet.

From the dark clouds pour the rains.

I sit and think:

Bearing so many forms, so many names,

I come down, crossing the threshold

Of countless births and deaths.

The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,

Embracing past and present,

Dwells in Man.

Within Him I shall find myself -

The ‘I’ that reaches everywhere.

Rabindranath Tagore

The Calango, the Cat and Me: who's the lizzard?

I was living in Brazil when, having two pet cats, one of them, the female (tiny loving cat) brought a 30cm long calango to me. Immediately both the lizard and I entered survival mode: him/it pretending to be dead and I screaming and yelling.

It’s clear to see which of us three were in the same developmental stage group…

Which takes to me to Rich Hanson’s Pet the Lizard post on his JOT newsletter (July 11th, 2011):

http://www.rickhanson.net/just-one-thing/pet-the-lizard

A "Mosca":

Portugal’s abusive and silence compliance culture: the NHS & Mental Health

In Portugal there’s a pervasive culture of punishing, scapegoating or, preferably “killing the messenger” (i.e the critical voices) in civil service.

Positions of all levels in civil service were for the most part acquired by personal and political favours. Hence: no merit, no true public service, none evaluation.

You need it? You get as it is and it’s a “take it or leave it” situation.

Public and patient’s empowerment are words lost for content and practice.

As far as mental health,  broadly considered,  is concerned we suggest you to have a look at the WHO - EU office's guidelines in

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/113834/E93430.pdf

PS - More to follow soon.

Pope Francisco interviewed by Henrique Cymerman, June 13 2014. He KNOWS the WORLD we live in. In Spanish.

Os Loucos de Lisboa

São os loucos de Lisboa
Que nos fazem duvidar
Que a Terra gira ao contrário
E os rios nascem no mar

Ala dos Namorados 

Portugal - País da Miséria


A miséria social que se instalou  neste país, está muito para lá da canção doa Ala dos Namorados em que a pobreza tinha algo de poético. Agora  tem muitos rostos, muitas faces. Uma delas, simultâneamente pungente e repugnante é a dos vagabundos e loucos e pululam nas ruas das cidades e, em particular, em Lisboa. Esfomeados, embriagados, doentes, muito doentes, destroços humanos que esta sociedade, geridas por infrahumanos, gerou. 

São eles o verdadeiro rosto de quem nos governa.

Perderam tudo e, se nada se fizer, infectarão a sociedade e o poder que os baniu.  Um dia, em breve, uma arma  saltará do  bolso roto de um dos "loucos" disparará a matar no metro ou na carris, numa pastelaria ou esplanada. 

São filhos de quem estes abandonados, excluídos, dregredados para a miséria?

E quantos mais são a cada dia que passa quando se negam oportunidades a tanta gente de valor para preservar os privilégios de quem nos serve tão mal com tanta indignidade?

Pérolas de sabedoria: 

Thich Nhat Hanh

Feed and Nourish our Happiness

Audio: 

http://tnhaudio.org/category/happiness/

Friedemann Schaub: technique to "Declutter Your Mind"/ Técnica simples de desbloqueio mental

PS- é necessário traduzir? Deixe um comentário.

The Unbroken

There is a brokenness

out of which comes the unbroken,

a shatteredness

out of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow

beyond all grief which leads to joy

and a fragility

out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space

too vast for words

through which we pass with each loss,

out of whose darkness

we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound

whose serrated edges cut the heart

as we break open to the place inside

which is unbreakable and whole,

while learning to sing.

Rashani Réa

“There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”                                                                                                                                              Rumi 

Android app to PTSD

App para android de suporte para Perturbação Pós-Stress Traumático - PPST

Perturbação Pós-Stress Traumático - PPST

Trauma Complexo

Está Incluído, em inglês, na designação de Complex PTSD definindo-se (vide citação de J. Briere em baixo) como um quadro de perturbações psicofisiológicas, em larga medida derivadas de estratégias de sobrevivência adaptativas a situações de perigo e ameaça permanente. Na vanguarda de quem trabalha sobre estas questões (alguns mencionados neste blog, quer nos posts quer nos favoritos) enfatiza-se a reabilitação que a neuroplasticidade, mediante a estratégia adequada, permite e adopta-se a palavra “response” (resposta, repercussão) em vez de “disorder” (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder- PTSD) ou, português, “perturbação” (i.e Perturbação Pós-Stress Traumático - PPST ou, no Brasil, “transtorno”) que remete para a “patologização” do traumatizado. Esta surge assim como portador de uma (ou múltiplas) “injury”, lesão/ferida/dano infligido e passível de recuperação:

"When an individual has experienced multiple, severe forms of trauma, the psychological results are often multiple and severe as well; a phenomenon sometimes referred to as complex posttraumatic disturbance. Complex trauma can be defined as a combination of early and late-onset, multiple, and sometimes highly invasive traumatic events, usually of an ongoing, interpersonal nature. In most cases, such trauma includes exposure to repetitive childhood sexual, physical, and/or psychological abuse, often (although not always) in the context of concomitant emotional neglect and harmful social environments (Briere & Scott, 2006; Cook, et al., 2005). As described in Chapter 1, the impact of complex trauma  include anxiety and depression; dissociation; relational, identity, and affect regulation disturbance; cognitive distortions; somatization; "externalizing" behaviors such as self-mutilation and violence; sexual disturbance; substance abuse; eating disorders; susceptibility to revictimization; and traumatic bereavement associated with loss of family members and other significant attachment figures".(p. 2)

Neste texto enumeram-se algumas estratégias apropriadas ao contexto terapêutico com pacientes de trauma complexo. Não as vou enumerar aqui mas indico as referências no final deste post. Anteriormente publicamos aqui um video de Briere  sobre esta questão : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL82kN4kPAc Mais uma pequena citação do mesmo texto dá-nos, porém, a medida das capacidades requeridas aos terapeutas para lidar com a questão:a

"Because this is a multi-modal, comprehensive treatment model that takes into account a range of psychological, social, and cultural issues, its effectiveness rests on the therapist’s previous training, skill, sensitivity, creativity, and openness to the client. Although specific interventions and activities are described, this is not a structured, “how-to” manual. Instead, this guide offers a semi-structured approach that can be adapted on a case-by-case basis by the therapist to meet the youth’s specific developmental level, psychological functioning, and cultural/ethnic background."
  

John Briere, Ph.D. and Cheryl Lanktree, Ph.D.,

Integrative Treatment of Complex Trauma for Adolescents (ITCT-A):

 A Guide for the Treatment of Multiply-Traumatized Youth,

MCAVIC-USC Child and Adolescent Trauma Program, National Child Traumatic Stress Network Final draft, August 2008

 http://www.johnbriere.com/Adol%20Trauma%20Tx%20Manual%20-%20Final%208_25_08.pdf

Medicina Integrativa articulada com reprogramação cognitiva, neurológica e emocional  

Friedemann Schaub MD, PhD

How to Declutter Your Mind Video Series

http://www.cellularwisdom.com/healing-resources.shtml

Part 1 - Introduction

Part 2 - What is Mind Clutter?

Part 3 - Subconscious Beliefs

Part 4 - Subconscious Baggage

Part 5 - Symptoms and Causes of Mind Clutter

Part 6 - Empyting the Subconscious

Part 7 - Directing the Subconscious

Part 8 - How to Stop Mind Racing NOW!

Part 9 - How to Open Your Mind

Part 10 - Conclusion

"There is no reality only perception"

"Não se querer libertar"!

"Get over it"!

"Está preso à dor"!

Assim se acrescenta o insulto à injúria.
Não, não estamos a falar do mesmo: já ouviu falar de memória implicita? 

Sem empatia não há cura, não há recondicionamento da neuroplasticidade. Aqui vai um chavão 

"neurons that fire together wire together". 

"Implicit/sensory memories

Frequently, memories of especially traumatic events, including severe child abuse, are reexperienced later
in life on a sensory level, for example as “flashbacks.”  This is thought to be due, in part, to the fact that those brain and psychological systems responsible for directing the encoding and early organization and processing of explicit, narrative memory material may be flooded (or at least bypassed) by overwhelming emotional input during severe abuse or trauma -- resulting in less integrated, primarily sensory (as opposed to verbally/autobiographically mediated) recollections upon exposure to trauma-reminiscent stimuli (Metcalfe & Jacobs, 1996; Siegel, 1999; van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996).   In addition, traumatic experiences that occurred prior to the child’s acquisition of language necessarily will be nonnarrative, typically sensorimotor in nature.
As opposed to narrative memories, implicit, sensory recollection is generally devoid of autobiographic material, and is often experienced as an intrusion of unexpected sensation (e.g., sights or sounds of an event) rather than of remembering, per se.  Although sensory reexperiencing is often accompanied by the associated emotions that were involved at the time of the abuse, the sensory memory of the maltreatment experience and the affects conditioned to the memory (i.e., CERs) are likely to be separate phenomena (Davis, 1992; LeDoux, 1995).  In many cases, sensory memories become the stimuli that release strong CERs, which can, in turn, reinstate enough of the context of the original abuse to trigger additional reexperiencing.  As will be described below, the combination of triggered sensory memories and associated negative affects is often characteristic of posttraumatic stress".

John Briere

Treating adult survivors of severe childhood abuse and neglect: 

Further development of an integrative model

file:///C:/Users/fernando/Downloads/John%20Briere%202.pdf

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Compassion & Empathy  

Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy

Joan Halifax não pronuncia nem uma única vez a palavra "empatia". 

Porque será? 

"So we can ask: What is compassion comprised of? And there are various facets. And there's referential and non-referential compassion. But first, compassion is comprised of that capacity to see clearly into the nature of suffering. It is that ability to really stand strong and to recognize also that I'm not separate from this suffering. But that is not enough, because compassion, which activates the motor cortex,means that we aspire, we actually aspire to transform suffering. And if we're so blessed, we engage in activities that transform suffering. But compassion has another component, and that component is really essential. That component is that we cannot be attached to outcome."

http://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax 

ADD - Défice de Atenção!

É, radica mesmo em TRAUMA. 

Entrecruza-se com ALERGIAS e INTOLERÂNCIAS ALIMENTARES:

http://www.feingold.org/BLUEBOOK2012.pdf
http://www.feingold.org/DOCS/WhenMoreThanOneAdditive.pdf

COMPASSION WITH THE TRAUMA CLIENT - John Briere, Ph.D.

What is Complex PTSD and How can it be Managed? (+playlist)

Radical Acceptance

Marsha Linehan PhD desenvolveu  um modelo terapêutico designado por  Dialectical Behavioral Therapy - DBT ou, em português, Terapia Comportamental Dialética.  O modelo construiu-se a partir do da CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - Terapia Cognitivo-comportamental) e dos seus "pontos fracos" na terapia de indivíduos com perturbação emocional intensa. Entre as estratégias e princípios propugnados encontra-se o de "radical acceptance". Esta estratégia é dupla: para o "paciente" implica a aceitação da situação e realidade tal como ela é se apresenta pela prática das Brahmavihāras budistas, em particular da  Equanimidade. Para o terapeuta implica uma postura de aceitação e validação tanto da experiência, sentimento e legitimidade do sofrimento como das competências  do paciente como capacitadores da mudança: 

"HOW IS DBT DIFFERENT FROM REGULAR COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY?

 

DBT is a modification of standard cognitive behavioural treatment. As briefly stated above, Marsha Linehan and her team of therapists used standard CBT techniques, such as skills training, homework assignments, symptom rating scales, and behavioral analysis in addressing clients’ problems. While these worked for some people, others were put off by the constant focus on change. Clients felt the degree of their suffering was being underestimated, and that their therapists were overestimating how helpful they were being to their clients. As a result, clients dropped out of treatment, became very frustrated, shut down or all three. Linehan’s research team, which videotaped all their sessions with clients, began to notice new strategies that helped clients tolerate their pain and worked to make a “life worth living.” As acceptance strategies were added to the change strategies, clients felt their therapists understood them much better. They stayed in treatment instead of dropping out, felt better about their relationships with their therapists, and improved faster.

The balance between acceptance and change strategies in therapy formed the fundamental “dialectic” that resulted in the treatment’s name. “Dialectic” means ‘weighing and integrating contradictory facts or ideas with a view to resolving apparent contradictions.’ In DBT, therapists and clients work hard to balance change with acceptance, two seemingly contradictory forces or strategies. Likewise, in life outside therapy, people struggle to have balanced actions, feelings, and thoughts. We work to integrate both passionate feelings and logical thoughts. We put effort into meeting our own needs and wants while meeting the needs and wants of others who are important to us. We struggle to have the right mix of work and play.

In DBT, there are treatment strategies that are specifically dialectical; these strategies help both the therapist and the client get “unstuck” from extreme positions or from emphasizing too much change or too much acceptance. These strategies keep the therapy in balance, moving back and forth between acceptance and change in a way that helps the client reach his or her ultimate goals as quickly as possible. 

In http://behavioraltech.org/downloads/dbtFaq_Cons.pdf

  

Os efeitos do trauma complexo (complex PTSD) na saúde, nas perturbações nervosas, e cognitivas (por ex. défice de atenção) e em particular no desregulamento do eixo hipotalámico-hipofisario-adrenal (HPA Axis) está sobejamente comprovado. Síndrome de fadiga crónica, fibromialgia, perturbações gastrintestinais, asma, alergias, disfunções hormonais, etc.  estão entre as sequelas mais comuns.   O desregulamento do EHHA tem consequências "inflamatórias" em todos os sistemas corporais incluindo no cérebro perpetuando o trauma original pela debilitação das funções vitais. Tendo esta questão já sido amplamente estudada esta questão é incontroversa.

Vamos então continuar a medicar os sintomas? 
A partir o ser "às fatias"? 
Praticar  "medicina forense"? 
Autopsiar os vivos? 

A resistência de prestadores de cuidados médicos é assumida por Gabor Maté aqui: 

Gábor Máté MD Attachment = Wholeness and Health or Disease, ADD, Addiction, Violence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Earq-eR3MQI 

Maté, Gabor. 2003. When the body says no: understanding the stress-disease connection. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley.

http://restorativemedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/5.-Addiction-Childhood-Trauma-Stress.pdf 

Ader, Robert. 2007. Psychoneuroimmunology: Vol. 1-2. Amsterdam;Boston: Elsevier/Academic Press.