Ned and the Breast: Psych Adaptations

• Psychological Adaptations: A Model and It's Relevance by James Brody, 4/24/97
  
  

I used to be dental phobic; the drill whine and the odor of smoked enamel made any small pain strident, compelling. The sequence was broken a decade ago. The lady dentist tucked my head to her breast while she drilled. Relaxation shut me down. Ned Hallowell, MD, once described a similar experience in school. Even though he had an English degree with honors from Harvard, he also had early difficulty learning and reciting certain materials; one of his ample elementary teachers tucked him under her arm while tutoring him. He was "aware of a certain roundness" next to his ear and settled.(1,2) In both cases, a possible Psych Adaptation for feeding (and relaxation) inhibited mechanisms for fear and escape.

There may well be a hierarchy of cognitions (and their associated PAs) such that activating one that is older will inhibit newer, distressing ones. If so, then therapists can pick from the hierarchy to identify competing thoughts that are likely to be more powerful than those distressing the client. Counterconditioning should proceed much faster. There may also be ties between some of our adaptations such that some types of conditioning, whether appetitive or aversive, occurs quickly or not at all. Garcia (1966, Garcia J & Koelling R Relation of cue to consequence in avoidance learning. Psychonomic Science, 4, 123-124) illustrated this effect by mixing visual/auditory or gustatory cues with either foot shock or nausea. The rats quickly learned the connection between novel smells or tastes and later getting sick. They avoided the novel food with a single trial despite a delay of reinforcement up to 24 hrs. They never connected visual/auditory warnings with nausea; likewise, they didn't connect novel gustatory signals with getting shocked.

Some PAs may be more dispersed in the brain; some may be phylogenetically older. Either dispersal or age could make a PA more resistant to disruption by trauma, quirks in your DNA, or mood shifts such as anger, fear or depression. Phylogenetic age, logically, should have nothing to do with variation; if a system works well, it shouldn't change. However, living systems have a certain amount of error variance. Also, time, lots of it, should allow parallel systems to develop that work interactively with the original module or allow the original module to build refinements. For either reason, anatomical dispersal or time (and dispersal could well be a function of time and the growth of complimentary adaptations), systems for that indicate safety (warmth, satiation, contact comfort) could be more resilient and more powerful than systems for dominance or for fear. If you're worried about failing English or losing your job, a good cuddle from mom or your girl is powerful therapy. Watson is said to have treated Little Albert's conditioned fear of rabbits by feeding the kid. Systems tied to child care should be resistant to a parent's rage toward her spouse.(3)

To the extent that PAs vary between individuals, some of the steps on a hierarchy may also vary between people or between people from different families. Images of holding an infant, for example, may not likely be a relaxing stimulus for every woman. Some people, including children, come to my office with an associated complaint of being "self-centered." Spending time quietly with another person is not comforting and may be slightly aversive. Some people are repulsed by hugs unless they initiate them. Carpentry is relaxing for some men, a nuisance for others. My friend who comments that she's a "fucking plant snob with no class otherwise" and who dislikes children would probably get a larger therapeutic lift in a nursery for stems, not feet.

Because PAs include peripheral as well as CNS elements, there are multiple access points. Thus, actually performing a relaxing act may be more therapeutic than merely thinking about it. People who ran on the track team in school and enjoyed it can either be taught to fantasize about running or they can get out and do some running. Caring for animals may be a powerful escape for someone who was reared with lots of pets (and liked them!) and who is currently immersed in stress or loss. My friend can visualize peonies or get out and pick some. The extra practice with running, animals, or flowers can be the foundation for subsequent visualizations if they are needed in an office crisis.

Fear usually gets people to come for help.(4) However, therapists aren't allowed to hug while shamans could. Instead, we're restricted to verbal influence. My ambivalence is clear. I don't trust me or most of my peers (or the neighborhood shaman) to hug a client and keep the hug within altruistic boundaries but I train parents to give their children hugs and time-outs while eliminating lectures and debates. In therapy, I'm restricted to the opposite and less effective, newer accesses to PAs, accesses that consist of lectures, discussion, and vocal modulation. We possibly would not have these dilemmas in a smaller community.(5)

NOTES:

1) Hallowell shared his anecdote at the ChADD Conference last fall in Chicago; there were about 2000 mothers in the audience, mothers of ADHD and manic children. They loved it.

2) Can you imagine a modified headrest on the dental chair or on a teaching station? Or installed on the headrest for drivers convicted of being overly aggressive? The concept of supernormal stimuli again applies. (See "Tinbergen and Mickey Mouse" posting). A local rehab hospital has staff dressed as Raggedy Ann in the adult areas as well as the children's. I remember several visits to my local ER and feeling more relaxed, even fascinated, by farm scenes painted on the ceiling above my table.

3) Perhaps associated with the marital gambit of "stay together for the kids"

4) Barkley has commented that nearly every self-referred ADHD adult has concommitant problems with an anxiety disorder. Those without anxiety disorders, to the variable and undefined extent that they get in trouble, are more likely found in divorce proceedings or the penal system.

5) Other shamans increasingly find limits on their freedom to hug. One dear friend, a minister, related new guidelines from temporal headquarters that hugging parishioners was no longer appropriate.

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