Remember I Just Can’t Get Enough from 2004?
Also, as is tradition, I put Popbitch’s immortal baboon vs badger question to the UK’s tallest porn star, Ava Koxxx.
Oh, and also, Real Housewives of Cheshire’s Ester Dee liked my comment regarding her, uh, slip of the tongue.
More mature content, if you can call it that, next week.
A colleague lent me this non-fiction book, written in 1985. My colleague and I had a conversation about my head injury and subsequent memory difficulties, during which she mentioned The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, which covered the science of memory. In this book, Oliver Sacks, an American Neurologist, weaves anecdotes from his days of handling patients, and contemporaneous developments in treatments for those with head traumas, low IQs, phantom limbs, autism and Tourettes. Many other conditions and ailments pass his desk and his accounts of these meetings are uplifting, tragic, humorous and still educational to the layman today. (Heads up for us laymen- you will need a dictionary.)
A quarter of a century on, and things have changed: the fields of psychology and psychiatry now have a lot more understanding of a range of conditions, including those covered in the book. You’re unlikely to have all the latest knowledge already, though, so good chunks of this book will still be hugely interesting to anyone who enjoys learning about psychology. What has also developed, though, is our own language when discussing these conditions. I didn't like the references to learning disabled patients as 'Simple Simons,' 'savages' or 'mental cripples.' A chapter starts out with the line, 'When I started working with retardates...' Jesus fucking Christ. The treatments and circumstances are always interesting, and in some cases fascinating and feel almost revelatory even today, but describing two learning disabled twins as 'a sort of grotesque Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee' smacks of disgust, both from the author and in turn from the reader about the author.
The USA is very begrudgingly starting to shake off its obsession with Christianity. As other religions build prevalence (Islam is the fastest-growing in the States), Atheism is also building a following of sorts, if today's social media is anything to go by. (US-based organisation Atheist Republic has 2.4 million Facebook followers.) Sacks is as religious as you might expect from an American doctor in the 1970s, and he throws in some straight-faced references to 'the soul.' Thankfully these are not permeative and most of his writing sticks to the cold, hard science. But then, on the issue of made-up things, he does throw in the odd word that Dictionary.com doesn't recognise, like 'migrainous' (i.e. the state of having a migraine).
A later chapter discusses two autistic savant twins who undergo treatment to allow them to learn a little about the world away from numbers, the field in which they brilliantly excel. As they begin to develop basic practical skills, these genius twins lose their 'power, and with this the chief joy and sense of their lives.’ All in exchange for the ability to, for instance, catch a bus. Sacks considers this 'a small price to pay.' Is it? Really? There's no mention of him asking either twin if they think it is.
I've spent my time, in the last 11 or 12 years, under branches of clinical psychology, neuropsychology, psychotherapy and counselling. I can attest that today's medical world is vastly different to that of Sacks and his era. Language, when discussing people with disabilities, is crucial for respect and motivational reasons, and thankfully the way we treat psychological conditions has come on a long way, as has the vernacular with which we describe it.
Absolutely fascinating, but absolutely dated.
Another quiet week of reading. Famous, uh, DJ Carter Cruise liked my comment on Instagram.
Yeah, apparently she's a DJ. Too.
After this ridiculous pandemic, as they sorta say in Wayne's World 2... if you book her, I'll come. To your club.
I was recently sent a copy of There Is Nothing to Fix, by trauma expert Suzanne Jones. The book is part autobiography, part self-help resource, investigating the connections between the mind and the body, and how trauma can affect both of these. Jones has developed the TIMBo system: Trauma Informed Mind Body. Put simply, our minds and bodies both react to our lives' experiences, and the psychosomatic responses to perceived dangers are not always appropriate. They're usually overly severe. Due to the caveman / woman nature of our brains, we tend to catastrophise. Can we counter this by paying attention to our bodies? Jones’ TIMBo courses were designed for trauma survivors to come to terms somatically with their experiences.
Jones' story blends real-life anecdotes (some her own, some from TIMBo participants) with medically-confirmed details, punctuated with spaces for the reader to include their own thoughts during writing exercises. The writer and her students have endured a range of abuses, many carefully and respectfully retold as examples throughout the book. Jones then goes on to describe techniques for tackling these traumas, to allow her students to move on from past incidents.
The book and Jones’ teachings are aimed largely at women, but a lot of the examples are perfectly accessible for men too. These encourage us to approach our problems from another angle, from a place of understanding.
The more I read about psychology, the more I learn about my own conditions (brain damage, memory difficulties, depression and anxiety). My head trauma occurred during a complication at birth, and I spent a few subsequent days in intensive care away from my mother. Jones explains that lack of connection in infancy can lead to brain damage, and can cause ‘dysregulations in the fear response.’
It’s written in my assessment that the head trauma would have caused the memory difficulties, and subsequently the problems socially, but for some years now I’ve suspected that the time spent in intensive care would have informed my subsequent anxiety- that it would have had something to do with it. Perhaps I have been experiencing that dysregulation my whole life.
I can’t list out here all the food-for-thought Jones offers up. It’s less a vending machine for the brain than a cerebral banquet. I have many notes from the book, stored in my phone, that I’m hoping to refer to once this ridiculous COVID-19 situation goes away and we can have a social life again. More to the point, I can then use what I’ve learned.
I had a few issues with the book. A section on Yoga refers to ‘chakras,’ which are believed to be power centres, wheels of energy of power point within the body. I’m not sure how scientifically this is backed up, and similarly I’m unsure about events being ‘recorded into your cells’- unless these are the cells of the hippocampus, the section of the brain which stores the memories. (The book briefly touches on some of the sectors of the brain, but not the hippocampus.) Similarly, there are references to the ‘primitive’ part of the brain without explicitly calling it the ‘amygdala.’ There’s some discussion of the left-and-right brain theory, suggesting that one side works creatively and the other analytically. This has largely been debunked. The book is also missing an index.
Aside from these criticisms, it’s a weighty, generous book packed with advice and knowledge. A fascinating read.
Thanks to Ascot Media for providing the book.
