I'm no different than anyone else -- I crave love and intimacy, but it doesn't always work out. As a life-long feminist and sex fiend, though, it might be a little, shall we say, highlighted a conflict in my life. When I married my wife in 1997, I thought I had beaten the system. My wife is much younger than I am, and from the beginning we had a great relationship. We were friends before we were lovers, we've always fought fairly with each other, and there was always a strong physical attraction between us. However, like the rest of the middle-aged sad-sacks who write to Dear Abby, there was a huge shift in our love life after we had kids.
Some of it was straightforward -- my wife was a radical breastfeeder and we had a family bed with attachment parenting -- the whole bit. I don't know about you, but it's difficult for me to be intimate with my wife when there are other people in the bed. Okay, no big deal, we were both tired all the time anyway, and the kids will grow up one day, and then, oh boy..! There were some other issues, too, associated with having three C-sections, but my wife's health improved, the boys got into their own beds, and...nuthin'. Oh, I don't mean we never had sex, but whereas it was still a very powerful, central facet of my life, my wife seemed to become much more take it or leave it in her approach to our love life.
I can't describe, although you can probably imagine, all the havoc this change in our marital dynamic created. I have always had a very strong sex drive, and still do, and it so happens my wife is pretty much my erotic ideal. Every day I have been her partner (24 years) I have been shocked and thrilled to find such a beautiful, sexy woman in my bed. Still, she's not a piece of furniture to be sat upon, and if her heart's not in it, neither is mine. That doesn't mean that I simply accept my lot, though. Oh, no. It is an exquisite discomfort, being at the height of your game professionally, socially and politically, but to be completely powerless over this most basic, vital aspect of your private life. Oh, the tantrums I've thrown! No one has to be at fault for people to suffer, but of course it's natural that people feel guilty when their loved ones are unhappy, then the unhappy person overcompensates, and before you know it you're in the middle of a John Updike novel.
My thinking about this came to an abrupt head last week, though, when the latest mass-murdering lunatic put out as part of his excuse that he was a member of "the incel rebellion." Part of the insanity of the internet is that it allows every fringe group of nutjobs to name themselves and their cause and pretend that naming it makes it relevant. "Incel" means "involuntarily celibate," and so the "incel rebellion" is a bunch of frustrated, horny men who can't get laid, and are evidently willing to kill strangers over their personal frustrations and failings with women. Well, as an honest man that brought me up short. If I continued along the line of "reasoning" that led to my sexual frustration tantrums it led pretty directly to "the incel rebellion." Say what you will about me, I ain't no mass murderer, and I don't want to be on any continuum that includes mass murderers.
So I had to think a little harder about how to understand my situation. As a body/mind/spirit practitioner I think that every spiritual problem also has an intellectual and physical component, every intellectual problem also has a physical and spiritual component, and every physical problem also has an intellectual and spiritual component. I had mostly been experiencing physical "deprivation," and responding with emotional/spiritual outrage, followed up by a bunch of feverish intellectual rationalization and attempts to coerce physical love from my wife. I tried to see things from her point of view, but it kept sounding like, "Oh, I'm just not that into it [you] any more." That sort of statement stops any man but a rapist dead in his tracks, and further tends to crush his self-confidence, ego, etc. When the kids were little and my wife said something like, "There are always hands grabbing at me! I just want to get some sleep!" I could understand it, even if I still suffered. But now, with half-grown or mostly grown kids, what's the hold-up?! I kept getting stuck at the emotionally painful spot and couldn't see any further into the situation in a way that might provide some solace or some possible way of moving forward. I think I had an insight the other day, though, and would like to share it with you.
As frequently happens, I was talking to a patient about his problems and free-associating when I had my "aha!" moment. This patient is a few years older than I am, and is much further down the road of marital discord than my wife and I. He and his wife don't touch any more, they actively avoid each other, seek affection outside their marriage and are only still together "for the sake of the kids." A very sad situation, but one that I can imagine all too easily. As we were talking the other day and I was casting about for some way to make Chinese medical philosophy more accessible to this Western rationalist, I suddenly got onto a thread of a thought. As I followed it in conversation the thread turned into a rope, and after doing a little research I now think I might be weaving an actual piece of inspired fabric about this common but unfortunate trend in long-term sexual relationships.
Oxytocin is sometimes called "the love hormone." It is most commonly spoken of in relation to breastfeeding and maternal bonding with children, but it is also associated with romance and the physiological responses of sex, including erections and orgasm. Some studies have been done about oxytocin in different contexts, but as far as I could tell, no one has tried to examine the dynamic that occurred to me. In some of the few candid, non-confrontational conversations my wife and I have had about our altered sex life, we have both agreed that, while my response to sex is unchanged (very eager anticipation, followed by a low-level high that can last the rest of the day), she is much less affected by sex than she used to be. Even if she has orgasms and otherwise has a very satisfying sexual encounter, she doesn't particularly look forward to it, nor does it have much lasting impact on her day. She didn't object much when I said, "It sounds like you'd get the same amount of pleasure and satisfaction from making me a sandwich." Which is actually just about a perfect analogy for what I think happens in women who have had children, and maybe especially women who have breastfed for extended periods of time.
In a childless woman, all her oxytocin is free to be devoted to romance, orgasm, and bonding with a romantic partner. However, once she has a child the bulk of her oxytocin is diverted to this other task of making milk and feeding and bonding with her child. Science seems to say pretty clearly that child-rearing is the primary role for oxytocin, so this isn't pathology but simple biology. Once this powerful hormone becomes primarily associated with the decidedly non-sexual but still thrilling and captivating experience of feeding and bonding with her baby, romance, sexual arousal and even orgasm become associated with oxytocin in a secondary way. That is, sex and romantic love are overwhelmed by, subsumed by and associated with non-sexual bonding and feeding her baby. In other words, sex becomes about as fulfilling as making someone a sandwich.
For me, a physiological explanation for an emotional experience is very useful -- it helps to take the sting out, in some cases, and it also helps me come up with new approaches for addressing the emotional situation. In this case, I feel a lot better about my "manhood," or at least about my desirability, sexual prowess and attractiveness. On another hand, it suggests some ways I might move forward in my sexual relationship with my wife. Although vanilla is my favorite sexual flavor, and I mostly am seeking comfort, intimacy and connection with my wife through lovemaking, I can see how all of that might feel to her like "sandwich." So while I continue to await her initiation of vanilla love-making, I am now spending some time trying to come up with novel, fantastic, taboo or other, non-sandwich types of stimulation of her oxytocin. While it makes me feel a little silly, it also makes sense to me, in many ways. When "50 Shades of Grey" is an international bestseller among middle-aged women, a smart husband sits up and tries to understand the phenomenon.
From the perspective of a practitioner of Chinese medicine I am flying blind with these ideas. The classics of Chinese sexology all were written at a time when the intended audience (educated aristocratic men) would have had multiple wives and concubines. The main emphasis was on sexually satisfying multiple women without exhausting yourself. If a middle-aged woman in ancient China started thinking "sandwich," the husband would have moved on to another wife or concubine who was more interested in sex as sex. Sticking with one wife and trying to develop a life-long romantic and sexual relationship is a modern, Western idea. However, without any question, starting from a Chinese viewpoint and seeking the Western scientific ideas I need to inform an idea is now my standard operating procedure, in my office and in my bedroom.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Thursday, September 14, 2017
An Epidemic of Dampness
Damp is one of the five pathogens in Chinese medicine, and we are currently experiencing an epidemic of dampness in the West. This epidemic is spreading to the rest of the world as our wealth and influence spread. Not only are many of the most vexing modern medical issues damp in nature (obesity, addiction, diabetes), but so are many of modern medicine's main treatments (antibiotics, steroids, antidepressants). Further complicating matters, in general terms dampness is all the good stuff -- fats, sugar, alcohol and other proofs that God loves us and wants us to be happy. The final confusing factors are that dampness can act as a solvent to move other dampness, dampness can act as "coarse" or "emergency" yin, and dampness can sometimes save your life so that you can try again tomorrow.
Damp is associated with the Earth element -- that is, with this plane of existence right here that we live on and in. The Earth element is associated with digestion and thought, with boundaries and turf, with home and hearth and material possessions. When it is in balance, we have enough to eat, enough to think about and healthy boundaries. When it is out of balance we have obsession and hoarding; codependency and emotional trespass; alienation and circular thinking that rationalizes and justifies counter-productive or destructive habits. Its two-sided nature is part of what makes dampness so confounding, but really it boils down to one thing: accepting the limits of the physical world.
Many people mistake the concept of "body/mind/spirit" with the concept of "mind over matter." This is a complete misunderstanding -- they almost mean the opposite of each other. Body/mind/spirit medicine includes the idea that, if our body is sick or hurt, it is trying to communicate something to our minds and spirits. "Mind over matter" says that the mind can overcome anything, including the body's physical limitations and physical wisdom -- if you are sick you don't have to listen to your body because you can think the problem away. In fact, contained within this idea are the seeds of the current epidemic of dampness in the West. Our civilization is based on reason, logic and science. That's fine, as far as it goes, but we keep trying to make reason, logic and science go too far, to places they don't belong and can't help. Describing love as a purely biochemical phenomenon, for instance, or inserting poison into food plants in order to kill pests. Obviously, reason, logic and science are all of the mind, and if our society places reason, logic and science above all other approaches for understanding existence, we are by definition over-balanced toward the mind. In other words (in Chinese, or body/mind/spirit terms), our civilization is over-balanced toward the Earth element, which results in obsession and hoarding, codependency and emotional trespass, alienation and circular thinking that rationalizes and justifies counter-productive or destructive habits. Going a step further, our logic-above-all civilization and its main philosophical concept, "mind over matter," leads its adherents directly to obesity, diabetes and addiction.
In the old days in China, only the wealthiest people could afford education and unlimited access to sugar, fats and alcohol, so dampness was mostly only a problem for the richest. In early 21st century America, though, EVERYONE has access to damp foods, and most of have been to school. The problem with dampness/earth is that it accumulates. Whether you are talking about the hoarder's newspapers and wrapping paper, the diabetic's sugar and insulin or the obsessive thinker's routines, accumulations take good stuff (newspapers! sugar! routine!) and turn it gradually into swamps that prevent forward progress. It is ironic that many of today's worst healthcare issues are "self-created." That is, a lifetime of drinking too much alcohol makes you an alcoholic with a fatty liver who dies of alcohol-induced cirrhosis. A lifetime of eating too much junk food with too little exercise makes you a diabetic whose illness causes you to have to strictly curtail your enjoyment of the foods that got you into your predicament. Usually obsessives are just left the hell alone, because their internal swamp is so impenetrable that an outsider can't find his way through, much less lead the person to a better place. When the obsessive's routine is, inevitably, broken by external factors he frequently is paralysed, unable to move forward except along the familiar pathway. Just like the drunk and the diabetic, the only way he knows is the way that got him in trouble in the first place. This is the seductive power of dampness -- even though, say, shooting heroin is dangerous, illegal and expensive, and even though the addict knows it causes way more harm than good, dampness accumulates in the body and mind and encourages further accumulation by its nature. The junkie's body suffers until he gets a fix, and then the new heroin acts as a solvent to temporarily move the stagnation of the old heroin out of the way. The mind then rationalizes and justifies the body's experience and both mind and body conspire to say, "Dampness is good!" even when it is plainly killing you. So our body's appetites and our mind's rationalizations lead us into the swamp, and until we decide to acknowledge that the mosquitoes are really bad, the weather sucks and you can't grow much there, our bodies and minds continue to tell us the swamp is where we're meant to be.
"SO WHAT'S THE ANSWER, TREY?" I hear you exasperatedly shouting at your computer. First of all, pure self-denial is not the answer -- anorexia and other self-denying compulsions are simply another face of the Earth element gone awry, and the teetotaler who would scold a grieving father for drinking to his dead son's memory is cruel and unrealistic about the potential healing power of that glass of whisky. The Earth is here for us to live on and enjoy. However, it has limits, and we have limits. This is not a flaw, any more than the fact that everything poops, breathes and dies is a flaw. Recognizing limitations, accepting them and learning to thrive within them is the lesson of the Earth. The positive Earth image would be of cultivation. You plan a project, plant the seeds, care for the crop and harvest the bounty when the plan comes to fruition. Activity that is repeatedly undertaken that never results in a crop is probably not going anywhere. This doesn't mean you should never get drunk, overeat or indulge in aimless wondering, but it does mean that periodically you should check to see if anything is coming of your efforts or if you are just spinning your wheels in the mud.
Unfortunately, acting on the Earth element in the physical sphere is and always has been ultimately about labor. The Earth time of year is late summer, or harvest time. For agrarian cultures, the harvest is the busiest time of year, with work from sunup to sundown. In our modern, work-averse culture, you could hardly offer a less appealing cure. The saving grace is that the harvest is about joyful labor -- the more work there is, the better supplied you'll be in the coming winter, and the more variety and abundance of food you'll enjoy. We have become so far separated from nature that most of us never think about "the harvest;" it sounds quaint, provincial, old-fashioned. If we want something, we go on the Mighty Internet (created by brain power), order something from Amazon (created by brain power) and wait expectantly for our package to arrive. "The harvest" has nothing to do with it. Moreover, the Mighty Internet allows us to live almost completely separated from Nature and from each other. This allows us to have sweet, sweet instant gratification of our earthly desires, but causes big problems in the long run. Amazon destroys decent paying retail jobs and turns retail clerks into warehouse wage slaves, barely able to make ends meet and anxiously awaiting the arrival of the thinking machines that will take their jobs. And all those FedEx flights and UPS truck trips contribute to climate change, which is changing living conditions on this actual, physical planet where we live. You know, the Earth. So in return for avoiding work and receiving instant gratification we contribute to the destruction of our home world. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," may well end up being the whiny excuse for how humans made the Earth uninhabitable.
Some "visionaries" say we have to colonize the stars if we intend to survive as a species. This is one of those far-fetched ideas that really cerebral people come up with, like the multiverse, when their education, experience and imagination fail to point out a simpler possibility. That is, when their heads are in the stars and their feet aren't on the ground. The problem with the idea of interstellar colonization is that we are sure to do the same thing to every other "earth" we inhabit. If we can't learn to respect the physical and to accept its limits here on our home planet, the universe is probably better off if we just go ahead and die off. Something better may or may not come along to replace us, but the prospect of humankind continuing on its current path and creating a legacy as "the greedy planet-destroying species" would be a tough pill to swallow. All because we couldn't curb our appetites and didn't want to work.
Damp is associated with the Earth element -- that is, with this plane of existence right here that we live on and in. The Earth element is associated with digestion and thought, with boundaries and turf, with home and hearth and material possessions. When it is in balance, we have enough to eat, enough to think about and healthy boundaries. When it is out of balance we have obsession and hoarding; codependency and emotional trespass; alienation and circular thinking that rationalizes and justifies counter-productive or destructive habits. Its two-sided nature is part of what makes dampness so confounding, but really it boils down to one thing: accepting the limits of the physical world.
Many people mistake the concept of "body/mind/spirit" with the concept of "mind over matter." This is a complete misunderstanding -- they almost mean the opposite of each other. Body/mind/spirit medicine includes the idea that, if our body is sick or hurt, it is trying to communicate something to our minds and spirits. "Mind over matter" says that the mind can overcome anything, including the body's physical limitations and physical wisdom -- if you are sick you don't have to listen to your body because you can think the problem away. In fact, contained within this idea are the seeds of the current epidemic of dampness in the West. Our civilization is based on reason, logic and science. That's fine, as far as it goes, but we keep trying to make reason, logic and science go too far, to places they don't belong and can't help. Describing love as a purely biochemical phenomenon, for instance, or inserting poison into food plants in order to kill pests. Obviously, reason, logic and science are all of the mind, and if our society places reason, logic and science above all other approaches for understanding existence, we are by definition over-balanced toward the mind. In other words (in Chinese, or body/mind/spirit terms), our civilization is over-balanced toward the Earth element, which results in obsession and hoarding, codependency and emotional trespass, alienation and circular thinking that rationalizes and justifies counter-productive or destructive habits. Going a step further, our logic-above-all civilization and its main philosophical concept, "mind over matter," leads its adherents directly to obesity, diabetes and addiction.
In the old days in China, only the wealthiest people could afford education and unlimited access to sugar, fats and alcohol, so dampness was mostly only a problem for the richest. In early 21st century America, though, EVERYONE has access to damp foods, and most of have been to school. The problem with dampness/earth is that it accumulates. Whether you are talking about the hoarder's newspapers and wrapping paper, the diabetic's sugar and insulin or the obsessive thinker's routines, accumulations take good stuff (newspapers! sugar! routine!) and turn it gradually into swamps that prevent forward progress. It is ironic that many of today's worst healthcare issues are "self-created." That is, a lifetime of drinking too much alcohol makes you an alcoholic with a fatty liver who dies of alcohol-induced cirrhosis. A lifetime of eating too much junk food with too little exercise makes you a diabetic whose illness causes you to have to strictly curtail your enjoyment of the foods that got you into your predicament. Usually obsessives are just left the hell alone, because their internal swamp is so impenetrable that an outsider can't find his way through, much less lead the person to a better place. When the obsessive's routine is, inevitably, broken by external factors he frequently is paralysed, unable to move forward except along the familiar pathway. Just like the drunk and the diabetic, the only way he knows is the way that got him in trouble in the first place. This is the seductive power of dampness -- even though, say, shooting heroin is dangerous, illegal and expensive, and even though the addict knows it causes way more harm than good, dampness accumulates in the body and mind and encourages further accumulation by its nature. The junkie's body suffers until he gets a fix, and then the new heroin acts as a solvent to temporarily move the stagnation of the old heroin out of the way. The mind then rationalizes and justifies the body's experience and both mind and body conspire to say, "Dampness is good!" even when it is plainly killing you. So our body's appetites and our mind's rationalizations lead us into the swamp, and until we decide to acknowledge that the mosquitoes are really bad, the weather sucks and you can't grow much there, our bodies and minds continue to tell us the swamp is where we're meant to be.
"SO WHAT'S THE ANSWER, TREY?" I hear you exasperatedly shouting at your computer. First of all, pure self-denial is not the answer -- anorexia and other self-denying compulsions are simply another face of the Earth element gone awry, and the teetotaler who would scold a grieving father for drinking to his dead son's memory is cruel and unrealistic about the potential healing power of that glass of whisky. The Earth is here for us to live on and enjoy. However, it has limits, and we have limits. This is not a flaw, any more than the fact that everything poops, breathes and dies is a flaw. Recognizing limitations, accepting them and learning to thrive within them is the lesson of the Earth. The positive Earth image would be of cultivation. You plan a project, plant the seeds, care for the crop and harvest the bounty when the plan comes to fruition. Activity that is repeatedly undertaken that never results in a crop is probably not going anywhere. This doesn't mean you should never get drunk, overeat or indulge in aimless wondering, but it does mean that periodically you should check to see if anything is coming of your efforts or if you are just spinning your wheels in the mud.
Unfortunately, acting on the Earth element in the physical sphere is and always has been ultimately about labor. The Earth time of year is late summer, or harvest time. For agrarian cultures, the harvest is the busiest time of year, with work from sunup to sundown. In our modern, work-averse culture, you could hardly offer a less appealing cure. The saving grace is that the harvest is about joyful labor -- the more work there is, the better supplied you'll be in the coming winter, and the more variety and abundance of food you'll enjoy. We have become so far separated from nature that most of us never think about "the harvest;" it sounds quaint, provincial, old-fashioned. If we want something, we go on the Mighty Internet (created by brain power), order something from Amazon (created by brain power) and wait expectantly for our package to arrive. "The harvest" has nothing to do with it. Moreover, the Mighty Internet allows us to live almost completely separated from Nature and from each other. This allows us to have sweet, sweet instant gratification of our earthly desires, but causes big problems in the long run. Amazon destroys decent paying retail jobs and turns retail clerks into warehouse wage slaves, barely able to make ends meet and anxiously awaiting the arrival of the thinking machines that will take their jobs. And all those FedEx flights and UPS truck trips contribute to climate change, which is changing living conditions on this actual, physical planet where we live. You know, the Earth. So in return for avoiding work and receiving instant gratification we contribute to the destruction of our home world. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," may well end up being the whiny excuse for how humans made the Earth uninhabitable.
Some "visionaries" say we have to colonize the stars if we intend to survive as a species. This is one of those far-fetched ideas that really cerebral people come up with, like the multiverse, when their education, experience and imagination fail to point out a simpler possibility. That is, when their heads are in the stars and their feet aren't on the ground. The problem with the idea of interstellar colonization is that we are sure to do the same thing to every other "earth" we inhabit. If we can't learn to respect the physical and to accept its limits here on our home planet, the universe is probably better off if we just go ahead and die off. Something better may or may not come along to replace us, but the prospect of humankind continuing on its current path and creating a legacy as "the greedy planet-destroying species" would be a tough pill to swallow. All because we couldn't curb our appetites and didn't want to work.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Half staff
I continue to be fascinated by trying to practice ancient Chinese medicine in 21st century America. As I gain experience and confidence I become more able to make judgments in one direction or another, and especially have developed the confidence to say, "Well, maybe that's the way Chinese scholars saw it two thousand years ago, but that's not the way we see it today, and I think our way is better." For example, after many years of searching I finally found an English translation of the Chinese classic of sexology, Su Nu Jing (available from the State University of New York Press, by Doug Wile). Sexual problems are some of the things people come to see an acupuncturist for, and I have been eager to expand my education.
So far I am very much enjoying my reading, and have been given a lot to think about. However, right off the bat it was apparent that 21st century Americans have a fundamentally different point of view about sexual relations than did the authors of the Chinese classics. In the first century CE the only people with the means and education to read these classics were aristocrats, and aristocratic Chinese men of the time typically had several wives and many concubines. Therefore, the best sex according to the Chinese classics satisfied all the women and preserved the man's energy. At an extreme, men were even taught sexual and meditative techniques to siphon off their partners' energy. Without making any judgment about the social and sexual practices of ancient China, I can say with confidence that I am satisfied with monogamy and with treating my wife as a partner, and see sex as a sacred and rewarding intimacy that we both share. I should say that personal experience reinforces my academic conclusion -- my conviction is practical AND theoretical.
This is one of the very few instances in my experience as an acupuncturist where I can make this judgment: "Things have changed -- we have progressed beyond that point of view and things are better now." The ancient Chinese also made free use of slaves, and I think we've progressed beyond that point, too -- we no longer think keeping slaves is okay, and we no longer see sex as purely a means to procreate or to control other people. HOWEVER, I am making these statements as a 21st century white American male, one of the most privileged classes of human being to ever exist. As such, I am writing the "classics" of tomorrow, whose inhabitants may say, "Yeah, well, but he could AFFORD to have only one wife, and could afford to spoil her with his undivided attention and all his wealth. And the soil was rich enough that they didn't need slaves." Still, I think human "progress" is possible, in small increments, and I think the current wisdom that sees men and women as equal qualifies as true progress for the species. To be sure, both slavery and sexual manipulation (frequently combined as sexual slavery) continue, but neither is socially acceptable, at least not in America. Insofar as people still talk about American ideals, look to America as the way of the future, and come to America to find a better life, these are known as (modern) American ideals -- no slavery; no rape. However things pan out, I'm good with being on the no slavery/no rape side
On another hand, much of my judgment consists of looking on the ancient Chinese with admiration, even awe, while cringing and shaking my head at current "best practices" in the West. For instance, personal freedom, which is so much more important to modern Americans than it was to ancient Chinese people, has led us into as many dreadful dead ends as glorious achievements. One of these (literal) dead ends has to do with the American obsession with guns. Yes, the Second Amendment, yes, personal freedom, rights and responsibilities, but honestly? We can't have those things without also having daily mass shootings by deranged, angry or depressed people?
Politicians are taught to say, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." However, this amounts to nothing more than a marketing slogan for gun sellers. People ARE going to be deranged, angry and depressed, so why make instruments of mass destruction so freely available? This is a problem with living in a "rational" society -- the assumption is that if you can say it, it's true. This un-examined assumption allows us to believe all kinds of evil lies. Sometimes you need a simple dose of common sense, especially delivered by a very old or very young person, to cut through the crap of the literal and rational. I'm not old enough or young enough to qualify, but try this out.
I saw Old Glory flying at half staff over the weekend and thought, "What's that for?
Oh, yeah, the shootings in Dallas..." Then I realized how many times I've had the
same series of thoughts in the last few years: "What's that for? Oh, yeah, Orlando;
Oh, yeah, Sandy Hook; Oh, yeah, Aurora; Oh, yeah, Columbine..." This made me think: we seem to have become the half-staff States
of America. What does that say about a country, that it is constantly in distress or mourning? What do you think an emperor would do if his country displayed his banner in this way more often than not? How can we keep our technological advantages and modern progress while retaining the emperor's disgust and horror on behalf of his beloved nation?
On every side of the political divide(s), Americans feel deeply uneasy about where we are and where we're heading. I will always champion personal freedom, but in a thoughtful way because it seems to allow for the easiest pursuit of individual progress. Once "individual freedom" becomes about the right to do any damn thing you want to, just because, then you lose me. I will never vote for a strongman or hope for the re-ascent of the church to keep us in our places, but I will also always demand, insofar as I'm able to, that individuals practice individual responsibility as well as individual freedom. The ones who don't practice responsibility ruin it for everyone else, and make the less-thoughtful among us much more likely to vote for the strongman or to hope for their church's ascent over others. That would be a step back, and steps backward lead toward slavery and sexual exploitation, among other things. Then where would I be as an American acupuncturist? Longing for the days of the emperor, and learning techniques to keep my slaves and women in line.
Ick.
On every side of the political divide(s), Americans feel deeply uneasy about where we are and where we're heading. I will always champion personal freedom, but in a thoughtful way because it seems to allow for the easiest pursuit of individual progress. Once "individual freedom" becomes about the right to do any damn thing you want to, just because, then you lose me. I will never vote for a strongman or hope for the re-ascent of the church to keep us in our places, but I will also always demand, insofar as I'm able to, that individuals practice individual responsibility as well as individual freedom. The ones who don't practice responsibility ruin it for everyone else, and make the less-thoughtful among us much more likely to vote for the strongman or to hope for their church's ascent over others. That would be a step back, and steps backward lead toward slavery and sexual exploitation, among other things. Then where would I be as an American acupuncturist? Longing for the days of the emperor, and learning techniques to keep my slaves and women in line.
Ick.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
On Abuse
(excerpt from “It’s Not All About You,” c. 2015, Trey Casimir L.Ac.
Abuse from a loved one creates scars that maybe never heal. This is not something we do to ourselves, but something that is done to us by others, and its effects don’t stop just because no one is currently trying to physically or emotionally hurt you. With the epidemic of narcissism that seems to be sweeping our civilization, such abuse can only increase, as more and more people look out for themselves first, second and third, without regard for how their actions affect the people around them.
Now, there’s a difficult thing about abuse, and I only offer this controversial and upsetting idea because I myself have been affected by abuse, and have only recently become aware of its continuing reverberations in my spirit. That difficult idea is this: Is it sometimes possible that a person is “asking for it?” I don’t mean that any infant is ever asking to be injured, or that any woman is ever fair game for sexual crime because she is attractively or provocatively dressed. Rather, writing as a person with abuse in my past, one of the painful reverberations in my life has been that I have tended to seek out, or at least to be attracted to, people who turn out to be abusive. Was I therefore “asking for more abuse?” I would say, “Of course not!” and would offer my tears and horror at this self-discovery as proof that I wasn’t consciously looking to be abused. However, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting some sort of correlation.
In my own case, two thoughts present themselves. First of all, I loved my first abuser and looked up to him, no question about it. That’s why his hatred and murderous intent hurt me so much, never mind the concussions, stitches and other physical injuries. I never got his love in return, but that doesn’t mean he was unlovable. That I might seek people out who in some way remind me of my abuser, so I can finally get what I was denied – love – makes a kind of sense to me. That people who remind me of my abuser might turn out to be abusive themselves also makes a kind of sense to me. On an entirely other hand, though, is the unconscious signs an abused person might display. In my case, and in some others who I have treated, the left shoulder is especially likely to be injured, tense or otherwise held in a “cocked” position. Imagine that someone is about to hit you in the ear, and you’ll feel this unconscious defensive posture. It could be the other shoulder or some other body part (people who have suffered sexual abuse sometimes have over-developed and slightly turned in thighs), but our bodies plainly carry residue from past trauma, whether physical, psychological or spiritual. Most energetic medicine is based on this assumption – “body/mind/spirit” is a phrase that articulates this idea, among others.
So there I am, with my cocked shoulder, going into a group of people. Like a pheromone or other unconscious signal, what if the posture of the abused person is understood by the herd? What if abusers are particularly adept at spotting the signs of past abuse? And what if I am still afraid/angry/ashamed/hurt at a very deep level, and am eager to compensate or maybe over-compensate for my past trauma? Like a nerd playing tackle football with the popular jocks, no one has to be at fault – there needn’t be an abusive intent – yet we all know that nerd is going down. And if I target the person who reminds me of my abuser, whose love I still long for, it is that much more likely that I’ll go down hard. In acupuncture terms, this shoulder hunching reflex is associated with warding off the wind or other external pathogens. Although the ancient Chinese weren’t referring to abusive people, but rather to climatic factors, an attacker certainly qualifies as an external pathogen. Many people who have hyper-sensitive or even auto-immune problems turn out to have been previously abused. With no other specific risk factor or clear vector for infection (say, shared needles for HIV), why wouldn’t a person with unconscious hyper-reactivity to a past abuser continue to carry hyper reactive defenses forward in all realms of their existence, including their unconscious immune systems?
More troubling, perhaps, is the combination of Yin and Yang Qiao Mai as an acupuncture treatment. The Yang Qiao Mai addresses weight (obligation, responsibility) that the world puts on your shoulders, while the Yin Qiao Mai addresses weight that you put on your own shoulders. Frequently it happens (especially with mothers, healthcare providers, teachers and caretakers) that the world puts weight on a person and they respond by putting more pressure on themselves ("I thought so – I wasn’t working hard enough”). This dynamic can be very effectively addressed by treating Yang Qiao Mai primarily and Yin Qiao Mai secondarily. However, occasionally it happens (based on various other diagnostic criteria), that the Yin Qiao Mai is primarily affected and the Yang Qiao Mai is secondary. That is, you put too much pressure on yourself and the world responds by putting more pressure on you. The first time I made such a diagnosis I was very apprehensive about explaining the dynamic to my patient, because it sounded like I was saying, “You brought this problem on yourself.” To my surprise, though, she immediately said, “Oh, my god. That’s exactly what I’ve been working on with my therapist for a long time!” As I recall, the treatment was very helpful, which is additional evidence that there was something to this dynamic for this person. One could see, perhaps, that people who are hard on themselves get a lot done, and “if you want to get it done, give it to a busy person,” or the like, but especially where abuse exists it is vital to keep the blame where it belongs – with the abuser and those who didn’t protect against the abuse. So this Yin and Yang Qiao Mai thing makes one very uneasy.
However, one of the physical attributes that accompanies Yin Qiao Mai dysfunction is that the arms and legs turn in – in other words, the thighs turn in (as has been noted after sexual abuse), and the shoulders hunch (as has been noted in other forms of physical abuse). Maybe these unconscious, physical/postural signs read like a red blossom to a hummingbird for abusers. Again, we have an external influence (the original abuse) causing an internal response (fear/anger/shame/hurt). Furthermore, this internal response results in an external posture that may act to attract abusers! Makes one wonder about the evolutionary advantage of such an interplay, but in any event, abuse offers another clear window through which to see the impact an external influence can have on the internal workings of a person, to such an extent that the internal workings percolate through to become manifest on the exterior of the abused person.
To be clear, this is pathological, and is not role-playing or S & M game-playing. I feel the need
to add this because I have had abusive people tell me, “You must be a masochist,” or even, “You must like it,” in regard to my history with abuse and abusers. But this is not the simple story of a cute molecule settling into the right-shaped receptor – rather, it is the story of a cute molecule that has been brutally altered to fit into a shape that is recognized by other brutes.
Abuse from a loved one creates scars that maybe never heal. This is not something we do to ourselves, but something that is done to us by others, and its effects don’t stop just because no one is currently trying to physically or emotionally hurt you. With the epidemic of narcissism that seems to be sweeping our civilization, such abuse can only increase, as more and more people look out for themselves first, second and third, without regard for how their actions affect the people around them.
Now, there’s a difficult thing about abuse, and I only offer this controversial and upsetting idea because I myself have been affected by abuse, and have only recently become aware of its continuing reverberations in my spirit. That difficult idea is this: Is it sometimes possible that a person is “asking for it?” I don’t mean that any infant is ever asking to be injured, or that any woman is ever fair game for sexual crime because she is attractively or provocatively dressed. Rather, writing as a person with abuse in my past, one of the painful reverberations in my life has been that I have tended to seek out, or at least to be attracted to, people who turn out to be abusive. Was I therefore “asking for more abuse?” I would say, “Of course not!” and would offer my tears and horror at this self-discovery as proof that I wasn’t consciously looking to be abused. However, there is anecdotal evidence suggesting some sort of correlation.
In my own case, two thoughts present themselves. First of all, I loved my first abuser and looked up to him, no question about it. That’s why his hatred and murderous intent hurt me so much, never mind the concussions, stitches and other physical injuries. I never got his love in return, but that doesn’t mean he was unlovable. That I might seek people out who in some way remind me of my abuser, so I can finally get what I was denied – love – makes a kind of sense to me. That people who remind me of my abuser might turn out to be abusive themselves also makes a kind of sense to me. On an entirely other hand, though, is the unconscious signs an abused person might display. In my case, and in some others who I have treated, the left shoulder is especially likely to be injured, tense or otherwise held in a “cocked” position. Imagine that someone is about to hit you in the ear, and you’ll feel this unconscious defensive posture. It could be the other shoulder or some other body part (people who have suffered sexual abuse sometimes have over-developed and slightly turned in thighs), but our bodies plainly carry residue from past trauma, whether physical, psychological or spiritual. Most energetic medicine is based on this assumption – “body/mind/spirit” is a phrase that articulates this idea, among others.
So there I am, with my cocked shoulder, going into a group of people. Like a pheromone or other unconscious signal, what if the posture of the abused person is understood by the herd? What if abusers are particularly adept at spotting the signs of past abuse? And what if I am still afraid/angry/ashamed/hurt at a very deep level, and am eager to compensate or maybe over-compensate for my past trauma? Like a nerd playing tackle football with the popular jocks, no one has to be at fault – there needn’t be an abusive intent – yet we all know that nerd is going down. And if I target the person who reminds me of my abuser, whose love I still long for, it is that much more likely that I’ll go down hard. In acupuncture terms, this shoulder hunching reflex is associated with warding off the wind or other external pathogens. Although the ancient Chinese weren’t referring to abusive people, but rather to climatic factors, an attacker certainly qualifies as an external pathogen. Many people who have hyper-sensitive or even auto-immune problems turn out to have been previously abused. With no other specific risk factor or clear vector for infection (say, shared needles for HIV), why wouldn’t a person with unconscious hyper-reactivity to a past abuser continue to carry hyper reactive defenses forward in all realms of their existence, including their unconscious immune systems?
More troubling, perhaps, is the combination of Yin and Yang Qiao Mai as an acupuncture treatment. The Yang Qiao Mai addresses weight (obligation, responsibility) that the world puts on your shoulders, while the Yin Qiao Mai addresses weight that you put on your own shoulders. Frequently it happens (especially with mothers, healthcare providers, teachers and caretakers) that the world puts weight on a person and they respond by putting more pressure on themselves ("I thought so – I wasn’t working hard enough”). This dynamic can be very effectively addressed by treating Yang Qiao Mai primarily and Yin Qiao Mai secondarily. However, occasionally it happens (based on various other diagnostic criteria), that the Yin Qiao Mai is primarily affected and the Yang Qiao Mai is secondary. That is, you put too much pressure on yourself and the world responds by putting more pressure on you. The first time I made such a diagnosis I was very apprehensive about explaining the dynamic to my patient, because it sounded like I was saying, “You brought this problem on yourself.” To my surprise, though, she immediately said, “Oh, my god. That’s exactly what I’ve been working on with my therapist for a long time!” As I recall, the treatment was very helpful, which is additional evidence that there was something to this dynamic for this person. One could see, perhaps, that people who are hard on themselves get a lot done, and “if you want to get it done, give it to a busy person,” or the like, but especially where abuse exists it is vital to keep the blame where it belongs – with the abuser and those who didn’t protect against the abuse. So this Yin and Yang Qiao Mai thing makes one very uneasy.
However, one of the physical attributes that accompanies Yin Qiao Mai dysfunction is that the arms and legs turn in – in other words, the thighs turn in (as has been noted after sexual abuse), and the shoulders hunch (as has been noted in other forms of physical abuse). Maybe these unconscious, physical/postural signs read like a red blossom to a hummingbird for abusers. Again, we have an external influence (the original abuse) causing an internal response (fear/anger/shame/hurt). Furthermore, this internal response results in an external posture that may act to attract abusers! Makes one wonder about the evolutionary advantage of such an interplay, but in any event, abuse offers another clear window through which to see the impact an external influence can have on the internal workings of a person, to such an extent that the internal workings percolate through to become manifest on the exterior of the abused person.
To be clear, this is pathological, and is not role-playing or S & M game-playing. I feel the need
to add this because I have had abusive people tell me, “You must be a masochist,” or even, “You must like it,” in regard to my history with abuse and abusers. But this is not the simple story of a cute molecule settling into the right-shaped receptor – rather, it is the story of a cute molecule that has been brutally altered to fit into a shape that is recognized by other brutes.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Letting go
The Chinese say that Fall is the season of grief, but it's also the season of letting go. As I have previously confessed, I don't do so well with this season, and a lot has to do with the difficulty of letting go. It means such different things in different settings, and it's hard to tell from the inside if one is making a fair and reasonable decision or just being selfish. Case in point: I resigned from the last of my volunteer positions in local government a couple weeks ago. On one hand, I feel bad about leaving my friends (and the trees and the fire company) in the lurch. On the other hand, I have donated ten years to working for the Borough through being an elected official and participating in various committees, study groups, etc. I am confident that I have done some good, and I continue to be vitally interested in the goings-on in my hometown. However, there's a bottom line. After practicing acupuncture for 15 years and exercise therapy for more than 25, I am still having a hard time making a living. I don't feel like a failure, but I do need to do something different to supplement the income I make as an acupuncturist. Therefore, I've had to let go of my cherished volunteer work so I can re-direct my focus on making my family more financially secure. Everyone understands, but there are still people who are disappointed in me or who have hurt feelings. So it's hard -- we don't live in a vacuum, and when I let go of something that may require someone else to pick it up. At the end of the day, all one can say is, "Sorry, It's someone else's turn."
On still another hand, letting go is necessary to move on, including to grow and mature. I have always had a hard time with this -- supposedly this is part of being a baby-boomer, but I have frequently needed to be "kicked upstairs" in my personal and professional life. I wish I was smoother at this life skill, because I hate being kicked and others hate kicking me, but it seems to be part of my karma. I am very loyal, and I have a great ability to endure when others would pack it in. Those are strengths, but it is a weakness to not let go until my survival is threatened. As a result, there are a few sinking ships in my wake, with angry people saying I abandoned them. Well, I WAS born in the Year of the Rat!
Short of survival, though, other things should motivate us to let go, and this seems to be one of the great life lessons I must learn. Among other things, sometimes one ends up in situations that are simply inappropriate, and that reflect poorly on one's sense of self-worth or self-esteem. I'm not talking about having a nice car to drive or fancy boots, but feeling like ones life has a purpose and like one is contributing something by doing his best. I love what I do, and I think I'm pretty good at it. I'm also proud of the practice I have been able to build in this small town, and I am grateful to the people who trusted me with even a part of their health care. But something has to give. In struggling with this over the years and especially as the summer of 2015 has come to a close, I have realized that my strength to endure and my inclination to loyalty sometimes makes me appear unambitious or insecure. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, my first life lesson was to overcome the surplus of over-confidence that I was born with by dedicating myself to serving others. But I tend to go overboard in all things -- well, I WAS born in the State of Texas!
Professionally, I realized that I have been generous to a fault with my practice. I have always given discounts to seniors, students and some other groups of patients, and will continue to do so. However, I have pretty consistently given away 20% of my fees over the past fifteen years, and I can't afford that. When I first started, I was very reasonably concerned about my ability to attract and keep patients. Being unwilling to manipulate the desperate people who came to see me for more visits and more fees, I instead tried to attract as many people as possible to my practice, and discounted service was one way to do that. However, I've been doing this for fifteen years now -- I'm pretty good at it and my reputation is excellent. At this point in my career, the extent of the discounts I offer doesn't only leave my bank account thin, but also under-values the service that I provide to my patients. For both of these reasons, I am going to be more judicious in offering discounts going forward. I will continue to honor the specific discounts I have negotiated with individual, long-time patients, but I won't be offering standard discounts with my newsletter, and I may trim some of the other policies I have followed for the last fifteen years. Like my volunteer service, I'm going to have let go of some of that. Otherwise, I'll have to find another job. I don't want to do that, and I don't think my patients want me to do that.
In any event, difficult, scary and unpleasant as it is, I'm letting go of some of my generous impulse in professional situations. I want to be here for a long time, providing first-rate acupuncture and exercise therapy to the community. I don't want to become one of those places that people sigh about and say, "Remember when..? I wonder why he went out of business..." I'm letting go of one thing (my insecurity about bringing acupuncture and yoga-based exercise therapy to Central PA) so that I can hold more tightly to the more important thing (supporting my family by providing first-rate acupuncture and exercise therapy to the community for the rest of my career).
Strange how "letting go" works out sometimes.
On still another hand, letting go is necessary to move on, including to grow and mature. I have always had a hard time with this -- supposedly this is part of being a baby-boomer, but I have frequently needed to be "kicked upstairs" in my personal and professional life. I wish I was smoother at this life skill, because I hate being kicked and others hate kicking me, but it seems to be part of my karma. I am very loyal, and I have a great ability to endure when others would pack it in. Those are strengths, but it is a weakness to not let go until my survival is threatened. As a result, there are a few sinking ships in my wake, with angry people saying I abandoned them. Well, I WAS born in the Year of the Rat!
Short of survival, though, other things should motivate us to let go, and this seems to be one of the great life lessons I must learn. Among other things, sometimes one ends up in situations that are simply inappropriate, and that reflect poorly on one's sense of self-worth or self-esteem. I'm not talking about having a nice car to drive or fancy boots, but feeling like ones life has a purpose and like one is contributing something by doing his best. I love what I do, and I think I'm pretty good at it. I'm also proud of the practice I have been able to build in this small town, and I am grateful to the people who trusted me with even a part of their health care. But something has to give. In struggling with this over the years and especially as the summer of 2015 has come to a close, I have realized that my strength to endure and my inclination to loyalty sometimes makes me appear unambitious or insecure. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, my first life lesson was to overcome the surplus of over-confidence that I was born with by dedicating myself to serving others. But I tend to go overboard in all things -- well, I WAS born in the State of Texas!
Professionally, I realized that I have been generous to a fault with my practice. I have always given discounts to seniors, students and some other groups of patients, and will continue to do so. However, I have pretty consistently given away 20% of my fees over the past fifteen years, and I can't afford that. When I first started, I was very reasonably concerned about my ability to attract and keep patients. Being unwilling to manipulate the desperate people who came to see me for more visits and more fees, I instead tried to attract as many people as possible to my practice, and discounted service was one way to do that. However, I've been doing this for fifteen years now -- I'm pretty good at it and my reputation is excellent. At this point in my career, the extent of the discounts I offer doesn't only leave my bank account thin, but also under-values the service that I provide to my patients. For both of these reasons, I am going to be more judicious in offering discounts going forward. I will continue to honor the specific discounts I have negotiated with individual, long-time patients, but I won't be offering standard discounts with my newsletter, and I may trim some of the other policies I have followed for the last fifteen years. Like my volunteer service, I'm going to have let go of some of that. Otherwise, I'll have to find another job. I don't want to do that, and I don't think my patients want me to do that.
In any event, difficult, scary and unpleasant as it is, I'm letting go of some of my generous impulse in professional situations. I want to be here for a long time, providing first-rate acupuncture and exercise therapy to the community. I don't want to become one of those places that people sigh about and say, "Remember when..? I wonder why he went out of business..." I'm letting go of one thing (my insecurity about bringing acupuncture and yoga-based exercise therapy to Central PA) so that I can hold more tightly to the more important thing (supporting my family by providing first-rate acupuncture and exercise therapy to the community for the rest of my career).
Strange how "letting go" works out sometimes.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Science as the Final Authority
This morning there was an interesting interview on NPR with the author of a new book about vaccinations. The interview can be read or heard here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/09/30/351242264/vaccine-controversies-are-as-social-as-they-are-medical
The comments on the npr.org website are also very interesting. Below is my contribution to the discussion.
I listened very intently to the interview today with Eula Biss regarding her new book, "On Immunity," regarding vaccination. I, too, am a parent, and I have also had questions about vaccination, on all sides of the question. I agree with Ms. Biss in her borrowed observation that “when you split the difference between information and misinformation, you still end up with disinformation.” However, maybe it is a shortcoming of vocabulary, but the only alternative to “information” is not "disinformation.” Where does “anecdotal evidence” fall in this spectrum? How about “wisdom?” Although I was raised to be a scientist, an intellectual and a skeptic, these approaches alone proved insufficient for fully understanding and managing my life, and I eventually branched out and became a practitioner of breath-centered exercise therapy and an acupuncturist. Some would say this puts me on the side of “disinformation” -- although I would beg to differ, classical Chinese medicine is certainly not scientific medicine, and I'm fine with that.
Ms. Biss blames some of people’s reluctance to vaccinate on a “distrust of the government,” but some people also distrust science, and especially scientific medicine. I myself believe in the scientific method, but scientific medicine is another matter. First of all, when the scientific paradigm shifts, everything that used to be true becomes untrue. This is so patently false that people turn away from, say, the latest scientific advice about a healthy diet, simply because the “truth” is constantly shifting. More aggravating to me, though, as someone whose profession and personal integrity are regularly assailed by people on “scientific” grounds, is the casualness with which even respected and experienced scientists apply the scientific method. As it happens, Ms. Biss employs this same casualness in her own approach to vaccination. In the interview she said, after much rational discussion about the science, economics and politics of vaccinations:
“I would prefer for my son to have as little medical care as possible, as little contact with the medical system as possible. I think vaccination is actually one way to try to help ensure that — making sure that he doesn't get something like pneumonia that might mean a hospital stay, where things will be done to him that will make me uncomfortable or that he will be treated in a way that might feel excessive to me. I think the best way for me to keep him out of that system is to engage in this highly effective preventative medicine.”
I can’t tell you how many people have told me, “I hate pills.” Well, I understand why they feel that way, but it’s an uninformed (or half-formed) and ultimately unconstructive point of view, because sometimes pills will save your life, or make your life better. This is essentially the same thing that Ms. Biss has said regarding her son. Because she fears (or dislikes, or distrusts, or otherwise has a negative opinion of) the “medical system,” she will “only take one” of that system’s strategies in order to avoid using its other recommendations and practices. Never mind that a hospital stay can save her son’s life, she will take this other step, that she can comprehend and that she believes has minimal risk, because she fears the experience of having a child in the hospital. In other words, Ms. Biss’ use of vaccinations for her child is an act of faith, based on her fear of hospitals and the rest of the “medical system.” This is a mother’s prerogative, but it certainly isn’t scientific.
As a body mind spirit practitioner, I have no problem with acts of faith, but I do think you should have some self-awareness, some understanding of how you are living your life and why you are making the choices you make. As a professional whose profession is under frequent attack by proponents of scientific medicine, I don’t feel so generous. If you are going to put all non-scientific points of view on a different and lower level than your own rational, scientific point of view, then have the courage of your convictions and be scientific! And if you are going to occasionally indulge in faith or emotion during a scientific discussion, please understand that this lapse blows your claims of rational, scientific impartiality clean out of the water. You can’t cherry pick the science that appeals to you – you either employ the scientific method in your approach, or you do not.
As it turns out, we are not capable of being purely rational, nor is it desirable – that’s the comic, ironic and profound point of characters such as Mr. Spock on Star Trek, and Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. Again, I don’t have a problem with irrational behavior, but I do have a problem with those who castigate, judge or hold themselves superior to others based on the critics’ self-identification as “rational” or “scientific.” The truth of things is that there are many things we don’t understand, as patients and as practitioners, no matter how rational we are. We have to live with that ignorance, but still make the best, most well-informed and most prudent decisions we can about caring for our health, or helping others care for their health. These are not usually black and white decisions, as scientific medicine would sometimes have us believe, but shades of grey decisions, just like the rest of life’s decisions. How do you choose a spouse? Some of it is rational, and some of it is purely feel, smell, touch, instinct, mythology...
In our society, people don’t want to think about many, many things. They don’t want to think about racial inequality, gender inequality, income inequality, the Middle East, the environment… and they don’t want to think about their health. The truth is that you must engage with the world – disengagement is fatal to life. Where your health is concerned, you must keep your critical mind working at every step of the process, even though you may never arrive at “the answer.” Otherwise, you find yourself with a big surprise, a collapse of the paradigm, if you will, after which the vast majority of us become passive recipients of health care, and the scenario that Ms. Biss most fears plays itself out, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it is more useful, when discussing health matters, to encourage engagement and critical thinking while accepting that some decisions will be made on other grounds – faith in the practitioner, your family’s individual needs, a close friend or family member’s experience, or just a gut feeling. Promoting either/or, black and white thinking is unrealistic in this three dimensional world we inhabit, and is unfair to people making difficult yet conscientious decisions about their or their family members’ health. Putting all your faith in “science” or “reason” is no guarantee that you will dodge the reaper, and like all magical thinking, that faith is bound to come undone at some point, when it conflicts with reality. Better to use all your human faculties, among them reason, when making such an important decision as choosing a spouse or choosing a healthcare strategy or practitioner.
By way of full disclosure, my wife and I decided to vaccinate our three sons with every vaccine that has been on the market for at least 15 years. This should help protect them from many known threats, assuages our consciences on the public health front, and perhaps avoids the dangers that can come from diving into new and as yet unproven scientific paradigms. But I consider our actions in this regard to be as much a matter of faith as of reason.
The comments on the npr.org website are also very interesting. Below is my contribution to the discussion.
I listened very intently to the interview today with Eula Biss regarding her new book, "On Immunity," regarding vaccination. I, too, am a parent, and I have also had questions about vaccination, on all sides of the question. I agree with Ms. Biss in her borrowed observation that “when you split the difference between information and misinformation, you still end up with disinformation.” However, maybe it is a shortcoming of vocabulary, but the only alternative to “information” is not "disinformation.” Where does “anecdotal evidence” fall in this spectrum? How about “wisdom?” Although I was raised to be a scientist, an intellectual and a skeptic, these approaches alone proved insufficient for fully understanding and managing my life, and I eventually branched out and became a practitioner of breath-centered exercise therapy and an acupuncturist. Some would say this puts me on the side of “disinformation” -- although I would beg to differ, classical Chinese medicine is certainly not scientific medicine, and I'm fine with that.
Ms. Biss blames some of people’s reluctance to vaccinate on a “distrust of the government,” but some people also distrust science, and especially scientific medicine. I myself believe in the scientific method, but scientific medicine is another matter. First of all, when the scientific paradigm shifts, everything that used to be true becomes untrue. This is so patently false that people turn away from, say, the latest scientific advice about a healthy diet, simply because the “truth” is constantly shifting. More aggravating to me, though, as someone whose profession and personal integrity are regularly assailed by people on “scientific” grounds, is the casualness with which even respected and experienced scientists apply the scientific method. As it happens, Ms. Biss employs this same casualness in her own approach to vaccination. In the interview she said, after much rational discussion about the science, economics and politics of vaccinations:
“I would prefer for my son to have as little medical care as possible, as little contact with the medical system as possible. I think vaccination is actually one way to try to help ensure that — making sure that he doesn't get something like pneumonia that might mean a hospital stay, where things will be done to him that will make me uncomfortable or that he will be treated in a way that might feel excessive to me. I think the best way for me to keep him out of that system is to engage in this highly effective preventative medicine.”
I can’t tell you how many people have told me, “I hate pills.” Well, I understand why they feel that way, but it’s an uninformed (or half-formed) and ultimately unconstructive point of view, because sometimes pills will save your life, or make your life better. This is essentially the same thing that Ms. Biss has said regarding her son. Because she fears (or dislikes, or distrusts, or otherwise has a negative opinion of) the “medical system,” she will “only take one” of that system’s strategies in order to avoid using its other recommendations and practices. Never mind that a hospital stay can save her son’s life, she will take this other step, that she can comprehend and that she believes has minimal risk, because she fears the experience of having a child in the hospital. In other words, Ms. Biss’ use of vaccinations for her child is an act of faith, based on her fear of hospitals and the rest of the “medical system.” This is a mother’s prerogative, but it certainly isn’t scientific.
As a body mind spirit practitioner, I have no problem with acts of faith, but I do think you should have some self-awareness, some understanding of how you are living your life and why you are making the choices you make. As a professional whose profession is under frequent attack by proponents of scientific medicine, I don’t feel so generous. If you are going to put all non-scientific points of view on a different and lower level than your own rational, scientific point of view, then have the courage of your convictions and be scientific! And if you are going to occasionally indulge in faith or emotion during a scientific discussion, please understand that this lapse blows your claims of rational, scientific impartiality clean out of the water. You can’t cherry pick the science that appeals to you – you either employ the scientific method in your approach, or you do not.
As it turns out, we are not capable of being purely rational, nor is it desirable – that’s the comic, ironic and profound point of characters such as Mr. Spock on Star Trek, and Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. Again, I don’t have a problem with irrational behavior, but I do have a problem with those who castigate, judge or hold themselves superior to others based on the critics’ self-identification as “rational” or “scientific.” The truth of things is that there are many things we don’t understand, as patients and as practitioners, no matter how rational we are. We have to live with that ignorance, but still make the best, most well-informed and most prudent decisions we can about caring for our health, or helping others care for their health. These are not usually black and white decisions, as scientific medicine would sometimes have us believe, but shades of grey decisions, just like the rest of life’s decisions. How do you choose a spouse? Some of it is rational, and some of it is purely feel, smell, touch, instinct, mythology...
In our society, people don’t want to think about many, many things. They don’t want to think about racial inequality, gender inequality, income inequality, the Middle East, the environment… and they don’t want to think about their health. The truth is that you must engage with the world – disengagement is fatal to life. Where your health is concerned, you must keep your critical mind working at every step of the process, even though you may never arrive at “the answer.” Otherwise, you find yourself with a big surprise, a collapse of the paradigm, if you will, after which the vast majority of us become passive recipients of health care, and the scenario that Ms. Biss most fears plays itself out, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it is more useful, when discussing health matters, to encourage engagement and critical thinking while accepting that some decisions will be made on other grounds – faith in the practitioner, your family’s individual needs, a close friend or family member’s experience, or just a gut feeling. Promoting either/or, black and white thinking is unrealistic in this three dimensional world we inhabit, and is unfair to people making difficult yet conscientious decisions about their or their family members’ health. Putting all your faith in “science” or “reason” is no guarantee that you will dodge the reaper, and like all magical thinking, that faith is bound to come undone at some point, when it conflicts with reality. Better to use all your human faculties, among them reason, when making such an important decision as choosing a spouse or choosing a healthcare strategy or practitioner.
By way of full disclosure, my wife and I decided to vaccinate our three sons with every vaccine that has been on the market for at least 15 years. This should help protect them from many known threats, assuages our consciences on the public health front, and perhaps avoids the dangers that can come from diving into new and as yet unproven scientific paradigms. But I consider our actions in this regard to be as much a matter of faith as of reason.
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