Author Archives: Lorri Craig

Disappearing with Dementia

My mother has dementia: Alzheimer’s we’re told. She’s 79, fit as a fiddle physically, and still coordinates her wardrobe with some of her old style most of the time, but it’s hard for her to maintain a train of thought for long.

Mum’s working memory has gradually diminished to the point where it lasts about twenty seconds. Occasionally she can hold a thought to the end of a sentence, and she can sometimes even manage to participate sensibly in a brief conversation, but before long her thoughts inevitably get lost and scrambled, and she makes no sense.

I remember having a conversation with her a couple of years ago, when her working memory was about two minutes long. She acknowledged the difficulty of organising her ideas with a deteriorating memory. She agreed that thought needs some memory to hold and manipulate its parts. True thinking cannot be done successfully without a working memory, so dementia takes away the ability to think.

Difficult Conversations

Some of Mum’s intelligence is still in there, within the chaos. She still thinks in complex concepts, but struggles to find the words to express them.  She was always a keen conversationalist, and she certainly hasn’t let her dementia stop her talking, but it is sometimes a struggle to understand what she means.

Because her memory is so damaged, Mum repeats herself in endless loops. She might ask about the weather, or where I live, or our plans for Christmas ten times in as many minutes.  If she was a quieter person, we might not be so aware of the extent of her intellectual disorder.

A Former Life

I have been living in the UK, and recently returned to Australia to be near my mother; to spend time with her before she disappears completely. She is not the mother she once was, but in some ways she still is. I can still catch glimpses of that former person; that incredibly stylish and smart, intuitive, and emotionally intelligent woman who, together with my father, created a family and a successful business, built houses, and travelled the world.

Mum came from a large family, and was historically the person her brothers and sisters turned to when someone needed to be listened to, or hospitalised, or put in care, or buried. She was a middle child, not the eldest, but we were the first sub-family to emigrate from Scotland to Australia, so Mum helped to organise and house each of her siblings and their families as they arrived. I think this, along with her sound organisation skills, big heart, and generosity with her time and energy, was the reason she maintained the big sister role in her family until her mental deterioration.

Put a Gun to My Head

Some of my mother’s siblings developed dementia long before her, and their father also died of the disease. Mum used to say, “Put a gun to the back of my head and shoot me if that ever happens to me.”

But nature is both cruel and kind. As her brain cells died, her mind refused to accept that she had any problem beyond the normal declining memory of people her age. Even now, when she is locked away in a secure unit within a nursing home, unable to leave without a chaperone, she has no idea that she has dementia.

Happily Confused

The good news is that she is very happy and appreciative of everything and everyone. She enjoys living in the nursing home, surrounded by confused people who share the same condition.  It can be touching and amusing to see Mum trying to be her usual helpful self with another resident who insists that the clothes he found in his room are not his. Confusion begets confusion.

Mum sees these people as her friends, and enjoys talking with them and her wonderful carers all day, but she could not identify a single name if asked.

I try to learn their names on my visits. I often wonder, as I watch them being fed and dressed and steered in the right direction, who were these confused shells of people before they started to disappear with dementia? Were any of the other residents as vibrant, intelligent, competent and caring as my mother? What were their lives like? What were their achievements? Who and what exists because of them?

When to Grieve?

It must be painful for their families, as it is painful for me and my family, for we cannot grieve in a normal way. Our loved ones are not yet gone, but they are definitely going.

It will be years before we bury my wonderful mother, but the mother I had and knew is fading quickly before my eyes, being replaced with a sweet, loving, and more and more confused little old lady.

Should I cry? Should I sigh and accept the inevitable downward slide with a stiff upper lip? Or should I be happy and grateful that I get to spend time with this gorgeous, happy, loving, gentle person as she continues to change? And should I be happy for her that she continues to live and enjoy life?

Ask me in a few years. Ask me when her language totally goes; when she can no longer feed herself; when she needs to wear a nappy. Ask me when these factors cloud the memory of the amazing women that she was.

Mum still recognises and remembers me, most of the time, but she cannot do that forever. Perhaps that will be the most difficult transition for me. When she disappears to the point of no longer realising that I’m Lorri, her little girl.

Lorri Craig

How to Feel Happier

Feeling depressed and unhappy can really bring you down.  Rates of depression in our population are increasing radically. In the USA rates are ten times higher than they were in the great depression of last century, and people are getting depressed much earlier in their lifetimes.

We have an abundance of technology that should help us have easier, happier lives, but our artificial lifestyles seem to stress us out, bring us down, and reduce our happiness. It’s fair to say we are having a bit of a depression epidemic.

Many people believe that it is impossible to lift their mood, to climb out of depression, and to be happy, without medication. But, to the contrary, research has shown that it is possible to improve our baseline happiness by actively and consciously taking steps to turn our mood around. This is the science of positive psychology.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO FEEL HAPPIER?

Well, apart from the obvious, when we are happier, we perform better and tend to become more successful.

Children who were encouraged to recall a happy experience before doing a task outperformed their peers by fifty percent. Similarly, adults who are primed to be positive and happier before completing an intelligence test, or thinking task, perform significantly better than their un-primed peers.

Research has shown that happy people are healthier and live longer than unhappy people too. This makes sense, as mood is known to affect our immune systems.

HOW TO FEEL HAPPY

According to Shawn Anchor from Harvard University, we can increase our general state of happiness by doing some really simple stuff.

  • Write down five things you are grateful for every morning. If you do this for 21 days your baseline happiness levels should improve for the next 6 months.
  • Write about a positive experience every day for 30 days. This has been shown to boost immune system and increase your sociability.
  • Do one thing at a time, rather than trying to multitask. Multitask increases stress and we know that stress affects us physically and emotionally.
  • Work out what you are good at and use these strengths in your everyday life. This will increase your self esteem and productivity, and so positively affect your well being.
  • Exercise. This reduces stress levels and improves mood, and is much better for you than anti-depressants.
  • Meditate. This has been shown to affect brain waves, reduce stress reactions, and increase happiness.
  • Smile. The more we smile on the outside, the happier we feel internally.

When my depressed clients to do this simple stuff,  it makes a significant difference to their general mood.

CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF YOUR ENERGY

On top of these homework strategies, I often show clients how to control the energy in their bodies to create a more positive mood.

Think for a minute about how you feel when you are low or depressed. People usually feel a heavy feeling moving down through the lower half of their bodies.

Now think of a happy or exciting experience. Where do you feel the energy? What direction is it going?  Usually up and out from the heart.

So now go back to feeling sad and low. Feel that heavy, sinking energy.

Now take that feeling, and imagine it moving up your body. Imagine it coming up through the earth, through your feet, up your legs, through your belly, into your heart, where it’s transformed into positive energy. You might be able to feel the energy as light, glowing or tingling stuff.

Then feel that positive energy expand in your heart. Imagine it expanding to fill your whole chest in a warm, yummy way. Now imagine it continuing up your spine, up through the back of your neck, through the back of your head, and up and out the top of your head.  YES! YES! YES!!!!

THINK POSITIVELY

Another really important strategy for increasing happiness and productivity is to think positive thoughts. Become aware of your internal dialogue: the things you say to yourself about a situation or experience, or your life. Identify the negative or pessimistic ones, then simply change your head.  Let go the negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts. Simple.

GET OUT IN THE SUN

Sunlight is known to increase happiness and health. Scientists believe this is, at least in part due to Vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced in our skin in the sun. It’s known to play a significant role in switching our genes on and off, so is vital for health and well being. People who are deprived of enough sunshine can fall victim to low mood caused by SADs, or seasonal affective disorder. This is why so many of us suffer depression and low mood in the winter.  So, whatever the weather, make sure you get out in the daytime at least once a day. Failing that, or if it’s too cold to expose much skin, take vitamin D supplements.

BEGIN NOW

I realise it is often very difficult to motivate yourself to make changes and try new things when you are feeling low or depressed. But if you force yourself to apply all, or even some, of these strategies for a few days, starting today, you will be on your way to being happier, healthier and more productive.

So stop what you’re doing, get out a pen and paper, and write down five things you’re grateful for. It could be anything from a beautiful sky to a loved one, or the crunchy apple you had for lunch. Next, spend five minutes writing about a positive experience that you have had. Then go for a walk with a smile on your face. Do that every day, and you should start to feel a difference very quickly. Simply suck it and see.

Have fun.

Can a Difficult Birth Create Psychological Problems Later?

It is well known that psychological trauma of any sort can have a lasting, damaging effect on human beings. The earlier the trauma, the more profound the effect, so the impact of a difficult birth on the infant as he develops  into a child and adult can be especially significant.

The Birth Experience

Imagine being a fetus. Imagine floating comfortably in the warm, soft, dark, fluid space of your mother’s womb, drifting in and out of sleep, surrounded by muffled sounds and heartbeats.

Then imagine the sudden shock of being awakened, and pushed and squeezed into the harsh, stark, and noisy outside world, amid your mother’s pained shrieks, racing heart, and adrenalin charged system.

Add to that the strain of an unusually long labour, painful forced delivery, or a life threatening situation, such as being strangled by the umbilical cord, and you have a major traumatic event. Then add the inevitable distress of the mother, to whom the baby is psychologically and energetically linked, and you have a super trauma.

And try to imagine, on top of all that, the added distress on the newborn infant of being removed from the mother for emergency treatment: the infant’s or hers.

What an incredibly cruel, loveless, unpredictable and scary place the world would seem to the distressed newborn.

That is the experience and sensation that is imprinted onto the traumatised neonate’s untainted mind.  A newborn’s immature nervous system is purely unconscious mind, combined with life or death driven emotion, so it does not have the cognitive capacity to be able to sort experiences and make sense of the world in a logical, conscious way. Its mind is like a blank sheet on which is printed the first experiences. And this imprint becomes the blueprint on which the child’s life and future experiences are fashioned.

Long Term Psychological Effects

Children who have had traumatic births are more likely to be anxious or aggressive than their easy-birth counterparts. Of course genetics and many other factors come into the equation too, but, if all else was equal, the child who was traumatised at birth would be more vulnerable to psychological problems.

Separation from the mother at birth, as well as the mother’s own post-trauma stress response, can affect the early bonding between the mother and child, which is another major factor in the child’s psychological development.

As a clinician, whenever I am presented with a highly anxious, angry, or oppositional child, I always ask the parents about the child’s trauma history, including their birth experience.  Actually I do this with my adult clients too. And very often the links are obvious.

Effective New Treatment

Modern psychological treatment can help to correct the psychological damage of a traumatic birth. Therapies such as EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing], EFT [Emotional Freedom Technique], and AIT [Advanced Integrative Therapy] are particularly powerful.

I mainly use AIT in my practice today, and find that it is incredibly effective for dealing with the effects of early trauma. AIT uses kinesiology, or muscle testing, to help the clinician and the client communicate with the client’s unconscious, to determine which early traumas might be affecting them in the present. I find that traumatic births are indicated quite often.

The really good news is that clearing the birth trauma with AIT is quite simple and straightforward, and once the early traumas and their links to presenting problems are cleared, and the blueprint is recreated with a clear, conscious mind, the client is able to let go of lifelong symptoms, such as excessive anxiety, fear of abandonment, anger and control issues.  This is incredibly exciting stuff.

Lorri Craig practices AIT in her own private practice in Brighton and Hove, UK, and internationally by phone or Skype. To find out more about AIT go to the article on this site: WHAT IS ADVANCED INTEGRATED THERAPY?

Image thanks to arztsamui at freedigitalphotos.net

Child Behavior: Is Too Much Attention Bad for Children?

Parents are often encouraged to give their children attention, but too much of the wrong kind of attention for the wrong kind of behaviour can be bad for children.

Point one: Children love and need attention, and for many reasons, some children need much more attention than others.

Point two: Attention tends to increase the behaviour that it follows.

Point three: If those children who are hungry for attention are not getting enough positive attention, but at the same time are getting a lot of negative attention, then they can develop a taste, or even a craving, for the negative attention.

What this means when it is all added together is that, when you give an attention-seeking child your attention for the behaviours you don’t like, even if that attention is anger, nagging, or lecturing, you are actually training them to increase the frequency and intensity of those unwanted behaviours.

If, for instance, your attention-seeking child refuses to do what s/he’s told, and you get angry in response you are giving them an enormous amount of intense focussed attention, so this is likely to encourage the defiant behaviour.

I’m not saying that the average attention-seeking child consciously enjoys angry attention. To the contrary, most children find it uncomfortable and distressing. But it’s the child’s powerful unconscious mind that is calling the shots, and enjoying the intense attention, as well as the power of having their parents respond predictably, as if on remote control.

Point 4: Parents can get in the habit of giving negative attention to their children for unwanted behaviour; that is, they can get addicted to their own angry, critical reaction.

When a parent is repeatedly frustrated by a child, it is easy to get in the habit of criticising them, not trusting them, and finding many things they do as irritating or deliberately provoking. This habit can develop in any close relationship, be it with a spouse, sibling, parent or child. But in the parent-child relationship the effect can be very destructive.

Children tend to internalise the messages and labels a parent gives them. So if they are frequently being criticised by a parent, they will eventually believe that they are the naughty, difficult person they are told they are.

So what’s the answer?

The solution is simple. To help them get over their craving for negative attention, the attention seeking child must be given copious quantities of positive attention, and simultaneously be starved of negative attention.

So, if you have a child who is frequently disobedient or angry:

  • Minimise the attention you give to them for the unwanted behaviour.
  • Put into place a clear strategy, such as counting followed by time out, to deal with the behaviour, and use this consistently and persistently.
  • Avoid discussion or too much eye contact.
  • Stay calm but strong.
  • Keep mindful that your child is not consciously trying to provoke you, they are just reacting to the situation in a way that their unconscious mind [with the help of your training] has taught them to react.
  • Ignore the small stuff. Only use the discipline strategy with the worst behaviours. You can work on any other annoying behaviours once they master these.
  • And finally, give them plenty of positive attention for the opposite, desirable behaviours. For instance, give them plenty of praise when they obey a command, or play nicely with their sibling, or get ready for school on time. This step is crucial, especially whilst you are weaning them off their addiction to negative attention.
  • As well as verbal praise and touch, you could introduce age appropriate reward systems to encourage them, such as tokens that could be spent on fun activities with you, like playing a card game, or kicking a ball.

Persistently applying these simple strategies should reduce the bad behaviour, increase the good behaviour, improve your child’s self esteem, and improve your relationship with your child.

Good luck and happy parenting.

We Think and Feel What We Eat

Food is essential to human life, and it can feel good to eat, but how does what we consume affect our mental and emotional states once we have left the dinner table?

Some Stuff is Bad

Loads of studies have linked diet to mental health. Some studies look at the affect of toxic substances on our emotions. We know, for instance, that caffeine can increase anxiety, and too much sugar can play havoc with our blood sugar levels and that this can affect our mood and energy levels.

Alcohol helps most of us feel relaxed and happy in the moment, but the after effects can include low mood, irritability, and low energy [not to mention that headache].  Many studies have linked artificial food additives to behaviour disorders, such as hyperactivity and aggression, in some children.

Some Stuff is Good

On the other side, it is well known that a lack of certain nutrients can also negatively affect our mental state. A deficiency in some of the B vitamins can lead to restlessness, irritability and insomnia. Lack of folic acid can lead to low mood and low energy, which are the main symptoms of depression.

Low iron levels can also cause tiredness, and can affect our ability to think. Not enough vitamin C can affect the absorption of iron, and has been linked to depression, schizophrenia and dementia.

Many adults have reduced their anxiety levels, improved their mood, and improved their cognitive ability by taking omega 3 supplements, or foods rich in omega 3, such as oily fish and krill. I have known children diagnosed with ADHD who have benefited from omega 3 supplements to the point that they did not need to take prescription drugs.

Orthomol..er..Food Psychiatry

But why does one person benefit from a particular food or supplement, while another does not?

Linus Pauling, founder of Orthomolecular Medicine, believes that, due to variations in our genetic makeup and exposure to toxic substances, different people require different diets for optimum health. Pauling has successfully treated a range of mental disorders through Orthomolecular Psychiatry, including serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and clinical depression. He uses extensive testing to determine what his patients are lacking at a cellular level, then increases or decreases particular nutrients or substances as appropriate.

It would be difficult to test us all so thoroughly at this stage in our technical evolution, but another solution is to reduce the toxins and bad stuff in our diets, and increase our intake of healthy foods.

Super Foods

David (Avocado) Wolfe, health guru and star nutritionist, believes that certain foods, such as raw chocolate and goji berries, have extremely high levels of nutrients that are essential for optimum health and emotional well-being.  Wolfe thinks that we should be eating more raw food, because the cooking process damages many nutrients in our food. He’s a great believer in blending raw fruits and superfoods into delicious smoothies. Not such a penance really.

H2O for the Soul

Finally, adequate clean water is essential for optimum mental health.  Dehydration can make us feel tired and grumpy, and can affect our ability to think. Whenever I am working therapeutically with clients, I encourage them to drink a glass or two of water during and after treatment. Emotional clearing works the nerve cells and creates chemical debris. Water pumps up the nervous system and clears away debris and toxins, thus assisting the therapeutic process.

So, make sure you are drinking plenty of water, eating plenty of healthy food, including a few superfoods and more raw fruit and vegetables, and reduce your intake of damaging substances, such as alcohol, caffeine, sugar and artificial additives, and you will probably begin to feel and think a whole lot better.

Happy eating

Lorri

RELATIONSHIPS: THE LONELY WARRIOR AND THE FEARFUL REFUGEE

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Negotiating intimate relationships is one of the hardest challenges most of us face in our lifetime. When they are working, they are amazing, but when they are not, they can be tricky and traumatic. We can get into dysfunctional patterns of relating to anyone in our lives, but the closer and more intimate the relationship, the more our deepest dysfunctions rear their ugly heads.

One of the most common patterns I have seen in dealing with couples in the traumatic-tricky stages of their relationships is what I call ‘The Lonely Warrior and the Fearful Refugee’. This is when one partner feels neglected or unheard, and the other feels constantly attacked.

Whenever couples talk of this pattern I get the image of an old walled palace in a remote desert. The Fearful Refugee is huddled, shaking behind the wall, while the Lonely Warrior is standing tearfully on the outside, bow and arrow in hand, feeling abandoned. The Lonely Warrior shoots arrows at the wall in a desperate attempt to communicate and be close to the person behind the wall, but in doing so hurts and scares the Refugee more. So the Fearful Refugee builds a bigger wall to huddle behind.

The Lonely Warrior then feels more shut out and desperate, so brings out the canons to try to break down the wall. The Fearful Refugee, in response to the assault, builds an even bigger and thicker wall, which adds to the Lonely Warrior’s hurt and desperation. And so the pattern goes on, with both sides feeling more and more desperate and powerless. Both get stuck in trying to cope with the problem in the same habitual way, so it continues to escalate.

It is usually, although not always, the male partner in a heterosexual relationship who plays the part of the Fearful Refugee, while the female partner is typically the Lonely Warrior.  Women traditionally cope with problems by expressing and communicating, while men often find it comforting to withdraw and have space when they are upset.

HOW TO BREAK THE CYCLE

The first step breaking this cycle, as with any dysfunctional relationship cycle, is awareness. It is not easy to stay mindful of our habitual thoughts and responses, especially when we feel emotional, but it is important to learn this skill. Catch yourself as soon as you can. Before you start engaging in the behaviour is the best time, but failing that, at any time during the cycle is a good start.

Try to relax your body in that moment to let go the growing anger. Breathing out can help to calm the mind. Remind yourself that this is a habitual and dysfunctional way of reacting to your partner, and what you are doing is making things worse for both of you and the relationship. Remind yourself that the relationship is worth changing for, that the other person is reacting like that out of vulnerable feelings, like hurt and fear. Both of you are.

If you typically cower behind a wall, try to open up, listen, and calmly reflect back what the other has said to show them that you heard them. Look into their eyes and touch them if you comfortably [and safely!] can. If you, on the other hand, typically bombard the other with questions, demands and accusations, then stop and be quiet to give them the psychological space to calm down. If they physically leave, then remind yourself that this is merely their way of coping.  Try not to take it too personally. In both cases, try to keep your heart open and connected with theirs, to sooth their pain and fear.

THE POWER OF THE APOLOGY

A simple apology for your part in the dysfunctional cycle can be a powerful diffuser, and can reduce the power of future incidents by helping you both become more aware. If you miss the opportunity during the cycle, find a time soon after the event, when both of you are calm, and apologise for your contribution.  Even if you think it was more their fault than yours, try to make a sincere apology for the part you played. For instance, you could say, “ I’m really sorry we argued, and I’m sorry that I withdrew from you. It’s my way of coping when I’m upset, but I realise that it upsets you, so I want to learn to respond in a different way.”  Obviously you would replace ‘withdrew from you’ with ‘bombarded you’, or similar, if you were the Lonely Warrior, rather than the Fearful Refugee.

It’s not easy to apologise; particularly if you have been taught that it is weak, or that it’s not OK to admit any human error in life. It’s important to remember that mistakes are part of being human; particularly the mistakes we make in human relationships. And there is almost never anyone who is one hundred percent right or one hundred percent wrong in any relationship issue. So there is nothing wrong with admitting that you can improve.

Remember to keep your tone level and free of sarcasm, and avoid any attempts to shift the blame away from you with ‘But’ statements, such as, “But I wouldn’t need to do that if you would stop blah blah blahing.”

Try to apologise with an open heart from a place of gentle assertive power.  Feel the mature strength in yourself as you tame and soothe your immature human ego that desperately wants to say, “But it wasn’t my fault.”

BE PATIENT

Now don’t, and this is very important, expect an apology back from the other side.  They might not yet have your level of strength and self awareness, and might not be as good as you at taming their ego. Give them time to learn and develop. We all have different levels of abilities in different areas of life at different times.

It can be frustrating when you change and your partner doesn’t.  But if you change your part in the cycle, your old dysfunctional cycle can’t exist, so your partner will learn they have to respond to you from a different place in a different way.  The best way of helping them on the path to self awareness and change is to practice it yourself.

Remember to be gentle with yourself and your partner. It usually takes a while to get this stuff right. If the dysfunction continues, seek help from a professional, experienced relationship counsellor.

I would love your feedback on your progress. You can leave a comment in the box, or email me privately at Lorri@lorricraig.com.

Happy relating.

Lorri Craig