Emotional
Health
Sales of this bookhelp support the work of The James Nayler Foundation
Emotional Health
what emotionsare &
how they cause social &
mental diseases.
Dr Bob Johnson
Consultant Psychiatrist GMCspeciality register for psychiatry
formerly Head of Therapy, Ashworth MaximumSecurity Hospital, Liverpool
Consultant Psychiatrist, Special Unit, C-Wing, Parkhurst Prison, Isle ofWight.
MRCPsych (Member of Royal Collegeof Psychiatrists),
MRCGP (Member of Royal College ofGeneral Practitioners).
Diploma in Neurology &Psychiatry (Psychiatric Inst NY),
MA (Psychol),PhD(med computing), MBCS, DPM, MRCS.
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Republishedin 2005 by Trust Consent Publishing, P O Box 49, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, PO389AA UK. www.TrustConsent.com. First published by The JamesNayler Foundation in 2002.
All rightsreserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
© 2005 Dr Bob Johnson
Dr BobJohnson is hereby identified as the author of this work in accordance withSection 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
BritishLibrary Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record of this book is availableon request from the British Library. ISBN0-9551985-0-X
Previous ISBNwas 1-904327-00-1. ISBN-13 is978-0-9551985-0-2
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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If youhave comments please send them either via the publisher or viawww.TruthTrustConsent.com. Sadly, time and age will limit my replies.
Please note – the emotions described in this book are thereal thing – and they can be deadly. However, nothing written here excuses, nor remotelyjustifies any atrocity – but if we don't look at the reasons why theyoccur, we can never prevent them happening again, and again, and again, andagain, and again. If we do,we can.
The bookwas written in early 2000 – but it goes to the roots of terrorism, bydescribing the cause and cure of terror.
Salesof this book help support the work of The James Nayler Foundation
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printed by Biddles Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk,PE30 4LS
foreword
Emotions are the single most vital ingredientin all human affairs. Yet neither my medical school nor my Cambridge Universitypsychology degree taught me anything useful about them. The tabloid media runs riot with them,politics and commerce stir them whenever they can – it's called marketing– but too many psychiatrists, psychologists and scientists remainconvinced that emotions are defunct. Not a single human transaction, from falling in loveto nuclear war, can possibly occur without them – yet our academicinstitutions insist on treating emotions as anathema.
Emotions have been banished to the peripheryfor too long – time to put them back at the very heart of our human liveswhere they belong. Human relationscome in a wide range – intimate, institutional, industrial, international – each one has at itsheart an emotional component. When this blossoms, its warmth can be a joy to behold – when itturns sour, catastrophe looms. The emotions which make the difference, are not difficult to appreciate– fear, rage and revenge are readily apparent to any who care tolook. We must stop treatingemotions as if they were some sort of pariah. We need to understand them more clearly – wherethey come from, how they work. Emotional Health means us controlling them – rather than the otherway around.
If you have ever come across a psychiatrist orother doctor who ignored your feelings, or been interviewed by a scientistwhose white coat turned them into unemotional aliens – then you need toknow that the fault is theirs, not yours. They have been taught that emotions don’t matter. Their training is supervised byinstitutions where discussion of emotion is taboo – defying this ban canhazard your career.
Frozenemotionsare the most intriguing. Sometimes childhood memories are too deeply painful to be easilyexplored – they fester away at the back of the mind. Special measures are calledfor, as discussed below. Yeteven in the most unpromising surroundings, such as Parkhurst Prison, these‘frozen terrors’ can still be brought under control – and what works in amaximum security prison can work anywhere. Charlie Bronson’s views of my prison work, andAlice Miller’s views of this book, are described in their letters, included inthe appendix (pages 275 and 277).
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Sales of this bookhelp support the work of The James Nayler Foundation
foreword v
list of chapters vii
contents ix
Introduction 1
Part One: Basic Emotional Questions 11
1 What Are Emotions and What Are They for? 11
2 What Is an Irrational Emotion and What Goes Wrong? 20
3 What Are Healthy Emotions and What Is Emotional Health? 29
Part Two –Problems Within Yourself 41
4 Why Your Mind Stops You Doing What You Want 41
5 Violence – Where It Comes from and How to Cure It 57
6 Jealousies, Guilts and Panic Attacks and How to Cure Them 72
7 Eating Disorders, Addictions and Self-harm – How toDismantle Them 87
Part Three – Problems With Others 101
8 Curing Family Strife 101
9 Restoring Amicable Family Relations 128
10 Relating Better at Work and in the Neighbourhood 146
Part Four – Poisonous Red Herrings 177
11 Is Psychiatry Bankrupt? 177
12 Pills and Potions – Tranquillizers, Anti-depressantsor Talk? 195
13 Psychiatry – Legal and Illegal 206
Part Five – Where We Go From Here 227
14 Science Versus Intent 227
15 Society’s Struggles with Serfs 243
Appendix 261
Letter from Alice Miller 263
Letter from Charlie Bronson 265
Dear Bob, These are some poems 267
Contemporary Psychiatric Anomalies – Aetiology, Emotion,Mind & Intent 270
The Horrors of Misdiagnosis 275
references from earlier papers 276
foreword v
listof chapters vii
contents ix
Introduction 1
Truth 3
FrozenTerror 4
Trust 5
Consent 6
PartOne: Basic Emotional Questions 11
1What Are Emotions and What Are They for? 11
Fear– the Master Emotion 13
Thinkingand Feeling 15
WhatEmotions Are for 16
2What Is an Irrational Emotion and What Goes Wrong? 20
AlwaysMaximum and Always Obsolete 22
TheMental Landmine and the Area around It 24
3What Are Healthy Emotions and What Is Emotional Health? 29
ReasonableFears and Reasonable Angers 30
InvisibleHazards 32
EmotionalIdylls 33
PartTwo –Problems Within Yourself 41
4Why Your Mind Stops You Doing What You Want 41
TheInvisible Roadblock 43
Openingthe Box and Tidying Your Mind 46
‘BlackDog’, Depressions and Other Mood Swings, and How to Tame Them 50
Who’sin Charge? 55
5Violence – Where It Comes from and How to Cure It 57
Tantrums 59
Curingthe Disease of Violence 61
Road-rage,Trolley-, Parking- and All the Other ‘Rages’ 62
JudicialIgnorance of Child Abuse 64
Vengeance,Punishment and Retribution Are All Irrational 67
CuringTantrums 69
6Jealousies, Guilts and Panic Attacks and How to Cure Them 72
TooMany Siblings 73
Yesterday’sDefeats 75
WherePangs of Guilt Arise and Making Restorations 77
BeingNaughty 80
Panics,Phobias and Their Cure 81
7Eating Disorders, Addictions and Self-harm – How to Dismantle Them 87
MyTarget Weight Is Four Stone (25 Kilos) 88
TheAngrier I Am, the Less I Eat 90
It’sYour Loss 92
Addictions– Sexaholics, Workaholics, Gamblaholics, Heroin, Cocaine and All theOther -aholics 93
PartThree – Problems With Others 101
8Curing Family Strife 101
Evidencefrom Evolution 102
WhyHurt Those You Love? 103
Cuttingthe Roots of Family Frictions 106
WhatAre We Like? 108
EnsuringYou Get More Fruitful Help from Others 111
NegativeSelf-esteem, Negative Social Skills, Negative Futures 113
FightingParental Figments 117
WhyLove ’em – then Leave ’em? 119
Pullingthe Teeth of Domestic Violence 122
Hittingthe Wrong Target 124
9Restoring Amicable Family Relations 128
AreParents Human? 130
DoParents Need Us? 132
WhoDid You Marry? 134
Childrearingand the Parental Dilemma 139
10Relating Better at Work and in the Neighbourhood 146
CoinageIs Not Everything 151
Buyingand Selling 153
ImperishableValues 155
Whatto Expect from Friends and Other Emotional Allies 156
WhyShould You Care? 159
WhatNeighbours Are for – Building Social Support Networks 162
WeAll Need Kith and Kin 168
WhyPoverty Matters 170
MyBenign Thread 172
PartFour – Poisonous Red Herrings 177
11Is Psychiatry Bankrupt? 177
TheFive Points 179
DoesOur Choice Really Matter? 182
TheImpact of ‘Intent’ 185
TheMind Is Greater than the Brain 186
ComputersCan’t Think 188
There’sa Gene for It – So What? 190
BornEvil or Born Lovable? 191
12Pills and Potions – Tranquillizers, Anti-depressants or Talk? 195
Stress 197
SoftwareProblems 199
ScientificCredibility - The Role Chemistry and Hormones Really Play 200
Alcohol,Prozac and Testosterone 202
13Psychiatry – Legal and Illegal 206
TheLaw Court as Social Destroyer 207
TrustMe, I’m a Doctor? 209
TheIllegality of Untreatability 211
There’sNo Pill, So You’re Not Ill 213
TheIllegality of ‘Electric ShockTreatments’ 215
Ifthe TV Doesn’t Work, Fix It by Throwing It Downstairs 216
‘Lockthem up and throw away the key’ 219
Underthe Carpet is Still in the Room 221
Whatabout the Victim, for Pity’s Sake? 222
PartFive – Where We Go From Here 227
14Science Versus Intent 227
Intenton Mischief 229
AmbitiousIntentions 231
TheFailure of Biosphere Two 232
Darwin’sOmission 233
HowCan Doctors Be So Certain? 236
StableKnowledge 239
SociablySane 241
15Society’s Struggles with Serfs 243
Serfs– A Legal View 244
AnAvoidable Serf 245
StoppingSerfs at Source 248
PovertyBreeds Serfs – A Public Health Issue 250
Coercionand Emotional Neotony 252
FutureCreativities 254
Appendix 261
Letterfrom Alice Miller 263
Letterfrom Charlie Bronson 265
DearBob, These are some poems 267
ContemporaryPsychiatric Anomalies – Aetiology, Emotion, Mind & Intent 270
a) aetiolated aetiology 270
b) emotionless nosologies 271
c) pull yourself together 273
TheHorrors of Misdiagnosis 275
referencesfrom earlier papers 276
Truth • Frozen Terror • Trust • Consent
‘Emotion’ – what a deceptively innocent word for something whichinflicts such grievous heartaches, havocs and confusions on a long-sufferinghumanity. Emotions are so slipperythat fundamental questions must be settled at the outset. Firstly, what are emotions, and whatare they for? Secondly, what is irrationality, and where does it come from? Andwhen Emotional Healthfinally does arrive, how can you recognise it?
Emotions are certainly odd– easy to feel but impossible to define. Take a look at some of them – fear, anger, guilt,jealousy, rage, joy, delight, gloom, cheerfulness, despair and war – the listis elastic, bewildering and endless. It is elastic because each of these can be expanded sideways– guilt for example, can be described as a mixture of anger andfear. It is bewildering because ittumbles out all higgledy-piggledy, with neither rhyme nor reason norpattern. And finally it isendless, because there is always another ‘emotion’ you can tack on tothe end. Indeed poets vie with oneanother to elaborate ever more delicacies of feeling, while the word ‘love’ hasmore meanings than there are fish in the sea.
Emotions can make mincemeatof words, befuddle our best intentions, and make a mockery of what we reallywant. So one thing is clear fromthe start – misapplied emotions exact a heavy toll. Does the following ring any bells? Youget up in the morning, and gloom is already firmly in the driving seat. You struggle to work, only to flounderin a morass of jealousies, bickerings and non-cooperations. Eventually you stumble home to what youalways hoped would be a haven of peace, support and recuperation – butsomehow that dream dried. Shouldn’t life offer more?
The key to tackling thischarade is understanding what your emotions get up to, at every pointthroughout your waking life. Clarity about where emotions are going wrong and confidence in puttingthem right – these are the basic ingredients of Emotional Health. Every social interaction entailsemotional contacts. These caneither be benign and bountiful or malign and macerating. The healthier you are emotionally, themore fruitful your social network will be. The more confident you are that your emotions are ringingtrue, the better equipped you will be to build reliable foundations for what weall aim for – peace of mind. In a nutshell, Emotional Health means growing up emotionally. Easier for some than for others, butrichly available to all.
So what are emotions? Well,for one thing they are slippery and fluid, with more possible shapes than apint of water. They are the mostpowerful force we ever meet in our lives. Yet they are persistently elusive – the harder you try to definethem, the more their ‘meaning’ slips through your fingers. Emotions cannot be weighed, measured,bottled or counted – thereby causing pandemonium among academics. We need to accept at the outset thatthere will never be anything equivalent to decibels of rage, nor centilitres offear. Aches and pains, after all,suffer from exactly the same restrictions, and we cope well enough with them– time to extend a similar courtesy to emotion.
What makes emotionsespecially mystifying is the unclear link between words, meanings andfeelings. So we need to play themstraight. Truth is the first keycomponent of Emotional Health. Indeed Truth is as important here as antisepsis is to a surgeon. When pretence prevails, emotions go berserkwith hidden agendas – something at which they excel.
If decibels could measurerage, newborn infants would top the scale. Their ‘waaaaaah’ stops all other activities in theneighbourhood – they put so much of themselves into it, that it almost seemsthey might burst a lung. For once,the meaning is crystal-clear. The howls may be entirely wordless, but themessage is obvious – ‘Don’t leave me here, or I’m dead.’ If you think Iam exaggerating, pick up a newborn infant in full flow. Their tiny body is rigid, they shakewith more passion than at any later time, and it consumes their whole being.
Here we see emotions at work. We can readily understand why they are there and what it is they aredoing. Indeed this neonatalvolcano of emotion shows us a unique pathway through our emotionalproblems. Perhaps surprisingly, weall know perfectly well what to do to assuage and control exploding emotions inwailing infants. We pick the childup, croon a little, jig gently about, according to taste – in other wordswe are assuring them that we are present, that we are capable, and that we havetheir best interests at heart. Oursimple task is to convince them that we are not dumping them on the mountainsideor anywhere else, to die – not really a heavy drain on ourresources. Once reassured, theiremotional storm passes.
Now the really curious thingabout emotions, and this is something it took me 25 years to untangle, is thatthis same pattern lies at the heart of every emotional storm. This may seem unlikely – it iscertainly not immediately obvious. But the more I explored how emotions work, and where they go so terriblywrong, the more I found that every time, underneath the brouhaha, there wasalways a misplaced infantile emotion still pulling the strings. No single emotional disease occurs inadult life without its roots being firmly based in the remnants of an infantilestrategy – not always easy to see, but invariably there, beneath all thepalaver.
The crucial reason thissimple underlying pattern remains obscure is that the victim of it is doingtheir level best to ensure that it does. Our whole adult thrust is to hide these painful ‘strategies’ at the backof the mind. Indeed it pays us todo so, until we want to do something sensible about it. So not only are emotions the very devilto pin down, but their chief purveyor all too often disguises them, distortsthem and colours them differently. No wonder we get in such a stew – hidden agendas destroying somuch we hold dear.
Let’s start with a simple example. Suppose, aged eight, you sing yourclassmates a song in a foreign language. The response is not applause but laughter. You conclude that your singing is at fault, whereas in factthey were really laughing at the words. Later you might find yourself avoiding all singing events, though youare never very clear as to why you do this. Until the ‘hidden fear’ is brought out into the open, yousheer away from vocalisings, without ever really understanding what your emotionsare doing to you. The point is,you would not dare to begin – the very idea of singing causes you toflee, so the original misperception is never given a chance to be corrected.
How could you ever learn that you had a good singingvoice, if you always avoided precisely those situations in which alone, thisfact could be revealed? This avoidance would be quite deliberate – wholikes being laughed at? What would it take to persuade you to risk facing up tothe earlier ridicule, which is the only possible way to discover yourmisunderstanding? This simple illustration shows the difficulties inherent inall emotional disease. Viewed fromthe outside, the problem is obvious if not comic – from the inside, itcan prove both intractable and tragic. Emotional Education seeks to persuade the victim that today’s reality isinvariably healthier. In fact,that is all it ever need do.
‘Frozen terror’, whichunderlies all serious emotional disorders, always starts in exactly thisway. Something happens to thedeveloping child which convinces him or her that further progress along thatline of thought will end in disaster. The child says in effect: ‘If that’s reality, I don’t want to know’, sothey slam the lid on the box and vow never to open it again, on pain of death(or so it seems to them).
When you find adults reacting as if the realities oftheir nursery still apply, then this is the underlying reason. If instead of using their fullcapabilities to solve the problems in front of them, they devote their energiesto looking around for an echo of a parental figure to do it for them –then this is the underlying cause. What worked, or should have worked, in infancy, is applied willy-nillyin adulthood, where, because things are now different, kindergarten strategiescan guarantee only to make matters worse.
Trust
After Truth, the second keycomponent for Emotional Health is Trust. If you cuddle a wailing infant and have not proved trustworthy, yourimpact is likely to be diminished or worse. Trust is a tricky concept to handle, and indeed tolearn. But no human relationshipcan thrive without it. Even theCity of London relies exclusively on Trust – ‘my word is my bond’. With Trust so essential for buying andselling, it should be no surprise that it is equally indispensable for ensuringEmotional Health.
Trust is a concept currently in need of repair. Cynics suppose that merchants of allvarieties always exploit their customers whenever opportunity allows. But this is a short-term, short-sightedview. Deceits and betrayalscommand a far wider press, but Trust is indispensable to all socialinteractions. Perhaps we shouldstart a campaign to demonstrate just how essential and socially responsibleTrust is. When you next hurtledown the motorway at lethal speeds, remember you are trusting your fellowdrivers not to pull out into your lane, unannounced. You Trust them to be sober, to drive only in the directionof the traffic and to give you fair warning of hold-ups ahead, which they cansee and you cannot. Mostly theydo.
On occasion, however, Trustis betrayed, and disaster follows. But for the overwhelming majority, Trust proves its social worth. Deceit and betrayal are newsworthy, andcan sell many products – Truth and Trust are rarely dramatic, but youcannot be emotionally fit without them.
Consent
To have a foretaste of whatEmotional Health is all about, place yourself in the position of that newborninfant. The world around you isstrange and blurred – but little different from what you have alwaysknown. You can wave your arms andlegs about, but cannot lift your head from the pillow. The unsettling notion comes into yourmind that these strange giants who feed you sporadically have decided enough isenough and are about to dump you on a deserted doorstep. You do not approve. You do the only thing you have anycontrol over – you yell: ‘Waaaaaah.’
When, later, one of theselarge creatures picks you up and tries to reassure you, you have to decide ifthey are telling the Truth. That’sthe first question. Secondly, howtrustworthy are they – can you Trust them? Finally, you have to decidewhether to accept their offer or not, which brings us to the third keycomponent – do you Consent ? It is up to you to Consent, or to decline. They may coo as much as they please, but you have the insideswitch, which you may or may not turn, entirely at your own discretion. Superficially, coercion appears verypowerful. But when dealing withmatters of the mind there is always the question of whether or not Consent
has been sought andobtained. Along with Truth andTrust earlier, Consent is the remaining crucial component of Emotional Health– for all of us, whether infants or adults.
So here we have the threecornerstones of Emotional Health – Truth, Trust and Consent. These are so important to EmotionalHealth that I elevate them to the status of a basic ‘axiom’, or fundamentalassumption, the implications of which echo throughout the book. Without these three prerequisites themind becomes a battleground of flailing emotions. In their absence there is not the remotest chance ofcontrolling aberrant emotions, however destructive or even self-destructivethey may become. Emotional Health then remains an unattainable pipe dream.
The notion of Consent mayseem entirely straightforward. Itmay seem obvious that you can choose, that valid choices are available to youas of right. Unhappily, psychiatriststoday are taught that Consent is an illusion. Along with academic scientists, they are trained to supposethat we all live in a fully determined, Newtonian universe, in which choice andindeed intent are more apparent than real. The risk with this approach of course is that human beingsinevitably come to be treated as no more than mindless, unfeeling robots. And where this view prevails,psychiatry is bankrupt.
Can wechoose? Can we give Consent ? Orare we bound by rigid wheels of cause and effect? The question is of vitalimportance. In 1792 DrSamuel Johnson summed it up succinctly: ‘All theory is against the freedom of will; all experience is forit.’ Academic science today, like some latter-dayreligion, favours believers who profess their faith in the first half of thisaphorism, while excommunicating the rest. Sanity, however, is impossible,unless we deploy choice, intent and some freedom of will. Only by reversing the emphasis canEmotional Health flourish – ‘Because all theories are unreliable, itis vital we act responsibly.’
As we all know, emotions haveno difficulty making life hard. But they can also help. Once we corral them, and give them the attention they deserve, we canexplore their more positive side. By placingthem at the centre of things, where they belong, wecan uncover not only better mental health, more robust Emotional Health, butalso – something especially welcome in today’s gloom – imperishabledelights.
Part One:
Basic
Emotional
Questions
Fear– the Master Emotion • Thinking and Feeling • What Emotions Are for
Think back to what you did immediately prior to reading this book. Let’s say you walked across the room,dodged round the table and sat in the chair. What could be simpler? Hang on to that simplicity – weneed all we can get. Motion is surprisingly complex when you look at itclosely.
So thefirst thing to do is to look at the problems that come just because emotionsmove things. This helps todistinguish these initial difficulties from those unfathomable mysteries thatemotions bring along with them anyway.
You walked or moved from A toB, from one side of the room to the other. For the moment, we won’t ask why, though this is in fact theonly reliable resolution. Supposeyou tried to describe, scientifically, what you actually did. First of all you would have to definewhere A was, then the same for B. How accurate do you want to be? Nowadays we have satellitenavigation systems that can pinpoint your two positions with metre, evenmillimetre, accuracy, should you need it, so you might think defining where A and Bactually are has been solved.
Then when describing motion,we need a measure of speed. Speedis defined as distance travelled per unit time – miles per hour, metresper minute, or, in the case of light, kilometres per second. It sounds simple, but in practicalreality it has proved utterly bewildering – it took Einstein to ‘solve’the problem of the speed of light, and he did so only at the cost of sheddingNewtonian physics for ever. Note that this is the mo