Copyright 2003 -  Revision Sunday March 16, 2008 09:59 PM -0600

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There is a new link to Treatment

The Virginia Tech mass shooting is evidence of Subliminal Distraction causing psychotic mental illness. 

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Information on this page does not include cases of mental illness that can be attributed to brain disease, brain injury, or outcomes of drug use.

But anyone with competent peripheral vision can be a victim of this phenomenon.

Only the completely blind are immune.

This site is about a conflict of human physiology that shaped history but was undetected  until the 1960's.

In the entire history of man on the planet Earth this phenomenon was discovered only once.

It caused mental breaks for office workers.

You will find this material hard to believe.

This phenomenon is explained in first semester psychology lectures where students don't believe it either.

For that reason I wrote a demonstration that will allow you to experience the phenomenon.

The Everquest Connection page has the explanation and assumes you have not taken basic psychology.

The solution for this problem was the office Cubicle.

This site argues that the this phenomenon causes College Suicides and Missing Students.

The phenomenon causes mental events around the world, Chaco Canyon.

If you use computers in unprotected workspace such as homes, dorms, student apartments, and small business offices read  ...Prevention... at the bottom of most pages.

Long  term exposure can cause severely altered mental states. Qi Gong  Kundalini Yoga

If you are visiting the site as part of a school project send the person responsible for controlling violence at your school to this site.

Intro___

Introduction

Everything you know  about Mental Illness, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis was theorized without the knowledge that the Phenomenon, a "Conflict of Physiology," existed.

Has it ever occurred to you that the disorders of the DSM are not "real"?

Those disorders are names for observed, then grouped, behaviors. They are decided by committee and member votes.

Speeches have been made an papers written about the "comorbidity" of different disorders.

Panic Attacks occur too frequently in other disorders to be there by chance.

The behaviors appear together in semi-random fashion because they are caused by the same phenomenon.

Researchers interviewing victims of 'Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome' came close to making this connection and discovery. They concluded the jumping disease was not a neurological disorder but caused by operant conditioning due to special circumstances at Mooselake lumber camps. (Circa 1880)

They did not know what those "special circumstances" were.

A superficial reading of this material without referring to the support pages on-site will probably lead you to dismiss the theory.

It just sounds too fantastic and too simple.

The copyright page grants generous permissions to print out ONE personal copy of any material as long as the source URL is included in that printing. Read the copyright page for an explanation.

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Page synopsis  (What you will find  when the page is completed.)

A little known conflict of physiology was discovered when it caused mental breaks for Knowledge workers  The Cubicle solved that problem by 1968.

Today this problem is believed to be just a harmless nuisance in the design of crowded business office workspace. It has never occurred to anyone to look at other activities to see if different intensities and lengths of exposure might produce more outcomes or more severe outcomes.

We don't have to guess what those outcomes might be. Two exercises as well as other activities produce these mental breaks.

For almost 3000 years users of Qi Gong, the slow motion martial arts exercise received medical benefits from the exercise. They did not know why. An elaborate explanation developed that the exercise balanced the flow of "chee" (Qi) in the body.  This explanation includes the existence of a Universal Life Force. When users begin to have psychotic episodes experts blame them on not doing the exercise correctly. Now most sites state that the psychotic episodes happen when too many sessions are done in a compact time frame. But those sites still argue that powerful, mysterious, life forces cause the mental breaks.

Kundalini Yoga causes the same psychotic episodes. Again, users don't know why. They blame failure to control the "Awakening of Kundalini." This exercise has an even more elaborate belief system. Again there is a  belief that there is a untapped source of life energy available to be released.

Both exercises use an eyes-open exercise period where deep concentration is engaged. That is the same mental state that Knowledge workers must use to be able to  read for comprehension, perform math, or other business duties. While in that mental state they can all subliminally detect movement of others near them. This creates vision reflexes including the "startle reflex."

Humans quickly learn to ignore vision reflexes so we can continue to concentrate. But we can't stop "subliminally seeing, detecting" the movement that triggers the reflexes. When your brain understands the repeating signals generated to cause a reflex as reinforcement of contemporaneous thought and activity 'Accidental Subliminal Operant Conditioning' happens.

If the exposure is concentrated in a short time frame a temporary episode is created. When exposure is slow but persistent, long-term users experience  permanent, narrowly-focused, psychotic, altered mental states.

Those exposure rates and different outcomes are used on this page to model Schizophrenia. The exposure to cause Schizophrenia happens as part of normal schooling. Too-close side-by-side classroom seating copies the problem that allowed the original design/engineering  discovery of the 1960's.

This is supported by the mental breaks that happen with participation in est, Erhard Seminar Training. Landmark Education admits that the mental problems happen and require participants to sign a release against suit for injuries caused by the intense three day course. Those victims are simply sitting in an audience watching the lecturer. Too-close side-by-side seating in classrooms is the same situation.

This phenomenon explains why children as young as five can develop Schizophrenia and why normal onset is in adolescence, It also explains the apparent genetic connection as an inherited physical ability to detect threat movement in far peripheral vision.

Understanding the phenomenon is critical to understanding this presentation. If you did not perform the psychology exercise on the Demonstration page or read the Everquest Connection, save those pages to your hard drive so you can do that off line.

This page does not address cases where there is provable brain disease, recreational drug use, or brain injury to cause symptoms.

This site has Copyright but the distribution is FREE.

How this site began.

I began this site in an attempt to find help for my wife. She was a thirty year employee in a major state university. On June 30, 2002 the payroll office moved to the basement of the administration building and she moved into a new office. Within about thirty days she began to exhibit bizarre behavior. Personal Experiences

I finally remembered something from my engineering student days forty years ago. When I searched the Internet there was nothing available on the problem I remembered. I phoned an engineer at an office furniture dealer, Steelcase, in Birmingham to confirm my memory. When  we reached the point of seeing a psychiatrist I was stunned to find that there is no knowledge of this problem in any section of the mental health field. The Modern Cubicle

Over eighteen months we have seen many doctors. Each evaluated her and each found  something to create a diagnosis. Each diagnosis was different. What you will find is that while the DSM is the bible of psychiatry and mental health treatment each doctor evaluates the patient discarding information they either do not understand or do not wish to use in reaching their favorite diagnosis. This is presented as skill in diagnosis. Help sites all mention that diagnosis of mental illness is difficult and you may have to see several doctors before  you find a solution.

What if...?

What if instead of finding a solution through correct diagnosis, the problem you have just slowly resolves over those months of seeking treatment.

You would believe that last doctor found your problem and his correct diagnosis and drug treatment  was the reason for your improvement or cure.

Articles on-line say that in the past, 1800's, most mental illness lasted only about one year before recovery. Since doctors began treating with anti-psychotic drugs the episodes last longer. That may be because in today's world we have many more possibilities for exposure to Subliminal Distraction.

July 2 2005 In the news:

Tom Cruise recently argued with Mat Lauer that drug treatments are worthless. There are quotes and links to professionals with that same opinion in the text of this page. Brook Shields then chimed in with her comments. The claim by experts interviewed by the news programs said that talk therapy worked as well as drug treatment. Think about that. Just talking to someone does as well as medication???

One site with links to data about psychiatric drugs. http://www.drmattchiro.com/showArticle.asp?RecordNumber=156

Citizens Committee on Human Rights http://www.cchr.org/

Psychiatrists respond to Tom Cruise YouTube debate on the Today show. http://youtube.com/watch?v=2vE7FPIGLyo&mode=related&search=

Our Current Case ---- Those paragraphs have been moved to simplify the beginning of this page. Click this line to read.  Use your backspace key to return here,

Exposure

With a single exception exposure happens almost everywhere. What is that exception? A correctly designed, professionally designed, business office. Why is there little exposure there? Cubicle Level Protection.  ( Modern Cubicle site page) The office Cubicle was the solution for sudden dissociative mental breaks in the business office  by the 1960's. (Dissociative Mental Break is the new name for Nervous Breakdown.)

Any place you sit and concentrate while others walk close beside you from behind is a potential source of exposure. So little is required to engage Accidental Operant Conditioning that it can be proposed as a cause of historical events.

Potential exposure examples. 

Note: None of these examples alone would be enough to cause a full mental break. But levels of exposure too low to cause the expected mental break experienced in a computer workstation in homes, dorm rooms, student apartments and small business offices will create psychiatric symptoms.*  Using the examples of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga low levels repeated frequently over years produce a narrowly focused psychotic altered mental state. *(See Astronauts & Insanity VPN site page paragraphs about the Belgian Polar Expedition 1898/99.)

Scenarios such as these may account for sudden flash backs or panic attacks as the additional exposure pushes the victim over a threshold.

These small incidents of increased exposure might be the trigger for manic episodes.

If you were to select a table or booth in a small restaurant where every one enters the dining area through the same opening, activity such as reading a newspaper or book would be enough to allow subliminal detection of those people walking by you from behind.

Playing battery operated video games or cell phone games engages the same level of mental investment. If that is done somewhere such as a school hallway,  lunchroom, or school bus,  everyone walking by from behind might be detected. The games cannot run long enough on a single battery charge to create heavy exposure.

When children play dual controller games if the arrangement of the players is such that one is in the other's Subliminal Peripheral Vision, the active player concentrating on the video screen is exposed if the passive player moves enough to be detected. Joseph Morse, Missing Students page, and the shooters at Pearl Mississippi played video games with friends. (No current page for those shooters. Instead see the Redlake School Shooting VPN site page.)

Crowded class rooms bring students close together by increasing the number of student desks in a given room. Exposure would happen as one student concentrated while others close by moved. This exposure would be almost random and no one student would be so heavily exposed to create a sudden mental breakdown.

Exposure is cumulative.

Peripheral vision reflexes are created below thought, reason, and consciousness. There is no memory associated with that creation. That means that every time movement is detected a new reflex is attempted. Your brain cannot identify the object that moves. You do that when you turn your head and look. Think of the last time you were startled. That happened so fast there was no time for thinking.

This also means that your brain will not distinguish between different locations and different objects. At the primitive level where the reflexes are  created it is all neural impulses on nerves and electro-chemical exchanges across synapses between neurons.

Why aren't we all falling out?

One of the arguments I frequently encounter  in emails to Ph.D.'s in psychology and in forum comments around the Internet is that if this problem did exist we should all be falling out due to repeated exposure. First I assure the problem does exist. On the ICU Psychosis page I list several ways to verify the problem's existence.

Maybe we are all falling out.

But over and above that, if this is the cause of most mental illness, including panic attacks, mood and psychotic disorders, we are all  falling out. At least those with increased ability to detect threat movement in peripheral vision are. I have not  gathered enough cases to establish this yet. A problem is that redacted case histories mentioned on the Internet do not have enough information to evaluate this possibility. Only when the case introduction includes a professional employment  reference or some hobby interest that would place the subject at risk can a connection be theorized.

The episodes discovered in the early 1960's were temporary. The term used back then was probably pseudo-psychosis. Those engineers and designers would have recognized the episode for what it was only if it happened in the  workplace and while the victim was using the new workstations. They would not have connected someone going berserk and shooting every one in the office to their temporary episode phenomenon. No one has made that connection because absolutely no one outside the engineers and designers of Systems Furniture, Cubicles, is aware of the problem.

Related mental problems

The DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, groups mental disorders into Mood Disorders and Psychotic Disorders.

Diagnosis is described as difficult because many of the disorders have similar symptoms. The DSM then defines different disorders by the length of time for the acute phase, and the nature of the event. That is, the nature or subject matter of delusions and psychotic episodes becomes the defining factor. This is a mistake. The subject of delusions should not be used to guess the cause of the mental event.

Depression

The behavior labeled "depression" is one of deep irremediable despondency. It is considered the cause of many disorders in the DSM because it is observed with the disorders.

It has never been considered that depression is an outcome. Changes in brain chemistry are suspected to cause depression but there is no evidence that that is so. When you read the symptoms of Culture Bound Syndromes you see descriptions that parallel depression. 

Depression was the principal complaint that appeared in the eighteen men who began to go insane aboard the Belgica during  the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898/99. Seamen and scientists who had no history of mental illness, lost motivation to do anything, even to eat. Those symptoms began when the ship was trapped in polar ice then began to dissipated when all the men worked outdoors to chop the Belgica out of the ice almost a year later.  A single-room living and working space in the converted whaler provided the location and movement in peripheral vision which would have created exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Only the ship's doctor, who maintained his normal routine, was unaffected. No one has ever solved the mystery of what caused that incident. (See Astronauts & Insanity VPN site page.)

A second Antarctic incident involving progressive group depression has been found in the Introduction of Dr Stuster's book "Bold Endeavors."  I expect to add it in a few days.

Depression is a favorite diagnosis whether it is evidenced in an interview or not. This adobe file is an old article but it includes references to adolescent onset of depression and the theory that many childhood mental events might be traced to depression. It too suggests that children as young as five can experience depression.  Of course, there is no mention of the phenomenon on this site or that events beginning at the same time schooling is begun might be caused by too-close spacing in class rooms. Such seating copies the problem discovered by engineers fifty years ago.

"...Now that there is a growing consensus that children as young as five years old, and perhaps even infants, can suffer depression, many authors overlap their discussions of adolescent and childhood depression...."

"...In his overview of adolescent depression, Irving B. Weiner, Case Western Reserve University, reported that nearly 13 percent of a sample of depressive outpatients were under the age of 19. Among adolescents, the incidence of depression rises with age. of the sample reported by Weiner, 1.7 percent were between the ages of ten and 14, This number nearly doubled to 3.3 percent for the age group 15 to 17. The incidence doubled again to 7.6 percent for people aged 18 and 19. But Weiner acknowledges that depression is generally under diagnosed in young people,...."

http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v5p157y1981-82.pdf

Note that the figures increase as the students acquire more and more exposure to SD from additional years in classrooms.

Did you know that depression is almost unknown in China?

http://www.listener.co.nz/default,1983.sm

An incident on the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898 demonstrates that depression can be an outcome of exposure to Subliminal Distraction. Quotes form "Through the First Antarctic Night," are on another site page.

Astronauts & Insanity a VPN site page.

Panic Attacks

Also see the  Panic Anxiety Disorders page on this site.

This article makes my case that there is a connection between panic attacks and mental illness. The author is  missing the same key piece of information. The source is New Zealand.

Adobe file, a reprint of Journal Article http://www.chmeds.ac.nz/research/chds/publications/2003/panic.pdf

Panic Attacks and Psychoticism

 Renee D. Goodwin, Ph.D., M.P.H., David M. Fergusson, Ph.D. and L. John Horwood, M.Sc. Am J Psychiatry 161:88-92, January 2004

"The authors sought to determine the association between panic attacks and psychoticism among young adults in the community...Findings from several studies suggest that panic attacks and psychotic disorders co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. ...Young people prone to panic attacks had rates of psychoticism that were approximately three times those of young people without panic attacks."

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/161/1/88

Lifetime Panic-Depression Comorbidity in the National Comorbidity Survey
Ronald C. Kessler, PhD; Paul E. Stang, PhD; Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, PhD; T. Bedirhan Ustun, MD; Peter P. Roy-Burne, MD; Ellen E. Walters, MS    Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55:801-808.
 

"Strong associations were found between the lifetime prevalences of panic and major depressive episodes (odds ratios: for panic attacks with depression, 6.2; for panic disorder with depression, 6.8). ...The absence of a dose-response relationship suggests that primary panic attack is a marker, rather than a causal risk factor, of subsequent depression."

http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/55/9/801?ijkey=059c2d39500ac8298386f89e611a823704a84d18&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

___

Schizophrenia

New Information just located Thursday October 13, 05. 

An article posted  in the University of Georgia Research Magazine, 2002, says that genetic differences in sight found in Schizophrenics show a deficit in the M Pathway.

This means that the genetic connection is an inherited physical problem.

This is probably the final piece of the puzzle. Why some are effected and others not in the same circumstances and exposure.

See text and links below.

The full text of this article is linked below this quoted section.

Splintered Minds

The article is by Kathleen Cason, research is by L. Stephen Miller.

Unaware of the conflict of physiology the researchers do not make a connection to Subliminal Distraction.
 

"While Miller didn’t compare the behaviors of people in this study directly to those of schizophrenics, the study supports the notion that SPD is part of a continuum of related disorders and that studying people with less severe disorders may shed light on schizophrenia.

But to get a handle on the inherited behaviors, Miller took another tack. He and Jeffrey Bedwell, a doctoral student on his research team, set out to study cognitive deficits in relatives of schizophrenics.

Healthy first-degree relatives have few psychopathologies, are not on any anti-psychotic medication and haven't been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition. Any differences in the relatives are likely to be due to genetics because they are like the controls in most every way except for the fact that they share many genes with someone who has schizophrenia, Bedwell said."

"...impulses flow along two pathways from the retina to a visual-processing center at the back of the brain called V1. From V1, the signal travels along these pathways to other visual centers. One set of “wires” - the magnocellular (M) or “where” pathway - carries information about movement and an object's location. A second set of wiring - the parvocellular (P) or “what” pathway - carries information about shape and color. From the various visual centers, the information travels to higher thinking areas of the brain where it is interpreted.

In schizophrenia, it seems there’s faulty “wiring” somewhere along the visual pathway. Previous research indicates that people with schizophrenia and their relatives have a hyperactive M pathway, which may account for the sensory overload and problems filtering stimuli experienced by schizophrenics.

Using a test called backward masking, Bedwell and Miller confirmed that relatives, like schizophrenics, have a deficit in the M pathway. "
 

Printable version of full text....    http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/researchnews/summer2002/printschizo.htm

If I correctly understand this ...

Because the brains of schizophrenics have a hyperactive M-pathway,  schizophrenic prone brains might  mistakenly believe they have received a signal from Subliminal Peripheral Vision when the defect causes additional input in the M pathway. (Peripheral vision is from rods only and is black and white vision. This means that signals from peripheral vision contain only position and movement information. That is what the M-pathway communicates. )

Or another way to state this:

The defect makes the field of view for Subliminal Peripheral Vision appear larger for the Schizophrenic brain.

The Schizophrenic brain makes mistakes more often than normal brains in deciding what is threat movement.

If I can determine that the M-pathway also communicates the signals to effect a peripheral vision reflex that would increase the possibility that this discovery is the genetic connection for Schizophrenia. This information is above my level of training in brain anatomy. It may be several weeks before I have this answer.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a diagnosis in the DSM, nothing more.

You should remember that Schizophrenia may be more than one problem. It has been characterized as the diagnosis with no disease.

 It does not follow that different persons with that diagnosis have exactly the same problem.

Hutterites have a extremely low incidence of Schizophrenia. They stop formal schooling at 15. Their school day is much different from government sponsored schools in the United States. (See the Anfechtung paragraphs on the Culture Bound Syndromes page. There are links to Colony schools including those using the Montessori method. )

See the links section for NIMH studies of atrophy in early onset schizophrenia.

Personal sites of those with Schizophrenia

Linked below right are sites detailing a  personal history of  life long schizophrenia. The first link is to a chart of Core Symptom Clusters. That chart is one of the best tools I found to understand this disorder, at least in the terms of a victim.   Although not the index page for this remote site there are links to reach other pages.

Ian Chovil

http://www.chovil.com/graph3.html

The Schizophrenic Pen, a second site from Tampa Florida.

http://www.schizophrenicpen.com/index.html

MichGirl

http://www.geocities.com/MichiGirl_420/SchizoIndex.html

Pattern from the 1930's

"Farris and Dunham in Chicago in the 1930's were the first to draw attention to the fact that schizophrenia was more common in cities, and in particular in poor inner- city areas, than rural areas. Initially it was believed that the deprivation was in some way responsible for the schizophrenia."

Those results are said to have been replicated in Europe. This and other studies were used to theorize that maladjusted family life was the cause of Schizophrenia. Patients who got better in hospitals became worse again when returned home. What if it wasn't deprivation in inner cities and maladjusted families,  but too-close crowded living conditions? (see Culture Bound Syndromes)

http://sabryabdelfattah.tripod.com/docs/SOCPSY.htm
 

These patterns are still observed today.

"It has long been established that there is an association between social class and mental illness. For example, major psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, are diagnosed more often in people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Conversely neurotic disorders are diagnosed more often in people from higher socio-economic groups. Several reasons have been suggested for these differences."

It is more likely that those from socially disadvantaged back grounds would live in homes that are crowded and attend schools with too-small classrooms thus have more  exposure to Subliminal Distraction.

http://web.isp.cz/jcrane/IB/Culture_and_abnormality.pdf

Publications of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, NIMH, and the American Psychiatric Association are used to form a possible connection with this phenomenon.

Children over the age of five can develop schizophrenia, but it is very rare before adolescence.

What do we all begin to do about age five? We start school and begin to sit side-by-side, in each other's Subliminal Peripheral Vision. Usual onset in late adolescence is after ten or more years of exposure in class rooms.  Using the Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga model this outcome is to be expected.  The observation of similar symptoms present in ADHD and other attention disorders suggests that they too might be caused by this phenomenon.

1 in 10 people with schizophrenia have a parent with the illness. Studies of twins can help to show how much is due to genes and how much to upbringing.

None ---------------------------------------------- 1 in 100
1 parent ------------------------------------------- 1 in 10
1 identical twin (same genetic make up) ----- -------1 in 2
1 non-identical twin (different genetic make up) ---- 1 in 80

Research suggests that genes account for about half of the risk of developing schizophrenia. We don't yet know the combination of genes responsible for this.

This statistical correlation is unpredictable as to who will develop schizophrenia. I suggest that inherited, increased abilities to detect threat movement in Subliminal Peripheral Vision, could be the connection to inherited disease. A recent news release states that a study has revealed a statistical correlation to children who daydream and those who become schizophrenic. Day dreaming with your eyes open to the point that you ignore everything happening around you would engage Accidental Operant Conditioning. This would increase exposure of daydreamers over other students in a given class room situation.( I haven't found the study and the news release did not state the source.)

Do you see the flaw in this effort to find a genetic cause of Schizophrenia? Forty percent of cases show a strong genetic correlation. That means that sixty percent have no apparent genetic link. This is another instance of a false lead. Something is inherited of course but not something that is a direct cause of disease. If there were a direct genetic cause  the correlation would be reversed 60/40, or higher,  for genetic correlation.

Possibilities for the genetic link are shape of the eye, number of rods packed in far peripheral vision on the retina, and behavioral elements such as the propensity to daydream.

Schizophrenia often begins in late adolescence.

What happens in early adolescence? ... Puberty. ... Why is that significant? 

The growth spurt at puberty changes the relative size of a target in peripheral vision and makes movement easier to detect. Bigger arms, hands, etc. are easier to detect when they move next to you in a class room.  This means the level of exposure increases at about thirteen. Onset at eighteen or so is after five years exposure for those with sensitivity to exposure.

Students who are sensitive to stimulation in peripheral vision or who have increased ability to detect threat movement in peripheral vision would begin to experience more stimulation incidents per day.

Did  you know that the delusions of Schizophrenia have a different appearance in different cultures?

"Schizophrenia is another disorder that expresses itself differently according to culture. In Ireland, which used to be a pious country, patients with schizophrenia would often have delusions of sainthood (their delusions of grandeur today no doubt feature Dublin real estate agents). In technologically advanced places like the US, patients would report that they were being spied on by television or secretly x-rayed, whereas in Japan, which prizes social conformity, those with schizophrenia may have delusions of being publicly humiliated. In some non-Western cultures, schizophrenic delusions single out the person as spiritually gifted. Doctors can't always assume that a patient's family will share their view of mental illness. "

 http://www.listener.co.nz/default,1983.sm

Is Schizophrenia inherited?

An effective argument that Schizophrenia cannot be inherited is stated in the article linked below. Schizophrenia onsets at about fifteen. Those with the disease would not be candidates for marriage. How would the gene be carried down in families if it limited the victim's opportunity to reproduce? If Schizophrenia has changed over the years to cause earlier onset then the disease gene might have been inherited through generations.

One should remember that only forty percent of cases happen in families with a history of mental illness. Sixty percent have no such relationship.

http://www.ahisee.com/content/schiz1ess

Psychiatry 24X7   -  News

12/01/2006 - Maintanence of mitochondrial DNA is abnormal in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

"2006 JAN 20 - -- A study from Japan has reported on the quantitative analysis of mitochondrial DNA deletions in the brains of patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Several clinical, genetic and neuroimaging studies implicate mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia."

Schizophrenia appears so many places that almost any researcher can find a correlation with some factor.

http://www.psychiatry24x7.com/news/detail.jhtml?itemname=c0113872.9wh0

Unethical Psychiatrists Misrepresent What is Known About Schizophrenia by Al Siebert, Ph.D.

"Schizophrenia is not "a single disease." Starting with the original descriptions by Emil Kraeplin (1902) and Eugen Bleuler (1950) nearly 100 years ago, informed professional references describe "the schizophrenias" as a group of conditions."

"Evidence for the brain disease hypothesis is weak. A few individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia show certain brain abnormalities, but the brain scans of most people diagnosed with a schizophrenia fall within normal ranges (Weikert & Weinberger, 1998). "

"The "brain disease" hypothesis cannot accommodate solid evidence that many people completely recover from schizophrenia. Unlike Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia does not necessarily progress toward life-long debilitation, and the outcome for any one person is unpredictable (Marengo, 1994; Mendel, 1989; Mšller & von Zerssen, 1988; Ponyat, 1992). Manfred Bleuler (1979a), "

"No brain disease has ever been cured with psychotherapy or the passage of time. Many therapists have reported observing full recovery from schizophrenia with psychotherapy and/or milieu therapy (Artiss, 1962; Colbert, 1996; Fromm-Reichman, 1950; Harding, 1995; Jung, 1961; Karon, 1998; Laing, 1967; Mosher, 1999; Perry, 1974; Sechehaye, 1951..."

"Some people diagnosed with schizophrenia progress beyond recovery. A schizophrenic experience may in some cases have a beneficial effect on those diagnosed..."

"The cause of schizophrenia is unknown (American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Gottesman, 1991). Andreasen stated during her interview (Farnsworth, 1998) that schizophrenia results from "multiple things."

"There is no "universal" recognition that schizophrenia is a brain disease "like all other brain diseases." Medical textbooks and pathology journals do not include schizophrenia as a pathophysiological condition (Schaler, 1998)."

"..."Treatments" for schizophrenia are often worse than the "disease." In the Farnsworth (1998) interview, Pickar stated that when people stop taking their medications "the consequences can be very severe." What Pickar did not report however, is that withdrawal symptoms can be disabling and mimic psychosis (Cohen, 1997) and that long-term drug use may be quite harmful."

First appeared in Journal of Ethical Human Sciences and Services. New York: Springer Publishing Company, Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 179-89 as "Brain Disease Hypothesis for Schizophrenia Disconfirmed by All Evidence"

http://www.successfulschizophrenia.com/articles/ehss.html

Psychosocial Treatment for First-Episode Psychosis: A Research Update
David L. Penn, Ph.D., Evan J. Waldheter, M.A., Diana O. Perkins, M.D., Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D. and Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D

Am J Psychiatry 162:2220, December 2005 doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.162.12.2220 © 2005 American Psychiatric Association
 

"Psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia, are the most disabling of all mental illnesses. In fact, schizophrenia is included among the world’s top 10 causes of disability-adjusted life-years. ..."The largest expenditure for mental health in the United States is for schizophrenia , with an annual cost of $32.5 billion . Most of this cost can be attributed to repeated hospitalizations following relapse.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/12/2220

Mental Health Channel

Schizophrenia Course

"Schizophrenia worsens in 75% of people after its onset. About 25% of people experience an abrupt onset of sudden psychosis. However, most people enter a phase known as the prodromal phase, during which certain signs and symptoms precipitate an acute episode."

The site is written for the general public. The types of Schizophrenia are listed and explained.

http://www.mentalhealthchannel.net/schizophrenia/course.shtml

American Journal of Psychiatry

German study on twins points to an environmental cause of schizophrenia.

"The results of the study suggest that schizophrenia spectrum psychoses may consist of clinically and etiologically heterogeneous subgroups with different genetic backgrounds. (Am J Psychiatry 1998; 155:76–83)"

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/155/1/76

Paranoia

One of the most common features of mental illness is paranoia.

Peripheral Vision Reflexes can only happen when movement is detected approaching from behind. That feature of threat movement detection can easily explains a sensation of being watched or of something being behind you. The detection of threat movement is subliminal so  that  the conscious mind is not aware that anything unusual is happening. Victims associate this subliminal sense of being under observation with conscious thought. In fact this phenomenon shapes thought.

Paranoia is a result of the many days of constant stimulation caused by movement approaching from behind. It is the outcome of Accidental Operant Conditioning.

In our own case  it caused a belief that the supervisor was out to 'get something on Connie' to fire her. She told one psychologist that she felt she should be punished. Her delusions were that she had lost thousands of dollars by making mistakes on university payroll reports. She believed she was about to be arrested at any moment.

She had taken bits and pieces of actual incidents and those, through paranoia, became the substance of her delusions.  She confabulated an explanation of normal events to put a sinister meaning to them.

Connie had no knowledge of what caused these beliefs. 

Connie's appearance, temperament, daily activities were normal. In fact someone would have to have known something about accounting and the operation of a payroll office to have picked out the things she said that indicated a serious problem was ongoing. 

There is information that electrical stimulation of certain areas of the brain produce effects close to fear or paranoia. You still have the same problem explaining why some are effected to cause sudden violence while others experience paranoia and fear with the same stimulation. How could the electrical stimulation through normal neural impulses cause the different outcomes? My operant conditioning explanation is a simple solution but it may not prove to the the only one.

Hearing Voices

This page is not attributed except for the URL reference to Macalester Edu StPaul MN.

http://www.macalester.edu/~psych/whathap/UBNRP/Ahschizophrenia/Causes.htm

In our own family case the subject of nightmares and sleep talk continues into waking and auditory hallucinations. Hearing voices is one of the first effects of psychotic mental breaks such as ICU Psychosis.

An evaluation of this is beyond the scope of this site. A guess is that when the brain attempts to learn how to deal with repeating subliminal input connections and associations are made that break down the normal barrier between a sleeping and waking state at least in reference to dreaming.

Intelligence and Madness

Often noted is a increased percentage of high achievers who slip into schizophrenia.  Many papers have been written on the connection between creativity and mental illness. The same behavioral elements mentioned above are probably that link. Artists for instance concentrate on the project, painting, as they work. If this is done in a public place where many people walk by close enough to be detected in Subliminal Peripheral Vision, the artist is exposed.

Do you see how simple this is once you are aware of the conflict of physiology and understand how it works.

Shared Psychotic Disorder

Shared psychotic disorder: a critical review of the literature. PubMed Article abstract. The abstract cites the conclusion.

"RESULTS: Findings revealed: 1. males and females were affected with equal frequency; 2. there was equal prevalence in younger and older patients; 3. the majority of shared psychoses (90.2%) were equally distributed among married couples, siblings, and parent-child dyads; 4. comorbid dementia, depression, and mental retardation were common; 5. hallucinations were common; 6. the majority of dyads (67.3%) were socially isolated. CONCLUSIONS: SPD probably occurs in premorbidly disposed individuals in the context of social isolation which is shared with a psychotic person."      Copy/Paste Site Quote

Note: The conclusion does not include knowledge of the existence of the conflict of physiology. Family members and those who co-habit with a psychotic person would possibly share exposure if the activities of both, while in the home, were the same. This argues that exposure in homes is a factor. Although much of the material on this site is about computer and workstation use, the  phenomenon was discovered before computers existed. Dates of the cases reviewed in this study predates TV. A statistical increase, if one had been reported,  after TV was introduced, early 1950's, would point to intense viewing to the level of  suspension of disbelief as a source of exposure. Movement of family members in the room would cause subliminal detection of threat movement. Lighting being a factor, daylight viewing would have more likely-hood of causing exposure.

The method of this study, reviewing published case reports from 1942 to 1993, probably would not reveal the living space details. It is unlikely those case studies had that information.

In the case of Jumping Frenchmen of Maine the occupation of lumberjack was the determining factor. That pointed to something done as a lumberjack that was not done in homes. (Bunkhouse living in remote camps is the solution this site offers. See Culture Bound Syndromes)

The case of Alien Abduction known as the Hill Abduction illustrates how simple things can lead to Folie a deux. Hill Abduction

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=96092904

Relapses, waxing and waning.

Reaction to additional exposure could be the cause of relapses. Typical room arrangements in mental health facilities allow residence to mill about in a common room. In fact they are encouraged to do so. TV's are often supplied for entertainment. The act of watching TV with full 'suspension of disbelief' is enough mental investment to engage exposure to Accidental Operant Conditioning.

Often craft work is used in therapy. Building and painting wooden objects, or ceramic materials are used to occupy the patient. This activity requires concentration. If the craft work is done in a location with movement around the patient, the phenomenon of physiology is engaged to cause exposure to Accidental Operant Conditioning.

These patients have already demonstrated psychiatric symptoms. I suggest that some if not all have sensitivity to stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision. Rehabilitation  modalities by these mental hospitals actually continue exposure so that confinement does not remove  stimulation.

I am  not suggesting that eliminating exposure will stop all causes of disturbing behavior. All previously discovered causes still operate. Drug use, mental deficit, disease, physical brain injury, are all still prime causes of mental illness. When exposure to 'accidental operant conditioning' happens to those with ongoing pathology the result can be devastating.

Studies and Statistics

A statistical correlation is often used as proof of a hypothesis.  The first link below is a news release of a 2002 study of 65 persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, who had never been treated with medications. The study was done to prove that Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain. This was intended  to refute the argument that medical treatment was the cause of physical changes in the brains of Schizophrenics. The problem of course is that schizophrenia is a diagnosis, a label, not a disease.

Persons with brain pathology can experience exposure just as persons with normal brains can. There would be an increased number of Schizophrenics with brain pathology even though the abnormal brain anatomy is not the cause of the onset of Schizophrenia.  Those with normal brain anatomy would recover at some statistical rate decreasing their number in the pool. But those with abnormal brain anatomy cannot recover skewing the statistics. At any given time the numbers of those with brain abnormality in the any group of  of mental illness cases are increasing because compromised anatomy prevents recovery..

News Release summary http://www.psychlaws.org/PressRoom/rls_nevertreatedpaper.htm 

The html version of the report http://www.psychlaws.org/GeneralResources/report-nevertreated.htm

Articles on Schizophrenia

Peace and Healing

http://www.peaceandhealing.com/schizophrenia/index.asp

Sites Schizophrenia --  Universities

Virtual Children's Hospital -- University of Iowa

 Index  page  http://www.vh.org/pediatric/index.html

Early Psychosis page     http://www.vh.org/pediatric/provider/psychiatry/Psychosis/EarlyPsychosis.html

"Many patients have premorbid abnormalities, Social withdrawal/isolation, Disruptive behavior disorders, Academic difficulties, Speech and language problems,Non-specific developmental delays..."

Note the mention of disruptive behavior disorders.

http://www.vh.org/pediatric/provider/psychiatry/Psychosis/Psych-epidemiology.html

More to Follow.03/16/2008 21:59:09 -0600

Anxiety Disorder Complex

There are brief comments on a site for Traditional Chinese Medicine which warn  that persons with eating disorders should not begin Qi Gong. The symptoms for Anorexia worsen when Qi Gong is used.  Comments on Yoga health sites argue that Yoga can be  used to treat Anorexia. Keep in mind that the same stimulation is present in both exercises. Qi Gong Kundalini Yoga (Named site page links are the same throughout the page.)

Both the beneficial and detrimental effects of Qi Gong are caused by the detection of threat movement while performing the exercise in groups. This phenomenon uses peripheral vision as a channel to the subconscious. If the repeating subliminal detection of threat movement and the failed creation of  peripheral vision reflexes can make Anorexia worse then it can cause it in the first place. If it is true that Yoga can help relieve the psychiatric symptoms that only reinforces the conclusion that the phenomenon is causing the entire Anxiety Disorder Complex.

Refusing to eat to the point of death is psychotic behavior. The problem appears in women and young  girls but only in developed countries. (That's why it is considered a Culture Bound Syndrome.) If victims begin with concern about their appearance and weight then engage in an activity that allows stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision they would eventually experience an episode in which that concern of weight and appearance  is raised to psychotic levels. It is not necessary that  they have the full dissociative mental break. Accidental Operant Conditioning slowly changes their mental state and installs the narrowly focused altered belief system.

This altered mental state and psychotic belief system is evidenced by long term users of Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga. The leader of the Falun Gong movement has used Qi Gong since he was six. In a Time Asia interview he said the major problem facing earth today is that aliens, extraterrestrials,  are cloning humans to take over the world. Yogis state that they can levitate, dematerialize, or become invisible at will. That belief system is also a psychotic altered mental state.  ( I remind readers that to keep this page simple the resource pages pages have the links to Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga. )

Understanding how Qi Gong and Yoga work to cause physical improvements in health through operant conditioning suggests a possibility for treatment.

Un-attributed Fear Panic Attacks

On other site pages where there is apparent involvement of the  phenomenon, Personal Experiences, Mark Barton Shooting, Mary Shotwell Little Disappearance, un-attributed fear is noted. The effected person has fear but cannot say what it is they fear.  It is a simple step to believe that panic attacks can be caused by this aspect of the phenomenon.

In fact when you consider that the increase in the diagnosis of mood disorders and the anxiety disorder complex parallels the increase in possible stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision in the last half of the Twentieth Century, the connection is plausible.

APA Reprint - Statement

This  page has an excellent overview of the disorder. (I will add comments here later. But note as you read it that cases often have symptoms of more than one sub classifications in the disorder complex.)

Consensus Development Conference Statement September 1991      http://www.healthieryou.com/paniccon.html

ADHD  Children and Adults

ADHD in Adults by Paul H. Wender, M.D. Psychiatric Times July 1996 Vol. XIII Issue 7

"Since ADHD begins in childhood, the first task is to determine the psychiatric status of the patient as a child and to make a retroactive diagnosis.... The most striking feature of these studies is the relative persistence of the disorder through adolescence and its apparent decrease in early adult life. How is one to interpret the reported drop in the prevalence of ADHD between the ages of 18 and 26? One obvious answer is that the children simply outgrew the disorder."
 

Is that drop in the prevalence of the 'disorder' different for those who go on to higher education and those who do not? That statistical drop might be created when adults no longer sit in class rooms. Only those adults with ongoing exposure would continue to have symptoms. Incorrectly designed workplaces easily accounts for the few adults who retain the disorder or acquire it for the first time as adults.

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p960741.html

Awesome Alternative  September 23, 2003

This paper offers martial arts training as treatment for ADD and ADHD.  That would, unknown to the author, Dr. Abida Ripley, engage the conflict of physiology to effect Accidental Operant Conditioning.

http://www.capella.edu/portal/alumni/scontent/ProfOpp/EM_Ripley.pdf

ICU Psychosis

This problem of hospital ICU units indicates that it does not take much deep concentration to enter the mental state that requires ignoring every thing around you. Day dreaming with your eyes open is enough. Repeated misidentification of  stimulus in Subliminal Peripheral Vision then causes the psychotic mental break. Within the period of the stay in the unit these patients may begin to hear voices. The experience that most victims of ICU Psychosis recover quickly once they leave the ICU.   ICU Psychosis site page.

For as many hours as the patient's eyes are open the stimulation rate would be every fifteen minutes around the clock.

 One in three patients who spend more  than five days in an ICU unit have these episodes.

PTSD --- Psychiatric Times  November 2001  Vol. XVIII  Issue 11 by K. Elan Jung, M.D. 

This 2001 article is typical of the thinking behind the DSM . As you read this article remember that no one knows what causes PTSD. Current belief is that:

 "...severe trauma ... exceed ordinary coping mechanisms ..." ---  "The majority of psychiatric disorders are diagnosed according to symptoms, signs and traits. Posttraumatic stress disorder is unique in that etiology is a primary diagnostic factor..."  ---  "...many patients exhibit multiple symptoms concomitantly or at different times..." ---

"...The classification posttraumatic stress disorder should be replaced with posttraumatic spectrum disorder, using the following subclassifications:

• PTSD with psychotic features;
• PTSD with depressive features;
• PTSD with anxiety and panic features;
• PTSD with dissociative features;
• PTSD with borderline features; and
• PTSD with other clinical features. ..."

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p011158.html

Do you understand my point? More of the same. How many more disorders can be added to the DSM?

Comorbidity for PTSD and other disorders, "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," Matthew A. Friedman, Ph.D., M.D.

 

"If an individual meets diagnostic criteria for PTSD, it is likely that he or she will exhibit at least one other DSM-IV disorder.... In the National Comorbidity Survey, a lifetime history of at least one other psychiatric disorder was found in approximately 80% of all men and women with lifetime PTSD. Among men and women with PTSD, lifetime prevalence of comorbid disorders was approximately 48% for major depressive disorders, 22% for dysthymia, 16% for generalized anxiety disorder, 30% for simple phobia, and 28% for social phobia. Women exhibited greater lifetime prevalence of panic disorder (12.6% to 7.3%) and agoraphobia (22.4% to 16.1%) while men exhibited greater lifetime prevalence of alcohol abuse/dependence (51.9% to 27.9%), drug abuse/dependence (34.5% to 26.9%), and conduct disorder (43.3% to 15.4%) ...."

http://wwsuw.acnp.org/g4/GN401000111/CH109.html

If PTSD is caused by witnessing some stressful situation why are there other disorders present? Why do the symptoms of PTSD sometimes appear as much as six months after the traumatic event that supposedly caused them. The prognosis for late onset PTSD is worse than PTSD which onsets close to the event. This may mean that some cases of PTSD are misdiagnosed. The subject of flashbacks are believed to explain the cause. This is not necessarily so. 

What if ... the cause of PTSD is a dissociative/psychotic episode created by exposure to stimulation of the subconscious using peripheral vision as a communication channel. Accidental Operant Conditioning acting against each person's memories and contemporaneous mental state creates the episode and raises those previous experiences to a psychotic level. Flash backs happen as panic attacks when there is ongoing exposure or a short period of additional exposure. The subject of the flash back is the most distressing memory in that person's mind. For instance, if there had been childhood sexual abuse the episode might feature that instead of  events from combat. Repeats of the exposure cause the same episode and subject because it becomes a learned behavior.  (This is argued as the source of Alien Abduction incidents on the Barney and Betty Hill Alien Abduction page.)

Again -- Each different behavior is categorized as a different disorder. Each specialty group within the authors of the DSM lobby for their specialty being increased in that publication.

Conceptual Problems with the DSM-IV
Criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Richard  J. McNally, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, USA

History of PTSD and Vietnam era political introduction.

http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/58/04708628/0470862858.pdf

The

Hair of the Dog or Treatment

Qi Gong allows stimulation of the subconscious as each person detects movement during the exercise and performance of the Kata. This suggests that Qi Gong or Yoga properly using subtle direction during the exercise would reach the same level in the brain and might be a successful treatment.

The effect would be to unlearn or counter-learn using Accidental Operant Conditioning.

This might work in early stages. But those with long term psychiatric symptoms probably have permanent irremediable conditions.

Knowledge and prevention is the answer.

I have been unable to reach the author of this site. He mentions dance as healing in Native American ceremonies. If that activity is done in groups this treatment is the same modality as the cause of mental illness. It would be reprogramming the brain.

http://www.peaceandhealing.com/about.asp

Alternate Non-Drug Treatments

There are several sites, which tout successful treatment methods that do not  use psychotropic drugs. Each has a different belief as to the correct treatment but they would all involve changes in daily activity that might eliminate the source of stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision. When the patient begins to recover each practitioner believes that they have found the correct treatment for psychotic mental illness.

See links section below beginning with Safe Harbor

Vitamin Treatments

Niacin, nicotinic acid, 1953.

"We (Dr. H, Osmond and I), began to use nicotinic acid nicotinamide and ascorbic acid in large doses for treating acute schizophrenics in 1951....Our first two double blind experiments showed that patients who were given vitamin B3 in doses of at least three grams per day had a much better prognosis compared to those who received placebo....I had been placing almost all the patients under my care on the vitamin, whether acute or chronic, and eventually I began to accumulate evidence that it did have substantial activity but that it took a long time for it to become manifest, and it required the use of other nutrients and medication as well, ..."

Note that this treatment took a long time to work. This is a long article and it has tables to demonstrate the effect of vitamin therapy works. That apparent effect was illusionary.

http://www.orthomed.org/links/papers/hofschz.htm

Culture-Bound Syndromes  More on separate Site Page

Around the world are a group of culture based mental events which seem to correspond to the DSM diagnosis of temporary dissociative or psychotic disorder. There is sudden unexplained onset, a reaction based on the person's cultural value system and understanding of the event, then  there is usually a recovery with no treatment. It is not possible to determine the stimulation rate but in the case of Icelandic Disease and Windigo Psychosis the events happen while confined in small living spaces during cold winter weather. Latah, which occurs in Malaysia, is connected to longhouses where entire villages live in one large open house.  Chaco Canyon  Culture Bound Syndromes same as "more" link above.

Qi Gong Psychotic Reaction or Deviation

In the  United States and China there has been the knowledge that long term use of this slow motion martial arts exercise form could cause mental problems and bizarre behavior. The cause was previously unknown. Qi Gong is performed for a few minutes per session except when it is done in retreats, or for medical purposes. Each person can subliminally see, detect, movement of others near them. This is an eyes-open exercise.

The number of incidents of  threat movement detection in Subliminal Peripheral Vision would decrease compared to ICU Psychosis since the exercise is only done for short  periods  Qi Gong Deviation

Kundalini Yoga 

A form of Yoga which instructors claim brings heightened awareness through meditation combined with exercise, has been practiced for more than 3000 years. The icon is a coiled serpent, a cobra. Yogis believe that the universal life force is awakened to cause the event they refer to as the Awakening of Kundalini.  This is believed to be a higher plane of existence.

But even the sites advocating Kundalini Yoga warn of possible mental problems if the 'Awakening' is not controlled.  When you read the letters from victims they relate situations and events that would be considered to be a clinical diagnosis in the DSM. There are accounts of hearing voices, thoughts of reference, beliefs of grandiosity, and beliefs that communication between minds by telepathy is possible, or is happening. Books on-line by advanced Yogis claim the ability to levitate and dematerialize. (How does something like this get by everyone?)

This practice of Yoga involves eyes-closed meditation and exercise periods where the poses are not held as in other Yoga forms. Stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision could only happen during the eyes-open portion of the session and therefore would be spread out over a longer time compared to Qi Gong. Kundalini Yoga has decreased detection incidents per unit of time. Kundalini Yoga

Icelandic Disease, Artic Hysteria , Windigo Psychosis

These Culture Bound Syndromes are cold weather events of the northern United States and Canada. They were typical of  Native American tribes in that area.  Each tribe would have different beliefs, ceremonies, and possibly even kinship relationships. The common element is close confinement of two or more persons in small cramped cabins during the over-wintering. Chaco Canyon  

Note, comparison: The two groups here would seem to be unrelated because one is caused by small numbers of family members in over-wintering cabins and the other involves large groups in large houses. But not having electricity in remote parts of Malaysia would mean that light for detail work would come from sitting near a window or door. Others in the village would have to walk by the concentrating worker to exit or enter.

Latah, Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome

Once an episode of men only in Malaysia, now women are victims an usually only in remote areas. What did men do that women now do to change the sex of victims. Normally outdoor work makes persons immune to this problem.  In 1880 there was an outbreak near Mooselake Maine. French Canadian lumberjacks exhibited symptoms similar to Latah. (Latah would have been unknown in 1880.) Medical dictionaries state that the phenomenon was suspected to have been caused by operant conditioning because of hypersuggestibility present in victims.

It may be that in the past men lived in communal houses doing work such as repairing and making weapons or tools. Today men leave home for work paying cash and Malaysian women perform duties that places them close beside others.  In the lumberjack case the economy of a lumber camp usually forced bunk house type living space. Short days, long nights, lengthened the time spent in those living arrangements.

The disorder was discovered at two different locations which argues that something about the internal features of bunkhouses at remote lumber camps caused the accidental operant conditioning by placing lumberjacks in a position that others would constantly walk beside them as they did some type knowledge or craft work.

The abstract at this PubMed  page  reports the result of a second evaluation of Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Syndrome.

"In the 7 men and 1 woman they studied, aged 55  to 77, onset ranged from 12 to 20 years, averaging 16 years. In 6 of 7 men, onset coincided with start of work as a lumberjack and the seventh had worsening of preexisting symptoms when he began work as a lumberjack. In 3 there was a positive family history. Saint-Hilaire et al. (1986) concluded that 'jumping' is not a neurologic disease but rather can be explained in psychologic terms as operant conditioning. The cases they studied were related to specific conditions in lumber camps in the 19th and early 20th centuries." 

      Site Quote copy/paste spelling is as copied

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=244100 

I mentioned at the top of this page that this incident recorded in the article abstract almost made the connection and discovery. Had those researchers known of the conflict of physiology they would have searched for the method of stimulation in peripheral vision,. I suggest it was the confined living quarters at remote lumber camps. Lumber camps worked year-round. Snow and frozen ground allowed the large tree trunks to be skidded to a storage site on a river. The spring thaw was the occasion to cast the winter harvest into the river so that water provided transportation to the mill. Short days and long nights would have provided the opportunity for heavy exposure to stimulation in peripheral vision.

Additional PubMed article abstracts

"We studied eight jumpers from the Because region of Quebec. In our opinion, this phenomenon is not a neurologic disease, but can be explained in psychological terms as operant conditioned behavior. Our cases were related to specific conditions in lumber camps in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=3528919

"Post-traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol withdrawal states and schizophrenia all have abnormal startle as a clinical feature secondary to increased arousal and presumed disturbance of central neurotransmitter systems."    Site quote grammar and syntax as copied.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1410093
 

These abstracts contain limited information but without knowledge of the conflict of physiology by the writers it is unlikely the full text of an article contains enough additional information to be helpful.

Simple analysis of  Culture Bound Syndromes should demonstrate that  when there is a fast rate of stimulation the  onset is quick and there is a complete recovery with no treatment. When the stimulation is persistent but spread over  time  the onset is slower and the recovery slower.  In Icelandic Disease is known to cause permanent life disability.

Definitions

Accidental Operant Conditioning is a term that describes the phenomenon engineers discovered  while testing the first close-spaced workstations. They did not name the problem they discovered but did name the design features, Cubicle Level Protection. Neither the engineers or the psychologist who solved the design problem understood it. The engineers and manufacturers believe the problem only causes a temporary episode which resolves with no treatment.

Cubicle Level Protection The elements of workstation design which block the peripheral vision of a Knowledge worker in a business office. These consist of  corner seating positions where the converging walls block vision, distance from sources of movement and both opaque and semi-opaque panels, moveable walls. Increased distance to the source of detectable movement is included as well as differential lighting.

Subliminal Peripheral Vision A portion of your peripheral vision in which stationary objects are invisible. You can see an object only if it moves.

Subliminal Distraction A term in psychology and design that refers to the properties of physiology that sensor cells in vision and hearing do not stop sending signals to the brain when you dissociate slightly to concentrate. This happens when you work or study. In the United States only SD involving hearing is generally mentioned and recognized.

Sensorary Adaptability happens when sensor cells in hearing deplete chemically thus reducing signals sent when noise repeats such as in a busy factory. Micro movements of the eye refresh sensor cells on the rods and cones of the retina preventing depletion in sight. .

Current Theories

Chemical changes in the brain:

 The current theory of mental illness and it's treatment is based on finding chemical changes in the brains of the mentally ill.  This is a bizarre concept. These sudden onset episodes happen before any chemical change could have happened. The argument I was given to explain this is that the chemical changes happen later. If A causes B then A must come before B in space and time.

Critical Psychiatry Website quote

"Both the dopamine theory of schizophrenia (dopamine overactivity in schizophrenic brains) and the amine hypothesis of depression (amines depleted in depressed brains) arose following the introduction of psychotropic drugs, at a time when only few neurotransmitters had been discovered. Despite the subsequent discovery of a vastly more complex neurotransmitter network, psychiatrists still use such simplistic notions in their everyday management of patients when they explain that mental illness is due to "chemical imbalance"."

Site quote is copy/paste spelling as copied.

http://www.critpsynet.freeuk.com/criticalpsychiatry.htm
 

"Chemical Imbalance" Professor C Heather Ashton DM, FRCP August 28, 2001 University of Newcastle, School of Neurosciences, Division of Psychiatry, The Royal Victoria Infirmary

Until I have time to read all the articles linked to this site you can visit and do your own reading. The page indexed has a history of the "Chemical Imbalance Theory," and a history of how some of the drugs were discovered.

"There is probably a grain of truth in this idea, although it is now clear that it is a gross oversimplification. You just cannot just say schizophrenia = dopamine imbalance; depression = serotonin imbalance; anxiety = GABA imbalance, etc."   SiteQuote

http://www.benzo.org.uk/ashbarry.htm

PDF full article. http://www.blehert.com/downloads/Brain_Scan_Curious_Consensus.pdf

On The Validity of Brain Scans as Proofs of Psychiatric Theories by Dean Blehert

"Psychiatrists are attempting to refute the assertion that there's no real science behind psychiatry. The chief criticism is that psychiatry defines sets of symptoms as diseases caused by chemical imbalances in the brain (especially, lacks of certain neuro-transmitter chemicals) -- and does so with no evidence that any such chemical imbalances exist."  Blog article about the above paper.

http://www.blehert.com/essays/MRIs.htm

THE BIOLOGY OF MENTAL ILLNESS Jonathan Leo

"A recent brochure about clinical depression from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) states: "Substantial evidence from neuroscience, genetics, and clinical investigation shows that depressive illnesses are disorders of the brain. However, the precise causes of these illnesses continue to be a matter of intense research." Statements like this, where  he theory is affirmed while simultaneously acknowledging  that there is no specific evidence to support it, are common in the psychiatry literature."

http://psychrights.org/articles/Leo-BiologyofMentalIllnessOCR.pdf

A quote from Dr. Loren R. Mosher M.D. (deceased) Copy/Paste spelling as quoted Highlighting for emphasis

Today's dominant theory of serious "mental illnesses" posits them to be genetically determined (i.e., inherited), biochemically mediated (via "chemical imbalances"), life-long "brain diseases" (with associated specific neuropathologic changes) whose cause(s) and course is more or less independent of environmental factors is not supported by existing evidence. A critical review of the scientific available evidence reveals no clear indication of hereditary factors, no specific biochemical abnormalities, and no associated causal neurologic lesion(s). However, a number of environmental factors have been found to be related to their cause(s) and course (bibliography in preparation). It is also generally held that the anti-psychotic drugs are the mainstay of treatment and should, in most cases, be taken for a lifetime. In fact, the data indicate that neuroleptic drug treatment is not usually necessary (especially in persons newly identified as psychotic) if a proper interpersonal environment and social context is provided in alternatives to hospital care. It also appears that has drug treatment has resulted in less favorable long-term outcomes than was the case before anti-psychotic drugs were introduced. Furthermore, anti-psychotic drug treatment is associated with the induction of irreversible brain pathology (resulting in reduced intellectual and abnormal motor functioning) and shortened life expectancy. Pre-neuroleptic drug era long-term follow-up studies indicate that recovery can not only occur, but is to be expected in the majority of cases. Ergo, so called "chronicity" in "mental illness" is likely the result of its medicalization, institutionalization with its social network disruption, marginalization, discrimination and the less specific social consequences (e.g. poverty) that accompany these processes. (Copy/Paste quote)

Highlighting for emphasis

Quote URL         http://www.moshersoteria.com/litrev.htm

Psychology Today article by Dr Mosher     http://www.moshersoteria.com/psycho.htm

Front page Dr Loren Mosher 1933-2004     http://www.moshersoteria.com/index.htm

Dr Mosher was at one time the head of the NIMH. I learned of his death when I tried to email him.

As you delve in to this issue it becomes evident that there are problems in Psychiatry. This next link is off point to this page but has the debate on politics and medicine, psychiatry, contained in two emails.

 Political Bias and Reality  ----      http://www.corsello.com/articles/orthomolecular_medicine_article.htm

In the 1840's 3/4 of schizophrenia victims recovered within one year.

"There have been a number of studies over many years about the "natural course" of the illness of schizophrenia with widely varying results. In America, in the 1840s when we had moral treatment and believed God would heal people, apparently about 3/4 of people recovered and went back to their lives in 1 year. In the 1890’s, Kraeplin observed a uniform downhill deteriorating course without recovery in his hospital in Germany. The recent Maine and Vermont longitudinal studies of people released from the back wards of hospitals to the community in the 1960’s, showed that at least half recovered and became functional again. In our present era of stabilization on medication and SSI benefits, less than 1% ever get off SSI and become self-supporting. What we can reasonably conclude from these differing results is that the outcome of schizophrenia is very plastic. Therefore, the outcomes can be altered drastically by how we respond to the illness."
 

Mark Ragins M D

Remember that hospital confinement may supply exposure to Subliminal Distraction just as classrooms, and  unprotected business offices can.
 

http://www.village-isa.org/Ragin's%20Papers/Hope%20and%20Schizophrenia.htm 

The "Chemical Imbalance" in Mental Health Problems
By Joseph M. Carver, PhD

"This article has been developed and written for use