by yumintanlive | Sep 25, 2019 | Meditation, Psychology & Mental Health
I remember my friend asking me this when we were chatting one day, “Meditation? You mean we can solve problems by just sitting down?”. Then I just smiled because it is not something that can be explained in such simple terms. My friend’s question has also reflected a misunderstanding that the majority of people have towards meditation.
There are many kinds of meditation, and you don’t always have to be sitting down. Meditation is a way of managing our thoughts. When we are practicing meditation, we might appear not to be doing anything, but certain parts of our brain are actually already undergoing changes because of our meditation. The way we think, perceive and feel will also change accordingly.
Meditation is already being widely used in psychiatric treatment in the US, especially for mental illnesses caused by trauma, with the most commonly known illness being post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Meditation has also proven to be very effective in treating anxiety, depression, addiction, obsessive compulsive disorders, as well as anger management.
American Veterans (AMVETS) began to introduce the practice of meditation as part of their trauma therapy for war veterans over the last few years. Many research results have shown that meditation has substantially reduced a variety of PTSD-related symptoms. Some of the major trauma treatment research centers in the US have also begun to provide trauma-related meditation training programs for psychiatrists so that they can offer more alternatives for patients.
What is Meditation?
Meditation is a method of managing and training our thoughts. We can classify meditation into two major categories based on the difference in their points of focus:
The first category is Focus Attention Meditation. The practitioner would focus his attention on a single object, such as breathing, chanting, frame of mind, a particular part of his body etc. For example, the meditation as part of Kundalini yoga belongs to this category. As the practitioner improves over time, his concentration will become more focused and stable, and won’t get distracted easily.
The second category is Open Monitoring Meditation. The practitioner will observe his surrounding environment and his own self (thoughts, feelings, memories etc.) with an open mind, without being judgmental or inflexible. The aim of this is to help the practitioner achieve a state of total emptiness, so that he won’t easily fall into any instinctive or habitual responses. The commonly known practice of mindfulness belongs to this category.
The Use of Meditation in Trauma Recovery
Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist, breaks up the human brain into four levels according to the time sequence in which the brain develops and the complexity of the brain’s functions, namely brain stem, diencephalon, limbic system, and frontal cortex.
The brain stem is at the lowest level and the frontal cortex is at the highest level. The lowest level with the simplest structure regulates our basic skills and is developed first. The highest level with the most complex structure regulates the more complex functions and is developed at a later stage. Since the brain stem is responsible for regulating our breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, as well as controlling our body’s automatic survival function, it is developed the earliest. The frontal cortex controls our high-level functions such as logic, language, risk assessment and concentration, it is only fully developed at around the age of 20.
In my article “Understanding Brain Structure Through Trauma”, I mentioned that “the smooth operation of the brain stem is extremely important for the development of the frontal cortex”. Since the brain stem of people with PTSD is already seriously damaged, talk therapy will only have limited effectiveness because their brain is mainly focused on survival rather than logic.
According to Bruce Perry, it is possible to cure and strengthen the function of the brain stem through providing repetitive and pattern activities.Such repetitive and pattern somatosensory activities include dancing, breathing, meditation, yoga etc. These activities can greatly reduce anxiety, impulsiveness and other trauma-related symptoms.
Furthermore, research has shown that there was an obvious reduction in the volume of brain cells in the amygdala for a normal person who continuously practiced meditation for eight weeks, therefore his fear, stress and anxiety have also eased substantially. The thickness of his hippocampus cortex will increase, so his learning ability, memory and creativity will also improve accordingly. Meditation can change the way we think, our perceptions and feelings through changing our brain’s structure, thereby improving our mental health. So even if you don’t have trauma-related or other psychiatric illnesses, practicing meditation can also have many benefits.
How to Develop a Meditation Routine?
When we mention meditation, many people’s first reaction would be that they don’t have time. Firstly, in my opinion, meditation is the “me” time that we should leave for ourselves every day. Venerable Master Hsing Yun is 89 years old and has almost lost his eyesight by now. In one of his interviews, he was asked if he gets tired from being so busy at such an old age. The master answered, “Being busy is also a kind of training, being busy can accomplish a lot of things. Try to remain calm even when you’re busy. As long as you feel calm, your physical exhaustion will recover after some rest. You can achieve anything if your heart is at peace.”
In fact, if we can just eat while we’re eating, and just have a meeting during a meeting, we can remain in a state of meditation all the time. However, in reality, we always tend to think about where we should go after our meal instead of paying attention the true flavors of our food; we often also tend to worry about the report that we’re going to present to our boss at meetings. This is why our hearts are never “at peace”, so how can our hearts not be tired at the end of each day?
Our daily meditation practice is the time that we leave for hearts to train and manage our emotions and thoughts.As long as we can allow a bit of time each day to meditate, go for walks, take deep breaths, chant or practice other meditation methods, we will gradually be able to focus and relax even when we are busy with our everyday tasks.
Choosing the meditation method that is suitable for yourself is very important, this will help you make it become a habit.Some people may feel at peace more easily in a quiet environment, so methods such as walking, breathing and meditation are more suitable for them. People who get distracted easily may find methods such as chanting, body movements and meditation with instructions or music more helpful when trying to achieve a state of peace. I would suggest you to try out different meditation methods, and then decide on the method that you like before you begin in depth practice.
Meditation is not restricted by time and place. As long as you want to, you can meditate in any situation.However, a designated environment and time will help you enter a state of peace more easily and help you establish meditation as a good habit, such as building your own meditation “space”. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a big and solemn space; just enough to put your favorite cushion, a beautiful candle, a portrait that inspires you, or a book that you like etc. If you can go back to the same place to practice meditation each day, you will feel at ease and relaxed.
Furthermore, if you incorporate meditation into your everyday routine,such as meditation before breakfast, after you come home from work, or before you go to sleep at night, this will help make it a habit. Try to not meditate after a big meal because your blood circulation will concentrate in your digestive system and it will be very difficult to focus. Doing neck and back stretching exercises or yoga poses before meditation can help relax your muscles and increase blood circulation, thereby making it easier to focus during meditation and enter a state of peace. At the end of meditation, spend three to five minutes to totally relax, have a cup of hot tea, have a snack, or simply lie down. Our consciousness will reconnect with our body and get on with the new tasks. Now let’s go back to my friend’s question, “Meditation? You mean we can solve problems by just sitting down?”. I think meditation can help you understand your intentions and thoughts. Just like a domino effect, if you already know that you will cause a series of reactions by pushing the first tile, perhaps you will be wiser and more cautious before you choose whether or not you should do something. Sometimes not doing something might be the better choice. So based on this point, perhaps we can really solve problems by just “sitting down”.
References：
Hölzel BK1, Carmody J, Vangel M, Congleton C, Yerramsetti SM, Gard T,& Lazar SW.(2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Res, 191(1):36-43.
Perry, B. D. (2009). Examining child maltreatment through a neurodevelopmental lens: Clinical applications of the neurosequential model of therapeutics. Journal Of Loss & Trauma, 14(4), 240-255.
Steinberg, C. A., & Eisner, D. A. (2015). Mindfulness-based interventions for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. The International Journal Of Behavioral Consultation And Therapy, (4), 11.
Van der Kolk, B. (2005). Developmental trauma disorder: Towards a rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories. Psychiatric Annals, 35,401-408.
Waechter, R. , & Wekerle, C. (2014). Promoting Resilience Among Maltreated Youth Using Meditation, Yoga, Tai Chi and Qigong: A Scoping Review of the Literature. Child And Adolescent Social Work Journal, 32(1), 17-31.
by yumintanlive | Aug 28, 2019 | Psychology & Mental Health, Public Speaking and Workshops
How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime？
Vincent Felitti, a US doctor, and his team conducted a research on adverse childhood experience (ACE) in 1995. They conducted research on more than 17,000 targets and discovered a strong relationship between ACE and the health of their adulthood. In their research on ACE, negative childhood experiences included:
- Physical abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Physical negligence
- Emotional negligence
- Violence between parents
- Parents with mental illnesses
- Parents with drug addiction or imprisonment
- Parents being separated or divorced
Among the research targets in 1995 (the majority being middle class white-collar workers with college degrees), almost 2/3 of them have had one or more ACEs, with 1/8 of them having an ACE score of greater than four. In this research, the greater the ACE score, the more likely it is to develop physical and mental illnesses during adulthood. ACE is closely related to a variety of physical and mental problems in adulthood, such as alcoholism, obesity, insomnia, depression, suicidal tendency, sexually transmitted diseases, heart diseases etc.
Prologue
When I first joined the trauma team at the hospital and began doing psychiatric counseling, I knew I was going to work with young patients with a variety of childhood traumas. So I was prepared to put in a lot of time and patience in the trauma therapy process. However, I was still shocked by the many different kinds of cases that I encountered.
This has made me realize the uniqueness of trauma therapy for minors. Since minors aren’t independent enough, there tends to be uncontrollable factors that may come up during the counseling process. So it is necessary to take their surrounding environment into consideration. Some of the traumas that these children have experienced include poverty (yes, the most recent research report has proven that growing up in extreme poverty is a kind of chronic trauma); either parent or both parents with drug addiction, serious mental illnesses, are imprisoned for crime or have passed away so there’s nobody to look after the child; the child having experienced physical or sexual abuse etc.
The majority of these families required financial assistance from the government. Some of the children were still living with their immediate families, but some of them were temporarily allocated to foster families by the US Child Protective Services because their parents have temporarily lost their right of custody. Statistics have shown that more than 600,000 children were placed into temporary foster families in 2016. This figure usually remains at more than 500,000 every year.
In conclusion, children with ACEs will often continue to live in an unstable or traumatic environment.
Therefore, a lot of unexpected situations came up during my counseling sessions with children and their families. For example, parents would suddenly cancel our appointment because they had to work to earn a living; there might be more than one child in a foster family so the foster parents didn’t have an available time or place to meet with me because they already had too many appointments; the parents or relatives might still be involved in a custody lawsuit so we couldn’t progress with the therapy until the child’s placement was certain; sometimes I’d have no choice but to reduce the number of my visits due to the child’s area being quite an unsafe neighborhood etc.
Trauma Systems Therapy involves a number of effective components from Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) such as offering psychological education to the child and his family, stress relief and relaxation exercises, emotional management, self-recognition exercises etc. It also takes the minor’s surrounding environment into consideration. This includes helping the minor change his living environment, establishing family bonding, establishing a safe environment, communicating and working with the minor’s social-ecological model (school, doctors, child protective services, courts etc.), promoting the minor’s rights, assisting with mental illness medication etc.
In China, a lot of children are experiencing living, medical and schooling difficulty due to poverty. There are children with physical disabilities which have led to recovery, care, nursing and social difficulty. There are also children whose safety is being threatened or violated due to a lack of or inappropriate custody whereby they are being abused, abandoned, hurt in accidents, illegally treated etc. Although a lot of children can still survive amidst such adverse environments, many reports have shown that such adverse environments will cause lifelong damage to their physical and mental health in their adulthood. Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) may suggest new concepts for social workers and psychiatrists and help them assist and support these children with problems.
Dawning Public Lecture
29thSession
The Application of Trauma Systems Therapy
in Helping Children with Problems
Beijing Time: Saturday 11 August
21:00 – 22:30
Speaker: Yumin Tan
Main Contents:
- Trauma Systems Therapy
- Definition of trauma systems therapy
- Definition, contents and application of social-ecological model in trauma therapy
- Procedures of Trauma Systems Therapy
- Preliminary assessment
- Treatment plan of trauma systems therapy
- Preliminary preparation
- Introduction of different phases and components
- Introduction of treatment methods
How to Register for the Public Lecture
Step 1: Share this open lecture notice on your Moments and screenshot it from your Profile page. Scan the QR code below and add “Dao Ning Open Lecture Assistant” to your Friends list, then send the screenshot photo that you took in Step 1 to “Dao Ning Open Lecture Assistant”.
Step 2:After “Dao Ning Open Lecture Assistant” receives your photo, it will add you to its Friends list and invite you to the “Open Lecture” WeChat group, meaning that your registration has been successful. Registration Deadline: 18:00 one day prior to the lecture. (Registrations will be processed at 18:00 each day, your patience is appreciated should you didn’t get invited into the chat group immediately)
Step 3: Access to the open lecture will be announced in the WeChat group three days prior to the date of the lecture.
by yumintanlive | Aug 28, 2019 | Psychology & Mental Health, Public Speaking and Workshops
Recently it has been my honor to be one of the speakers at the promotion of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) project that is jointly hosted by the state government and Brown University.
As part of the project, I hosted a workshop relating to leadership ability and style. The workshop mainly used the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to test and assess these young leaders’ leadership ability and styles. MBTI is a character assessment theory that was developed based on a Swiss psychiatrist, Jung’s theory of psychological types. Approximately 3.5 million people participate in the MBTI assessment annually. 80% of the top 500 financial corporations in the world utilize the MBTI assessment for important decisions such as recruitment, the pairing of staff and roles, establishment of teams and departments etc. MBTI can also be used for career planning, social network development and interaction, marriage education, improvement of learning and workplace efficiency etc.
MBTI indicates a personality trend, there is no right or wrong answer because every person has different habits. MBTI suggests that every person would express his personal behavior, skills and attitude based on his own personality type, and every MBTI personality type has its potential as well as shortcomings.
MBTI assesses and describes a person’s personality trend in receiving messages, making decisions and perceiving life in four dimensions. These four dimensions are:
How we get energized:Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I)
How we take in information: Sensing (S) – Intuition (N)
How we make decisions:Thinking (T) – Feeling (F)
How fast we make decisions:Judging (J) – Perceiving (P)
None of these personality results are better or worse, our society needs different types of talents. The important point is to understand one’s direction of development and make a wise career plan, improve learning and workplace efficiency and improve interaction with others. Similarly, a corporation can only design the appropriate encouragement mechanism, establish the ideal team to fulfill its needs and improve interaction between different departments if it has a full understanding of its staff.
by yumintanlive | Aug 28, 2019 | Psychology & Mental Health
What Is Trauma?
Bessel van der Kolk, a US psychiatrist, defines trauma as an experience or disaster that leaves people in a state of helplessness and terror, thereby losing the ability to deal with the problems, threats and disasters in everyday life. Traumatic incidents can cause profound and lasting changes in our physiology, emotions, cognition and memory, as well as cutting off the connections between these four components.
Trauma can be classified as one-off trauma or continuous and repetitive trauma. One-off traumas include serious accidents (car accidents, robbery etc.), natural or man-made disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis etc.), terrorist attacks etc. Continuous and repetitive traumas include long-term sexual abuse, physical abuse (physical violence), emotional abuse (verbal abuse and control), serious illnesses, wars etc. Both one-off traumas as well as continuous and repetitive traumas can cause serious psychological and physical harm for the survivors and witnesses of traumatic incidents.
What Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
Not all traumatic experiences will lead to trauma response or trauma-related illness or diagnoses.
After a trauma, people will become nervous, anxious and will even have nightmares. These are all normal reactions to traumatic incidents. Once they spend some time recovering and adjusting with the help from family and friends, the majority of people will be able to get on with their lives again. However, a small portion of people will develop psychological illnesses relating to the trauma and the most commonly seen illness is called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-5) noted that the symptoms of PTSD include: (1) nightmares and intrusive memories where sufferers will experience flashbacks of the traumatic incident again (2) avoiding people, incidents, objects, places and scenes that are related to the traumatic incident (3) pessimistic thoughts and feelings eg. not trusting people around them, not showing interest in things that happen around them, blaming themselves etc. (4) excessive arousal and reactivity eg. being impatient, aggressive, impulsive, overly alert, finding it difficult to focus etc. Sufferers can only be diagnosed as having PTSD if such symptoms persist for at least one month.
How Trauma Can Cause A “Short Circuit” In Our Brain
According to Joseph LeDoux, a neurologist who conducted research on how our brain processes emotions, our brain has two systems which process our emotions, namely high road and low road. These emotion-processing systems are especially important to our ability to survive.
As an external danger signal enters our brain, it will enter the low road first. The low road has a tissue called amygdala which will cause our body to become more tense and alert so that we are ready to make an emergency response. This is the renowned fight or flight response mechanism. It is an unconscious channel and doesn’t contain any contextual messages. It is very quick but lacks details.
Then the danger signal will enter the high road – cortex (sensory cortex, frontal lobe and temporal lobe storage system). The main function of the cortex is to assess and analyze danger signals, and then send this signal to the amygdala to confirm whether or not this danger signal will be a threat to us. If it won’t pose as a threat, the amygdala will send a signal to relax our body.
For example, when you are walking in a zoo one day, you suddenly notice a tiger walking towards you. Your body will instinctively enter into a very tense condition, you will start to sweat and your heart will begin to race (danger signal has reached the amygdala). As you are about to flee the scene, you suddenly realize that the tiger is locked up inside a cage (danger signal has reached the cortex). Once you realize there is nothing to be scared of, you let out a breath of relief, your body will relax and you will decide to keep walking around the zoo.
The difference between normal people and sufferers of PTSD is that when normal people receive a danger signal, after the signal enters the low road, it will be able to enter the high road so that an assessment can be made as to whether or not it is dangerous, then our body can respond accordingly. But as for sufferers of PTSD, the danger signal will get stuck in the low road and won’t be able to enter the high road where it will be assessed. So their body will always remain in an emergency response condition eg. increasing heart rate, breathing difficulty, anxiety, paralyses etc.
In our previous example, if you have been chased by a tiger before and almost lost your life (traumatic incident) and you haven’t recovered from that incident, when you see a tiger at the zoo again, it is very likely that you will immediately become paralyzed. Your mind will become a total blank (the cortex is unable to rationally analyze the danger signal), so you won’t be able to calm yourself down. The false threat will become a real threat to you.
For sufferers of PTSD, survival is their core aim. Everything in life can trigger memories of their trauma eg. hearing the song that was being played when the car accident happened, a similar smell as that of the clothes of your perpetrator, having a nightmare that is related to your trauma etc. This can cause the victims to lose control and feel that they have gone back to the scene of their trauma because their danger signal is stuck in the low road again.
Trauma will also seriously affect the internal order of the brainstem. Brainstem, also known as the survival brain, is responsible for controlling our breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure etc. It plays a vital role in keeping us alive. Brainstem also controls our body’s instinctive automatic survival function. In order to effectively perform high-level functions such as languages, social and emotional interactions, create inventions and innovations etc., the functional network which supports our basic needs must remain in good condition. However, trauma can disrupt the internal order of our brainstem, thereby making people feel anxious, impulsive and disoriented. It will then be very difficult for people to develop social skills, improve self-esteem, participate in creative and innovative training programs and thereby benefit from such activities.
References:
American Psychiatric Association (2010).DSM-5
Brendtro, L. K. (2015). Our resilient brain: Nature’s most complex creation. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 24(2), 41-49.
MacKinnon, L.(2012). The neurosequential model of therapeutics: an interview with Bruce Perry. Australian & NewZealand Journal Of Family Therapy, 33(3), 210-218.
Perry, B. D. (2009). Examining child maltreatment through a neurodevelopmental lens: Clinical applications of the neurosequential model of therapeutics. Journal Of Loss & Trauma, 14(4), 240-255. Dealing with the Effects of Trauma-A Self-Help Guide SAMHSA http://www.samhsa.gov
Saxe, G. N., Ellis, B. H., & Kaplow, J. B. (2007). Collaborative treatment of traumatized children and teens [electronic resource] : the trauma systems therapy approach /
Glenn N. Saxe, B. Heidi Ellis, Julie B. Kaplow. New York : Guilford Press, [2007].
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York : Viking, [2014].
by yumintanlive | Aug 28, 2019 | Astrology, Evolutionary Astrology
I know that modern science will never be able to scientifically prove astrology for as long as I live. So rather than making a statement, I’m just going to discuss why modern science can’t validate astrology, but astrology still possesses huge research meaning and value.
Integrity vs Bias
The research of material science emphasizes on the collection and rational analysis of data. If we were to say that such a research method is suitable for all kinds of research targets, it would be a biased statement. Firstly, not everything can be quantified, such as creativity and love. Secondly, material science can’t satisfy the deeper needs of human. Although it can bring about convenience and comfort for our everyday lives, such as high speed rails, computers, telephones etc., it is unable to satisfy our spiritual and inner needs. Thirdly, the development of world civilization has widened the gap between us and the natural world. This phenomenon has caused human to deny the integrity of the universe. This can be reflected in the ecological crisis that we are facing right now, which has resulted from a lack of understanding of the overall ecosystem by human.
Since astrology is the study of how people should blend in with the universe and the law of nature, and to go with the flow in order to achieve better growth, the denial of integrity by modern people has led to them not believing in astrology. Does age-old wisdom really need to be proven by modern science in order to be valid? In other words, just because Western science can’t fully prove the theory of Chinese medicine, does that mean Chinese medicine is ineffective?
Nature vs. Nurture
John Bowlby’s attachment theory is currently one of the most popular theories in the field of child psychology and growth. The basis of the theory is that the connection and interaction between a child and his caregiver is an important factor in deciding the child’s behavioral development in the future.Between the age of zero and five, when children receive adequate love and care from their caregivers, they will have more courage to explore and discover more about this world. On the contrary, if they lack security, they would avoid this world instead. Such a pattern will continue until the children become adults. In modern psychological terms, this is called nurture, whereby the environment that a person grows up in will be a deciding factor in his growth.
However, there is also another kind of situation in reality. It has been observed that some children are born to be livelier and more active, whereas others are shier and more introverted; some are more stubborn while others are more flexible. This is the temperament theory as suggested by Carl Jung, which states that every child is born into this world with his own unique character.They will interact with this world in their own unique way, this is called the nature theory. Parents with more than two children will definitely understand what I’m talking about.
It is not possible to prove the nature theory with modern science, but it definitely exists. There is still no conclusion to the ongoing nature vs. nurture debate. From an astrological perspective, every person’s unique traits are reflected by their birth charts, but at the same time, astrology is the study of people’s life journey and cycles, so the challenges and opportunities that people might face in their later development can also be observed from the astrolabe.
Challenges Posed by Quantum Physics for Research Targets
All scientific research requires research targets. In order for us to obtain accurate data, it is necessary for our research targets to remain constant so that we can accurately measure different hypotheses. However, along with the development of quantum physics, this has become impossible as our research has led to the minimization of units for all matter, such as atoms and electrons. Since they are extremely light in mass, these particles are constantly in motion. Even the tiniest and lightest measuring instrument is unable to measure them. Once the measuring instrument discovers them, they would escape.This proves that it is impossible for research targets to remain constant and not be affected by observers. In other words, it is proven that research conducted on research targets cannot be fully accurate. This has broken the theory of traditional physics, so the target of observation cannot exist in independence of the observer. The target of observation and the observer is a unified whole.This idea of a unified whole is also evident in different philosophies and religions. For example, Taoism promotes living in harmony with “the Way”, Buddhism emphasizes on the inexistence of oneself, Para Vidya as practiced in Hinduism etc. Although I’m not sure what the future trend of scientific development might be, it is certain that the current research methods won’t be able to fully prove and validate astrology.
In conclusion, the reason why astrology has gained such a negative reputation in the scientific and academic fields over the past decades is because the majority of astrologists have emphasized on foretelling and making predictions, rather than focusing on a person’s inner life. Using astrology as a tool for self-development and achievement should be the direction for modern astrology.
