Freud's Hysteria Theory Backed by Patient's Brain Scans

[BruceMC]

Georgie Oldfield just posted this on Facebook, so I thought I'd steal her thunder and post it here because it confirms so much of Dr Sarno's theory about the repressed emotions behind TMS pain:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/freud-s-hysteria-theory-backed-by-patients-brain-scans.html

With all due gratitude to Georgie. I know that Peter Zafirides already likes this.

I know that my late mother started to have seizures the no one could adequately explain just after she and my father both retired. No one among her immediate relatives developed any such seizures. However, when she retired this was the first time my mother had to live in the same space continuously with my tyrannical, brow beating, narcissistic father. Makes sense in terms of what these brain scans demonstrate.

 

[North Star]

Wow. That's fascinating, Bruce! And a hat tip to Georgie too.

 

[Ellen]

Great article! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

BruceMC. my mother hated it when my stepfather retired and was home all the time.
He was a very unhappy man and just drank and watched sports on tv. He didn't last long.

I'm 83 and never want to retire. I work at home as a writer and have two jobs and love them both.
They keep me busy and my mind active. At night I watch a movie (usually an old one on DVD)
or nature or history documentaries.

My older brother retired and mainly sat in front of the tv watching the stock market ticker tape.
I can't see that, either.

 

[BruceMC]

Oh, there was no stress after they retired as long as my mother was traveling with her sister to Europe, Australia, China, Egypt, New Zealand etc. etc. My father would even travel with her to Mexico (as long as she paid for everything). It's when they had to live together under the same roof for extended periods of time. The prototypical Nietzschean 'Man of Power' still needed to give orders, unfortunately the only one left to give orders to was my late mother. No exit a la Jean Paul Sartre. No way out except illness or death. Or, in my mother's case, mysterious seizures that no one could diagnose.

 

[chickenbone]

I retired at age 55, sort of forced. I have not done well in retirement because of boredom and lack of things to do. If I had it to do over, I would not have retired. I am trying hard now to reinvent myself in retirement. Walt, you are so lucky to love your jobs and to be able to do them at home. My husband is 8 years older and needed to retire, and it turned out that I would have lost my job anyway within 2 years, so I kind of had no choice.

 

[BruceMC]

That's what is happening to lots of 'War Babies', Chickenbone. A whole generational demographic. I read the other day that in California 25% of those in the 55-65 age bracket are out-of-work and not looking anymore. Just try to get a job in the Silicon Valley if you're over 40. It's strictly Suite 21-35: white or asian, single without kids only, at least in the corporate world. All others need not apply. You simple do have to reinvent yourself or learn to settle for personal satisfaction and a reduced standard of living. Statistics don't lie, but people do. In the meanwhile, it's a gorgeous day so I'm going to go out a ride my road bike, then go to the gym this evening. I just wonder about the 250,000 65+ people who are supposed to be living on the street in the Bay Area on SS and Medicare in 10 years? Will they just be going around with carts picking them up like during the Black Death in 1366? It may well be that the white World War II generation was the last one in the US who was able to retire securely. Catastrophizing, a classic TMS personality trait!