The Polyvagal Theory - Stephen W. Porges

[Lilou]

I am nearsighted, I only have one eye sharp enough for reading (optic nerve damage in the other one) and I need to find a better way to read small print. Any suggestions?

I think you just need more magnification. You could also have some astigmatism, which will distort the letters and make reading very difficult, even if there is enough magnification. So short of knowing your glasses prescription, I'd say get a new exam for reading glasses. Since you are reading a lot, just a reading only pair would be better than a bifocal. And a big bright reading lamp helps too! So sorry to hear about your nerve damage.

Sorry to be off topic. If the print is that small, I'll be getting some reading glasses for this task too!

 

[Gaby]

For all German speaking members, it seems that the Polyvagal theory is available in German:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/68-9783873877542-1

Should make it much easier!

I thought that this draft on basic brain anatomy would clarify some of the words mentioned in the book:

Basic Anatomy

The nervous system consists of two main divisions: central and peripheral.

The central nervous system (CNS) includes the cerebrum (A.K.A brain or cortex), cerebellum, brain stem, and spinal chord plus a few scary-sounding structures located between the brain stem and the brain, the diencephalon (which includes everything with the name “thalamus”; i.e. the thalamus, hypothalamus) and the basal ganglia (which includes the amygdala among others).

The basic functional unit in the CNS is the neuron. The electrical impulse travels down a neuron from its dendrites to the cell body and axon. Information then is chemically transmitted to other neurons via connections known as synapses. A chain of such communicating neurons is called pathway. Within the CNS, a bundle of pathway axons is called a tract, fasciculus, etc. Outside the CNS, bundles of axons are called nerves. As you can see, there are many different names to say the same thing.

Axons conduct the electrical impulse, the speed of conduction depending on fiber diameter. But efficiency of conduction also depends on good insulation, which is achieved by the myelin sheath. The myelin sheath coats the axon’s membrane and it is composed mainly of fat.

The brain is subdivided into frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes. These are further subdivided into bulges, called gyri, and indentations called sulci and fissures.

The brain stem contains three parts – the mid brain, pons, and medulla. The word “bulbar” refers to the brain stem and all its three parts. Bulbar comes from bulb and if you look at it, it does resemble a bulb from a plant. Keep that in mind when you hear about corticobulbar pathway.

Brain anatomy is very logical. You just have to look at a word to see what is telling you. Cortico comes from cortex (brain). Bulbar refers to the brain stem. So it is the pathway that goes from the brain to the brain stem.

The spinal chord contains central grey matter and peripheral white matter. The grey matter is rich in neurons. The white matter contains ascending and descending pathways corresponding to sensory and motor pathways respectively. The ascending pathway relays incoming information (sensory information- from senses, i.e. oooh, ice is really cold!) to the brain. All sensory pathways end up in the thalamus. From there, they are relayed to the sensory area of the brain.

The descending motor pathway (which allows us to kick something) is called the corticospinal pathway. Cortico comes from cortex, the brain. Spinal is the spinal chord. That means that it is the pathway that goes from your brain to your spinal chord, which then will relay information to the nerves in your leg that will make you kick something if you want to.

The corticospinal pathways synapses in the motor grey matter (which is called the “anterior horn”) of the spinal cord just prior to leaving the cord. Motor neurons above the level of this synapse (connecting the brain and anterior horn) are termed upper motor neurons, whereas those beyond this level (the peripheral nerve neurons) are termed lower motor neurons. It might sound complex, but it just a very specific way to say where is “up” and where is “down”.
As tedious as it might be, it is necessary because it is so specific that it is almost mathematical. When you are talking about an upper neuron or a corticobulbar pathway, it refers to something specific and nothing else. There is no space for misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

These motor and sensory pathways belong to the somatic motor (innervating skeletal muscles) and somatic sensory (innervating skin, muscle and tissues other than the viscera) systems. Somatic is just a fancy way to say body-related.

Within the context of the nervous system, afferent refers to sensory fibers that carry information to the brain, and efferents carry information away from it (i.e. motor efferent fibers that carry information from the brain to a muscle or organ).

The brain stem contains anatomic groupings of cell bodies known as nuclei which belong to cranial nerves, that is, nuclei is where cranial nerves like the vagus nerve will arrive to (afferents of the cranial nerves) or will originate from (efferents of the cranial nerves). Nuclei serve also as relay cells of ascending sensory or descending motor systems. The remaining cell groups of the brain stem, located in the central part (the grey matter), constitute a diffuse-appearing system of neurons with widely branching axons, known as the reticular formation.

The reticular formation creates a network called the reticular activating system which maintains attention and alertness. A difficulty in the control of attention may contribute to major symptoms associated with psychopathy. [A.R.Baskin-Sommers, J.D. Zeier, J.P. Newman. Self-reported attentional control differentiates the major factors of psychopathy. Personality and Individual Differences 47 (2009) 626–630.]

Opiate-like activity chemicals (endorphins) and their receptors have been found in various areas of the reticular formation including the grey matter surrounding the aqueduct, a canal running through the brain stem (hence its name, periaqueductal grey matter).

The peripheral nervous system (PNS) consists of cranial and spinal nerves. There are 12 pairs of cranial nerves from which the vagus nerve is the 10th.

The vagus is the heart of the parasympathetic system and it has extensive motor and sensory components with nerve trunks originating in the left and right sides of the brainstem. The vagus nerve is asymmetrical, with the left and right sides performing different tasks, with the right vagus having the most important role in heart rate determination. Efferent motor fibers from the vagus nerve originate primarily in two nuclei at the medulla (in the brain stem) called nucleus ambiguus and dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus. Afferent sensory fibers from the vagus nerve (80% of all the fibers of the vagus nerve) end up in the nucleus tractus solitarius in the medulla (brain stem).

The Autonomic Nervous System

The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), is the autonomic portion of the nervous system that takes place without conscious action on our part. It has to do with all those functions in our bodies that are involuntary, “unconscious”, i.e. the viscera. “Viscera” refers to heart muscle, smooth muscle (as in the gut) and glands.

The word autonomic comes from the root auto (meaning “self”) and nomos (meaning “law”).

Thanks to the ANS, our bodies respond automatically to changes in the physical or emotional environment. For example, when our bodies respond automatically with freaky sensations in response to a horror movie we are under the control of the ANS. Indeed, the autonomic nervous system is a marker of emotional activity.

The ANS is usually divided in two: sympathetic and parasympathetic. These two divisions have brain chemical differences and they also differ in embryological origin (from embryo or fetus. That is, a baby being formed in his mother’s womb) and function.

In the old theory, the one that is still quoted in textbooks and pretty much everywhere, specific physiological reactions (including brain reactions) following stress are often associated with the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. [In the polyvagal theory we’ll learn] that this is not necessarily the case.

The sympathetic system as a whole is generally associated with a catabolic system, that is, expending energy, as in flight or fight response to danger. The parasympathetic system is an anabolic system, conserving energy. Parasympathetic synapses typically lie very close to or within the viscera. The final synapse of the parasympathetic’s system contains the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, whereas the final synapse of the sympathetic system contains noradrenaline (a stress hormone), with the exception of certain synapses, as for sweating, that contain acetylcholine (i.e. are cholinergic).

 

[Mr. Premise]

Thanks, Psyche, this is helpful. My copy of Polyvagal Theory arrived this week (along with Life Without Bread) and it looks like it will be rougher sailing than Life Without Bread!

 

[Thomas Alan]

I ordered both books today. I will put the at the top of my reading stack when the arrive.

Mac

 

[Chu]

For Spanish speakers, here are two articles about the Polyvagal Theory that you might want to read:
http://www.stephenporges.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=6&Itemid=5
The first one, "Teoría Polivagal", is the transcription of a talk given by Porges. There are a few sentences missing, and the doctor who translated it is not very good at Spanish, but he conveyed the meaning quite well, so it might help to read this before reading the book. It is really interesting!!

The second one is one of his papers. Excellent!

In French, there is this article: http://www.stephenporges.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=8&Itemid=8

I haven't read it yet, so cannot comment on it.

Enjoy!

 

[Gawan]

For all German speaking members, it seems that the Polyvagal theory is available in German:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/68-9783873877542-1

Thanks for that and I forgot to mention it. And the price doesn't matter just a difference of 2-3 Euros to the original English (hardcover) book, the German (about 35€) one is a softcover.

I thought that this draft on basic brain anatomy would clarify some of the words mentioned in the book:

Basic Anatomy

[...]

Thanks for that Psyche, especially for DMNX which I couldn't find. What I didn't understand he mentions at the beginning of the book a lot the word orientation in connection with the heart, is it that simple: position in room etc. or something more complex?

 

[Gaby]

Thanks for that Psyche, especially for DMNX which I couldn't find. What I didn't understand he mentions at the beginning of the book a lot the word orientation in connection with the heart, is it that simple: position in room etc. or something more complex?

Yeah, for some reason I couldn't find any good pic about the DMNX in the web. It is "behind" the nucleus ambiguus. Dorsal:posterior, behind. The nucleus ambiguus is ventral (in the front).

The cardiac orienting reflex is related to "paying attention", "concentrating in something". It refers to a slow down of the heart rate that helps us to pay better attention to something that picked up our interest in our environment.

 

[mcb]

I came across this story this morning: Incognito: What's Hiding In The Unconscious Mind. The researcher, David Eagleman, has things to say that parallel certain elements of the Polyvagal Theory.

GROSS: Now, your theory is that the brain operates as a team of rivals. For instance, there's a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. There's a rational and an emotional system. Can you explain a little more your team-of-rivals concept of the brain?

Dr. EAGLEMAN: Yeah. Intuitively, it feels like there's a you. So when somebody meets Terry Gross, they feel like: Oh, yeah, that's one person. But in fact, it turns out what we have under the hood are lots of neural populations, lots of neural networks that are all battling it out to control your behavior.

And it's exactly a parliament, in the sense that these different political parties might disagree with one another. They're like a team of rivals in this way, to borrow Kearns Goodwin's phrase of this. They're like a team of rivals in that they all feel they know the best way to steer the nation, and yet they have different ways of going about it, just like different political parties do.

Does this sound vaguely familiar? On the one had we have the shifty little "i's" and on the other hand we have the idea from the Polyvagal Theory of different evolved pathways being selected at different times govern our responses.

Here is another interesting segment:

And, you know, people, when they get in car accidents or bicycle accidents, or even when their child is in danger or something like that, they'll often have these just sort of calm, bizarre thoughts about what's happening.

GROSS: Do you have a neurobiological explanation for that?

Dr. EAGLEMAN: No, this is actually the next thing I'm working on now. I mean, as far as the calmness goes, it is likely to involve the endorphin system. Endorphin stands for endogenous morphine. And this gets released in situations like this.

The Polyvagal Theory provides insight into what happens during "freeze" behavior. I have heard a lot about "fight or flight" over the years, and I always wondered why the other "f" ("freeze") never seemed to be mentioned. Eagleman offers us a picture of what might possibly go through the conscious mind during such a moment. He paraphrases David Livingston:

In his diary, he says something to the effect of, you know: Thank goodness that there's an omnipresent being who's so kind to us that in the moment of death, everything is so wonderful.

The broadcast contains other interesting ideas as well (link to transcript above).

 

[mcb]

I think you just need more magnification. You could also have some astigmatism, which will distort the letters and make reading very difficult, even if there is enough magnification.

I have damage to one optic nerve, which partially obscures my center of vision in that eye. The combined differing images from my two eyes make it particularly difficult to read 10 point or smaller type. Let me put it another way: Does anyone here know if there is there any kind of magnifier I should avoid, or that might be preferred? I really don't want to ruin my one good eye.

I will look into other possible aids. Up to now I haven't had enough reason to try to solve this problem, but now I seem to have a growing list of books that I can't read.

 

[Lilou]

Does anyone here know if there is there any kind of magnifier I should avoid, or that might be preferred? I really don't want to ruin my one good eye.

I will look into other possible aids. Up to now I haven't had enough reason to try to solve this problem, but now I seem to have a growing list of books that I can't read.

I do have some patients with central scotomas who simply patch the damaged eye & read monocularly. I do not specialize in low vision, but if you google "low vision aids" there are a lot of options. I thought this device was rather cool, and not too expensive. http://www.enasco.com/product/SN30424CQ If it can be plugged into a computer, it would be even better!

Magnifiers will not damage your good eye, but for sure, you'll want something you are comfortable with.

 

[dantem]

An article in Italian here. Read the pdf link at the bottom. Don't know if it's a good resume anyway.

 

[mcb]

This material seems to have a lot of practical applications. The connections with EE are apparent, and I am also making personal connections with living with Asperger's syndrome. I have made much progress over the years, but Polyvagal theory provides a basis for a physiological understanding of what happens, and suggests things to do about it that might not otherwise come to light. It is starting to help me understand why what I have done has worked, and where to focus now.

I just finished chapter 4 ("stress") and I am starting to understand, for example, why things that work for me now, socially, in a quiet setting break down in a noisy (normal) one. Faced with a noisy environment I lose much of my ability to understand speech, and this seems to point directly to a withdrawal of "vagal tone" and its effects on hearing. I have adapted to noisy situations, but in a way that prevents overload by discarding much of the information. I might as well get up and leave, and sometimes I do.

So far I have been concentrating on Porges' papers and now his book, to see directly what he has to say, but I have also started to search the forum and SOTT for other references. I can't be everywhere in the forum all of the time, and subjects such as this one can completely escape me even though I think I am following it closely. I came across one particularly helpful article here, an interview with Stephen Porges where he speaks in more-or-less ordinary English for once.

 

[whitecoast]

Liou, you might want to consider getting an ebook reader, such as an amazon kindle or tablet. Some ebook stores have limited selection, but but many let you load pdfs to read them on there as well. You can adjust text size to be as large or small as you wish. And though I don't advocate piracy, if you own a physical copy of a book it would be fair use to grab a copy of it somewhere on the net for your ebook reader. I hope that opens up some options. ;)

 

[Laura]

Reading Polyvagal Theory naturally made me think of Lobaczewski's numerous references to the "human instinctive substratum". The Polyvagal system fits that nomenclature quite well. So, I thought it might be useful to extract those references and collect them together here for comparison. The first mention of this is in his introductory story about "transpersonification".

May the reader please imagine a very large hall in an old Gothic university building. Many of us gathered there early in our studies in order to listen to the lectures of outstanding philosophers and scientists. We were herded back there – under threat - the year before graduation in order to listen to the indoctrination lectures which recently had been introduced.

Someone nobody knew appeared behind the lectern and informed us that he would now be the professor. His speech was fluent, but there was nothing scientific about it: he failed to distinguish between scientific and ordinary concepts and treated borderline imaginings as though it were wisdom that could not be doubted. For ninety minutes each week, he flooded us with naive, presumptuous paralogistics and a pathological view of human reality. We were treated with contempt and poorly controlled hatred. Since fun-poking could entail dreadful consequences, we had to listen attentively and with the utmost gravity.

The grapevine soon discovered this person’s origins. He had come from a Cracow suburb and attended high school, although no one knew if he had graduated. Anyway, this was the first time he had crossed university portals, and as a professor, at that!

“You can’t convince anyone this way!” we whispered to each other. “It’s actually propaganda directed against themselves.” But after such mind-torture, it took a long time for someone to break the silence.

We studied ourselves, since we felt something strange had taken over our minds and something valuable was leaking away irretrievably. The world of psychological reality and moral values seemed suspended as if in a chilly fog. Our human feeling and student solidarity lost their meaning, as did patriotism and our old established criteria. So we asked each other, “are you going through this too”? Each of us experienced this worry about his own personality and future in his own way. Some of us answered the questions with silence. The depth of these experiences turned out to be different for each individual.

We thus wondered how to protect ourselves from the results of this “indoctrination”. Teresa D. made the first suggestion: Let’s spend a weekend in the mountains. It worked. Pleasant company, a bit of joking, then exhaustion followed by deep sleep in a shelter, and our human personalities returned, albeit with a certain remnant. Time also proved to create a kind of psychological immunity, although not with everyone. Analyzing the psychopathic characteristics of the “professor’s” personality proved another excellent way of protecting one’s own psychological hygiene.

You can just imagine our worry, disappointment, and surprise when some colleagues we knew well suddenly began to change their world view; their thought-patterns furthermore reminded us of the “professor’s” chatter. Their feelings, which had just recently been friendly, became noticeably cooler, although not yet hostile. Benevolent or critical student arguments bounced right of them. They gave the impression of possessing some secret knowledge; we were only their former colleagues, still believing what those “professors of old” had taught us. We had to be careful of what we said to them. These former colleagues soon joined the Party.

Who were they, what social groups did they come from, what kind of students and people were they? How and why did they change so much in less than a year? Why did neither I nor a majority of my fellow students succumb to this phenomenon and process? Many such questions fluttered through our heads then. It was in those times, from those questions, observations and attitudes that the idea was born that this phenomenon could be objectively studied and understood; an idea whose greater meaning crystallized with time.

Many of us newly graduated psychologists participated in the initial observations and reflections, but most crumbled away in the face of material or academic problems. Only a few of that group remained; so the author of this book may be the last of the Mohicans.

It was relatively easy to determine the environments and origins of the people who succumbed to this process, which I then called “transpersonification”. They came from all social groups, including aristocratic and fervently religious families, and caused a break in our student solidarity to the order of some 6 %. The remaining majority suffered varying degrees of personality disintegration which gave rise to individual searching for the values necessary to find ourselves again; the results were varied and sometimes creative.

Even then, we had no doubts as to the pathological nature of this “transpersonification” process, which ran similar but not identical in all cases. The duration of the results of this phenomenon also varied. Some of these people later became zealots. Others later took advantage of various circumstances to withdraw and re-establish their lost links to the society of normal people. They were replaced. The only constant value of the new social system was the magic number of 6 %.

We tried to evaluate the talent level of those colleagues who had succumbed to this personality-transformation process, and reached the conclusion that, on average, it was slightly lower than the average of the student population. Their lesser resistance obviously resided in other bio-psychological features which were most probably qualitatively heterogeneous.

I found that I had to study subjects bordering on psychology and psychopathology in order to answer the questions arising from our observations; scientific neglect in these areas proved an obstacle difficult to overcome. At the same time, someone guided by special knowledge apparently vacated the libraries of anything we could have found on the topic; books were indexed, but not physically present.

Analyzing these occurrences now in hindsight, we could say that the “professor” was dangling bait over our heads, based on specific psychological knowledge. He knew in advance that he would fish out amenable individuals, and even how to do it, but the limited numbers disappointed him. The transpersonification process generally took hold only when an individual’s instinctive substratum was marked by pallor or certain deficits. To a lesser extent, it also worked among people who manifested other deficiencies in which the state provoked within them was partially impermanent, being largely the result of psychopathological induction.

This knowledge about the existence of susceptible individuals and how to work on them will continue being a tool for world conquest as long as it remains the secret of such “professors”. When it becomes skillfully popularized science, it will help nations to develop immunity. But none of us knew this at the time.

Nevertheless, we must admit that in demonstrating the properties of this process to us in such a way as to force us into in-depth experience, the professor helped us understand the nature of the phenomenon in a larger scope than many a true scientific researcher participating in this work in other less direct ways.

The everyday, ordinary, psychological, societal, and moral world view is a product of man’s developmental process within a society, under the constant influence of innate traits. Among these innate traits are mankind’s phylogenetically determined instinctive foundation, and the upbringing furnished by the family and the environment. No person can develop without being influenced by other people and their personalities, or by the values imbued by his civilization and his moral and religious traditions. That is why his natural world view of humans can be neither sufficiently universal nor completely true. Differences among individuals and nations are the product of both inherited dispositions and the ontogenesis of personalities.

It is thus significant that the main values of this human world view of nature indicate basic similarities in spite of great divergences in time, race, and civilization. This world view quite obviously derives from the nature of our species and the natural experience of human societies which have achieved a certain necessary level of civilization. Refinements based on literary values or philosophical and moral reflections do show differences, but, generally speaking, they tend to bring together the natural conceptual languages of various civilizations and eras.

The doctrinaire and propaganda-based Soviet system contains a characteristic built-in contradiction whose causes will be readily understandable toward the end of this book. Man’s descent from the animals, bereft of any extraordinary occurrences, is accepted there as the obvious basis for the materialistic world view. At the same time, however, they suppress the fact that man has an instinctive endowment, i.e. something in common with the rest of the animal world. If faced with especially troublesome questions, they sometimes admit that man contains an insignificant survival of such phylogenetic heritage, however, they prevent the publication of any work studying this basic phenomenon of psychology.

In order to understand humanity, however, we must gain a primary understanding of mankind’s instinctive substratum and appreciate its salient role in the life of individuals and societies. This role easily escapes our notice, since our human species’ instinctive responses seem so self-evident and are so much taken for granted that it arouses insufficient interest. A psychologist, schooled in the observation of human beings, does not fully appreciate the role of this eternal phenomenon of nature until he has years of professional experience.

Man’s instinctive substratum has a slightly different biological structure than that of animals. Energetically speaking, it has become less dynamic and become more plastic, thereby giving up its job as the main dictator of behavior. It has become more receptive to the controls of reasoning, without, however, losing much of the rich specific contents of the human kind.

It is precisely this phylogenetically developed basis for our experience, and its emotional dynamism, that allow individuals to develop their feelings and social bounds, enabling us to intuit other people’s psychological state and individual or social psychological reality. It is thus possible to perceive and understand human customs and moral values. From infancy, this substratum stimulates various activities aiming at the development of the mind’s higher functions. In other words, our instinct is our first tutor, whom we carry inside all our lives. Proper child-rearing is thus not limited to teaching a young person to control the overly violent reactions of his instinctual emotionalism; it also ought to teach him to appreciate the wisdom of nature contained and speaking through his instinctive endowment.

This substratum contains millions of years’ worth of bio-psychological development that was the product of species’ life conditions, so it neither is nor can be a perfect creation. Our well known weaknesses of human nature and errors in the natural perception and comprehension of reality have thus been conditioned on that phylogenetic level for millennia.

The common substratum of psychology has made it possible for peoples throughout the centuries and civilizations to create concepts regarding human, social, and moral matters which share significant similarities. Inter-epochal and interracial variations in this area are less striking than those differentiating persons whose instinctual human substratum is normal from those who are carriers of an instinctual bio-psychological defect, though they are members of the same race and civilization. It shall behoove us to return to this latter question repeatedly, since it has taken on a crucial importance for the problems dealt with in this book.

Man has lived in groups throughout his prehistory, so our species’ instinctual substratum was shaped in this tie, thus conditioning our emotions as regards the mining of existence. The need for an appropriate internal structure of commonality, and a striving to achieve a worthy role within that structure, are encoded at this very level. In the final analysis, our self-preservation instinct is rivaled by another feeling: the good of society demands that we make sacrifices, sometimes even the supreme sacrifice. At the same time, however, it is worth pointing out that if we love a man, we love his human instinct above all.

Our zeal to control anyone harmful to ourselves or our group is so primal in its near-reflex necessity as to leave no doubt that it is also encoded at the instinctual level. Our instinct, however, does not differentiate between behavior motivated by simple human failure and behavior performed by individuals with pathological aberrations. Quite the contrary: we instinctively tend to judge the latter more severely, hearkening to nature’s striving to eliminate biologically or psychologically defective individuals. Our tendency to such evil generating error is thus conditioned at the instinctual level.

It is also at this level that differences begin to occur between normal individuals, influencing the formation of their characters, world views, and attitudes. The primary differences are in the bio-psychical dynamism of this substratum; differences of content are secondary. For some people the sthenic instinct supersedes psychology; for others, it easily relinquishes control to reason. It also appears that some people have a somewhat richer and more subtle instinctual endowment than others. Significant deficiencies in this heritage nevertheless occur in only a tiny percentage of the human population; and we perceive this to be qualitatively pathological. We shall have to pay closer attention to such anomalies, since they participate in that pathogenesis of evil which we would like to understand more fully.

A more subtle structure of effect is built upon our instinctual substratum, thanks to constant cooperation from the latter as well as familial and societal child-rearing practices. With time, this structure becomes a more easily observable component of our personality, within which it plays an integrative role. This higher effect is instrumental in linking us to society, which is why its correct development is a proper duty of pedagogues and constitutes one of the objects of a psychotherapist’s efforts, if perceived to be abnormally formed. Both pedagogues and psychotherapists sometimes feel helpless, if this process of formation was influenced by a defective instinctual substratum.

Characteropathies reveal a certain similar quality, if the clinical picture is not dimmed by the coexistence of other mental anomalies (usually inherited), which sometimes occur in practice. Undamaged brain tissue retains our species’ natural psychological properties. This is particularly evident in instinctive and affective responses, which are natural, albeit often insufficiently controlled. The experience of people with such anomalies grows in the medium of the normal human world to which they belong by nature. Thus their different way of thinking, their emotional violence, and their egotism find relatively easy entry into other people’s minds and are perceived within the categories of the everyday world. Such behavior on the part of persons with such character disorders traumatizes the minds and feelings of normal people, gradually diminishing the ability of the normal person to use their common sense. In spite of their resistance, victims of the characteropath become used to the rigid habits of pathological thinking and experiencing. If the victims are young people, the result is that the personality suffers abnormal development leading to its malformation. Characteropaths and their victims thus represent pathological, ponerogenic factors which, by their covert activity, easily engender new phases in the eternal genesis of evil, opening the door to a later activation of other factors which thereupon take over the main role.

Frontal characteropathy: The frontal areas of the cerebral cortex (10A and B acc. to the Brodmann division) are virtually present in no creature except man; they are composed of the phylogenetically youngest nervous tissue. Their cyto-architecture is similar to the much older visual projection areas on the opposite pole of the brain. This suggests some functional similarity. The author has found a relatively easy way to test this psychological function, which enables us to grasp a certain number of imaginary elements in our field of consciousness and subject them to internal contemplation. The capacity of this act of internal projection varies greatly from one person to another, manifesting a statistical correlation with similar variegation in the anatomical extent of such areas. The correlation between this capacity and general intelligence is much lower. As described by researchers (Luria et al.), the functions of these areas, thought-process acceleration and coordination, seem to result from this basic function.

Damage to this area occurred rather frequently: at or near birth, especially for premature infants, and later in life as a result of various causes. The number of such perinatal brain tissue lesions has been significantly reduced due to improved medical care for pregnant women and newborns. The spectacular ponerogenic role which results from character disorders caused by this can thus be considered somewhat characteristic of past generations and primitive cultures.

Brain cortex damage in these areas selectively impairs the above mentioned function {this psychological function, which enables us to grasp a certain number of imaginary elements in our field of consciousness and subject them to internal contemplation.} without impairing memory, associative capacity, or, in particular, such instinct-based feelings and functions as, for instance, the ability to intuit a psychological situation. The general intelligence of an individual is thus not greatly reduced. Children with such a defect are almost normal students; difficulties emerge suddenly in upper grades and affect principally these parts of the curriculum which place burden on the above function.

The pathological character of such people, generally containing a component of hysteria, develops through the years. The non-damaged psychological functions become overdeveloped to compensate, which means that instinctive and affective reactions predominate. Relatively vital people become belligerent, risk-happy, and brutal in both word and deed.

Persons with an innate talent for intuiting psychological situations tend to take advantage of this gift in an egotistical and ruthless fashion. In the thought process of such people, a short cut way develops which bypasses the handicapped function, thus leading from associations directly to words, deeds, and decisions which are not subject to any dissuasion. Such individuals interpret their talent for intuiting situations and making split-second oversimplified decisions as a sign of their superiority compared to normal people, who need to think for long time, experiencing self-doubt and conflicting motivations.

Such “Stalinistic characters” traumatize and actively spellbind others, and their influence finds it exceptionally easy to bypass the controls of common sense. A large proportion of people tend to credit such individuals with special powers, thereby succumbing to their egotistic beliefs. If a parent manifests such a defect, no matter how minimal, all the children in the family evidence anomalies in personality development.

Drug-induced characteropathies: During the last few decades, medicine has begun using a series of drugs with serious side effects: they attack the nervous system, leaving permanent damage behind. These generally discreet handicaps sometimes give rise to personality changes which are often very harmful socially.

Streptomycin proved a very dangerous drug; as a result, some countries have limited its use, whereas others have taken it off the list of drugs whose use is permitted.

The cytostatic drugs used in treating neoplastic diseases often attack the phylogenetically oldest brain tissue, the primary carrier of our instinctive substratum and basic feelings.

Persons treated with such drugs progressively tend to lose their emotional color and their ability to intuit a psychological situation. They retain their intellectual functions but become praise-craving egocentrics, easily ruled by people who know how to take advantage of this. They become indifferent to other people’s feelings and the harm they are inflicting upon them; any criticism of their own person or behavior is repaid with a vengeance. Such a change of character in a person who until recently enjoyed respect on the part of his environment or community, which perseveres in human minds, becomes a pathological phenomenon causing often tragic results.

Schizoidia: Schizoidia, or schizoidal psychopathy, was isolated by the very first of the famous creators of modern psychiatry. From the beginning, it was treated as a lighter form of the same hereditary taint which is the cause of susceptibility to schizophrenia. However, this latter connection could neither be confirmed nor denied with the help of statistical analysis, and no biological test was then found which would have been able to solve this dilemma. For practical reasons, we shall discuss schizoidia with no further reference to this traditional relationship.

Literature provides us with descriptions of several varieties of this anomaly, whose existence can be attributed either to changes in the genetic factor or to differences in other individual characteristics of a non-pathological nature. Let us thus sketch these sub-species’ common features.

Carriers of this anomaly are hypersensitive and distrustful, while, at the same time, pay little attention to the feelings of others. They tend to assume extreme positions, and are eager to retaliate for minor offenses. Sometimes they are eccentric and odd. Their poor sense of psychological situation and reality leads them to superimpose erroneous, pejorative interpretations upon other people’s intentions. They easily become involved in activities which are ostensibly moral, but which actually inflict damage upon themselves and others. Their impoverished psychological worldview makes them typically pessimistic regarding human nature. We frequently find expressions of their characteristic attitudes in their statements and writings: “Human nature is so bad that order in human society can only be maintained by a strong power created by highly qualified individuals in the name of some higher idea.” Let us call this typical expression the “schizoid declaration”.

Human nature does in fact tend to be naughty, especially when the schizoids embitter other people’s lives. When they become wrapped up in situations of serious stress, however, the schizoid’s failings cause them to collapse easily. The capacity for thought is thereupon characteristically stifled, and frequently the schizoids fall into reactive psychotic states so similar in appearance to schizophrenia that they lead to misdiagnoses.

The common factor in the varieties of this anomaly is a dull pallor of emotion and lack of feeling for the psychological realities, an essential factor in basic intelligence. This can be attributed to some incomplete quality of the instinctive substratum, which works as though founded on shifting sand. Low emotional pressure enables them to develop proper speculative reasoning, which is useful in non-humanistic spheres of activity, but because of their one-sidedness, they tend to consider themselves intellectually superior to “ordinary” people.

The quantitative frequency of this anomaly varies among races and nations: low among Blacks, the highest among Jews. Estimates of this frequency range from negligible up to 3 %. In Poland it may be estimated as 0.7 % of population. My observations suggest this anomaly is autosomally hereditary.

A schizoid’s ponerological activity should be evaluated in two aspects. On the small scale, such people cause their families trouble, easily turn into tools of intrigue in the hands of clever and unscrupulous individuals, and generally do a poor job of raising children. Their tendency to see human reality in the doctrinaire and simplistic manner they consider “proper” – i.e. “black or white” - transforms their frequently good intentions into bad results. However, their ponerogenic role can have macrosocial implications if their attitude toward human reality and their tendency to invent great doctrines are put to paper and duplicated in large editions.

In spite of their typical deficits, or even an openly schizoidal declaration, their readers do not realize what the authors’ characters are really like. Ignorant of the true condition of the author, such uninformed readers tend to interpret such works in a manner corresponding to their own nature. The minds of normal people tend toward corrective interpretation due to the participation of their own richer, psychological world view.

At the same time, many other readers critically reject such works with moral disgust but without being aware of the specific cause.

Essential psychopathy: Within the framework of the above assumptions, let us characterize another heredity-transmitted anomaly whose role in ponerogenic processes on any social scale appears exceptionally great. We should also underscore that the need to isolate this phenomenon and examine it in detail became quickly and profoundly evident to those researchers – including the author - who were interested in the macrosocial scale of the genesis of evil, because they witnessed it. I acknowledge my debt to Kasimir Dabrowski in doing this and calling this anomaly an “essential psychopathy”.

Biologically speaking, the phenomenon is similar to color-blindness but occurs with about ten times lower frequency (slightly above 1/2%), except that, unlike color blindness, it affects both sexes. Its intensity also varies in scope from a level barely perceptive to an experienced observer to an obvious pathological deficiency.

Like color blindness, this anomaly also appears to represent a deficit in stimulus transformation, albeit occurring not on the sensory but on the instinctive level. Psychiatrist of the old school used to call such individuals “Daltonists of human feelings and socio-moral values”.

The psychological picture shows clear deficits among men only; among women it is generally toned down, as by the effect of a second normal allele. This suggests that the anomaly is also inherited via the X chromosome, but through a semi-dominating gene. However, the author was unable to confirm this by excluding inheritance from father to son.

Analysis of the different experiential manner demonstrated by these individuals caused us to conclude that their instinctive substratum is also defective, containing certain gaps and lacking the natural syntonic responses commonly evidenced by members of the species Homo Sapiens. Our species instinct is our first teacher; it stays with us everywhere throughout our lives. Upon this defective instinctive substratum, the deficits of higher feelings and the deformities and impoverishments in psychological, moral, and social concepts develop in correspondence with these gaps.

Our natural world of concepts – based upon species instincts as described in an earlier chapter - strikes the psychopath as a nearly incomprehensible convention with no justification in their own psychological experience. They think that customs and principles of decency are a foreign convention invented and imposed by someone else, (“probably by priests”) silly, onerous, sometimes even ridiculous. At the same time, however, they easily perceive the deficiencies and weaknesses of our natural language of psychological and moral concepts in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the attitude of a contemporary psychologist—except in caricature.

The average intelligence of the psychopath, especially if measured via commonly used tests, is somewhat lower than that of normal people, albeit similarly variegated. Despite the wide variety of intelligence and interests, this group does not contain examples of the highest intelligence, nor do we find technical or craftsmanship talents among them. The most gifted members of this kind may thus achieve accomplishments in those sciences which do not require a correct humanistic world view or practical skills. (Academic decency is another matter, however.) Whenever we attempt to construct special tests to measure “life wisdom” or “socio-moral imagination”, even if the difficulties of psychometric evaluation are taken into account, individuals of this type indicate a deficit disproportionate to their personal IQ.

In spite of their deficiencies in normal psychological and moral knowledge, they develop and then have at their disposal a knowledge of their own, something lacked by people with a natural world view. They learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to them. They also become conscious of being different from the world of those other people surrounding them. They view us from a certain distance, like a para-specific variety. Natural human reactions - which often fail to elicit interest to normal people because they are considered self-evident - strike the psychopath as strange and, interesting, and even comical. They therefore observe us, deriving conclusions, forming their different world of concepts. They become experts in our weaknesses and sometimes effect heartless experiments. The suffering and injustice they cause inspire no guilt within them, since such reactions from others are simply a result of their being different and apply only to “those other” people they perceive to be not quite conspecific. Neither a normal person nor our natural world view can fully conceive nor properly evaluate the existence of this world of different concepts.

A researcher into such phenomena can glimpse the deviant knowledge of the psychopath through long-term studies of the personalities of such people, using it with some difficulty, like a foreign language. As we shall see below, such practical skill becomes rather widespread in nations afflicted by that macrosocial pathological phenomenon wherein this anomaly plays the inspiring role.

A normal person can learn to speak their conceptual language even somewhat proficiently, but the psychopath is never able to incorporate the world view of a normal person, although they often try to do so all their lives. The product of their efforts is only a role and a mask behind which they hide their deviant reality.

Another myth and role they often play, albeit containing a grain of truth in relation to the “special psychological knowledge” that the psychopath acquires regarding normal people, would be the psychopaths’ brilliant mind or psychological genius; some of them actually believe in this and attempt to insinuate this belief to others.

In speaking of the mask of psychological normality worn by such individuals (and by similar deviants to a lesser extent), we should mention the book The Mask of Sanity; by Hervey Cleckley, who made this very phenomenon the crux of his reflections.

Egotism: We call egotism the attitude, subconsciously conditioned as a rule, to which we attribute excessive value to our instinctive reflexes, early acquired imaginings and habits, and individual world view. Egotism hampers a personality’s normal evolution because it fosters the domination of subconscious life and makes it difficult to accept disintegrative states which can be very helpful for growth and development. This egotism and rejection of disintegration in turn favors the appearance of para-appropriate reactions as described above. An egotist measures other people by his own yardstick, treating his concepts and experiential manner as objective criteria. He would like to force other people to feel and think very much the same way he does. Egotist nations have the subconscious goal of teaching or forcing other nations to think in their own categories, which makes them incapable of understanding other people and nations or becoming familiar with the values of their cultures.

Paramoralisms: The conviction that moral values exist and that some actions violate moral rules is so common and ancient a phenomenon that it seems to have some substratum at man’s instinctive endowment level (although it is certainly not totally adequate for moral truth), and that it does not only represent centuries’ of experience, culture, religion, and socialization. Thus, any insinuation framed in moral slogans is always suggestive, even if the “moral” criteria used are just an “ad hoc” invention. Any act can thus be proved to be immoral or moral by means of such paramoralisms utilized as active suggestion, and people whose minds will succumb to such reasoning can always be found.

Approximately 6% of the population constitutes the active structure of the new {Pathocratic} rulership, which carries its own peculiar consciousness of its own goals. Twice as many people constitute a second group: those who have managed to warp their personalities to meet the demands of the new reality. This leads to attitudes which can already be interpreted within the categories of the natural psychological world view, i.e. the errors we are committing are much smaller. It is of course not possible to draw an exact boundary between these groups; the separation adduced here is merely descriptive in nature.

This second group consists of individuals who are, on the average, weaker, more sickly, and less vital. The frequency of known mental diseases in this group is at twice the rate of the national average. We can thus assume that the genesis of their submissive attitude toward the regime, their greater susceptibility to pathological effects, and their skittish opportunism includes various relatively impalpable anomalies. We observe not only physiological anomalies, but also the kinds described above at the lowest intensity, with the exception of essential psychopathy.

The 6% group constitute the new nobility; the 12% group gradually forms the new bourgeoisie, whose economic situation is the most advantageous. Adapting to the new conditions, not without conflicts of conscience, transforms this latter group into both dodgers and, simultaneously, intermediaries between the oppositional society and the active ponerological group, whom they can talk to in the appropriate language. They play such a crucial role within this system that both sides must take them into account. Since their technical capacities and skills are better than those of the active pathocratic group, they assume various managerial positions. Normal people see them as persons they can approach, generally without being subjected to pathological arrogance.

So it is that only 18% of the country’s population is in favor of the new system of government; but concerning the layer we have called the bourgeoisie, we may even be doubtful of the sincerity of their attitudes. This is the situation in the author’s homeland. This proportion can be variously estimated in other countries, from 15% in Hungary to 21% in Bulgaria, but it is never more than a relatively small minority.

The great majority of the population forms the society of normal people, gradually creating an informal communications network. It behooves us to wonder why these people reject the advantages conformity affords, consciously preferring the opposing role: poverty, harassment, and curtailment of human freedoms. What ideals motivate them? Is this merely a kind of romanticism representing ties to tradition and religion? Still, so many people with a religious upbringing change their world view to that of the Pathocrats very quickly. The next chapter is dedicated to this question.

For the moment, let us limit ourselves to stating that a person with a normal human instinctive substratum, good basic intelligence, and full faculties of critical thought would have a difficult time accepting such a compromise; it would devastate his personality and engender neurosis. At the same time, such a system easily distinguishes and separates him from its own kind regardless of his sporadic hesitations. No method of propaganda can change the nature of this macrosocial phenomenon or the nature of a normal human being. They remain foreign to each other.

The above-described subdivision into three sections should not be identified with membership in any party, which is officially ideological but in fact pathocratic. Such a system contains many normal people forced to join such a party by various circumstances, and who must pretend as best they can to represent said party’s more reasonable adherents.

The pathological authorities are convinced that the appropriate pedagogical, indoctrinational, propaganda, and terrorist means can teach a person with a normal instinctive substratum, range of feelings, and basic intelligence to think and feel according to their own different fashion. This conviction is only slightly less unrealistic, psychologically speaking, than the belief that people able to see colors normally can be broken of this habit.

Actually, normal people cannot get rid of the characteristics with which the Homo sapiens species was endowed by its phylogenetic past. Such people will thus never stop feeling and perceiving psychological and socio-moral phenomena in much the same way their ancestors had been doing for hundreds of generations. Any attempt to make a society subjugated to the above phenomenon “learn” this different experiential manner imposed by pathological egotism is, in principle, fated for failure regardless of how many generations it might last. It does, however, call forth a series of improper psychological results which may give the pathocrats the appearance of success. However, it also provokes society to elaborate pinpointed, well-thought-out self-defense measures based on its cognitive and creative efforts.

If a person with a normal instinctive substratum and basic intelligence has already heard and read about such a system of ruthless autocratic rule “based on a fanatical ideology”, he feels he has already formed an opinion on the subject. However, direct confrontation with the phenomenon will inevitably produce in him the feeling of intellectual helplessness. All his prior imaginings prove to be virtually useless; they explain next to nothing. This provokes a nagging sensation that he and the society in which he was educated were quite naive.

Anyone capable of accepting this bitter void with an awareness of his own nescience, which would do a philosopher proud, can also find an orientation path within this deviant world. However, egotistically protecting his world view from disintegrative disillusionment and attempting to combine them with observations from this new divergent reality, only reaps mental chaos. The latter has produced unnecessary conflicts and disillusionment with the new rulership in some people; others have subordinated themselves to the pathological reality. One of the differences observed between a normally resistant person and somebody who has undergone a transpersonification is that the former is better able to survive this disintegrating cognitive void, whereas the latter fills the void with the pathologic propaganda material without sufficient controls.

When the human mind comes into contact with this new reality so different from any experiences encountered by a person raised in a society dominated by normal people, it releases psychophysiological shock symptoms in the human brain with a higher tonus of cortex inhibition and a stifling of feelings, which then sometimes gush forth uncontrollably. The mind then works more slowly and less keenly because the associative mechanisms have become inefficient. Especially when a person has direct contact with psychopathic representatives of the new rule, who use their specific experience so as to traumatize the minds of the “others” with their own personalities, his mind succumbs to a state of short-term catatonia. Their humiliating and arrogant techniques, brutal paramoralizations, and so forth deaden his thought processes and his self-defense capabilities, and their divergent experiential method anchors in his mind. In the presence of this kind of phenomenon, any moralizing evaluation of a person’s behavior in such a situation thus becomes inaccurate at best.

Only once these unbelievably unpleasant psychological states have passed, thanks to rest in benevolent company, is it possible to reflect, always a difficult and painful process, or to become aware that one’s mind and common sense have been fooled by something which cannot fit into the normal human imagination.

Under the conditions created by imposed pathocratic rule in particular, where the described psychological deficiencies are decisive in joining the activities of such a system, our natural human instinctive substratum is an instrumental factor in joining the opposition.

As we have already pointed out, every psychological anomaly is in fact a kind of deficiency. Psychopathies are based primarily upon deficiencies in the instinctive substratum; however, their influence exerted upon the mental development of others also leads to deficiencies in general intelligence, as discussed above. This deficiency of intelligence in a normal person, induced by psychopathy, is not compensated by the special psychological knowledge we observe among some psychopaths. Such knowledge loses its mesmerizing power when normal people learn to understand these phenomena as well.

 

[Laura]

About psychiatry under pathocracy and how the science of psychology/psychiatry is corrupted and why the Polyvagal Theory is so important:

When I came to the West, I met people with leftist views who unquestioningly believed that communist countries existed in more or less the form expounded by American versions of communist political doctrines. These persons were almost certain that psychology and psychiatry must enjoy freedom in those countries referred to as communist, and that matters were similar to what was mentioned above. When I contradicted them, they refused to believe me and kept asking why, “why isn’t it like that?” What can politics have to do with psychiatry?

My attempts to explain what that other reality looks like met with the difficulties we are already familiar with, although some people had previously heard about the abuse of psychiatry. However, such “whys” kept cropping up in conversation, and remained unanswered.

The situation in these scientific areas, of social and curative activities, and of the people occupied in these matters, can only be comprehended once we have perceived the true nature of pathocracy in the light of the ponerological approach.

Let us thus imagine something which is only possible in theory, namely, that a country under pathocratic rule is inadvertently allowed to freely develop these sciences, enabling a normal influx of scientific literature and contacts with scientists in other countries. Psychology, psychopathology, and psychiatry would flourish abundantly and produce outstanding representatives.

What would the result be?

This accumulation of proper knowledge would, within a very short time, enable the undertaking of investigations whose meaning we already understand. Missing elements and insufficiently investigated questions would be complemented and deepened by means of the appropriate detailed research. The diagnosis of the pathocratic state of affairs would then be elaborated within the first dozen or so years of the formation of the pathocracy, especially if the latter is imposed. The basis of the deductive rationale would be significantly wider than anything the author can present here, and would be illustrated by means of a rich body of analytical and statistical material.

Once transmitted to world opinion, such a diagnosis would quickly become incorporated into it that opinion, forcing naive political and propaganda doctrines out of societal consciousness. It would reach the nations that were the objects of the pathocratic empire’s expansionist intentions. This would render the usefulness of any such propagandized ideology as a pathocratic Trojan horse doubtful at best.

In spite of differences among them, other countries with normal human systems would be united by characteristic solidarity in the defense of an understood danger, similar to the solidarity linking normal people living under pathocratic rule.

This consciousness, popularized in the countries affected by this phenomenon, would simultaneously reinforce psychological resistance on the part of normal human societies and furnish them with new measures of self defense.

Can any pathocratic empire risk permitting such a possibility?

In times when the above-mentioned disciplines are developing swiftly in many countries, the problem of preventing such a psychiatric threat becomes a matter of “to be or not to be” for pathocracy. Any possibility of such a situation emerging must thus be staved off prophylactically and skillfully, both within and without the empire. At the same time, the empire is able to find effective preventive measures thanks to its consciousness of being different as well as that specific psychological knowledge of psychopaths with which we are already familiar, partially reinforced by academic knowledge.

Both inside and outside the boundaries of countries affected by the above-mentioned phenomenon, a purposeful and conscious system of control, terror, and diversion is thus set to work.

Any scientific papers published under such governments or imported from abroad must be monitored to ascertain that they do not contain any data which could be harmful to the pathocracy.

Specialists with superior talent become the objects of blackmail and malicious control. This of course causes the results to become inferior with reference to these areas of science.

The entire operation must of course be managed in such a way as to avoid attracting the attention of public opinion in countries with normal human structures. The effects of such a “bad break” could be too far-reaching. This explains why people caught doing investigative work in this area are destroyed without a sound and suspicious persons are forced abroad to become the objects of appropriately organized harassment campaigns there.

Battles are thus being fought on secret fronts which may be reminiscent of the Second World War. The soldiers and leaders fighting in various theaters were not aware that their fate depended on the outcome of that other war, waged by scientists and other soldiers, whose goal was preventing the Germans from producing the atom bomb. The Allies won that battle, and the United States became the first to possess this lethal weapon. For the present, however, the West keeps losing scientific and political battles on this new secret front. Lone fighters are looked upon as odd, denied assistance, or forced to work hard for their bread. Meanwhile, the ideological Trojan horse keeps invading new countries.

An examination of the methodology of such battles, both on the internal and the external fronts, points to that specific pathocratic knowledge so difficult to comprehend in the light of the natural language of concepts. In order to be able to control people and those relatively non-popularized areas of science, one must know, or be able to sense, what is going on and which fragments of psychopathology are most dangerous. The examiner of this methodology thus also becomes aware of the boundaries and imperfections of this self-knowledge and practice, i.e. the other side’s weaknesses, errors, and gaffes, and may manage to take advantage of them.

In nations with pathocratic systems, supervision over scientific and cultural organizations is assigned to a special department of especially trusted people, a “Nameless Office” composed almost entirely of relatively intelligent persons who betray characteristic psychopathic traits. These people must be capable of completing their academic studies, albeit sometimes by forcing examiners to issue generous evaluations. Their talents are usually inferior to those of average students, especially regarding psychological science. In spite of that, they are rewarded for their services by obtaining academic degrees and positions and are allowed to represent their country’s scientific community abroad. As especially trusted individuals, they are allowed to not participate in local meetings of the party, and even to avoid joining it entirely. In case of need, they might then pass for non-party. In spite of that, these scientific and cultural superintendents are well known to the society of normal people, who learn the art of differentiation rather quickly. They are not always properly distinguished from agents of the political police; although they consider themselves to be in a better class than the latter, they must nevertheless cooperate with them.

We often meet with such people abroad, in the countries of normal people, where various foundations and institutes give them scientific grants with the conviction that they are thereby assisting the development of proper knowledge in countries under “communist” governments. These benefactors do not realize that they are rendering a disservice to such science and to real scientists by allowing the supervisors to attain a certain semi-authentic authority, and by allowing them to become more familiar with whatever they shall later deem to be dangerous.

After all, those people shall later have the power to permit someone to take a doctorate, embark upon a scientific career, achieve academic tenure, and become promoted. Very mediocre scientists themselves, they attempt to knock down more talented persons, governed both by self-interest and that typical jealousy which characterizes a pathocrat’s attitude toward normal people. They will be the ones monitoring scientific papers for their “proper ideology” and attempting to ensure that a good specialist will be denied the scientific literature he needs.

Controls are exceptionally malicious and treacherous in the psychological sciences in particular, for reasons now understandable to us. Written and unwritten lists are compiled for subjects that may not be taught, and corresponding directives are issued to appropriately distort other subjects. This list is so vast in the area of psychology that nothing remains of this science except a skeleton picked bare of anything that might be subtle or penetrating.

A psychiatrist’s required curriculum contains neither the minimal knowledge from the areas of general, developmental, and clinical psychology, nor the basic skills in psychotherapy. Due to such a state of affairs, the most mediocre or privileged of physicians become a psychiatrist after a course of study lasting only weeks. This opens the door of psychiatric careers to individuals who are by nature inclined to serving the pathocratic authority, and it has fateful repercussions upon the level of the treatment. It later permits psychiatry to be abused for purposes for which it should never be used.

Since they are undereducated, these psychologists then prove helpless in the face of many human problems, especially in cases where detailed knowledge is needed. Such knowledge must then be acquired on one’s own, a feat not everyone is able to manage.

Such behavior carries in its wake a good deal of damage and human injustice in areas of life which have nothing whatsoever to do with politics. Unfortunately, however, such behavior is necessary from the pathocrat’s point of view in order to prevent these dangerous sciences from jeopardizing the existence of a system they consider the best of all possible worlds.
Specialists in the areas of psychology and psychopathology would find an analysis of this system of prohibitions and recommendations to be highly interesting. This makes it possible to realize that this may be one of the roads via which we can reach the crux of the matter or the nature of this macrosocial phenomenon. The prohibitions engulf depth psychology, the analysis of the human instinctive substratum, together with analysis of dreams.

As already pointed out in the chapter introducing some indispensable concepts, an understanding of human instinct is a key to understanding man; however, a knowledge of said instinct’s anomalies also represents a key to understanding pathocracy.

Although used ever more rarely in psychological practice, dream analysis shall always remain the best school of psychological thought; that makes it dangerous by nature. Consequently, even research on the psychology of mate selection is frowned upon, at best.

The essence of psychopathy may not, of course, be researched or elucidated. Darkness is cast upon this matter by means of an intentionally devised definition of psychopathy which includes various kinds of character disorders, together with those caused by completely different and known causes. This definition must be memorized not only by every lecturer in psychopathology, psychiatrist, and psychologist, but also by some political functionaries with no education in that area.

This definition must be used in all public appearances whenever it is for some reason impossible to avoid the subject. However, it is preferable for a lecturer in such areas to be someone who always believes whatever is most convenient in his situation, and whose intelligence does not predestine him to delve into subtle differentiations of a psychological nature.

It is also worth pointing out here that the chief doctrine of said system reads “Existence defines consciousness”. As such, it belongs to psychology rather than to any political doctrine. This doctrine actually contradicts a good deal of empirical data indicating the role of hereditary factors in the development of man’s personality and fate. Lecturers may refer to research on identical twins, but only in a brief, cautious, and formal fashion. Considerations on this subject may, however, not be published in print.

We return once more to this system’s peculiar psychological “genius” and its self-knowledge. One might admire how the above mentioned definitions of psychopathy effectively blocks the ability to comprehend phenomena covered therein. We may investigate the relationships between these prohibitions and the essence of the macrosocial phenomenon they in fact mirror. We may also observe the limits of these skills and the errors committed by those who execute this strategy. These shortcomings are skillfully taken advantage of for purposes of smuggling through some proper knowledge on the part of the more talented specialists, or by elderly people no longer fearful for their careers or even their lives.

The “ideological” battle is thus being waged on territory completely unperceived by scientists living under governments of normal human structures and attempting to imagine that other reality. This applies to all people denouncing “Communism”, as well as those for whom this ideology has become their faith.

Shortly after arriving in the U.S.A. , I was handed a newspaper by a young black man on some street in Queens, N.Y. I reached for my purse, but he waved me off; the paper was free.

The front page showed a picture of a young and handsome Brezhnev decorated with all the medals he did not in fact receive until much later. On the last page, however, I found a quite well-worked-out summary of investigations performed at the University of Massachusetts on identical twins raised separately. These investigations furnished empirical indications for the important role of heredity, and the description contained a literary illustration of the similarity of the fates of twin pairs. How far “ideologically disorientated” the editors of this paper must have been to publish something which could never have appeared in the area subjected to a supposedly Communist system.

In that other reality, the battlefront crosses every study of psychology and psychiatry, every psychiatric hospital, every mental health consultation center, and the personality of everyone working in these areas. What takes place there: hidden thrust-and-parry duels, a smuggling through of true scientific information and accomplishments, and harassment.

Some people become morally derailed under these conditions, whereas others create a solid foundation for their convictions and are prepared to undertake difficulty and risk in order to obtain honest knowledge so as to serve the sick and needy. The initial motivation of this latter group is thus not political in character, since it derives from their good will and professional decency. Their consciousness of the political causes of the limitations and the political meaning of this battle is raised later, in conjunction with experience and professional maturity, especially if their experience and skills must be used in order to save persecuted people.

In the meantime, however, the necessary scientific data and papers must be obtained somehow, taking difficulties and other people’s lack of understanding into account. Students and beginning specialists not yet aware of what was removed from the educational curricula attempt to gain access to the scientific data stolen from them. Science starts to be degraded at a worrisome rate once such awareness is missing.