RF_MH_4_SUDHA.pdf

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extracted text
RF_MH_4_SUDHA
radio talk by {lie Director of

tern ;snfl your behaviour pattern. Do not try to justify your 1
i r.Let. •ikes. Probably your loved one can help you toi become
■re of your find behaviour or habits.*
Accc<it yourself with your own etren&ths and weahucisse>.
Jy hua both* Nobody is perfect in this world* Do not
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of a grudge.
Here's how

Three
Words
That Heal

PEADEP'S DIGEST • JUNE 1995

THREE WORDS THAT HEA1

breaking things

victims may avoid forgiving the

One building material that resists
everything except your creativity !
heart." Negative feelings tnat cause

*FBison paneL^
Michelle Killough Nelson, assis-

The brain speaks in living color: Bright spots generated by positron emission tomography (PET) show three
areas in the left brain that are active during language tasks. The spot at the back lights up during reading. The
middle area is active during speech. And the area at the front is involved in thinking about a word's meaning.
These PET images of brain function have been laid over a magnetic resonance image of the brain's anatomy.

Mouth region of

Word-meaning
center

Auditory

Superposed on this map of the
brain's anatomy are five white
spots showing areas that are highly
active during language use.

programming area lying in
parts of the brain halfway
between the tip of your left
ear and eyebrow. And it is in
cortical areas underneath
your forehead that opera­
tions critical to semantics—
the analysis of a word’s
meaning—take place.
These PET pictures repre­
sent only the first foray into
the brain areas involved in
processing language, yet
they are already causing
something of a stir. Accord­
ing to conventional neuro­
logical wisdom, for example,
to understand a word that
we read, or to repeat it out
loud, our brain must first
translate the word's printed,
visual form into an auditory
form—in other words, we
must sound out the words in
our head. “But to our sur­
prise,” says Marcus Raichle,
head of the brain study
group at St. Louis, "our im­
ages show that this transla­
tion isn’t necessary.”
Somehow the visual form of
a common word like screen
60 OISCOVEi • MAICH • 1989

can be directly shot forward
to the motor areas control­
ling the mouth, or the se­
mantic areas within the
forehead, without being in­
ternally sounded out in the
auditory cortex.
Ufhat happens, though,
■■ when we read verse
and have to consider the way
words sound? To return to
the lines from Prufrock, sup­
pose a person is shown the
word screen above a series of
other words—magic, lan­
tern, and mean—and asked
to determine which of these
words rhyme. “Then we see
an area near the auditory
cortex become active,”
says Raichle. This word­
sounding region in the audi­
tory cortex appears to come
into play, even though the
sounds are “only heard in
our head.” The language
system emerging from this
data is flexible rather than
fixed and linear. It has “a
number of component parts
that can be added or left out

depending on the nature of
the task.”
The researchers obtain
PET images of brain activity
by tracing blood flow pat­
terns. The rationale is this:
Blood is brain fuel, so to
speak. When a particular
part of the brain increases its
level of activity, more blood
is shunted toward the site.
The first direct demonstra­
tion of this phenomenon in
humans came to light in
1928. Aman who had been
bom with a large cluster of
abnormal blood vessels at
the back of his brain went to
a Boston hospital to have the
vessels removed. "And this
guy told people that when­
ever he opened his eyes, he
heard this shwih, shwih
sound,” Raichle recounts.
What this man was hear­
ing—a noise like rustling
bursts of wind—was the
sound of his own blood
being pumped through his
visual cortex each time it be­
came stimulated.
In the course of operating

upon the patient, however,
the Boston doctors decided
that the blood vessels
couldn’t be removed with­
out causing irreparable brain
damage. But their attempt at
surgery left the patient with­
out any bone over the net of
blood vessels; they were just
covered by scalp. “So now,”
continues Raichle, “the doc­
tors could lay this guy down
on a couch, and hear this
shwih, shwih sound with a
stethoscope when he was
reading a newspaper, and
then hear the sound stop
when he closed his eyes.”
For most of his 2S-year ca­
reer, Raichle has been study­
ing blood flow patterns to
glean information about the
brain. Initially, he remem­
bers, the techniques that he
and others used were rather
crude. The traditional
method was to inject radio- »
active xenon into the blood- 8
stream, but the radiation |
emitted could only tell them j
if brain activity had in- |
creased near the surface of =

M we >ee, hear, speak, and think about words, areas
progressively farther forward in the brain become active.
The PET images are taken through sections A and B of the left
hemisphere. The colors in the images correspond to levels of
brain activity. Red areas represent spots of intense activity;
blue areas are relatively inactive.

the brain. “We didn’t have a
lot of credibility in neurobi­
ology—people thought we
were the plumbers of the
brain,” he says, chuckling.
“And in all honesty, I don’t
think I could have envi­
sioned when I started that
we would be here taking
apart something as compli­
cated as language. But then
PET came along—and now
all that’s changed."

he lights in the PET
room have been shut off,
signaling that a language ex­
periment is about to begin.
In the gloom a human vol­
unteer lies on a table. His
head is positioned inside a
doughnut-shaped machine,
which is surrounded by a
ring of radiation-detecting
crystals. The man lies still,
his arms outstretched, his
head cradled inside a mask
that has been molded to his
contours. Suspended a foot
above his face is a computer
monitor on which a small
white cross is displayed.
“Just relax and keep your
eyes fixed on the cross,”
says Steve Petersen to his
subject
A plastic syringe filled
with water containing a ra­
dioactive form of oxygen has

T

rocketed up a pneumatic
tube from the basement six
floors below, where the cy­
clotron that produces the
tagged water is housed. Pe­
ter Fox takes the syringe in
gloved hands and shoots its
contents into the intrave­
nous line feeding into the
subject’s arm. The tracer
then circulates in the man’s
blood, emitting positrons—
particles of antimatter—
which collide with electrons
in the body. As antimatter
and matter meet, they pro­
duce a tiny explosion of
gamma ray energy.
Within ten seconds the
positron-emitting blood has
reached the brain, and Fox
switches on the PET scan­
ner. Now the ring of radia­
tion detectors starts wob­
bling around the metal
doughnut like a Hula-Hoop,
sweeping the space around
the subject’s head. For the
40 seconds he stares at the
cross, radioactive blood con­
tinually rushes to his visual
cortex, creating streams of
gamma rays that are de­
tected by the PET ring.
Within minutes a computer
nicknamed Rasputin recon­
structs them into an image of
blood flow within the brain.
This first image serves as a

When we hear words (image A) the word-sounding area (marked with an arrow) in the brain
lights up. Normally this area is not activated when adults read familiar words. But if wo aro
asked whether two written words rhyme (image B), this word-sounding area suddenly comes
into play. The illustration shows the brain section that produced the images.

control: it highlights the ar­
eas of the brain that are ac­
tive when the subject looks
at anything at all, not neces­
sarily a word.
After ten minutes the sub­
ject begins his first linguistic
task. Petersen instructs him
to keep his eyes fixed on the
cross on the TV monitor, but
tells him that now single
words will start flashing be­
low the horizontal line at a
rate of one a second.
“Don't repeat the words
you see,” Petersen instructs
him. "Just look at them
silently."
Fox injects the subject
with another dose of the ra­
dioactive tracer, and another
PET scan is taken as the sub­
ject silently reads the words
flashing on the screen. Min­
utes later Rasputin has re­
constructed the pattern of
gamma ray emissions into a
second image of blood flow
within the brain.
With these two images in
hand, Fox and Petersen can
now perform the technique
that has allowed the St. Louis
group to map the living hu­
man brain with a precision
64 DISCOVER • MAICH • I98»

never before possible. In the
computer room across the
hall from the PET machine,
Petersen runs a program that
places the second PET im­
age—showing the areas of
the subject's brain that are
active when he reads written
words—on top of the first
image, which shows the ar­
eas that are active when he
merely looks at a cross. This
first image is then subtracted
from the second one, pro­
ducing a third image that
isolates the brain areas in­
volved just in reading. In
particular it highlights a
region of activity at the junc­
tion of the occipital and tem­
poral lobes that seems spe­
cifically to recognize words.
"There is simply no way
to reliably map the visual ar­
eas involved in reading with­
out image subtraction,” says
Mark Mintun, a Washington
University nuclear medicine
specialist who developed the
method. "You have to re­
member that everybody's an
individual—our brains are
all a little different. So if you
just look at spots of brain ac­
tivity on a single PET image.

you have no way of knowing
whether this activity is actu­
ally caused by the task the
person is doing or by indi­
vidual variability within that
person’s brain. But if you
subtract a PET image of a
person’s brain doing task A
from an image of the same
person doing task A plus B,
then you can subtract any
individual variability. You
can then localize the parts of
the brain specifically re­
cruited to do task B—in this
case, to read individual
words.”
Similarly, a subject can be
fitted with earphones and, in
one scanning period, simply
listen to a list of spoken
words. Then in a second
scanning period the subject
can be asked to say aloud the
words that he hears. Both
tasks must require areas of
the auditory cortex; but only
the second uses areas of the
brain involved in moving the
mouth and tongue to speak.
By subtracting the first im­
age from the second, these
speech-related regions can
be clearly highlighted.
For the past 100 years

ideas about language or­
ganization have been based
almost entirely on the study
of people with brain lesions.
Certain brain areas damaged
by stroke or injury, it was
found, resulted in certain
types of linguistic deficits.
One critical discovery was
that use of language was
nearly always disrupted
when areas in the left hemi­
sphere of the brain were
damaged—that is; that lan­
guage is primarily a function
of the brain's left half. Pa­
tients with pure "alexia,” for
instance, who could see
quite well but had great diffi­
culty reading words, were
generally found to have a
left-hemisphere lesion at
the junction of the occipital
and temporal lobes, pre­
cisely the area that PET
studies now show are active
during reading.
Not ail the St. Louis
group's findings, however,
have supported earlier the­
ory. Indeed, they have come
into conflict with the first
and most famous of all lan­
guage-lesion studies. In 1861
Paul Broca performed autop- »
sies on the brains of patients 8
with aphasia, a speech disor- |
der that left them unable to g
articulate words in sen- |
tencelike sequences. He =
found that many had dam-1
age to an area in the left |
hemisphere between the |
eyebrow and the temple— |
"Broca's area,” as it is now §
called. Until the early 1980s, |
in fact, many neurologists |
believed that this area was a
used only for speech; such |
great neurologists as the late |
Norman Geschwind of Har- 8
vard implied that our knowl- ?

edge of grammar itself was
stored in Broca’s area.
"But a lot of other neu­
rologists had noted that, to
get the ungrammatical
speech associated with
Broca’s aphasia, you had to
knock out not only Broca’s
area but big chunks farther
forward in the frontal cortex,
as well,” says University of
Oregon cognitive psycholo­
gist Michael Posner, who has
collaborated on the PET lan­
guage studies. What's more,
patients with so-called
Broca’s lesions have diffi­
culty performing many
other motor tasks besides
speaking.
PET studies have shown
that in fact this brain region
doesn’t just process lan­
guage. “We now think of
Broca’s area as a general motor-programming region that
controls a variety of coordi­
nated movements,” says
Fox.
The critical experiment in­
volved comparisons of brain
activity as subjects per­
formed four different exer­
cises. First they were shown
words and asked to repeat
them. The tongue and
mouth areas lit up in the pri­
mary motor cortex—which
contains areas correspond­
ing to all the movable parts
of the body—as did the mo­
tor-programming region
near Broca’s area. Next sub­
jects were asked simply to
move their tongues. Con­
trary to the classical BrocaGeschwind view, the Brocarelated motor-programming
area again lit up, as well as
the tongue segment of the
primary motor cortex. Simi­
lar results were obtained
g when subjects were asked to
5 move their hands—except,
? of course, now the hand area
: of the primary motor cortex
‘ was active. Finally subjects
J were asked to imagine mov’ ing their hands. Since there

During a language study, a volunteer’s head is placed inside a
PET machine while words are flashed on a computer screen.

was no actual movement,
there was no activity in the
primary motor cortex. “But
we did see activity in the mo­
tor-programming region
around Broca’s area,” says
Fox.
To imagine movements,
then, we use areas of the
brain controlling actual
movement. Similarly, the St.
Louis group has found,
when we silently sound out
a word—as in the rhyming
experiment—we use a
phonological coding area
near our auditory cortex.
This internal sounding­
out process, as we saw ear­
lier, isn’t necessary when
adults read simple, com­
monly used words. Yet what
is true of adult readers may
not be true of children. “As
I remember," says Raichle,
"when learning to read in

first grade, I had to learn to
sound out the words on the
page.” During this learning
experience, he speculates,
these phonological coding
areas are active. But when
one becomes a proficient
reader they’re no longer nec­
essary. Raichle hypothe­
sizes, however, that if PET
subjects were shown a for­
eign or more complicated
word—perestroika, for ex­
ample—"then you might
well see components of this
phonological system recruit­
ed back into the process.”

ow, this is the really fun
part of our work,” says
Raichle. "We finally have
the PET technology working
and we have these languagerelated areas to focus on.
And now we can make up
these great experiments to

N

try to clarify fundamental
questions about language
and the brain.”
According to medical text­
books, the path language
takes in the brain resembles
a relay race. When we read
a word and speak it out loud,
our visual system must pass
a baton of information to our
auditory system, which in
turn must pass the baton to
motor areas controlling
speech. Yet the PET studies
indicate that this relay race
need not be linear. Instead
the visual system can some­
how toss its baton directly to
the speech area, bypassing
the auditory system. When
people rhyme words, how­
ever, the auditory system
does receive the baton.
Rather than only one route
to the finish line, there exist
multiple routes, and the par­
ticular road we take depends
on the task we face.
This multiple-route view
agrees quite well with ingen­
ious models of language­
processing devised by cogni­
tive psychologists. Yet they
have generally viewed the
brain as a black box; their
computer models are ab­
stract flowcharts of the
operations underlying lan­
guage use. With PET, how­
ever, the operations within
the black box can be pic­
tured in living color. "One
way of looking at what PET
is offering with these lan­
guage experiments,” says
Fox, "is as a bridge between
two camps that had no
bridge before."
PET has also begun to ex­
plore another bridge, that
between words and the
things they symbolize. It is,
after all, through language
that we construct our per­
ceptions of the social and
natural world. Where in our
brains do we attach mean­
ings to words? What brain
structures allow us to weave
DISCOVER • MARCH • 1989 65

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The PET images shown above demonstrate that the same motor-programming region in the brain is activated when we (1) speak,
(2) move the tongue without speaking, (3) move a hand, and (4) merely imagine moving a hand.

sounds into a description of
the things we see, hear, and
think?
The setup for the re­
searchers’ word-association
experiments is essentially
the same as for the word­
reading one. Except now, as
nouns are flashed on the
monitor, the PET subject is
asked to give uses for the
nouns. “So if car flashes
up,” says Fox, “you can say
drive, ride, or, if you’re a car
salesman, sell."
Classical neurology places
the brain center for meaning
and comprehension near the
66

OISCOVEI • MA8CH • 1989

auditory cortex. But this area
fails to light up during the
PET experiments. Instead
three major brain areas show
up on the images: the right
cerebellum; a cluster of areas
in the left frontal cortex; and
a region in the middle of the
frontal cortex called the an­
terior cingulate. Because the
nouns flash by at the speed
of one a second, a high de­
gree of attention is required
just to keep pace and give a
meaningful use for each
noun. One notion of the rela­
tionship between these areas
is that the right cerebellum

serves to inhibit an incorrect
response—merely to repeat
the noun displayed, for in­
stance—while the anterior
cingulate acts as a gate that
lets the appropriate verb ob­
tained by the left frontal cor­
tex pass through.
To test such ideas the re­
searchers are planning ex­
periments to see whether
these areas are active in
tasks other than normal
speech. Does, for instance,
the left frontal cortex light
up when users of American
Sign Language employ hand
signals to generate verbs

associated with nouns?
Might this frontal region be
a general symbol-processing
area, active during mathe­
matical reasoning, or when a
musician reads a score? Fox
and Petersen think the an­
swer to these questions may
well be yes.
Human language has oth­
er aspects, of course. Eliot’s
“Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock” begins with the
famous words: “Let us go
then, you and I,/When the
evening is spread out against
the sky/Like a patient ether­
ised upon a table....”

One would predict that
the reading aloud of these
words—which depend on
vivid visual imagery, on
rhymes and complex seman­
tic associations, on sound as
well as sense—would acti­
vate all the language-related
regions of the brain. And yet
the words have powerful
emotional resonances as
well. The pleasure conveyed
by the first two lyrical lines
is then followed by a disori­
enting anxiety, as the still­
ness of the evening sky is
compared to a patient laid
out for surgery.
"One can come away
from a lot of contemporary
neuroscience with the con­
ception of the brain being
just a cold, hard, calculating
machine,” says Raichle.
“But there’s no question that
our emotions are absolutely
critical to our use of lan­
guage.” Anxiety, pleasure,
the full range of human
emotion "have to be part of
the equation—and we think
they're now an approach­
able part.”

n the blackboard in the
conference room ad­
joining his office, Raichle
has drawn a diagram with
two perpendicular axes. He
has labeled the vertical axis
space; it describes the
group's efforts to map the
functional structures within
the “space of the brain.” The
horizontal axis is labeled
time, and it describes experi­
ments that may help define
how these structures are
successively activated dur­
ing language use. This time
axis leads to an entity that
Raichle has labeled mind. At
the upper right corner,
where lines extending from
the mind and brain axes
converge, Raichle has writ­
ten, in a joking way, the
answer?
Raichle has left for the

O

68 DISCOVER • MARCH • 1989

Daicartes thought of the body a« a machina—with one
exception. The teardrop-shaped pineal gland, he believed,
was the seat of consciousness and the soul.

evening, and a visitor asks
Fox and Petersen why, in
Raichle’s diagram, the brain
is associated with space, the
mind with time.
"Because the brain is a
physical structure,” says
Fox. "The brain exists in
space. But now the mind—
the mind operates in time
alone.”
"Some of us don’t really
believe that though,” says
Petersen.
“Why not?” says Fox.
“You can only deal with the
mind as an entity in time.
What other dimension does
it operate in?”
“You’re a dualist,” says
Petersen, laughing.
Dualism, the metaphysi­
cal separation between body
and mind, is a concept that
stems from the great seven­
teenth-century philosopher
Ren6 Descartes. Descartes
proposed that the human
body, including the brain,
was essentially a machine

whose functioning could be
described by the mathemati­
cal laws of physics. Yet Des­
cartes left one loophole. He
noted that all structures of
the brain exist in double
form, except the pineal
gland. For Descartes, then,
the pineal gland became the
seat of consciousness and
the soul—the site of the
pure, immaterial mind that
guides us as we read, write,
and talk.
Today, of course, there is
hardly a. respectable neuro­
scientist alive who thinks the
mind exists apart from the
functions of the physical
brain and body. Yet what
philosophers have called the
“ghost in the machine”—
Descartes's dualistic mind—
continues to haunt efforts to
scientifically describe hu­
man cognitive functions like
language.
Even Fox and Petersen
come close to falling into this
trap when they discuss the

anterior cingulate, an area
that not only lights up dur­
ing language-meaning tasks
but may also be crucial to
our very ability to act. "Pa­
tients with lesions to the cin­
gulate are essentially crea­
tures without a will," says
Fox. "Their brain can work
perfectly well—they can un­
derstand you, talk to you.
But they have lost all voli­
tion. You can ask them a
question and they may an­
swer you the next day. Or
they may just still be sitting
there, inert.”
“The cingulate is a very
tricky area,” says Petersen.
“Because when you start to
describe it, you find yourself
describing the very thing
that guides consciousness,
more or less.” Take this far
enough, and you've put the
ghost back in the machine.
Petersen and Fox prefer to
think of the anterior cingu­
late not as the executive di­
rector of language and con­
sciousness, but perhaps as
one gatekeeper among
many. The brain regions
needed for language, they
theorize, must form a com­
plex, interacting system in
which perceptions, mean­
ings, and emotions become
organized into coherent
form.
"There’s this tendency
now among scientists to
snigger when you talk about
these ‘romantic’ questions
relating to language and cog- „
nition,” says Petersen. " But |
these really are the most in- s
teresting questions—at least |
to me.” He pauses, smiling. ;
"So you try to be careful in |
your interpretations. You try s
to balance the science with |
the romance. But you still §
want some of the romance to |
comethrough.”
=
Geoffrey Montgomery wrote
December's cover story on
color perception.

June 27, 1988

5
9

Vol. 104

No. 25

BUSINESS

Letters to the Editor

38

CURRENTS
A Pentagon-size scandal ■ A race case
that smells of a hoax ■ Dukakis’s
home-state deficit ■ Half throttle at the
White House ■ Tobacco’s money tree

12

Washington Whispers

14

Special report: Drugs on Main Street—
the enemy up close. In Peoria, III.,
there’s nothing dramatic about drug use.
As in most cities, the problem has
simply proved insoluble

U.S.NEWS

22

A modest proposal for dealing
with drugs

23

Michael Kramer on platform politics

24

Getting ready for Soviet spies

27

Tomorrow: The end of Reaganomics,
voter skepticism, higher tuitions

How the war on drugs
plays in Peoria

AIDS is spreading. Its victims include
the young nation builders Africa needs

37

Worldgram: Caution in Central America,
stability in France, patience in the Aegean

Entrepreneurs: Billionaire John Kluge

44

Marketing: Names consumers hate

46

Business Briefs: Company bribes;
the latest Asian car; private bird for hire

47

Economic Outlook: Consumers buy
American; chances for a trade bill

48

COVER
For the first time ever, researchers are
starting to understand why the brain can
do things that confound the most potent
computers—recognize faces, recall
distant memories, make intuitive leaps

55

Conversation: Patricia Churchland on
merging brain science with philosophy

56

Travel: Doing Japan on the cheap

60

Investing: Flocking to cash in the wake
of the crash; what to do if your S&L fails

62

Health: Gadgets for the teeth

64

Vital Statistics

65

News You Can Use: Exercise
videotapes, lawn darts and more

68

Editorial: Who’s the real George Bush?

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Sub-Saharan Africa gropes for a way out
of poverty, with Zambia and Tanzania
at the poles of experimentation. The rich
West tinkers again with answers

32

41

HORIZONS
14

WORLD REPORT
28

Trade: Why the U.S. and Canada are
tearing down the barriers

28

Trying out capitalism
on Tanzanian sisal farm

Affordable watering hole in Tokyo
COVER: Photo by John Bowden

Copyright © 1988. by U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved. U.S.News & World Report (ISSN 0041-5537) is published weekly, except lor one combined issue mailed in August and a second
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U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT. June 27. 1988

. IJ. ... I... I.......

How the brain really
A new model of the brain is beginning to explain how it can do things the most
powerful computers cannot—recognize faces, recall distant memories, make intuitive
leaps. The key: Intricate networks that link together the brain’s billions of nerve cells
W magine a block of wax... So wrote
1 fl the Greek philosopher Plato more
■ than 2,000 years ago to describe mem­
fl ory. Since then, scholars have in­
voked clocks, telephone switchboards,
computers—and even a cow’s stomach—
in equally futile attempts to explain the
mysterious workings of the brain.
But an explosion of recent findings in
brain science—aided by new computer
programs that can simulate brain cells in
action—is now revealing that the brain
is far more intricate than any mechani­
cal device imaginable. For the first time,
brain researchers are beginning to ex­

plain how the brain can call up distant
memories from a vast storehouse of rec­
ollections and instantly recognize faces,
odors and other complex patterns—
tasks that even the most powerful elec­
tronic computers stumble over.
“For physicists, the most exciting time
was during the birth of quantum mechan­
ics earlier this century,” says Christof
Koch, a brain researcher at the California
Institute of Technology. “We are seeing
the same excitement now in neurosci­
ence—we are beginning to get an under­
standing of how the brain really works.”
Scientists are now coming to regard the

brain as far from some kind of orderly,
computerlike machine that methodically
plods through calculations step by step.
Instead, the new image of our “engine of
thought” is more like a beehive or a busy
marketplace, a seething swarm of densely
interconnected nerve cells—called neu­
rons—that are continually sending elec­
trochemical signals back and forth to each
other and altering their lines of communi­
cation with every new experience. It is in
this vast network of neurons that our
thoughts, memories and perceptions are
generated in a cellular version of a New
England town meeting.

i

r
I

works its wonders
This new view of the brain has burst
into every comer of science where re­
searchers think about thinking. Brain
scientists are hoping that a comprehen­
sive new theory of how the mind works
will lead to ways to control afflictions
such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s dis­
ease. Computer researchers are looking
at how the brain computes in an attempt
to give robots eyesight, hearing and
memory and to build brainlike machines
that can learn by themselves. The new
model of the mind even has philosophers
dusting off hoary questions about the
nature of rationality and consciousness.
A meeting of minds

The revolution in understanding the
brain has come about because of a mar­
riage of two widely different fields—neu­

robiology and computer science—that
would have been impossible a decade ago.
For years, computer researchers attempt­
ing to create machines with humanlike
intelligence all but ignored the complex
details of the brain’s anatomy. Instead,
they tried to understand the mind at the
more theoretical level of psychology—
that is, in terms of the brain’s behavior.
Neuroscientists, meanwhile, were fo­
cusing on the brain’s biology, using mi­
croscopic probes to sample electrical
pulses from the 100 billion neurons that
make up the brain and trying to unravel
the chemistry of how those neurons com­
municate with one another. Many neuro­
scientists, however, are now beginning to
realize that the brain is far more than the
sum of its parts. “Suppose you wanted to
know how a computer worked,” says

Koch. “You could sample the signals at
all the transistors, and you could crush
some up and see what they’re made of, but
when you were finished you still wouldn’t
know how the computer operated. For
that, you need an understanding of how
all the components work together."
With the recent development of inex­
pensive, powerful computers and the ex­
pansion of knowledge about the details
of the brain’s anatomy, researchers are
finally teaming up with computer scien­
tists to simulate the way neurons might
join together in the vast networks that
make up our mind. No one is suggesting
this new approach will explain, neuron
by neuron, how we fall in love or laugh
at the Marx Brothers. Nor is it yet clear
whether different types of neural net­
works are responsible for producing all

HORIZONS
the remarkable things the brain can do. giving researchers new insights into the terns that are similar but not exact, draw
But researchers are beginning to see the dynamic process by which the brain scattered bits of visual data into a cohe­
outlines of the brain’s remarkable orga­ does all these things. A neuron takes a sive picture and make intuitive leaps.
nization, which allows it to learn new million times longer to send a signal
Consider what the brain must do to
skills, remember old events, see and hear than a typical computer switch, yet the recognize a smell, for example. It’s un­
and adapt itself to new situations.
brain can recognize a familiar face in less likely that one barbecued-rib dinner will
Laboratory models of the brain— than a second—a feat beyond the ability smell exactly like another or that the
called neural networks—consist of a of the most powerful computers. The strength of the odor will be the same
dozen to several hundred artificial neu­ brain achieves this speed because, unlike each time it is encountered. But a neural
rons whose actions are simulated on a the step-by-step computer, its billions of network doesn’t simply check if the pat­
conventional digital computer, just as neurons can all attack the problem si­ tern of nerve signals coming from the
modern computers can simulate the multaneously.
ribs exactly matches any of the patterns
way millions of particles of air flow
This massive collection of neurons stored in memory: Comparing patterns
around a fighter jet’s wings. Just as a acting all at once makes decisions more one by one would take far too long.
single neuron in the brain is connected in the manner of a New England town
Instead, the network goes through a
to as many as 10,000 other neurons, meeting than of a highly structured bu­ process analogous to a group of people
each artificial neuron in a neural net­ reaucracy. The brain’s freewheeling, col­ debating evidence. Neurons that are
work is connected to many others, so lective style of processing information highly activated by the odor signal
that all the neurons can send signals to may explain why it has trouble doing strongly to other neurons, which in turn
each other. Simple rules that mimic mathematical computations that are eas­ activate—or in some cases deactivate—
how actual neurons alter their commu­ ily done by a $5 calculator. But it may others in the group, and those neurons
nication pathways in the brain are pro­ also be what gives the brain its enormous will influence still others and feed back
gramed into the simulations as well.
flexibility and the power to match pat­ to the original senders. As the neurons
The result is a device
signal back and forth,
that shares some prop­
varying their levels of ac­
erties with the real
tivity, the group as a
Neural networks—computer simulations of the brain's interconnected nerve
thing but is far easier
whole evolves toward a
cells—are a powerful new tool in understanding how the brain operates
for scientists to take
pattern that most closely
apart, examine and run
matches one in memory,
experiments on. “These
a pattern that reflects
things aren’t toys,” says
fundamental similarities
Richard Granger, a
among the many varia­
brain researcher at the
tions of how barbecued
University of California
ribs smell.
at Irvine who uses neu­
Completing thoughts
ral networks to model
how the brain processes
This type of interac­
smell. “These are from
tive process may be
real brain. We put data
what allows the brain to
from the lab into our
recognize patterns that
model, and then we run
are slightly different or
our model to get predic­
incomplete as nonethe­
tions that we go back
less belonging to the
and test in the lab.”
Theory vs. experiment: Artificial neurons in a computer model spontaneously
same overall group. We
Researchers are cre­ organized themselves into specialized clusters for processing vision, above
are able to recognize all
ating neural networks left. The different colors represent neurons that are sensitive to bars of light
the different kinds of
that show how the set at different angles. Real neurons in a monkey's brain, above right, show
things we sit on as types
brain makes general a strikingly similar organization
of chairs, for example,
categories of odors such
even though we might
as cheese or fruit and
have a hard time writ­
distinguishes between
ing down exactly what
specific odors such as
it is about them that
Swiss or Cheddar. Oth­
qualifies them as such.
ers are modeling the
Likewise, small bits of a
way a casual mention of
mempry can trigger the
a particular place or
whole memory, even if
event can evoke a mem­
some of the incoming
ory of a long-lost friend,
information is faulty: If
how the brain organizes
someone asks if you
incoming signals from
have read the latest is­
the eyes to give us vi­
sue of U.S. News &
sion and how neurons
Global Report, you still
rearrange their connec­
know which magazine
tions to restore opera­
he is talking about.
tions after a damaging Adapting to experience: A model of the neurons that sense touch shows how
This kind of memory
stroke or in response to the brain can rewire itself—for example, when a stroke victim regains use of
is possible because, just
a new task.
a limb. The randomly connected neurons, at left, were stimulated with signals as some members of a
The models are also from a "hand”; they organized themselves into specialized groups, right
town meeting outshout
50

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT. June 27, 1988

.. THE BRAINS

others, some neurons in a network have
stronger communications pathways to
their neighbors. These “rabble-rousing”
neurons can have a strong influence on the
way other neurons behave, and so even
when only a few of them are activated,
they can nudge the network in the right
direction.
By simulating these processes in the
lab, researchers are gaining surprising
insights into how neural networks—and
thus perhaps the brain itself—can per­
form these tasks. Granger and his col­
league at the University of California at
Irvine, neuroscientist Gary Lynch, used
data from their lab experiments on neu­
rons in a rat’s olfactory system to create a
neural-network simulation ofsmell recog­
nition. The 500-neuron network was pre­
sented with groups of simulated odors,
each containing variations of a general
pattern such as cheese or flowers.
At first, the network responded with

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT. June 27, 1988

o

a unique pattern of activity for each
odor. But as it processed more and
more odors that were similar, those neu­
rons that were repeatedly activated be­
came stronger and stronger, eventually
dampening the activity of other neurons
that were less active. Eventually, these
highly activated neurons became repre­
sentatives of each category of smells:
After a half-dozen samplings of the
group, says Granger, the artificial brain
circuit responded with the same pattern
of neurons on the first sniff of any of
several smells within one category. On
subsequent sniffs, however, the neural
network did something totally unexpect­
ed. The old pattern disappeared, and
new neurons fired, creating a different
pattern for each particular smell.
“We’re thrilled with it,” says Granger.
“With the first sniff, it recognizes the
overall pattern and says: ‘It’s a cheese.’
With the next sniffs, it distinguishes the

pattern and says: ‘It’s Jarlsberg.’ ”
Studies of actual brain tissue are contin­
ually refining the ground rules that scien­
tists program into these models—thus
making them more realistic. One recently
confirmed rule—that two neurons com­
municate more strongly if both have been
active at the same time—has been incor­
porated into many neural network simu­
lations. Often, such simple rules are
enough to produce the striking result that
a network will organize itself to perform a
task such as smell recognition when given
repeated stimuli.
Biological studies have also given some
exciting confirmation that neural net­
work models are on the right track. Re­
cent experiments with neural networks
that model vision in monkeys have also
shown a surprising match with the actual
biology of the brain. They may also ex­
plain how the growing brain of a fetus lays
down its neural circuitry. Nearly two

decades ago, Harvard University brain
researchers Torsten Wiesel and David
Hubei discovered that a monkey’s brain
has neurons that respond to very specific
types of visual scenes such as spots of light
or dark bars set at different angles. Yet
these neurons are developed before
birth—and before any light signals can
influence the way they are organized.
Ralph Linsker, at the IBM Thomas J.
Watson Research Center in Yorktown
Heights, N.Y., has created a neural-net­
work model of the brain’s visual system
that shows how the brain might be able to
wire itself up spontaneously to do such
tasks. Linsker’s network consists of sever­
al sheets of neurons arranged in layers,
with groups of neurons in one sheet con­
nected to various individual neurons in
the sheet above it. To make his network
evolve, Linsker uses the same neuroscien­
tific rules that govern how synapses in the
brain increase their communication

strength when the neurons they connect
to are active at the same time.
Linsker starts his model off with ran­
dom connections between neurons and
feeds in a random pattern of stimulation
to the neurons at the bottom layer. Just as
with Granger’s smell model, the net­
work’s simple reinforcement rules cause
the neurons to organize themselves into
groups for specific tasks. By the time the
input pattern has worked its way up
through the network, the neurons in the
top layer have formed into specialized
clusters that respond the most when bars
of light with specific orientations are pre­
sented—just like the specialized neurons
in the monkey’s brain.
The network organizes itself because
each neuron in one layer gets information
from a committee of neurons in the layer
below it. Those neurons that “vote” with
the majority get reinforced while lone
dissenters lose their influence. “As the

Accounting for emotion______
Fear, happiness and love are all part of the mind’s machinery
he brain does a lot more than
think. At the very moment
you’re deciding which chess
piece to move or whether to invest in
stocks or mutual funds, your brain is
regulating your body temperature,
making sure you’re standing upright,
telling you if you’re hungry or thirsty
and reacting to the attractive man or
woman in the next room.
And when it comes to fear, anger,
love, sadness or any of the complicated
mixtures of feeling and physical re­
sponse we label emotions, a loose net­
work of lower-brain structures and
nerve pathways called the limbic sys­
tem appears to be key. Researchers
stimulating various parts of this sys­
tem with an electrode can produce
strong responses of pleasure, pain or
aggression. A cat, for example, will
hiss, spit and growl when an electrical
probe is inserted at a specific spot in
the hypothalamus—a part of the lim­
bic system that is also involved in
regulating appetite and other bodily
functions. An electrode in another re­
gion of the hypothalamus triggers
pleasure so intense that a rat will press
a bar thousands of times to receive it—
and die from starvation in the process.
The most recent research, however,
indicates that the experience of emo­
tion has less to do with specific loca­
tions in the brain and more to do
with the complicated circuitry that

T

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, June 27, 1988

interconnects them and the patterns
of nerve impulses that travel among
them. “It’s a little like your television
set," says neuroscientist Dr. Floyd
Bloom of the Scripps Clinic and Re­
search Foundation. “There are indi­
vidual tubes, and you can say what
they do, but if you take even one tube
out, the television doesn’t work.”
A mugger or a cat? Researchers
have been able to find out the most
about primitive emotions like fear.
Seeing a shadow flit across your path
in a dimly lit parking lot will trigger a
complex series of events. First, senso­

group develops a consensus,” explains
Linsker, “the mavericks get kicked out.”
New connections

New studies have shown that, even
though much of the brain’s wiring is laid
down in the womb, the connections be­
tween neurons can also be rearranged
during adulthood. It is likely, in fact,
that your brain has made subtle changes
in its wiring since you began reading this
article. More-substantial rearrangements
are believed to occur in stroke victims
who lose and then regain control of a
limb. Michael Merzenich of the Univer­
sity of California at San Francisco first
mapped the specific areas in a monkey’s
brain that were activated when different
fingers on the monkey’s hand were
touched, then trained the monkey to use
one finger predominantly in a task that
earned it food. When Merzenich re­
mapped the touch-activated areas of the

ry receptors in the retina of your eye
detect the shadow and instantly
translate it into chemical signals that
race to your brain. Different parts of
the limbic system and higher-brain
centers debate the shadow’s impor­
tance. What is it? Have we encoun­
tered something like this before? Is it
dangerous? Meanwhile, signals sent
by the hypothalamus to the pituitary
gland trigger a flood of hormones
alerting various parts of your body to
the possibility of danger, and produc­
ing the response called “fight or
flight”: Rapid pulse, rising blood
pressure, dilated pupils and other
physiological shifts that prepare you
for action. Hormone signals are car­
ried through the blood, a much slow­
er route than nerve pathways. So
even after the danger is past—when
your brain decides that the shadow is
a cat’s, not a mugger’s—it takes a few
minutes for everything to return to
normal.
Fear is a relatively uncomplicated
emotion, however. Sophisticated sen­
timents—sadness or joy, for exam­
ple—are much harder to trace. And
even primitive feelings such as fear or
rage involve complex interactions
with the higher parts of the brain—
witness our ability to become fearful
or angry about an abstract idea. The
mechanics of these interactions are
still out of reach, but the same com­
puter models scientists are using now
to understand thinking may someday
shed light on emotions as well.
by Erica E. Goode

53

monkey’s brain, he found that the area
responding to signals from that finger
had expanded by nearly 600 percent.
Merzenich found a similar rearrange­
ment of processing areas when he simu­
lated brain damage caused by a stroke.
Researchers Leif Finkel and Gerald M.
Edelman of Rockefeller University were
able to duplicate these overall phenomena
in a neural network when they applied a
simple rule to the behavior of small
groups of neurons. Groups of neurons
were set up to “compete” for connections
to the sensory nerves. The researchers
found that when they gave one group an
excessive input—analogous to training
the monkey to use a particular finger—
that patch grew in size. When that input
was stopped, the patch grew smaller.

These experiments suggest that some
extremely complex feats of perception
can, at least in theory, be explained by
the interaction of many neurons, each of
which performs a seemingly quite simple
task. Terrence Sejnowski of Johns Hop­
kins University, for example, created a
neural network that learned to judge
how much a spherical object was curved
by the way a beam of light cast a shadow
on it. Much to his surprise, Sejnowski
found that even though the network was
trained to compute the object’s shape
from its shading, individual neurons
within the network actually responded
with the most activity when he later test­
ed the network not with curved surfaces
but with bars of light. In fact, the neu­
rons responded just like the specialized
neurons in the monkey’s brain discov­
ered years ago by Hubei and Wiesel—
neurons that had long been assumed to

mean that you can’t make quick assump­
tions about what the entire brain is do­
ing simply by sampling what individual
neurons are doing. You need to look at
the system as a whole.” Several neuro­
scientists, inspired by Sejnowski’s study,
plan to investigate whether such curva­
ture-computing cells actually exist in the
brain.
The ability of neural networks to learn
to simulate these brainlike tasks has also
inspired researchers who are interested
in creating machines that act more like
real brains. While conventional comput­
ers can perform powerful feats of num­
ber crunching, they are dismal failures at
doing more-brainlike operations such as
seeing, hearing, and understanding
speech—things we usually take for
granted but that are extremely complex
Working in concert
computationally. “The things that dis­
The biggest impact of neural networks
tinguish us from monkeys—playing
may be in helping re­
chess, for example—are
-.
■. ■
>- -.rr. . ,P -,r
searchers explore how
easy for computers to
the brain does sophisti­
do,” says Caltech’s
cated information pro­
Koch. “But when it
cessing. Even though
comes to doing things
scientists can record sig­
we share with the ani­
nals from the individual
mal kingdom, comput­
neurons in the brain that
ers are awful. In com­
might be involved in
puting
vision
or
such a task as tracking
movement, for example,
an object with the eyes,
no computer comes
they still don’t know
even close to matching
how the brain puts those
the abilities of a fly.”
millions of signals to­
Engineers at the Na­
gether to perform the
tional Aeronautics and
computation. But be­
Space Administration,
cause a neural network Perceiving depth: Though the two images above have the same shapes, the
the Defense Depart­
can adapt its connec­ right one is perceived by the brain as two overlapping squares—evidence
ment and computer
tions in response to its that the brain uses multiple visual clues simultaneously to judge depth
companies around the
experiences, it can be
world are all busily
trained to learn sophisticated brainlike
scrambling to find the best ways to im­
tasks—and then researchers can examine
plement neural networks on computer
the artificial brain in detail to get clues to
chips.
how a real brain might be doing it.
It may be a long time, however, before
In one study, for example, a neural
anybody is able to build a machine that
network helped researchers explain how
actually works like a brain. After all,
the brain is able to judge the position of an
nature has had a 7-million-year head
object from signals sent by neurons con­
start on engineers, and researchers have
nected to the eyes. Brain scientists Rich­
never encountered anything as complex
ard Andersen of the Massachusetts Insti­
and ingeniously designed as the 3-pound
tute of Technology and David Zipser of
lump of tissue inside your skull.
the University of California at San Diego
Meanwhile, the first steps at under­
trained a neural network to do the task by
standing how the brain really works have
giving it data recorded from a monkey’s
already been taken. Many brain research­
neurons as the animal tracked an object
ers now believe that the bigger mysteries
moving in front of it. Since the researchers
of how we make choices and use lan­
already knew the position of the object Spiral or circle? Try tracing it with your
guage—or why some memories last for­
that the nerve signals corresponded to, finger. Given conflicting cues, the brain
ever while others fade—will inevitably
they were able to “train” the network to chooses one interpretation over another
yield their secrets. Even the nature of the
do the task: They gave the network a
brain’s creativity, attention and con­
series of recorded input signals and let the be involved in helping the brain detect sciousness may someday be revealed.
network adjust itself until it consistently the straight edges of objects, not their “Basically, the brain is a neural network
was able to give the right answer. The curvature. “My network doesn’t prove —however complicated, ” says Andersen.
researchers then examined the network to that those cells in the monkey’s brain are “It will take time, but we will solve it.” ■
reveal the complex calculations it uses to actually there to compute curvature and
forge all the data into the correct answer. not edges,” says Sejnowski. “But it does
by William F. Allman
54

U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT. June 27.1988

CONVERSATION ■ Patricia Churchland of the University of California at San Diego is attempting

to blend the findings of brain science with philosophy. She is the author of Neurophilosophy

Philosophy m tho ag© of neuroscience
or a long, long time, people have puzzled about what
makes us the way we are: How it is possible for us to be
aware of things, to be conscious, to learn and perceive.
We have this rather time-honored and ancient feeling
about ourselves that we have a will that is free and that we
make choices that emanate from our free will. But in the end,
all of that has to come from the brain.
What is exciting about the new era is that real inroads are
being made into what used to be thought of as philosophical
questions that would never, ever be answered by science. It
looks possible now that we are going to understand some very
basic things about the nature of how our brains work. And my
hunch is that we are in for some real surprises. We are going
to come to think of ourselves very differently—and I think
that is immensely exciting.
There is already psycholog­
ical data showing that the
conventional wisdom on ratio­
nality—that it’s pretty much
deduction—is clearly not
right. It’s much more compli­
cated and messy and sophisti­
cated—and, if you like, pow­
erful—than logic.
We think of ourselves as
mulling over a decision such
as “Should I do this?” or
“Should I maybe not do that?”
It may very well turn out that
decision making and problem
solving will look much more
like the way neural networks
function. The neurons in the
networks are interacting and interacting—and finally they
relax into a stable configuration, and that’s your answer. Then,
introspectively, we say to ourselves, “Ah, I’ve decided I will,
after all, go to Hawaii.”
That isn’t how we’re accustomed to thinking about how we
make decisions. We’ll have to think of choice and responsibil­
ity in a very different way. Like all new ideas, it’s a little bit
frightening. The old ideas are especially near and dear to us
because, after all, this isn’t a theory about whether the earth is
fiat or whether the sun goes around the earth; this is about
us—about what we are and how we work and what makes us
the way we are. And people sometimes find it rather upsetting.

F

Ignoring science

I was inspired by a comment made by [the late physicist]
Richard Feynman in an interview in Playboy magazine, of all
things. He made this very intemperate—but very accurate—
remark that if philosophers are going to ignore the science of
their day, they can’t hope to understand the things they want
to understand.
Philosophers used to speculate and think about memory—
laying down the boundary conditions for what they thought
would be a useful answer and so forth—but it was always in
terms of behavior. By and large, philosophers didn’t pay any
real attention to the meat itself. Neuroscience was not inter­
esting. Now, the puzzle of memory is being solved scientifical­
ly by neuroscientists and neural-network modelers. They’ve
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT, June 27, 1988

got us to the point where the metaphors we used to have as a
kind of crutch we can now throw away and say, “Let’s
understand the brain itself.”
Philosophers have to admit that they were wrong about
certain things. We thought memory was a single kind of
process, but we now see that there are probably four or five
kinds of ways that memories get stored. It seemed to me that
the traditional style of doing philosophy was not going any­
where, and that I really had to look at the brain.
Philosophers traditionally have been the ones who try to
introduce some order and organization into areas that have not
yet become sciences. Now that physics, chemistry and biology
are sciences, philosophy has mostly to do with the nature of
the mind. And my feeling is that as the mind/brain becomes
more and more understood
scientifically, philosophers
will have less and less to think
of as uniquely their own.
A model of the worth

The critical question, and one
that both philosophers and
neuroscientists can collaborate
on, is how you can represent a
model of the world in your
brain—not only the world of
space and time and other peo­
ple and objects and trees and
mountains but your own inter­
nal world, too: Your model of
yourself as a being that is ex­
tended through time, that has
a certain personality, that has
certain desires and a memory store that can be tapped.
Immanuel Kant made the argument that perception is not
likely to be just a passive process—that, in some sense, the
brain builds the model of the world; it doesn’t just passively
receive an image in the way that a piece of film just passively
receives an image. So the big questions are: How do brains use
representations to make these models of the external and the
internal worlds? And what does that mean for how we think
of ourselves?
The whole field of ethics is something that philosophers
may need to rethink quite thoroughly in the light of develop­
ments in both neuroscience and psychology. You don’t want
to say that what is right is simply what most people think is
right. The norms in ethics in a sense come from us because of
the kind of evolutionary history we have and because of the
kinds of brains we have. It’s not that a child has it imprinted
on his brain that certain things are right and certain things
aren’t; somehow or other, we generate these conceptions of
what is right and what is not right. And we probably do that
in the same way we learn everything else, the way that neural
networks often leant things—and that is by being presented
with examples.
And all those conceptions are always evolving. At my ripe
old age, I am still presumably evolving my understanding of
how to interact with other humans.
Conversation with William F. Allman

55

MYERS-BRIGGS
TYPE

INDICATOR
______________ FORM F

.....

by Katharine G Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers

DIRECTIONS:

There are ho “right” or “wrong” answers to these
questions. Your answers will help show how you like
to look at things and how vou like to go about decid­
ing things. Knowingyour own preferences and learning
about other people’s can help you understand where
your special strengths arc, what kinds of work you
might enjoy and be successful doing, and how people
with different preferences can relate to each otherand
be valuable to society.
[

Read each question carefully and mark your answer
on the separate answer sheet. Make no marks on the
question booklet. Do not think too long about any
question. If you cannot decide on a question, skip it
but be careful that the next space you mark on the
answer sheet has the same number as the question you
are then answering.
Read the directions on your answer sheet, fill in your
name and any other facts asked for, and work through
until you have answered all the questions.

Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. 577 College Ave., Palo Alto,
California 94 306. © Copyright 1976 by Isa! -1 Briggs Myers. Copyright
1945, 1944, 1957 by Katharine C. Briggs ana Isabel Briggs Myers. No
reproduction is lawful without written permission of the publisher.
TDmi PRINTING, 1905

Which answer comes closest to telling how you usually feel or act?

Docs following a schedule
(A)
appeal to you, or
(B)
cramp you?

10.

2.

Do you usually get along better with
(A)
imaginative people, or
(B)
realistic people?

11.

3.

If strangers are staring at you in a crowd,
do you
(A)
often become aware of it, or
(B)
seldom notice it?

1.

4.

12.

When you are with a group of people, would
you usually rather
(A)
join in the talk of the group, or
(B)
talk individually with people
you know well?

7.

When you have more knowledge or skill in
semething than the people around you, is it
more satisfying
(A)
to guard your superior knowledge, or
(5) to share it with those who want
to learn?

8.

When you have done all you can to remedy
a — oublesome situation, arc you
(A)
able to stop worrying about it, or
(B> still more or less haunted by it?

9.

If you were asked on a Saturday morning
w-at you were going to do that day,
w old you
(Ar be able to tell pretty will, or
(E- list twice too many things, or
(G have to wait and see?

In doing something that many other people
do, does it appeal to you more to
(A)
do it in the accepted way, or
(B)
invent a way of your own?

When you were small, did you
feel sure of your parents’ love and
devotion to you, or
(B)
feel that they admired and approved
of some other child more than they
did of you?

13.

Do you
(A) rather prefer to do things at the last
minute, or
(B)
find that hard on the nerves?

14.

If a breakdown or mix-up halted a job on
which you and a lot of others were working.
would your impulse be to
(A) enjoy the breathing spell, or
(B)
look for some part of the work where
you could still make progress, or
(C)
join the “trouble-shooters ” who were
wrestling with the difficulty?

15.

Do you usually
(A)
show your feelings freely, or
(B)
keep your feelings to yourself?

16.

When you have decided upon a course of
action, do you
(A)
reconsider it if unforeseen disadvan­
tages are pointed out to you, or
(B)
usually put it through to a finish.
however it may inconvenience yourself
and others?

17.

In reading for pleasure, do you
(A) enjoy odd or original ways of saying
things, or
(B)
like writers to say exactly what
they mean?

5.

6.

•
children have-thc best of it, or
life, is more interesting for grown-ups?

(A)

Are you more careful about
(A)
people's feelings, or
(B)
their rights?

Are you
(A)
inclined to enjoy deciding things, or
■ (B) just as glad to have circumstances
decide a matter for you?

Do you think on the whole that

(A)

(B)

18.

In any of the ordinary emergencies of
everyday life, do you prefer to
<A) take orders and be helpful, or
<B) give orders and be responsible?

19.

At parties, ds'you
(A) sometimes get bored, or
(B)
always have fun?

20.

h it harder for you to adapt to
(A) routine, or
(B) constant change?

21.

Would you be more willing to take on a
heavy load of extra work for the sake of
(A) extra comforts and luxuries, or
(B) a chance to achieve something
important?

22.

Arc the things you plan or undertake
(A) almost always things you can finish, or
(B) often things that prove too difficult to
carry through?

23.

Are you more attracted to
(A) a person with a quick and brilliant
mind, or
(B) a practical person with a lot of
common sense?

24.

Do you find people in general
(A) slow to appreciate and accept ideas
not their own, or
(B) reasonably open-minded?

29.

Is it a higher compliment to be called
(A) a person of real feeling, or
(B)
a consistently reasonable person?

30.

When you have a decision to make, do
you usually
(A) make it right away, or
<B) wait as long as you reasonably can
before deciding?

31.

When you run into an unexpected difficulty
in something you arc doing, do you feel it
to be
(A) a piece of bad luck, or
(B) a nuisance, or
(C)
all in the day’s work?

32.

Do you almost always
(A) enjoy the present moment and make
the most of it, or
(B)
feel that something just ahead is
more important?

33.

Are you
(A) easy: to get to know, or
(B) hard to get to know?

34.

With most of the people you know, -o you
(A) feel that they mean what they say, or
(B)
feel you must watch for a hidden
meaning?

35.

When you start a big project that is due in a
week, do you
(A) take time to list the separate things to
be done and the order of doing them,
or
(B) plunge in?

36.

In solving a personal problem, do you
(A) feel more confident about it if you
have asked other people’s advice, or
(B)
feel that obody else is in as good a
position to judge as you arc?

25.

When you have to meet strangers, do you
find it
>.
(A) pleasant, or at least easy, or
(B) something that takes a good deal
- of effort?

26.

Arc you inclijied to
(A) value sci..hncnt more than logic, or
(B) value logic more than sentiment?

27.

Do you prefer to
(A)
arrange dates, parties, etc. well in
advance, or
(B) be free to do whatever looks like fun
when the time comes?

37.

Do you admire more the people who ?re
(A) conventional enough never to m: .c
themselves conspicuous, or
(B)
too original and individual to care
whether they are conspicuous or not?

28.

In making plans which concern othci people,
do you prefer to
(A) take them into your confidence, or
(B) keep them in the dark until the last
possible moment?

38.

Which mistake would be more natural
for you:
(A) to drift from one thing to another all
your life, or
(B)
to stay in a rut that didn’t suit y ou?

Go on to the next page.

39.

When you run across people who arc
mistaken in their beliefs, do you fed that
(A) it is your duty to set them right, or
(B)
it is their privilege to be wrong?

48.

When an attractive chance f<» leadership
comes to you, do vou
(A) accept it if it is sort lung you can
really swing, or
(B) sometimes let it sli;- i>c< ause you are
' ■
too modest about \ >ur.own abilities,
(C)
or doesn't leadersh p ever attract you?;

49.

40.

41.

Among your friends, are you
(A) one of the last to hear what is going
on, or
(B) full of news about everybody?

42.

Are you at your best
(A) when dealing with the unexpected, or
(B) when following a carefully workedout plan?

43.

Does the importance of doing well on a test
make it generally
(A) easier for you to concentrate and do
your best, or<B) harder for you to concentrate and do
yourself justice?

44.

In your free hours, do you
(A) very much enjoy stopping somewhere
for refreshments, or
(B) usually want to use the time and
money another way?
V

45.

46.

47.

At the time in your life when things piled
up on you the worst, did you find
(A) that you had gotten into an impossible
situation, or
(B) that by doing only the necessary
things you could work your way out?

Do most of the people you know
(A) take their fair share of praise and
blame, or
(B) grab all the credit they can but shift
any blame on to someone else?
When you are in an embarrassing spot, do
you usually
(A) change the subject, or
<B) turn it into a joke, or
(C)
days later, think of what you should
have said?

Arc such emotional "ups and downs” as you
may feel
(A) very marked,.or
(B) rather moderate?

Do you think that having a daily routine is
a comfortable way to get things done,
or
painful even when necessary?
(B)
(A)

50.

Arc you usually
(A) a “good mixer", or
(B) rather quiet and reserved?'

51.

In your early childhood (at six or eight),
did you
(A) fed your parents were very wise
people who should be obeyed, or
(B)
find their authority irksome and
escape it when possible?

52.

When you have a suggestion that ought to be
made at a meeting, do you
(A) stand up and make it as a matter of
course, or
(B) hesitate to do so?

?3. Do you get more annoyed at
(A) fancy theories, or
(B) people who don’t like theories?

54.
When you are helping in a group undertakK ing, are you more often struck by
(A) the cooperation, or
(B)
the inefficiency,
(C)
or don’t you get involved in group
undertakings?

55.

When you go somewhere for the day, would
you rather
(A) plan what you will do and when, or
(B) just go?

56.

Are the things you worry about
(A) often really not worth it, or
(B)
always more or less serious?

57.

In deciding something important, do you
(A)
find you can trust your feeling about
what is best to do, or
(B)
think you should do the logical thing,
no matter how you feel about it?

8. Do you tend to have
(A) deep friendships with a very few
people, or
(B) broad friendships with many
different people?

A Do you think your friends
(A) feel you are open to suggestions, or
(B) know better than to try to talk you
out of anything you’ve decided to do?

66.

Do you think you get
(A) more enthusiastic about things than
the average person, or
(B) less enthusiastic about things than
the average person?

67.

If you divided all the people you know into
those you like, those you dislike, and those
toward whom you feel indifferent/wotdd
there be more of \
(A) those you like, or
(B) those you dislike?

). Does the idea of making a list of what you
should get done over a week-end
(A) appeal to you, or
(B) leave you cold, or
(C)
positively depress you?

. In traveling, would you rather go
(A) with a companion who had made the
trip before and “knew the ropes”, or
(B) alone or with someone greener at it
than yourself?

[On this next question only, if two answers
are true, mark both.]

68.

. Would you radier have
• (A) an opportunity that may lead to
bigger things, or
• (B) an experience that you are sure
to enjoy?
Among your personal beliefs, are there
(A/ some things that cannot be proved, or
(B) only things than can be proved?
Would you rather
(A) supporcthe established methods of
doing good, or
(B) analyze what is still wrong and attack
unsolved problems?

Has it been your experience that you
(A) often fall in love with a notion or
project that turns out to be a dis­
appointment—so that you “go up like
a rocket and come down like the
stick", or do you
(B) use enough judgment on your enthus­
iasms so that they do not let you
down?

In your daily work, do you
(A) rather enjoy an emergency that makes

(B)
(C)

you work against time, or
hate to work under pressure, or
usually plan your work so you won t
need to work under pressure?

69.

Are you more likely to speak up in
(A) praise, or
(B) blame?

70.

Is it higher praise to say someone has
(A) vision, or
(B) common sense?

71.

When playing cr Is, do you enjoy most
(A) the sociability,
(B)
the excitement of winning.
(C)
the problem of getting the most out
of each hand,
(D> the risk of playing for stakes.
( E) <Sr don’t you enjoy playing cards?

G'(> on :o the next page.

Which word in each pair appeals to you more?

72.

(A) firm-minded

warm-hearted (B)

98.

(A)

sensible

fascinating

(B)

73.

(A)

imaginative

matter-of-fact (B)

99.

(A)

changing

permanent

<B)

74.

(A)

systematic

spontaneous

(B)

100.

(A)

determined

devoted

(B)

75.

(A)

congenial

effeexive

(B)

101.

(A)

system

zest

(B)

76.

(A)

theory

certainty

(B)

102.

(A)

facts

ideas

(B)

77.

(A)

party

theater

(B)

103.

(A) compassion

foresight

(B)

78.

(A)

build

invent

<B)

104.

(A)

concrete

abstract

(B)

79.

(A)

analyze

sympathize

(B)

105.

(A)

justice

mercy

(B)

80.

(A)

popular

intimate

(B)

106.

(A)

calm

lively

(3)

81.

(A)

benefits

blessings

(B)

107.

(A)

make

create

(B)

82.

(A)

casual

correct

(B)

108.

(A)

wary

trustful

(B)

83.

(A)

active

intellectual

(B)

109.

(A)

orderly

easy-going

(B)

84.

(A)

uncritical

critical

(B)

110.

(A)

approve

question

(B)

85.

(A)

scheduled

unplanned

(B)

111.

(A)

gentle

firm

<B)

86.

(A)

convincing

touching

(B)

112.

(A)

foundation

87.

(A)

reserved

'? Jkative

(B)

113.

(A)

quick

88.

(A)

statement

concept

(B)

114.

(A)

thinking

feeling

(Bl

89.

<A)

soft

experience

(B.1

90.

(A)

production

detached

(B

91.

(A)

forgive

symbol

(b:

hard

(B)

115.

(A)

theory

design

(B)

116.

(A)

sociable

(B)

117.

(A)

sign

derate

92.

(A)

hearty

tier

(B)

118.

(A)

systematic

93.

(A)

who

what

(B)

119.

(A)

literal

94.

(A)

impulse

decision

(B)

120.

(A) |peacemaker

spire

(B) .

careful

(B)

casual

<B)

figurative

<B)

judge

(B)

95.

(A)

speak

write

(B)

121.

(A)

accept

change

(B)

96.

(A)

affection

tenderness

(B)

122.

(A)

agree

discuss

<B)

97.

(A)

punctual

leisurely

(B)

123.

(A)

executive

scholar

(B)

Which answer comes closest to telling how you usually feel or act?
124.

125.

,

126.

127.

Do you find the more routine pares of
your day
(A) restful, or
(B) boring?

135.

If you think you are not getting a square
deal in a club or team to which you
belong, is it betjer to
(A) shutup and take it, or
(B) use the threat of resigning.if.
necessary to get your rights?

136.

Can you
(A) talk easily to almost anyone for as
long as you have to, or
(B) find a lot to say only to certain
people or under certain conditions?

137.

When strangers notice you, does it
(A) make you uncomfortable, or
(B) not bother you at all?

130.

■ .

When something starts to be the fashion,
are you usually
(A) one of the first to try it, or’..
(B) not much interested?

(B)

When you find yourself definitely in the
wrong, would you rather
(A) admit you are wrong, or
(B) not admit it, though everyone
(C)

138.

Can the new people you meet tell what you
are interested in
(A) right away, or
(B) only after they really get to

know you?

139.

In your home life, when you come to the
end of some undertaking, arc you
(A) clear as to what comes next and ready

(B)

Do you think it more important to
(A) be able to sec the possibilities in a
(B)

or
find out what is necessary as you go
along?

!I33. Do you feel it is a worse fault
(A) to show too much warmth, or
(B) not to have warmth enough?

•I 34. When you are at a parry, do you like to
j
(A) help get things going, or
(B)

Do you feel that the people whom you
know personally owe their successes more to

(A)
(B)
(C)

ability and hard work, or
luck, or
bluff, pull and shoving themselves

ahead of others?
142.

In getting a job done, do you depend upon
(A) starting early, so as to finish with time
(B)

‘
143.

to spare, or
the extra speed you develop at the

last minute?
After associating with superstitious people,

have you
(A) found yourself slightly affected by

let the others have fun in their
own way?

situation, or
be able to adjust to the facts as
they arc?

141.

J132. When you have a special job to do, do you
like to
4
(A) organize it carefully before you start,

(B)

to tackle it, or
glad to relax until the next inspiration
hits you?

140.

feel no more anxiety than the

If people seem to slight you, do you
(A) tell yourself they didn't mean any­
thing by it, or
(B) distrust their good will and stay on
guard with them thereafter?

knows it,
or don’t you ever find yourself in

the wrong?

situation requires?
131.

tight spot, or
hold yourself down to what you can

’ comfortably handle?

In solving a difficult personal problem,
do you
(A) tend to do more worrying than is
useful in reaching a decision, or

decide about it fairly quickly, or
sometimes miss out through taking
too long to make up your mind?

In managing your life, do you tend to
(A) undertake too much and get into a
(B)

, 128. If you were a teacher, would you rather
teach
(A) fact courses, or
(B) courses involving theory?
129.

When a new opportunity comes up, do you
(A)
(B)

(B)

their superstitions, or
remained entirely unaffected?

Go on to the next page.

14-4. When you don't agree with what has just
Iteen said, do you usually
(A) let it go, or
(B) put up an argument?

145.

Would you rather be considered
(A) a practical person, or
(B) an ingenious person?

146.

Out of all the good resolutions you may
have made. are_thcre
(A) some you have kept to this day, or
(B) none that have really lasted?

147.

Would you rather work under someone

156.

149.

is acting, do you

(A)
(B)

158.

Do you feel it is a worse fault to be
(A) unsympathetic, or
(B) unreasonable?

159.

When a new situation comes up w’hich
conflicts with your plans, do you try first to
(A) change your plans to fit the
situation, or

introduce others, or

(B)

(B)

get introduced?

160.

Would you rather have as a friend someone

When it is settled well in advance that you
will do a certain thing at a certain time, do

(B)

a little unpleasant to be tied down?

(A)

about most things, or

(B)

only when you have had some special
reason to tell them?

When you have a serious choice to make,
do you
(A) almost always come to a clear-cut
decision, or
(B) sometimes find it so hard to decide
that you do not wholeheartedly

162.

On most matters, do you
(A) have a pretty definite opinion, or-

follow up either choice?

you find it
(A) nice to be able to plan accordingly, or

152.

(B)

163.

hurt people’s feelings, or

is too effective a form of speech to be
discarded for such a reason?

When you think of some little thing you
should do or buy, do yu j
(A) often forget it till much later, or
(B) usually get it down on paper to

(B)

164.

154.

155.

In listening to a new idea, are you more
anxious to
(A) find out all about it, or
(B) judge whether it is right or wrong?

When the truth would not be polite, are you

165.

In your way of living, do you prefer to be
(A) original, or
(B) conventional?

166.

Would you have liked to argue the meaning
of
(A) a lot of these questions, or
(B) only a few?

always carry through on it
without reminders?

Do you more often let
(A) your heart rule your head, or
(B) your he d rule your heart?

some way, or
improve upon acquaintance?

more likely to tell
(A) a polite lie, or
(B) the impolite truth?

. remind yourself, or
(C)

like to keep an open mind?

As you get to know people better, do y-'u

more often find that they
(A) let you down or disappoint you in

Do you feel that sarcasm
(A) should never be used where it can

(B)

153.

change the situation to fit your plans?

Do you think the people close to you know
now you i cci

161.

When you have to do business with
strangers, do you fed
(A) confident and at ease, or
(B) a little fussed or afraid that they
won't want to bother with you?

151.

wait and sec what happens, or
do or say something about it?

In a large group, do you more often

(A)

who
(A) is always coming up with new ideas, or
(B) has both feet on the ground?

150.

When you don't approve of die way a friend

157.

who is
(A) always kind, or
(B) always fair?

148.

Arc you oppressed by
(A) many different worries, or
(B) comparatively few?

^040830

A SURVEY OF LIFE ORIENTATIONS

STRENGTH MANAGEMENT
STRENGTH DEVELOPMENT
A Program for Better Utilization of Strengths and Personal Style

A SURVEY OF LIFE ORIENTATIONS

DIRECTIONS

This is not a test with right or wrong answers. It is a questionnaire which
permits you to describe your major and minor orientations to life, in order
to Identify the productive and counterproductive ways in which you use your
strengths.
You will be given self-descriptive statements, each followed by
four possible endings. You are to indicate the order in which you feel each
ending applies to you. In the blank spaces to the left of each ending, fill
in the numbers 4, 3, 2, and 1, according to which ending is most like you
(4) and least like you (1).

PLEASE FILL IN THIS EXAMPLE -

MOST OF THE TIME I AM:
good-natured and helpful.................................................... ( 3> )

hard-working and full of plans....................................... ( JI )

economical and thoughtful .......................... ...................... (4 )
charming and popular........................................................... ( ] )

DO NOT USE 4, 3, 2, or 1 MORE THAN ONCE.
If the statements that follow in this questionnaire have two or more endings
that seem equally like you, or are not like you at all, please rank them any­
way, even though it may be difficult. Each ending must be ranked 4. 3, 2,
or 1.

TEAR OFF THIS PAGE AND PROCEED WITH QUESTIONS ON PAGE 1
COPYRIGHT © 1967.1971

ATKINS-KATCHER ASSOCIATES. INC.

PAGE 1

□ □ □ □

□□□□ □□□□

□□□□□□□□ □□□□

I FEEL MOST PLEASED WITH MYSELF WHEN I:
1.

act idealistically and with optimism.

2.

see an opportunity lor leadership and go after it.

3.

look.' after my own Interests and let others look after theirs.

4.

adjust myself to fit in with the group I am with.

I AM MOST APT TO TREAT OTHERS IN:

5.

a respectful, polite, and admiring manner.

6.

an active, energetic, and self-confident manner.,

7.

a careful, reserved, and orderly manner.

8.

a congenial, social, and friendly manner.

f MAKE OTHERS FEEL:

well regarded, capable, and worthy of being called on
for advice.
interested and enthusiastic about joining me in what
I want to do.
11.
justly treated, respected, and appreciative of the
consideration I give them.
12.
pleased, impressed, and desirous of having me around.
9.

10.

IN A DISAGREEMENT WITH ANOTHER PERSON I CAN GAIN MORE BY:
13.
relying on the other person's sense of justice.
14.

trying to outwit or outmaneuver the other person.

15.

remaining composed, methodical, and immovable.

16.

being open-minded and adaptable to the other person.

IN RELATING TO OTHERS I MAY:
17.
become confidential and give my trust even to those who
do not seem to seek it.
18.
become aggressive and take advantage of them, before
realizing I have not given them much consideration.
19.
become suspicious and aloof and treat them with too
much reserve.
20.
become too friendly and find myself with people, even
when I am not especially invited.
I IMPRESS OTHER AS:
21.
a naive person who has little self-confidence or
initiative.
22.
a "sharp operator" who always tries to get the best of
the bargain.
23.
a stubborn individual who is cold toward others.

24.

an inconsistent person who never takes a real stand
of his own.

COPYRIGHT © 1967 1971
ATKINS-KATCHER ASSOCIATES INC

---------------- TEAR OFF THIS PAGE AND PROCEED WITH PAGE 2

PAGE 2

□ <•

1 FEEL I'CAN BEST WIN PEOPLE OVER BY BEING:

25. modest and idealistic.

□ +

26. persuasive and winning.

□ +

27.. patient and practical.

□ +

28. entertaining and lively.

IN RELATING TO OTHERS 1 AM MOST APT TO BE:

□;+

□ +
□ +
□ +
□ +
□ +

29. trusting, confiding, and supportive of others.
30. quick to develop useful Ideas and to organize
others to carry them out.
31. practical, logical, and careful to know with
whom I am dealing.
32. curious to know all about them and anxious io
fit in with what they expect of me.
I FIND IT MOST SATISFYING WHEN OTHERS SEE ME AS:
33. a loyal, trusting friend.
34. a person who can take ideas and make them work.

□ +

35. a person who Is practical and thinks for himself.

□ +

36. a noteworthy and significant person.

IF f DON'T GET WHAT I WANT FROM A PERSON I TEND TO:

□ +
□ +

□ +
□ +

37. give up readily and justify his Inability to do It. -

38. claim my rights and try to talk him Into doing .
It anyway.
39. feel indifferent and find another way to get
what I want.
40. laugh it off and be flexible about the whole thing.

JN THE FACE OF FAILURE I FEEL IT IS BEST TO:

□ +

41. turn to others and count on then’ to help me nut.

□ +

42. fight for my rights and take what I really deserve.

□ +

□ +
□' +

43. hold on tight jo what 1 already have and keep
a close eye on others.
44. keep up a front and try to sell myself as well as
possible.
I'M. FEARFUL THAT AT TIMES 1 MAY IMPRESS OTHERS AS BEING:

45. submissive and Impressionable.
46. aggressive and conceited.

□ +

47. cold and stubborn.

□ +

48. superficial and attention-seeking.
COPYRIGHT © 1967 1971
ATKINS-KATCHER ASSOCIATES. INC

•----------------- TEAR OFF THIS PAGE AND PROCEED WITH PAGE 3

PAGE 3

jS I FEEL THE BEST WAY TO GET AHEAD IN THE WORLD IS TO:
be a worthy person and count on those In authority
to recognize that worth.
work to establish a right to advancement, and
then claim It.
51.
preserve and build on what I already have.
49.
50.

'□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

52.
develop a winning personality that will attract
the notice of others.
KIN SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF WORKING WITH A DIFFICULT PERSON, I:
find out from others how they have met the problem
and follow their advice.
match wits with the person and get around him
as best I can.
55.
decide for myself what Is right and then stand by
my own convictions.
56.
change myself to fit in and make the relationship
more harmonious.
Si IMPRESS OTHERS AS:
53.
54.

a trusting person who appreciates advice and
counsel.
a self-confident person who takes the initiative
in getting people going.
59.
a steadfast person who deals with others
in a careful manner.
60.
an enthusiastic person who can fit In with
almost anyone.

57.

58.

□□□□ □□□□

3l FEEL THAT IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS IT IS BETTER TO:
simply accept defeat and look for what I want
elsewhere.
engage In a contest of wits, rather than lose
out and get nothing.
63.
be suspicious and possessive, rather than.
give up what I have.
64. compromise and go along for the time being.

61.

62.

,

£ AT TIMES I AM APT TO BE:
65.

easily influenced and without confidence.

66.

aggressive, grasping, and conceited.

67.

suspicious, cold, and critical.

68.

childish, and given to seeking the spotlight.

□ □ □ □

§ AT TIMES I MAY MAKE OTHER PEOPLE FEEL:
69.

superior and condescending toward me.

70.

taken advantage of and angry with me.

71.

distant and cold toward me.

72.

mistrustful and disbelieving toward me.

COPYRIGHT © 1967. 1971
ATKINS-KATCHER ASSOCIATES. INC.

— TEAR OFF THIS PAGE AND SCORE ANSWERS ON NEXT PAGE.

National Institute o£ Personnel Management
Madras Chapter

in collaboration with

Sra Ramachandra Medical College and

Research Institute
Madras

Executive Development Programme
on

Stress Management

READING MATERIALS

November 19, 1993

Hotel Savera, Madras

--

HOW DO YOU COPE WITH PROBLEMS?

We all use many diiicrcnl’ defence mechanisms to help us deal
with problems which have "arisen from our relationships with
other people and the outside world. Here are some of them. You
will undoubtedly recognize many of these mechanisms as ones
you yourself have used; others you will recognize as commonly
used by people you know. These mental tricks are not neces­
sarily dangerous or bad for you.

[ Rationalization
A man who has applied for the job of l"iem.:n may console
himself when he hears that he has been unsuccessful by telling
his wife, ‘I didn’t want the job anyway. Il’s badly paid and I’d
Jose the respect of my friends.’
His wife will probably support his feeling if she loves him.
‘You’re quite right,’ she’ll nod, ‘We’re much better-off as we
iare.’
If she has been pushing him to apply for the job, however,
and is now disappointed that he has not been appointed she may­
quarrel with his new judgement and point out that he did want
the job, that it is better paid and that she doesn’t care what his
friends think.
Used properly, rationalization can be a tremendous asset.
The man whose wife supports and strengthens hi< rationale will •
eventually feel quite pleased that he didn't gel the job. He’ll be
grateful that he was fortunate enough not io have become a
foreman. He’ll suffer very little from the fact (hat he was un­
lucky in his application. On the other h ■••J. ihv man whose
wife is less comforting will probably suffer more when his care­
fully devised explanation, designed to fool ’'-.‘y r.imsffland her,
has been punctured. (Naturally male anJ female foies arc al­
ways interchangeable.)
Rationalization is best used as a private defence mechanism
unless you can be stjrc of support from the person with whom
you share the rationalization.
‘Projection.

The woman who cannot cook very well blames her oven. .‘How
do you expect me to cook you good meals? ’ she demands of-her ..
husband, ‘when the cookcr is five years old and completely out . of date?’
.
This woman is using the information and advertising material

"44

’

’

. •

-.P . W

provided by the cooker manufacturers to enable her to project
her own inadequacies on to her cooker.
The bad workman blames his tools,’ goes the old saying and
that is true of most of us from time to time. The golfer.who
makes a bad shot will blame his clubs. The company executive
who is responsible for an administrative foul up will blame the
manager of the minor subsidiary who failed to provide her with
the required materials at half a day’s notice. The gardener
whose seeds don't grow will blame either the seed merchant or
the soil.
In all these eases the person involved has projected his or her
own failure on to someone else or on to some material object
which cannot avoid the blame.
People also project their own feelings on to others. For ex­
ample. the man whose car breaks down on a lonely read late
at night may set off to look for help. He mas- have no overcoat
to protect him from the heavy rain that is falling and there will
inevitably be no moon to make up for the fact that the battery
in his torch is Hal. With so much against him our unfortunate
motorist may be forgiven for believing that the world is not
treating him fairly. He may assume that even if he finds a farm
or a lonely house the occupier is not going to let him use the
telephone. ‘Would I let a bedraggled stranger in on a night like
this?’ he may ask himself.
When he does at last find a small lonely cottage the motorist
approaches it with severe reservations about the reception he
is likely to receive. Before he rings the doorbell he feels certain
that he is going to be refused help. He is in a bad mood and he
knows that he wouldn’t help a complete stranger who arrived
soaked and bedraggled on his doorstep.
So when the owner of the cottage, a kindly retired clergyman
with a heart of gold, opens the door he is surprised to see an
angry man standing there. ‘Stuff your telephone,’ shouts the
motorist. ‘I don’t want your bloody help.’ And with that he
turns on his heel and marches away, having projected his own
feelings on to the completely innocent and unfortunate clergy­
man who would, of course, have been perfectly happy to offer
food, drink and telephone to a stranded stranger.
45

This defence mechanism is not usually a wise one to use. It
leaves the person who uses it feeling aggrieved and unsatisfied.
-? Displacing aggression
'Hie vice chairman of International Telephone Polishing Ser­
vices Inc. is told off by the chairman for failing to arrange a
deal with South Seas Underground Window (.’leaning Services
Inc. The vice chairman castigates the managing director for not
having provided him with the latest figures from the accounts
department on time. Then the managing director ticks oil his
assistant who snarls at his secretary who shouts at the tea lady
who screams at the hall porter who snaps at his wife who scolds
their son who kicks the cat who frightens (he life out of a poor
sparrow. None of these unfortunate folk realize (hat (heir prob­
lems started when the company’s Parisian agent failed to obtain
tickets for the Paris Opera on behalf of the company chairman
whose wife is a great fan of the Italian soprano. Bella.Laudli.
It would have been far less traumatic for all concerned if the
chairman had taken his aggression out on a punchball or had
chosen to smash a couple of old plates in the stables at his
spacious country home! A game of squash or a few minutes in
the gym might also have helped ease the chairman's feeling of
anger.
We all use this technique of displacing aggression on to other
people or on to objects and it has advantages and disadvantages.
The main advantage is that the angry person doesn’t allow his
feelings to build up inside himself: he passes the feeling on to
someone or something else. This is much better than simply
allowing the feelings of frustration and anger to build up inside
for if this happens then the person involved will probably deve­
lop a genuine stress disorder. The main disadvantage of course,
is that a great many perfectly innocent people may suffer. Some
of them may be paid to accept the boss's displaced aggression.
Others will neither expect it or be able to cope with it. For this
reason it is far better if aggressive feelings are displaced on to
inanimate objects such as squash balls, gymnasium floors, run­
ning tracks or pieces of faulty and unwanted china. There’s a
lot to be said for keeping a store of old plates somewhere so
46

that you can smash them when you’re feeling uptight. Greeks
do a lot of this when they’re enjoying themselves in restaurants.
tpNostalgia
The cry,‘The old days were best! is a common one. Many people
enjoy music and fashions from past decades because in this way
'they can hide from modern problems and unwelcome advances.
Problems can arise when the past becomes more real than the
present for it is impossible to escape from our technological
age. Even those who choose to ignore the modern world and
live off the land can usually only manage to keep their heads in
the sand for a short period. Enjoy the past but don’t try to fool
yourself that you can ignore the present.

,■ Specialization
Classically it is university professors who are so lost in their
own worlds that they go outside in their carpet slippers, forget
to put their tics on, cannot remember where they parked the
car and do not know the month or even the year. Many great
academic figures have been so wrapped up in their own
i speciality that they have been, quite unable to accept the fact
I that there is a world outside their own subject.
This is an effective way of closing out the problems of the
real world but (hose who use this mechanism may suffer very
badly if their private world collapses or of the problems of the
real world become unavoidable. The only people who can use
this type of mechanism really effectively are those who have
others around them to ensure that the bills are paid and that
minor infringements of the law are dealt with painlessly. An
academic man whose wife looks after the practical aspects of his
life may well be unable to look after himself or to survive at all
in the real world after his wife’s death.
• To a much lesser extent we can all use this defence mechan­
ism to help us lock out the world’s problems for short periods
of time. Someone whose hobby involves model train building
and running may use his hobby to enable him to escape from a
stressful world at weekends and during the evenings. Specialist
sports followers who enjoy the majestic achievements of their
47

kJ
I

heroes and follow the fortunes of the various teams involved in
their sport often manage to escape successfully from the prob­
lems of the coal polishing industry or the peanut salting factory
(see also hcro worship).

Compensation
The man who is unable to obtain academic success may com­
pensate himself (and those whose love and support he has) by
being successful at sports. The man whose business career is less
than sparkling may nevertheless achieve success with his hobby.
' ‘Maybe I cannot become chief clerk.' says (he clerk seeing
/j his junior promoted above him, ‘but my roses are better than
I anyone clsc's.’
'
Similarly, young people who arc physically weak or disabled
may take to sports which they can do successfully and achieve
considerable prestige at them, for example, a jmmg girl who
is physically weak may take up swimming and eventually be­
come a champion.
We all need to be successful at something in order to achieve
personal satisfaction and to feel wanted. I Aeryonc is good at
something and it is essential that we all find out just what we
can excel at. To compensate may also be to specialize.
'/•'Hero worship
This enables the young office typist doing a boring job which
demands little physically or mentally to share the full and ex­
citing rewarding life of a rock star, fashion model or profes­
sional tennis player. Surprisingly, many people who might ap­
pear to have satisfying jobs envy others. So the rock star may
dream of being a racing motorist and the lop jockey may wor­
ship the film star he’d like to emulate.
Hero worship is generally a harmless way to escape the duller
days of life but the people who enjoy life at first hand rather
than at second hand probably achieve more genuine and longlasting satisfaction.

;•) Regression
Many modern businessmen have toys on their office desks.
48

These arc often expensively made and well-designed but they
are nevertheless toys. They enable the executive to regress to
his childhood in moments of crisis but because they arc wellmade and expensive they do not detract from his image as a
successful and wealthy person.
<■ Playing with toys and games helps by taking the executive
back to the days when decisions were fairly simple and respon­
sibilities slight. Games can help us all by enabling us to forget
our immediate problems and concentrate on less important
b- tasks. Playing solitaire, or playing with a yo-yo can help reduce
tlphysical and mental tension at times of crisis. The man or
j woman who can switch off from major decision making and
. 'spend a few minutes w ith a toy or game will be able to ward off
J many stress-induced illnesses.
Incidentally, hospital patients often find it comforting to re­
gress to childhood and leave all decisions to the doctors and
nurses looking after them. In childhood we know that our
parents will solve all major problems and we have a comforting
sense of security as a result. This is exactly what the sick often
need. They need to trust cithers and to abdicate normal respon­
sibilities.
3 ) Day-dreaming
We all dream from time to time. It helps in boring or un­
pleasant moments to drift away to another place. This is a par­
ticularly useful defence mechanism. Some people find life so
unbearable that they live in a permanent day-dream. Those
mental patients who-.are convinced that they arc really Napo­
leon or Josephine are usually .happy enough in their private
world. However, day-dreaming can give a false sense of satisfaction. It is important for the dreamer to retain a hold on
reality!

|y'' Ideological solutions
l ite recent popularity of figures such as the Maharishi Yogi
shows how quasi-religious solutions arc sought by people look■ ing for relief in a new ideology. Similarly, the terrorist organi­
zations which recruit so easily in many different countries
49

depend for their attraction upon the fact that they offer their
converts a way to escape from the other, more trivial, problems
of modern living.
'Apathy
Another way to cope with problems very cHectiveh in the short
term is to simply ignore them. You don’t have to be a drop-out
to choose the apathy road. Many people who have regular jobs
drop out each evening by slumping down in front of the tele­
vision_set.

These defence mechanisms are not necessarily harmful.
Problems arise when they arc used subconsciously to such an
extent that the user becomes dependent upon one or other of
them. When used consciously they may be effective stress dissolutivcsTT

YOUR COUNTERSTRESS CHECKLIST
I Check your exposure to stressful situations and stimuli with the
following questionnaire. Every ‘yes’ indicates a point of expo­
sure and potential weakness.

Your physical environment
, Do you live in a city?
Do you have to commute to work? •
Is the office or factory or shop where you work usually noisy?
« Do you have to avoid going out alone at night where you live? .
q Do your neighbours keep to themselves and avoid offering help
to others if possible?
Do you own equipment rcccntl}' bought that you don’t really
need?
When you mow the lawn docs it take longer to prepare the
mower than to actually cut the grass?
Do you live in a block of flats?
Can you hear your neighbour’s TV set and squabbles at night?
" Do you live near to a busy road?
Do you live near to an airport?
• Do you live near to a large factory?
Do you ever have to raise your voice to make yourself heard in
your home because of noises outside?
-Do you have to share an entrance with other people?
Do you wish you had a room of your own to which you could
retire when you arc looking for a little peace and quiet?
Do you end up watching television most evenings because you
don’t have anything else to do?
Is the TV set switched on by others when you would rather be
doing something else?
Do you have to travel long distances when youhvould rather
stay at home?
Do you spend more than half an hour a day travelling?^
Do you fly though you hate flying?
Xre you always in a hurry when on business trips?

37

Your social environment
Do you wish .you had more responsibility?
vDo'you wish you had less responsibility?
Do you get frustrated at work?
o Arc your activities restricted because of your age?
oDid you have to retire earlier than you wanted to? •
Do you wish you could have retired earlier?
Do you think your sex has affected your promotion chances at
work?
Do you think your sex has affected your ability to raise a
mortgage?
Do you believe your religion has adversely affected your career?
Do you think your race or skin colour has adversely affected
your career?
Do you regularly sutler social discrimination?
-Do you wish your spouse understood you belter.’
Do you feel that you arc competing with your spouse?
Dqyou feel that your spouse should respect you more?
Do you feel that your children should respect you more?
o Do you worry about what might happen if you fall sick?
Do you find it difficult to relax and forget about work at night?
Do you find it difficult to relax and forget about work at
weekends?
Do you regularly get bored at work?
Do you find yourself fighting burcaurocrats every day?
Do you have a rushed lunch as a regular thing?
Do you regularly get home late from work?
Do you take work home with you?
Do you have to cancel holidays because of your work?
vDo you find yourself having to be nice to people you cannot
stand?.
Do you find your work unsatisfying?
Do you believe your firm produces shoddy goods or provides
people with an unsatisfactory service?
Do you often wonder whether it’s all worthwhile?
Do you wonder exactly what it is your firm makes?
v-Do you go to work purely and simply to earn a living?
When work becomes interesting do you have to hand over to
.someone else?
38

Do you find it impossible to talk to your boss?
Do you believe your boss is incompetent?
Do you worry about what will happen when you retire?
Do you believe you would have difficulty in obtaining similar
employment elsewhere.?
’ Does your linn own your house?
Is your mortgage linked to your job
-a Do you earn less than your neighbours?
Do you spend every penny you earn?
Do you usually have an overdraft?
vDb you worry a lot about what other people think? ..
p Do you listen carefully to all advice given on TV and radio and
in newspapers and magazines?
vHowoften do you leave the house without saying goodbye to
your spouse?
- Does your spouse seem too busy to discuss your day in the
evenings?
’vDo you sometimes feel marriage was a mistake?
Do you feel that you fail to uphold the principles of your
■ religion?
Do you feel (hat your sex drive is considerably higher than the
normal?
Do you feel that your sex drive is rather lower than normal?
- Do you find sex with your regular partner unsatisfying?
Q Do you envy other people’s sex lives?
Do you feel guilty about your sexual preferences?

You
'Do you feel that life has passed you by?
<Do you have no real friends with whom you can discuss
j personal problems? ••
i Do you feel that you could have done something more with
jyour life?
; Do you feel that you arc a burden to your relatives? "
;Do you have to look after relatives who are a burden?
Do you regularly worry about falling ill?
■Do you regularly take medicines you yourself buy from the
[Chemist or drug store?
lDo you feel bitter about the way you or a member of your

Editorial Staff and Board
Editor
Charles du Ve Florey.
Department of Community Medicine.
Ninewells Hospital and Medical School.
Dundee DD1 9SY
Editorial Assistant
Angela Wainwright.
Collingwood.
New Road.
Wormley.
Surrey GU8 5SU,
UK.

Associate Editors
E RusseH Alexander,
Research and Operations Branch.
Venereal Disease Control Diviy-.on.
Centers for Disease Control.
Atlanta Ga 30333.
USA

H R Anaerson.
Department of Clinical Epidemiology
and Social Medicine.
St George's Hospital Medical School.
Cranmer Terrace,
London SW17 0RE.
UK
Mich.il F Lechat.
Department of Epidemiology.
Ecole de Same Pubhcjue.
Cius Chapeile au> Champs 30.
1200 Bruxelles.
Belgium

Editorial Board

Dr J Mosbech (President)
Copenhagen County Hospital,
St Elisabeth,
2300 Copenhagen,
Denmark.

Dr C Buck I Past President!
Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
Faculty of Medicine.
London.
Ontario.
N6A 5B7.
Canada.
Dr K Aoki.
Department of Preventive Medicine
Tsurumai-Cho. Showa-Ku.
Nagoya 466,
Japan.

Dr A R J Aromaa.
Research Institute for Social Security.
Social Insurance Institute.
PO Box 920.
00101 Helsinki 10.
Finland.
Dr T Ayele.
Department of Preventive Med.cme and Public Health
Faculty of Medicine.
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia.
Dr U A Gomes.
Department De Medicina Social.
Hospital Dos Clinicas,
14 100- Ribeirao Preto,
Brazil.

Dr M Khogali.
Faculty of Medicine.
PO Box 24923.
Safat.
Kuwait.

Dr H P Lee.
Department of Social Medicine ano Public Health
University of Singapore.
Outram Hill 0316.
Singapore.
Dr S R Leeder,
Faculty of Medicine,
University of Newcastle.
Newcastle NSW 2308.
Australia.

Di C R Rumeau-Rouquette.
Epidemiology Research Unit on Mother and Chile.
INSERM.
78 Le Vesmet,
France.

Dr R N Srivastava,
Department ol Social ana Preventive Medicine.
MLB Medical College.

National Institute o£ Personnel Management
Madras Chapter

in collaboration with
Sri Ramachandra Medical College and

Research Institute
Madras

Executive Development Programme
on

Stress Management

READING MATERIALS

November 19, 1993

Hotel Savera, Madras

Dr. T.R.SURESH
STRESS

CONCEPT - CAUSES AND MECHANISMS

N.H.Auden,
a rvoted philosopher-poet,
described our times as th'
"Age
of
Anxiety".
One of the chief causes of anxiety
and
il
health is stress.
Stress,
an unknown word in times anciantzha'
become
ubiquitous
in the present day
world.
The
concept
oi

The
specific
causes of stress are of various types
- physical,
biological
and psychological.
The reaction of
the
individual
again
varies depending on genetic factors,
personality make-up,
psychological assets and liabilities and the context in which the
person is situated as well as social factors.

The
body
and
mind react to stres s by
the
General
Adaptation
Syndrome,
described by Hans Selye.
This involves the
nervous,
hormonal and psychological systems.
This react i on to stress has
various
stages
and
may
end
in
successful
adaptation
or
a
pathological outcome.

Modern
research has shown that the prime mediator of the
stress
reaction is the psycho 1ogical apparatus,
i.ei-the mind, fight or
flight,
victory or defeat, conquest of collapse, depend on how a
person perceives stress and reacts to it.

Stress is everywhere.
One cannot.avoid itlfor escape from it.
A
good
understanding of the concept of stress,
its causes and the
mechanisms
by
which
it
operates on us car.
pave
the
way
to
learning what its congaouences can be to health and happiness and
now to manage stress -su c-Zc,sst‘Li 11 ■

CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS ON HEALTH,

PERSONAL LIFE AND PERFORMANCE

Dr.T.N.SRINIVASAN, M.D. (Psych)
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Sri Ramachandra Medical College and
Research Institute
Porur
Madras - 600 116.

The
health and welfare of an Executive should be considered from
a
holistic view point with the understanding that the
Executive
is
not
just another .worker of the organisation
but
an
unique
individual with his or her own physical, psychological and social
assets and liabilities.
Hence stressed executives could develop
malfunction
not only at work but also in their mental,
physical
and social functioning.

The common Psychological problems noted are anxiety and depressed
mood,
lack of concentration,
mental exhaustion, hysteria, sense
of
helplessness,
anger
and
suicidal
feelings.
Smoking
and
alcoholism are often a symptom
of stress.
As the mind and body
are
very closely linked,
mental stress often manifests
in
the
form
of
bodily diseases.
The well known problems observed
in
people
with
managerial
responsibilities
are
ischaemic
heart
diseases,
migraine,
spinal
problems,
hypertension,
diabetes
mellitus, chronic skin diseases, peptic ulcer and irritable bowel
syndrome.
The
Psychological repercussions of stress
are
also
reflected
in
the personality and attitudanal
changes
seen
in
executives
who
find
it, d i f f i cu 11. to ? cope
:!with
their
administrative
tasks.
Narrowing
of
social
contacts,
interpersona1
problems
with
colleagues,
job
dissatisfaction,
'burn-out' are some of the common sequelae.”

Stress at work can get displaced to the jhome environment
leading
to
marit^al problems,
behavioral.problems in
children,
sexual
inadequacy which in turn can further hamper the efficiency of the
Executive.
Even
if
the
person
has escaped
from
the
above
.-sequelae
of stress,
there is often a dysfunction in his ability
to execute his responsibilities.
Frequent absenteeism, shirking
of responsibility, procrastination, indecisiveness,'poor decision
making,
accident
proneness and mismanagement result- ultimately
hampering
his/her productivity.
The Executive who had been
an
asset
to
the Organisation becomes a liability to
it.
If
not
properly identified and remedied the Organisation would suffer in
terms of quantity as well as quality.

The consequences of management stress are presented in an attempt
to
sensitise the audience to the health and personal
problems
faced by an Executive under stress.
The speaker hopes that this
paper will help the audience to be able to identify such problems
in
their
work
environment and take
necessary
early
remedial
measures to help both the individual and the Organisation.

'SELF

HYPNOSIS'

Dr.I-1. peter Fernandez
M.D-yD.P .M. T.D.D. ,
F.C.C.P.(USA), F.I.P.S

Psychiatrist & Hypnotherapist
M

D R A 3

LECTURE

I

INTRODUCTION
What is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a normal psychophysiological phenomenon of

"dissociation" inherent in all human beings, and can become
manifest either spontaneously or induced by conditioning

and skilled use of suggestions.

Hypnosis in daily life:
1.

Prayer

2.

Puja

3.

Bajan

4.

Children

a) Feeding
b)

Crying - Cradle bells

c)

Injury

Fight.
6.

Flight

7.

Highway Hypnosis

8.

Reading

9.

writing Sriram Jay am

10.

Day dreaming

11.

Supermarket Hypnosis

12.

Sex

13.

Animals

14.

Drugs..

LECTURE

II

TOPOGRAPHICAL THEORY OF THE MIND - FREUD

CONSCIOUS
___________________ ■__________

I

|
1

PRECONSCIOUS

|

UNCONSCIOUS

j

Conscious

Narrow range of our environment

Preconscious

Lies just below the conscious level

Unconscious

Vast region with great dynamic energy

but can be recalled

Out of reach to our will by the

mechanism of repression
Store house of all the experience of

the past particularly tncse connected

with emotional conflicts and' unpleasant

events producing intense shame and
feeling of guilt.

They do not remain dead and static but
try to cone out
Fortunately for us some psychological
force in the Preconscious protects this
upsurge strongly.

A

COURSE ON

□

Do You want a good memory?

□

Do you want to remember places, dates, faces and names
easily? '

□

Does nervous tension and worry make your work less
effective?

□

Do you have any habits such as drinking,.smoking, etc,
which you have been trying to get rid of for a long time
and have found that you lack the necessary'willpower to
do so?
' ‘
■'

U

Do you wish to overcome anxiety and fear?

□

Do you desire to ba
situation ?

□

In short if you wish to be a happier and healthier
individual, this course is for you.

calm and collected in a tense

PliYCHOLAB
113, PERAMBUR HIGH ROAD,
MADRAS -600012.

Phone:- 6425066

BE MASTER OF YOURSELF

FOR EXECUTIVES AND PROFESSIONALS

Executives and Professionals are over worked today. I his stress

can lead to physical and mental

tension'.,

Consequently,

Migraine, Hypertension, Bronchial Asthma, Cardiac troubles,
stomach ulcers, nervous diarrhoea, skin troubles etc.

commonly found in the executive world.
help you remove stressful

are too

This course can

living and teach you the art of

relaxation - the key to a more effective, executive or professi­
onal career.

Executives and professionals are required to-day to toad several
journals, books, reports, papers etc.

This requires concentra-

.tion and development of a good memory. This course can help
increase your concentration power and develop a photographic

memory.

FOR STUDENTS

As

astudent you must remain calm, develop interest in your

studies and avoid examination

panic.

The success of an

academic career depends on reception, registration, recall and

reproduction. All this can be yours if you master the art of
self-hypnosis.

The Course Director
Or. Petor Fernandez is a well known Psychiatrist in the
city of Madras, with an experience of 35 years in the field of
medicine. His interest in the dynamics of the human mind
and behaviour made him specialise in the field of Psychiatry.
He retired as Professor of, Psychiatry at Madras Medical
College and Superintendent, Institute of Mental Health. He
is a Fellow of the Indian Psychiatric Society.

He has done pioneering work in Rehabilitation of the
mentally ill and is the Founder Director of the Rehabilitation
Unit called "Industrial Therapy Centre” for chronic mental
patients in the Institute of Mental Health. Madras the only
one of its kind in India.

His primary interest in tho subconscious mind took a
delightful turn when he mastered the technique of Hypnosis
and he is now able to interpret human behaviour and direct it
towards healthy attitudes. Ho has been conducting courses
on Hypnosis for Doctors, students of Psychology and parame­
dical personnel for sevcral.yoars in several parts ol the country
He has delivered lectures with demonstration on Hypnosis
to several clubs, schools and colleges in tho city ami outside
He has conducted credit courses on "Solf-hypnosis for Stress
management" for executives in India and abroad. He is a
member in good standing in tho International Seemly of
Hypnosis.

THUS

SELUF-mWOS.^
Can help you to be a Master of Yourself by getting

the qualities that you desire

*•

Gain photographic memory

*

Remain calm and alert during stressful situations

*

Develop analytical ability

*

Increase concentration

*

Develop self-confidence

• .

; •;

c.

*

Overcome inferiority complex

»

Avoid procrastination

*

Master insomnia

♦

Remove allergies, ulcers, stammering, sexual and
other disorders caused by tension and worries.

The person who will conduct the course ;

Dr. PETER FERNANDEZ,
M.D., D.P.M., T.D.D., F.C.C.P. (U.S.A.) F.I.P.S,
Psychiatrist & Hypnotherapist

Desirable Weights for Men. Aged 25 and Over
According to Height And Frame

Heights (in inches)

WEIGHT IN POUNDS (in indoor clothing)
Small
Medium
Large
Frame
Frame
Frame

Feet

Inches

5

2

112-120

118-129

126-141

3

115-123

121-133

129-144

6

4

118-126

124-136

132-1 48

5

121-129

127-139

135-152

6

124-133

130-143

138-156

7

128-137

134-147

142-161

8

132-141

133-152

147-166

9

136-145

142-156

151-170
155-174

10

140-150

146-160

11

■ 144-154

150-165

159-179

0

148-158

154-170

164-184

1

152-162

158-175

168-189

2

156-167

162-180

173-194

3

160-171

167-185

178-199

4

164-175

172-190

182-204

110

IMPORTANT VITAMINS

WHAT IT DOES

VITAMIN

A

Helps maintain skin, eyes, urinary
tract, and linings of the nervous,
respiratory and digestive systems.
Needed for normal, growth of

bones and teeth, and for good
night vision.
Needed for carbohydrate metoB-1
(thiamine) boiism and release of energy
from food.
Helps heart and
nervous system function proper­

ly.

B-2
(riboflavin)

Helps body cells use oxygen.
Promotes tissue repair & healthy
skin.

RECOMMENDED
ADULTS

DAILY AMOUNT
CHILDREN

Sweet potatoes,
milk, liver, fish
liver oils, eggs,
butter, green &■
yellow
vege­
tables.

5,000 I.U.

1,500-5,000 I.U.

Yeast,
meat,
wholegrain cere­
als. nuts soya­
beans,
peas,
potatoes,
most
vegetables.

1-1.6 mg

0.4-1,8mg

Milk,
cheese,
liver, heart, fish,
poultry.

1.5-2.5 mg

0.5-2.5 mg

SOURCES

VITAMIN

Niacin

B-6

WHAT IT DOES

Essential for cell metabolism &
absorption
of
carbohydrates.
Helps maintain healthy skin.

Needed
gums,

2-12

for

healthy

blood vessels,

teeth

&

nervous

Liver,
yeast.
lean, meat.

Yeast,

whole­

grain

cereals,

system, and reo blood cells,

meat, wheatgerm,
most vegetables.

Essential for proper develop­
ment of red blood ceils. Helps
proper function of nervous
system.

Fggs, meat, milk,
milk products.

for

ney, most fresh
vegetables.

= /s:3~

.3 Acid

SOURCES

etg

.‘.eecec for
blood cells.

rr.:>:a:r.r.g

prcduct:c.~ of red

Green

17-21 mg

DAILY AMOUNT
CHILDREN

6-25 mg

' 1-2 mcg

1-2 mcg

1-3 mcg

1 -3 mcg

Unknown

Unknown

0.5-1 mg

0.5-1 mg

vegetables,
yeast, meat

SOURCES

WHAT IT DOES

VITAMIN

leafy

RECOMMENDED
ADULTS

RECOMMENDED
ADULTS

DAILY AMOUNT
CHILDREN

Essential for sound bones and
teeth. Needed for tissue meta­
bolism and wound healing

Citrus fruits,
tomatoes, raw
cabbage, pota­
toes, straw-ber­
ries, canteloupe.

70-150 mg

30-100 mg

Essential for calcium & phospho­

Fish liver oils,
fortified
milk,
eggs, tuna, solm’on, sunlight.

400 I.U.

400 I.U.

rus metabolism.

£

Helps maintain heart and skeletal
muscles, and may help maintain
reproductive system.

WhoI e-gra in
cereals, lettuce,
vegetable oils.

7-10 mg

Unknown

K

heeced for normal blood clotting.

Leafy vegetables.
made by intesti­
nal bacteria.

1 mg

Unknown

c
(ascorbic
acid)

□

mg - milligrams;

I.U = International Units ;

mcg_ micrograms.

DIET PLAN
Food item

SI.

Calorie level

No

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Breakfast

Health drink
Iddli
Sam&ir
Coffee.Tea Miik
Mixed fruit

*1800

’1500

CUD

4 cup
2 small

3 small

*12C0_________
r, CUD

2 sms.':
’■ cup

’ cup
?, cup
4 cup

i cup
.i.

i CL'D

4 cup

A cup

cup
4 To Sp.
2-4 slice
2 small

4 cup
4 Tb. Sp.
2-4 slice
2 small

4 Tb. So.
2-4 slice
2 sm.3’!

Lunch
—

1,
2.
3.
4

Soup
Said
Onion — lime
Chapathi
Hrs

n.
7

Ur. bi
ScrcuHz
Veg the.
Veg. sambar
Thick butter milk
Thin butter miik

c.
9.
10.
11.

CUD

1 CUD
-- iC. SO

2 tb. sp
4? ID. SO

;

4 tb. sp
cup
1 cup

-j CUD
9 th

4 tb sp
1 tb sp

i I»> . SC

4 tb. sp
4 tb sp
■4 cup
1 cup

4 tb. sp.
4 tb. sp
4 cup
1 cup

Tea

1.
2.
3.

Snack

1 small

1 small

1 small

Coffee/Tea Milk

4 cup

4 cup

5 cup

Side dish

2 tb sp

2 tb. sp

Dinner

2 tb. sp.

Soup

4 cup

4 cup

4 cup

Salad

4 tb sp

4 tb sp

4 tb. sp

Onion - lime

2-4 slice

2-4 Stic

2-4 s.tce

3.

Chapati

2 small

1 small

1 small

45.

Rice

1 cup'

4 cup

4 cup

6.

Dhal

7.

Veg

•

“
“

•

bhaji

4 tb. sp

4 tb. sp

2 tb. so

4 tb.sp

4 tb sp

4 tb. sp
4 tb. sp

8.

Veg. sambar

4 tb. sp

4 tb. sp

9.

Thick butter milk

4 cup

4 cup

4 cup

10.

Thin butter milk

1 cup

1 cup

1 cup

Fruit

4 cup

4 cup

4 cup

11
12.

Milk

4 cup

4 cup-

4 cup

FOOD EXCHANGE LIST
A - HEALTH DRINKS

Si. No.
•1.
2.
3.

Name of the item

Green gram juice
Gingelly juice
Wheat juice

Quantity

CHO*

Protein*

.Fat*

i cup
■A cup
■A cup

8.67
5.0
S.75

1.70
1.34
0.1

0.8

44

2.5
0.02

50
43

46.0
27.0
40.7

4.2
12.0
6.2

'"0.3
2.0
3.96

225

35.0
40.0

5.2
4.2

20
0.3

170
176

Calories

E • BREAKFAST SNACK

1.
2.
3.
5.

Iddli
Green gram dosa
Rava iddli
Plain dosa
Kadubu

i.

Coffee Tea

3 small
3 small
3 small
3 small
3 small

176
174

- -1 -SICE DISH FOR BREAK FAST
1 coo
.. cup

10.0
10.0

4.0
4.0

-

-

=0

•1, cup

10.0

-

-

40

FRUIT

Mixed fruit

LUNCH
Appetizer

Tomato soup

•1 cup

6.0

0.63

0.14

30

1.

Carrot soup

A cup

6.0

0.63

0.14

30

2.

Mushroom soup

A cup

4.U

1.20

0.07

20

3.
4.
K

Vegetable soup

i cup

5.0

0.S0

0.07

25

Horse gram soup

2 cup

8.67

' 1.70

0.80

42

’

(gm)

..

SALADS

Food Item

Si. No

CHO*

Protein’

Fat*

Milk

-

10

2

Co.-rot kosambari

4 tb. sp

5

1.2

1.0

30

3.

Eeetrcot said

4 tb. sp

6

-

-

24

Eeetrcot kosambari

4 tb. sp

6

1.2

103

30

Onion siice

4

2

-

-

10

■ 1.

5.

Tomato - cucumber

4 tb. sp

5

MAIM DISH FOR LUNCH

1.

Shepethi

2

2 small

20

0.6

3.0

120

■ CLP

40

-.3

0.06

200

Z.J

cO

ISO

-•

. :cc

27

-

. ......

40

- L

"-•HC

. :cp

46

3.4

3.0

220

6

=;sibe!e bath

1 cup

40

5.72

3.2

211.68

7.

=r.-!ka

2 small

20

3.6

0.5

100

7

2.2

0.7

40

4 tb. sp
2 tb. sp

8

3.4

0.6

50

4 tb. sp

7

1 5

1.5

42

4 tb. sp

10

2.0

4 tb. sp

4

2.0

1.1
6.7' -

15'

6.0

-

SIDE DISH

2.

Sprouted gram

3

bhaji

4.

.'eg. sambar

£.

Tcmato raitha

1.

Thick cutter milk

50
' - 30

MILK PRODUCTS

2.

Thin cutter miik

1
2

Tomato sandwich
icdli

70

-

TEA ITE.V

3.

J

Plain bread
2

5.

Plain dosa

6.

Toast

Recommended by Manipal Health Centre.

60

12.0

2.4

11.0

1.4

12.0

2.4

10.5

0.9

2.5

11.3

1.7

0.6

57

19.0

2.4

-

60

55

0.3

69
■

68

Note :
Maximum amount of food to be consumed t mc'er different
caloric level.

1800
CHO (gm)
304-334

Protein (gm)
60-70

17-30

1725-1800

1500
CHO (gm)
251-274

Protein (gm)
51-59

Fat (gm)
14-24

Calories
1400-1500

1200
CHO (gm)
208-236

Protein (gm)
43-52

Fat (gm)
12-19

Calories
i200-1230

120

Fat (gm)

Calories

HOW DO YOU COPE WITH PROBLEMS?

(

We all use many different defence mechanisms to help us deal
with problems which have‘arisen from our relationships with
other people and the outside world. Here are some of them. You
will undoubtedly recognize many of these mechanisms as ones
you yourself have used; others you will recognize as commonly
used by people you know. These mental tricks are not neces­
sarily dangerous or bad for you.

I ■ Rationalization
A man who has applied for the job of foteman may console
himself when he hears that he has been unsuccessful by telling
his wife, ‘I didn't want the job anyway. Il'< badly paid and I'd
Hose the respect of my friends.’
His wife will probably support his feeling if she loves him.
‘You’re quite right,’ she’ll nod, ‘We’re much better-off as we
■are.’
’ .
If she has been pushing him to apply for the job, however,
and is now disappointed that he has not been appointed she may
quarrel with his new judgement and point out that he did want
the job, that it is better paid and that she doesn't care what his
friends think.
Used properly, rationalization, can be a tremendous asset.
The man whose wife supports and'strengthens his rationale will •
eventually feel quite pleased that he didn't get the job. He'll be
grateful that he was fortunate enough not to have become a
foreman. He’ll suffer very little from the fact that he was un­
lucky in his application. On the other hand. the man whose
wife is less comforting will probably suffer more when his care­
fully devised explanation, designed to fool only himself and her,
has been punctured. (Naturally male and female foies arc al­
ways interchangeable.)
Rationalization is best used as a private defence mechanism
unless you can be sijrc of support from the person with whom
you share the rationalization.
'Projection;

•

The woman who cannot cook very well blames her oven..‘How
do you expect me to cook you good meals?’ she demands of-her ■
husband, ‘when the cooker is five years okl and completely put of date?’
This woman is using the information and advertising material .
"44

'

provided by the cooker manufacturers to enable her to project
her own inadequacies on to her cooker.
‘The bad workman blames his tools,’ goes the old saying and
that is true of most of us from time to time. The golfer who
makes a bad shot will blame his clubs. The company executive
' who is responsible for an administrative foul up will blame the

manager of the minor subsidiary who failed to provide her with
the required materials at half a day’s notice. The gardener
whose seeds don’t grow will blame either the seed merchant or
■ the soil.
In all these cases the person involved has projected his or her
own failure on to someone else or on to some material object
which cannot avoid the blame.
People also project their own feelings on to others. For ex­
ample, the man whose car breaks down on a lonely road late
at night may set off to look for help. He may have no overcoat
to protect him from the heavy rain that is falling and there will
inevitably be no moon to make up for the fact that the battery
in his torch is Hat. With so much against him our unfortunate
motorist may be forgiven for believing that the world is not
treating him fairly. He may assume that even if he finds a farm
or a lonely house the occupier is not going to let him use the
telephone. ‘Would I let a bedraggled stranger in on a night like
this?’ he may ask himself.
When he docs at last find a small lonely cottage the motorist
approaches it with severe reservations about the reception he
is likely to receive. Before he rings the doorbell he feels certain
that he is going to be refused help. He is in a bad mood and he
knows that he wouldn’t help a complete stranger who arrived
soaked and bedraggled on his doorstep.
So when the owner of the cottage, a kindly retired clergyman
with a heart of gold, opens the door he is surprised to see an
angry man standing there. ‘Stuff your telephone,’ shouts the
motorist, ‘I don’t want your bloody help.’ And with that he
turns on his heel and marches away, having projected his own
feelings on to the completely innocent and unfortunate clergy­
man who would, of course, have been perfectly happy to offer
food, drink and telephone to a stranded stranger.
45

This defence mechanism is not usually a wise one to use. It
leaves the person who uses it feeling aggrieved and unsatisfied.
Displacing aggression
The vice chairman of International Telephone Polishing Ser­
vices Inc. is told off by the chairman for failing to arrange a
deal with South Seas Underground Window Cleaning Services
Inc. The vice chairman castigates the managing director for not
having provided him with the latest figures from the accounts
department on time. Then the managing director ticks off his
assistant who snarls at his secretary who shouts at the tea lady
who screams at the hall porter who snaps at his wife who scolds
their son who kicks the cat who frightens the life out of a poor
sparrow. None of these unfortunate folk realize that their prob­
lems started when the company’s Parisian agent failed to obtain
tickets for the Paris Opera on behalf of the company chairman
whose wife is a great fan of the Italian soprano. Bella.Laudli.
It would have been far less traumatic for all concerned if the
chairman had taken his aggression out on a punchball or had
chosen to smash a couple of old plates in the stables at his
spacious country home! A game of squash or a few minutes in
the gym might also have helped ease the chairman’s feeling of
anger.
We all use this technique of displacing aggression on to other
people or on to objects and it has advantages and disadvantages.
■ The main advantage is that the angry person doesn’t allow his
feelings to build up inside himself;, he passes the feeling on to
someone or something else. This is much better than simply
allowing the feelings of frustration and anger to build up inside
for if this happens then the person involved will probably deve­
lop a genuine stress disorder. The main disadvantage of course,
is that a great many perfectly innocent people may suffer. Some
of them may be paid to accept the boss's displaced aggression.
Others will neither expect it or be able to cope with it. For this
reason it is far better if aggressive feelings arc displaced on to
inanimate objects such as squash balls,, gymnasium floors, run­
ning tracks or pieces of faulty and unwanted china. There’s a
lot to be said for keeping a store of old plates somewhere so
46

that you can sinaslr them when you’re feeling uptight. Greeks
do a lot of this when they’re enjoying themselves in restaurants.

^Nostalgia
The cry,‘The old days were best! is a common one. Many people
enjoy music and fashions from past decades because in this way
'they can hide from modern problems and unwelcome advances.
Problems can arise when (he past becomes more real than the
present for it is impossible to escape from our technological
age. Even those who choose to ignore the modern world and
live off the land can usually only manage to keep their heads in
the sand for a short period. Enjoy the past but don’t try to fool
yourself that you can ignore the present

Specialization
Classically it is university professors who are so lost in their
own worlds that they go outside in their carpet slippers, forget
to put their ties on, cannot remember where they parked the
car and do not know the month or even the year. Many great
academic figures have been so wrapped up in their own
i speciality that they have been, quite unable to accept the fact
I that there is a world outside their own subject.
This is an effective way of closing out the problems of the
real world but those who use this mechanism may suffer very
badly if their private world collapses or of the problems of the
real world become unavoidable. The only people who can use
this type of mechanism really effectively are those who have
others around them to ensure that the bills are paid and that
minor infringements of the law are dealt with painlessly. An
academic man whose wife looks after the practical aspects of his
life may well be unable to look after himself or to survive at all
in the real world after his wife’s death.
■ To a much lesser extent we can all use this defence mechan­
ism to help us lock out the world’s problems for short periods
of time. Someone whose hobby involves model train building
and running may use his hobby to enable him to escape from a
stressful world at weekends and during the evenings. Specialist
sports followers who enjoy the majestic achievements of their
47

•

/

heroes and follow the fortunes of the various teams involved in
their sport often manage to escape successfully from the prob­
lems of the coal polishing industry or the peanut salting factory
(see also hero worship).
f 1

Compensation
The man who is unable to obtain academic success may com­
pensate himself (and those whose love and support he has) by
being successful at sports. The man whose business career is less
than sparkling may nevertheless achieve success with his hobby.
'/' ‘Maybe I cannot become chief clerk.’ says the clerk seeing
/i his junior promoted above him, ‘but my roses arc better than
I anyone clse’s.’
• Similarly, young people who arc physically weak or disabled
may take to sports which they can do successfully and achieve
considerable prestige at them. For example, a young girl who
is physically weak may take up swimming and eventually be­
come a champion.
We all need to be successful at something in order to achieve
personal satisfaction and to feel wanted. Everyone is good at
something and it is essential that we all find out just what we
can excel at. To compensate may also be to specialize.

'//Hero worship
This enables the young office typist doing a boring job which
demands little physically or mentally to share the full and ex­
citing rewarding life of a rock star, fashion model or profes­
sional tennis player. Surprisingly, many people who might ap­
pear to have satisfying jobs envy others. So the rock star may
dream of being a racing motorist and the top jockey may wor­
ship the film star he’d like to emulate.
Hero worship is generally a harmless way to escape the duller
days of life but the people who enjoy life at first hand rather
than at second hand probably achieve more genuine and longlasting satisfaction.
Regression
Many modern businessmen have toys on their office desks.
48

These arc often expensively made and well-designed but they
are nevertheless toys. They enable the executive to regress to
his childhood in'moments of crisis but because they arc wcll. made and expensive they do not detract from his image as a
successful and wealthy person.
i Playing with toys and games helps by taking the executive
back to the days when decisions were fairly simple and respon­
sibilities slight. (James can help us all by enabling us to forget
our immediate problems and concentrate on less important
b: tasks. Playing solitaire, or playing with a yo-yo can help reduce
^physical and mental tension at times of crisis. The man or
I woman who-can switch oil from major decision making and
. -spend a few minutes with a toy or game will be able to ward olT
pmany stress-induced illnesses.
Incidentally, hospital patients often find it comforting to re­
gress to childhood and leave all decisions to the doctors and
nurses looking after them. In childhood we know that our
parents will solve ail major problems and we have a comforting
sense of security as a result. This is exactly what the sick often
need. They need to trust others and to abdicate normal respon­
sibilities.
3 ) Day-dreaming
We all drcam from time to time. It helps in boring or un­
pleasant moments to drift away to another place. This is a par­
ticularly useful defence mechanism. Some people find life so
unbearable that they live in a permanent day-dream. Those
mental patients who-.are convinced that the}' are really Napo­
leon or Josephine are usually .happy enough in their private
world. However, day-dreaming can give a false sense of satis­
faction. It is important for the dreamer to retain a hold on
' reality!
i-P Ideological solutions
1'iic recent popularity of figures such as the Maharishi Yogi
shows how quasi-religious solutions arc sought by people look­
ing for relief in a new ideology. Similarly, the terrorist organi­
zations which recruit so easily in many different countries
49

depend for their attraction upon the fact that they offer their
converts a way to escape from the other, more trivial, problems
of modern living.
''Apathy
Another way to cope with problems very effectively in the short
term is to simply ignore,them. You don't have to be a drop-out
to choose the apathy road. Many people who have regular jobs
drop out each evening by slumping down in front of the tele;
vision set.

These defence mechanisms are not necessarily harmful.
Problems arise when they arc used subconsciously to such an
extent that the user becomes dependent upon one or other of
them. When used consciously they may be effective stress dissolutivcTT

' YOUR COUNTERSTRESS CHECKLIST
1 Check your exposure to stressful situations and stimuli with the
following questionnaire. Every ‘yes’ indicates a point of expo­
sure and potential weakness.
Your physical environment

* < Do you live in a city?
Do you have to commute to work? Is the office or factory or shop where you work usually noisy?
0 Do you have to avoid going out alone at night where you live? .
Q Do your neighbours keep to themselves and avoid offering help
to others if possible?
Do you own equipment recently bought that you don’t really
need?
When you mow the lawn does it take longer to prepare the
mower than to actually cut the grass?
Do you live in a block of fiats?
s Can you hear your neighbour’s TV set and squabbles at night?
0 Do you live near to a busy road?
Do you live near to an airport?
o Do you live near to a large factory?
Do you ever have to raise your voice to make yourself heard in
your home because of noises outside?
'-Do you have to share an entrance with other people?
Do you wish you had a room of your own to which you could
retire when you arc looking for a little peace and quiet?
Do you end up watching television most evenings because you
don’t have anything else to do?
Is the TV set switched on by others when you would rather be
doing something else?
Do you have to travel long distances when you-would rather
stay at home?
\Do you spend more than half an hour a day travelling?^
Do you fly though you hate flying?
\ Arc you always in a hurry when on business trips?

37

Your social environment

Do you wish .you had more responsibility?
tDo'you wish you had less responsibility?
Do you get frustrated at work?
9 Are your activities restricted because of your age?
o Did you have to retire earlier than you wanted to? Do you wish you could have retired earlier? ‘
Do you think your sex has affected your promotion chances at
work?
Do you think your sex has affected your ability to raise a
mortgage?
Do you believe your religion has adversely affected your career?
Do you think your race or skin colour has adversely affected
your career?
Do you regularly suffer social discrimination?
•-Do you wish your spouse understood you better?
Do you feel that you arc competing with your spouse?
Dqyou feel that your spouse should respect you more?
Do you feel that your children should respect you more?
<3 Do you worry about what might happen if you fall sick?
Do you find it difficult to relax and forget about work at night?
Do you find it difficult to relax and forget about work at
weekends?
Do you regularly get bored at work?
s
Do you find yourself fighting bureaurocrats every day?
Do you have a rushed lunch as a regular thing?
Do you regularly get home late from work?
Do you take work home with you?
Do you have to cancel holidays because of your work?
vDo you find yourself having to be nice to people you cannot
stand?.
Do you find your work unsatisfying?
Do you believe your firm produces shoddy goods or provides
people with an unsatisfactory service?
Do you often wonder whether it’s all worthwhile?
Do you wonder exactly what it is your firm makes?
v-Do you go to work purely and simply to earn a living?
When work becomes interesting do you have to hand over to
.someone else?
38

Do you find it impossible to talk to your boss?
Do you believe your boss is incompetent?
Do you worry about what will happen when you retire?
Do you believe you would have difficulty in obtaining similar
employment elsewhere-?
Does your firm own your house?
Is your mortgage linked to your job
-a Do you earn less than your neighbours?
Do you spend every penny you earn?
Do you usually have an overdraft?
vDo you worry a lot about what other people think?
v Do you listen carefully to all advice given on TV and radio and
in newspapers and magazines?
t.How often do you leave the house without saying goodbye to
your spouse?
Does your spouse seem too busy to discuss your day in the
evenings?
%Do you sometimes feel marriage was a mistake?
Do you feel that you fail to uphold the principles of your
religion?
Do you feel that your sex drive is considerably higher than the
normal?
Do you feel that your sex drive is rather lower than normal?
Do you find sex with your regular partner unsatisfying?
0 Do you envy other people’s sex lives?
Do you feel guilty about your sexual preferences?
You

'■'Do you feel that life has passed you by?
vDo you have no real friends with whom you can discuss
personal problems?
0.Do you feel that you could have done something more with
your life?
Do you feel that you arc a burden to your relatives? "
Do you have to look after relatives who are a burden?
Do you regularly worry about falling ill?
\.Do you regularly take medicines you yourself buy from the
chemist or drug store?
Do you feel bitter about the way you or a member of your
39

family has been treated by a doctor?
Do you find advertisements difficult to ignore?
Do you regularly borrow money from non-institutional •
sources?
vDo you change your car regularly because of variations in
styling?
o Do you take examinations you do not need to take, simply to
acquire qualifications?
Do you only enjoy sports when you are competing?
Do you puff and pant if you have to run to catch a bus?
0- Do you look, at your watch a great deal?
: Do you smoke?
Do you drink alone regularly?
vDo you worry about your weight but do nothing about it?
'.Do you give up smoking every year?
Do you take sleeping tablets regularly?
Do you need to take tranquillizers regularly? [
^Do you avoid stairs whenever possible?
Do you drink at work?
vDo you dress to please strangers rather than yourself and the
people you know?
o Do you never take vacations?
Do you find it impossible to relax if you go away for the
weekend?
Answer all these questions honestly for cheating helps no one.
Each question to which you have answered ‘yes’ points to a
potential source of stress. Sometimes there will be no escape,
but acknowledging the problem will often in itself provide some
relief. Often there will be a choice and you must decide whether
there is anything you can do to protect yourself or whether you
are prepared to accept the risk involvedA

LECTURE

IV

HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS OF HYPNOSIS
EARLY HISTORY :

Induction of trance by rhythm, -drums,
chanting etc.

1.

Primitive people:

2.

Egyptians and
Greeks

3.

Decline of hypnosis with the advent of Christianity

MODERN HISTORY
1.

:

Sleep Temples

:

Gassner of Ra^isbon

-

simple country priest who believed
in demonology used the method of

2.

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734 - 1315) Austria - 'Baquet' in -ari."Animal Magnetism"; Committee's report to Louis XVI of
Paris 17 84.

3.

Marquis de Puysegur 1785 in Paris - society of Harmony

4.

Marquis de Lafayette - took this science to George Washingtor
in America

5.

Dr. James Braid (1795-1860) Scottish Physician - used tne
term "Hypnotism" in 1841-4 2

6.

Dr. John Elliotson (1791-1868) suggested the use of the
phenomenon in anesthesia; .in 1846 he started the First

7.

Dr. James Esdaile (1808-185 9) reported the use of hypnosis
in major operations in Calcutta, India

8.

1891 - favourable report on hypnosis by British Medical
Association

9.

A.A. Liebeault (1832-1904) Father of Modem Hypnotism Nancy school, use of hypnosis in tnerepy.

1O.

Dr. Josef Breuer (1842-1925), Austria, responsible for trying
to get at the cause rather then remove symptoms by suggestion
Freud was influenced by Breuer, especially by the case of
"Anna O" who relieved her trauma and experienced catharsis
under hypnosis.

journal on hypnotism.

11.

Professor Hipployte Bernheim (1837-1919) also at Nancy,
France - published two books; De la Suggestion, and La
Therapeutique Suggestive that established hypnosis at an
important psychotherapeutic method.

12.

Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) Paris - regarded as the
founder of clinical neurology - led Salpetriere school of
thought in the field of hypnosis - hypnosis a pathological
state, and only neurotics could be hypnotised - his theory
was demolisned by Bernheim of Nancy School.

13.

Dr. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Vienna - attended Charcot's

demonstrations of hypnosis in 1885-86 used nypnosis ir. his
practice and later developed the method of free association
between 1892-95 tnat became a cornerstone of psychoanalysis.
14.

world War I: revival of hypnosis cue to many cases of psyche
genic origin =nd scarcity of psychiatrists - hypnosis v.

used in the treatment of battle neurosis such as shell-snoc3<
Hadfield coined the term "hypno-analysis", as a method used
successfully during World War II.

‘15.

In 1953 British Medical Association officially recognised

hypnosis as a therapeutic technique and endorsed its use in
medicine.

16.

In 1958 American Medical Association officially approved
hypnosis in medicine end dentistry.

17.

First College credit course in hypnosis in Canada designed
and taught by Rooshikumar Pendye, John, /Abbott College,

Montreal in 1972.

18.

First formal course in hypnosis in India taught by RooshiKumar Pendya in 1973 under the auspices of the indo-American

Society, Bombay, India.
19.

Institutions engaged in teaching and doing experimental and
clinical work in hypnosis in USA include, the American Instr
tute of Hypnosis, The American society of Clinical Hypnosis
The society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Associa­
tion to advance Ethical Hypnosis, American Psychological

Association (Division Thirty). .
In India: Indian society for Clinical _pnd Experimental
Hypnosis, Ahmedabad.

•r’

LECTURE

V

CONDITIONING TESTS OF HYPNOTIZABILITY

DEFINITION:

IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS

Conditioning is a form of learning in which ■

1.

an old response is evoked by a new stimulus - this is called
classical or respondent conditioning developed by Ivan Pavlov

in about 1900 while studying digestion in animals, and
2.

an new response is acquired as a result of satisfying a

need - this is called instrumental or operant conditioning
studded by 3 F Skinner in 1938

3-z.h kinds of conditioning are found m animals as well as r

beings

CONDITIONING IN HYPNOSIS - 90% OF THE WORK
___

Observe subjects defenses

___

Make the subject relate

___

Explain the phenomenon of hypnosis

-----

Remove misconceptions

___ Test the subject's hypnotiz ability
hypnotizability

1.

(conditioning) tests

Arms rising and falling

2.

Postural sway

3.

Handclasp (for group or an individual)

4.

Releasing an object held in hand (for an individual

5.

Eye catalepsy

6.

Others

or a group)

CONDITIONING TEST NO. 1 ARMS RISING AND FALLING
I AM NOT GOING TO HYPNOTIZE YOU.

I JUST WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT

KIND OF A SUBJECT YOU ARE.

PLEASE STAND COMFORTABLY AND EXTEND BOTH OF YOUR ARMS IN ’ FRONT
OF YOU.

THAT IS VERY GOOD.

NOW PLEASE CLOSE YOUR EYES AND

OPEN THEM ONLY WHEN I TELL YOU.

NOW IMAGINE A VERY HEAVY WEIGHT IS ATTACHED TO YOUR RIGHT ARM
(TOUCH THE TOP OF THE SUBJECT'S RIGHT ?,Ri-i VERY LIGHTLY), AND
ALSO IMAGINE THAT THIS VERY HEAVY WEIGHT IS PULLING YOUR RIGHT
ARM DOWN •

YOUR RIGHT ARM FEELS VERY HEAVY AS THE WEIGHT IS

PULLING IT DOWN , WAY DOWN.

(EiMPHASIZE )

NOW ALSO IMAGINE THAT YOU HAVE A VERY LIGHT GAS BALLOON TIED

TO YOUR LEFT ARM ( TOUCH UNDERNEATH THE SUBJECT'S LEFT ARM )
AND IT IS PULLING YOUR LEET ARM UP AND UP, AND STILL HIGHER

UP.

THAT IS VERY GOOD.
EXCELLENT SUBJECT.

NOW OPEN YOUR EYES.

MY I

YOU ARE AN

CONDITIONING TEST NO. 2

POSTURAL SWAY

I AM NOT GOING TO HYPNOTIZE YOU.

I JUST WANT TO FIND-OUT

WH.AT KIND OF A SUBJECT YOU ARE.

PLEASE PUT YOUR FEET TOGETHER, TOES TOGETHER AND RELAX.
NOW I WOULD LIKE YOU TO CLOSE YOUR EYES AND OPEN THEM WHEN

I TELL YOU.

LOOK DOWN ON IT YOU FEEL THZJ? YOU ARE LEANING FORWARD Tu TA

A CLOSER LOOK AT IT.

YOU FEEL YOUR.SELF LEANING FORWARD,

MORE AND MORE

THAT'S RIGHT, I AM STANDING IN FRONT. O

YOU AND I WILL SUPPORT YOU.

THAT'S WONDERFUL-

(AND A.S THE

SUBJECT SWAYS FORWARD) VERY GOOD, OPEN YOUR EYES :

) YOU

ARE A VERY GOOD SUBJECT .
(HYPNOTIST'S STANCE:

ONE LEG FORWARD, OTHER LEG BRACED,

HANDS OUT IN FRONT AT THE SHOULDER LEVEL OF THE SUBJECT )

CONDITIONING TEST NO» 3

HANDCLASP TEST FOR A GROUP

. IS'AM not GOING^TO hypnotize you.

i just want to SEE HOW

SUSCEPTIBLE YOU ARE TO SUGGESTIONS.

I WANT YOU TO PUT YOUR FEET? FLAT ON THE FLOOR AND SIT
COMFORTABLY .

I. ALSO WANT YOU TO REMOVE ALL RINGS.

NOW I WANT

YOU TO STRETCH YOUR HAND OUT IN FRuNT OF YOU, AND CLASP YOUR

HANDS VERY FIRMLY WITH YoUR FINGERS li'.TERLOC.ED LIKE THIS
(SHOW THEM WHAT YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO).
NOW I WANT YOU TO LOOK INTO THE CEILING? SELECT ANY SPOT AND

CONCENTRATE ON THAT.

AND AS YOU ARE CONCENTRATING ON THAT

SPOT

ONE :

TWO :

YOU ARE PRESSING YOUR HANDS HARDER AND HARDER

YOUR HANDS ARE LOCKED TOGETHER AS YOU KEEP PRESSING THE.

TIGHTER AND TIGHTER LOOKING AT THAT SPOT ALL THE TIME.
THREE: AS YOU ARE LISTENING TO MY VOICE AND PRESSING YOUR HAND

TIGHTER AND TIGHTER, YOU FEEL THAT YOUR HANDS ARE STUCK
TOGETHER.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR You TO TAKE THEM APART.

THE

HARDER YOU TRY TO TAKE YOUR HANDS APART THE TIGHTER THEY GET
(REPEAT THIS).

NOVi WHEN I COUNT' TO THREE FOR* YOU, YOU WILL BE

ABLE TO SEPARATE YOUR HANDSf

ONE, TWO, THREE.

LECTURE

VI

CAPACITY FOR HYPNOSIS

?»GE

SEX

:

:

1.

7-15------- -- excellent subjects (easy amnesia)

2.

*15 — 5o -------- most practical group

No significant differences between the male and

female subjects

Minimum inteliectual ability r.aedeo for hypnosis

appears to correspond to the verbal abilities of a
kindergarten or elementary school child
Mentally deficient and insane persons are most

difficult subjects
Ability to concentrate necessary
OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS

1.

Motivation

2.

Conditioning, Belief and expectation

3.

Imagination - the Law of Reversed Effect - Effort

4.

Co-operation

5.

Environment

6.

The personality of the hypnotist

7.

Technique

LECTURE

HYPNOSIS

VII

MYTH

AND

REALITY

MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

Hypnosis is an unnatural phenomenon
Examples of spontaneous hypnosis
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

UNTRUE

Religious services
ReadirTg
daydreaming
Highway hypnosis
Supermarket hypnosis

2.

Hypnosis is dangerous
no danger arises.

3.

Under hypnosis the subject loses consciousness:
UNTRUE. No loss of consciousness

4.

Under hypnosis the subject will tell hrs o innermost
secrets : UNTRUE '

In trained hands

UNTRUE.

5.

Hypnosis will weaken one's mind

6.

Hypnosis is addictive

:

:

UNTRUE

WRONG

7.

The subject surrenders his will under hypnosis

8.

The subject will not awaken

:

:

WRONG

WRONG

1.

Hypnosis is a normal psychophysiological phenomenon

2.

Hypnosis/ above ally is a pleasurable experience.

3.

Even in the deepest trance the subject is in contact
with reality.
Hetero-hypnosis is a close interpersonal relationship

Hypnosis is a means to heighten and direct the suggesti­
bility / inherent characteristic of all human beings

LECTURE

VIII

COMMUNICATION - SEMANTICS

VOICE

COMMUNICATION,— RAPPORT , SEMANTICS
Listen to ciie sobject/parlent carefully
Use the patient's vernacular

Inspire confidence

Remember your appearance also co.>imunicates
something.

VOICE

Articulate
Confident

Changes in intonation as necessary

Monotonous during induction

LECTURE

IX

THEORIES OF HYPNOSIS

THEORIES OF HYPNOSIS
Mesmer and others

1.

"Animal Magnetism" theory:

2.

A state of exaggerated suggestibility - the phenomenon

3.

A state of artificial hysteria - hypnosis is 'Pathological'

4.

The phenomenon of divided mend - in hypnosis "Dissociation"

of hypnosis rooted in suggestion: Braid, Faria and others

and a mere symptom of hysteria : Charcot

occurs, and a group of dissociated memories might develop

into a second personality : Pierre Janet

5.

Freud : One of the peculiar features of the hypnotic

state is a sort of paralysis of the will and the power of
movement, a paralysis produced ny the influence of an

omnipotent person on a defenseless, impotent subject.
This feature is reminiscent of hypnosis produced in

animals by fear.
6.

Hypnosis and sleep are related - "Hypnosis is inhibition

spread over the usually active points in special areas
of the hemispheres" - hypnosis neural phenomenon :

Pavlovian school.
7.

Hypnosis is regression to infancy :

8.

The Mechanisms of Hypnosis

:

Ferenozi

Dr. S J Van Pelt

LECTURE

IX (CONTD)

THEORIES OF HYPNOSIS - DEFINITIONS OF HYPNOSIS

DEFINITIONS OF HYPNOSIS
1.

GHides

:

"Hypnotic suggestion is the process of controlled
alternations of human actions and reactions
through thoughts/ objects, or actions".

2.

Eysenck

:

"The ability of an individual to direct the whole
force of nervous energy into a smaller number of
nervous channels, thereby reducing the synaptic
resistance and facilitating the passage of
nervous energy".

4. MCDougall

"Voluntary attention is witndrawn from the outer
world and concentrated in force upon the vaso­
motor system, producing changes impossible in
normal consciousness".

5. Eryan

"Hypnosis is a normal physiological, altered
state of consciousness, similar to, but not the
same as being awake; similar to, but not the
same as being asleep, and is produced by the
presence of two conditions: (1) A central focus
of attention, and (2) surrounding areas of
inhibition. The state of hypnosis, in turn
produces three things:
a) An increased concentration of the mind,
b) an increased relaxation of the body, and
c) an increased susceptibility to suggestion.

6. Randy a

Hypnosis is a psycho-physiological, altered
state of consciousness induced by conditioning
and skilled use of suggestions, resulting in
lessening of subject's inhibitions and reason­
ing, and heightening of his ability to relax
and his susceptibility to suggestion.

GINDES

-

HYPNOTIC'FORMULA

MISDIRECTED ATTENTION + BELIEF + EXPECTATION = THE HYPNOTIC STATE

LECTURE
awakening

X
procedure

POST-HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION

1.

Give a post - hypnotic suggestion before initiating awakening
procedure

2.

Specify the duration of any post-hypnotic suggestion

3.

Make all post-hypnotic suggestions clear and unambiguous

AWAKENING PROCEDURE
1.

Give a post-hypnotic suggest ion-signal-f or future induction

2.

Remove all suggestions extraneous to theraoy

3.

Emphasize rhe benefits and the feeling of well-being to be
felt upon awakening

4.

Terminate the trance gradually by counting slowly up to three
or five (some hypnotists count up to ten)

5.

Do not snap the subjects out of the trance

6.

Be considerate/ kind, and respectful to the subject throughout
the awakening procedure

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS

1.

Bodily discomforts

2.

Abrupt or prenature awakening

3.

Reluctance to awaken

MANAGEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS

1.

Make sure that the subject understands what is expected of
him upon awakening

2.

Remember that the subject needs time to awaken fully even
after he has opened his eyes.

3.

Avoid abrupt awakening

4.

If the subject is reluctant to awaken
a) Repeat the awakening suggestions
b) Ask the subject the cause of his reluctance to awaken
c) Check whether the subject has gone into normal sleep
d) Payment for your time

LECTURE

XI .. •

HYPNOTIC SLEEP VS. NORMAL SLEEP

NOR.4AL PHYSIOLOGICAL SLEEP

1.

No response bo stimuli end suggestions

2.

Reflexes such as the ioiee-jerk are diminished or abolished
in sleep

3.

“The limbs become flaccid from cessation of muscular tone
and action ...." B raid

HYPNOTIC STATE
1.

The subject responds to' suggestions

2.

Reflexes such as knee-jerk are present

3.

"...the arms and legs are maintained in a state of tonic
rigidity for any length of time I have thought it prudent
to try." Braid

4.

The subject is capable of reasoning -

5.

The state could be induced by another person and without
mentioning sleep

6.

The EEG recordings of brain waves during the hypnotic and
waking spates are quite Similar

7.

The heart and lung action during hypnosis is more similar
to that of the waking state than that of nonal sleep.

LEXT URE

XII

A METHOD OF INDUCTION TECHNIQUES

1.

Eye fixation method

2.

Fascination technique

^
3.

Progressive relaxation technique

4.

Opening and closing of the eye technique

5.

Repeat induction method (for auto-hypnosis as well)

6.

Eye to eye technique

onal icy

Give conditioning tests to find out the suggestibility
of the subject.

To know whether the subject was previously hypnotized
by anybody, if yes, by what method.
.a be en rapport with the subject before inducing
hypnos is.

LECTURE

SAMPLE :

XII

COOTD)

INDUCTION OUTLINE

NOW I WOULD LIKE YOU TO STI' COi-lFORTA3LY ON THE CHAIR AND RELAX.
PLEASE PUT BOTH OF YOUR FEET FLAT ON THE FLOOR AND REST YOUR HANDS
ON YOUR LAP, FINGERS UNLOCKED. THAT IS PERFECT. AND AS YOU ARE
SITTING THERE, RELAXING COMPLETELY , I WOULD LIKE YOU TO SELECT
A SPOT ON THE CEILING AT A30UT 45 DEGREE ANGLE WITHOUT BENDING
YOUR NECK AND CONCENTRATE ON THAT SPOT . AS YOU ARE CONCENTRATING
ON THAT SPOT YOU ARE LISTENING TO MY VOICE VERY CLEARLY AND RELz'XING MORE AND MORE.

YOUR BODY Has started recapitulating that familiar feeling of
RELAXATION ... WHATEVER IT MEANS TO YOU. IF RELAXATION MEANS A
VERY HEAVY FEELING... THEN THAT FEELING IS COMING OVER YOUR
BODY IE REL.-XATIO?: ME '.NS A LIGHT FLOATING SENSATION THEN THAT

AND YOU FEEL LIKE CLOSING YOUR EYES AND AS YOU ARE LISTENING TO
MY Voice your eyes become heavier and heavier and you find IT
VERY HARD TO KEEP YoUR EYES OPEN. JUST LET YOUR EYES CLoSE NOW,
and as your eyes are closing you relax even more TH/VI you were
relaxing before.

AS YOUR EYES ARE COMFORTABLY CLOSED NOW, YOU FEEL VERY MUCH zff
EASE, VERY RELAXED AND YOU KNOW THAT FOR THE NEXT FEW MINUTES
TRE is NOTHING FoR YuU TO Do BUT To RELAX* YoU ALSo KNOW
that once you have mastered the TECHNIQUE OF RELAXATION, You
WILL BE ABLE TO RELAX Zl-Y TIME, IN ANY PLACE BY YOURSELF. NoW
AS YOUR EYES ARE CLOSED AND YOU ARE RELAXING BEAUTIFULLY, YoU
ARE BREATHING DEEPLY and EVENLY and EVERY BREATH THAT YOU TAKx.
MEANS YOU FEEL MORE AND MORE RELZXED, CALM AND COMFORTABLE AND
T/kKES YOU DOWN, WAY Down DEEPER ZkND DEEPER INTO THIS WONDERFUL
RELAXATION.

NoW I AM GOxi'.-G To COUNT FRori oN<i io 1EN iOR YOU ,v<D AT i—<
OF THE COUNT YOU WILL RELAX EVEN MORE THAN YOU ARE RELAXING NoW.

LEXTURE

XII (CoNTD)

ONE

:

THE MUSCLES OF YoUR FACE AM) YOUR JAW ARE VERY RELAXED
NOW.-- AND I WOULD LIKE YOU To BECOME AWARE OF THAT
RELAXATION IN THE MUSCLES OF YoUR FACE /J© YoUR JAW*

TWO

:

THE MUSCLES OF YOUR KECK ARE RELAXING NOW AND AS YOU
FEEL THIS RELAXATION GOING DOWN, DoWN OVER YoUR ENTIRE

THREE:

THE MUSCLES OF BOTH OF YOUR SHOULDERS AND ARMS FEEL
VERY HEAVY AND REL'-XED.

FIVE :

AS YOU ARE BREATHING DEEPLY /AND HEAVILY; THE MUSCLES uF
YoUR CHEST ARE REL7OCING COMFORTABLY

SIX

:

SEVEN:

THE i-iUSCLES OF YOUR STOMACH ARE VERY RELAXED NOW.-* AS
YOU FEEL So COMFORTABLE, YOU ARE ENJoY ING THIS FEELING
OF REL7JLAT ION •
THE MUSCLES OF BOTH YoUR THIGHS FEEL SO HEAVY AND
RELAXED.

LECTURE

XIII

IMPLANTING AND REMOVING SUGGESTIONS

TYPES OF SUGGESTIONS
1.

Positive

2.

Negative

3.

Dominative

4.

Permissive

5.

Direct

6.

indirect

METHODS oF IMPLANTING SUGGESTIONS
Verbal

visual
other senses

OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS
Repetition
Reinforcement

Use of subject's imagination
Use of the "AS IF" principle
Allowing time for response to take place

Unambiguous and literal phrasing

Making the subject relate his goal

Avoiding unpleasant suggestions
"The patient with a functional malady will get
well1 when he is convinced that he will be well;
he will be cured at the exact moment he con­
vinces' himself that he is cured".
REMOVING SUGGESTIONS:

Remove all suggestions extraneous to therapy
before awakening the subject
Remove one suggestion before giving another avoid confusion
Be literal and precise at all times

LEG? USE

AUTO

XIV

HYPNOSIS

CONCEPT
1.

Autonypnosis is merely in intensification of the capacity
of an individual to examine his own mental processes in

order to make,the best "bets" as to how he should act.
2.

self control is not relinquished as is commonly believed.
Actually more control is gained.

3.

Essential pre-requisites.: a) Strong motivation
b) Intelligent application of the
autosuggestions

c) Diligence
4.

Time necessary to achieve autohypnosis varies

seme subjects learn it in a half hour
others require much longer periods

5.

One question often esked is "If I am under hypnosis/ how can

I give myself suggestions?"

■'You are always aware of vhat

is going on and therefore, you can think, reason, act,
criticize," suggest or do v.hatever you imagine or believe

you need.

You can give yourself the suggestions aloud or

mentally " •
Another frequent question is : "How do I bring myself out of
the Autohypnotic state?"

"You'can- terminate autohypnosis

immediately upon specific suggestions or a pre-arranged cue"
LEARNING METHODS:

1.

Heterohypnosis

2.

Reading Books and Practising

'

LECTURE

XIV

(CoNTD)

ADVANTAGES:
1.

Premote relaxation

2.

Promote self confidence

3.

Increase concentration

4.

Improve memory

5.

overcome bad habits

6*

Substitute strong behavioural responses for
weaker ones

7.

Alleviate many distressing symptoms

8.

Positively contributing to physical/ mental and
spiritual phases of life.

SIX STEPS TO SUCCESS
•

1.

Select your goal

2.

Phrase positive suggestions for achieving that
goal and write them down on a piece of paper.

3.

Before you go into self hypnosis everyday take
that piece of paper out and read it out loud
to yourselves with all confiction, faith and
emot ion.

4.

Go into self hypnosis (Lecture XII)

5.

After you have hypnotized yourself/ shut up and
see your positive self image.

6.

Wake yourself up as per the awakening procedure.

PROBLEMS:

1.

Procrastination

2.

Trying/ instead of doing

3.

Remembering of past incidents

4.

Hallucinations - Dr. Estabrooks and his phantom
bear.

REFERENCES
Arons, Harry

Handbook of self Hypnosis, revied. 1974 power

2.

Baudouin C. Suggestion ,?nd Autosuggestion London, Allen 1920

3.

Coue, E.

Self mastery through conscious /autosuggestion

1922 : London Allen 1951
4.

Caprio, F. and Berger J.- Helping yourself with self Hypnosis

5.

Lecron, Leslie end Bordeaux, Jean -

1971.

Prentice Hall

The ■cecnnc.c-ue

Self Hypnotism

ocs use on Daily Levine

1970 Sig. N.A.L.
6.

Powers, M. - Practical Guide to Self Hypnosis

7.

Rhodes, R.H. - Therapy through Hypnosis, Nev; York

8.

Salter, A

Los Angels, Wilshire Press, 1961

Citadel Press 1952

-

Three techniques of Autohypnosis
J. Gen. Psychol. 24:423-438=1941

THE INSTITUTION
Banjara Academy is an institution dedicated t<k the
improvement of quality of life. It aims to bring together
experts and professionals, to share their knowledge apd.
experiences in various fields ranging from family life,
i personal development, social ' decision making, Io
1 professional excellence.

The Academy lays stress on practical aspects of betterment,
and the workshops are designed to be brief but
comprehensive. Effective participation is encouraged to
ensure that each workshop becomes meaningful at a
personal level. A pioneer in this field, the Academy's
uniqueness lies in focussing on practical aspects of finding
i solutions to day to day problems.
".............when we honestly ask oitrselves which
persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often
find that it is those who, instead of giving much
advice, solution or cures, have choosen rather to share
our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and
tender hand.
Thefriend who can be silent with us in a moment of
despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour
of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate
not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face xvith
us the reality of our powerlessness, that is thefriend
who cares.................... "

— Henri Nouwen

Besides conducting high profile executive development
and management programmes, the Academy offers very
affordable interaction workshops in meaningful subjects
like counselling, self-development etc.

Banjara Academy has planned year round programmes
ranging from half day workshops to exhaustive training
modules, in topics as wide as follows:
* Counselling Skills
'■
* Preparingfora Career
* Communication and Effective Speaking
* Assertiveness, Time Management
* Growth Labs for different groups
* SelfDevelopment Programmes
* Parent Training Programme
* Coping with Academic S tress
* Beginning a retired life
* Investments in the Stock Market
* Managing Matrimonial Harmony

CERTIFICATE COURSE IN

COUNSELLING
SKILLS
JJ

CCCS- 2

The Academy also offers Aptitude Testing and Career
Guidance for students and others at very reasonable rates,
through trained counsellors

For enquiries, details of programmes, and registrations,

please contact:

BANJARA ACADEMY
Queens Road, Bangalore 560052,
Phones: 2265628 2260674

Banjara
ACADEMY

|

CERTIFICATE COURSE IN
COUNSELLING SKILLS (CCCS2)

|

Counselling is fast becoming an essential part of
urban life. With the breakdown of joint families and
secured village social life, more and more people find
themselvc? alone in a crowd.
Banjara Academy has been conducting numerous
short and long term counselling courses, using the
services of some of the most capable and experienced
resource personnel in the field.
This course has been designed as a rigorous
residential/clay programme to give an exposure to
participants, not only to the theoretical aspects of
counselling, but also to its practice in daily life.
This promises to be a week of enlightenment,
sharing, understanding each other as human beings,
and appreciating human behavior.
Objectives:
* To provide an understanding of human behavior, and
to improve interpersonal relationshipsand interactions
★ To help others understand themselves and overcome
their own problems
★ To promote mental health and happiness in self and
others
★ To provide practical skillsfor counselling and guidance
in thefields of work, family & community
* To enable the participants to improve their own
assertiveness, problem solving skills and coping styles

Course Content:
The course comprises of scientific practical
information, and technical know-how of human
interactions, nature of behavior and problems of
various stages of life. This information gears an
individual towards the multiple roles he/she needs
to play as a concerned and responsible adult.
Specific problem areas like dealing with the
behavioral problems of normal and exceptional
children, career counselling, marital counselling,
gender role orientation, crisis intervention, dealing
with alcohol and drug abuse, and the like.
Information
about
common
psychological
techniques of dealing with stressful or problematic

situations will be provided through case studies by
experts in the field.

REGISTRATION FORM

The programme will consist of lectures, exercises,
role plays, counselling sessions (including individual
sessions with participants who desire to have them),
and group discussions.
The day will begin with relaxation and meditation
techniques and will end with voluntary late evening
group discussions and brainstorming.
Day participants who do not wish to stay late, can
attend the course between 9:30 am and 5:00 pm

Programme:

Certificate Course in Counselling
Skills (CCCS2)

Name of Participant:
Mr./Ms

Date of Birth :Phone No.

Target Group:
People in human service professions like teachers,
lawyers, health workers, social workers. People
concerned with child and family welfare, community
leaders, managers, supervisors, who are interested in
working towards peace and happiness. People from
any walk of life who wish to improve the lot of other
human beings through guidance and counselling.

Designation/Profession:
Other interests:
Address:

■
Duration:
6 days, starting on Wednesday 9th November, 9 am g
and ending on Tuesday 15th November 4 pm (with
a break on Sunday for relaxation/ sight-seeing)

g

PIN

Previous experience of counselling, if any:

£

Venue:
The Indian Social Institute (ISI)
24, Benson Road, Bangalore 560046
(near Jaymahal, 1.5 km from
Cantonment Railway Station)

Programme Co-ordinators:
Mr Ali Khwaja, B Tech (ITT), MIE
Counsellor and HRD trainer
Dr Arnudha Jayaraj, MBBS, MD, DPM,
Consultant psychiatrist and counsellor
(with a number of experts from medical, psychiatric
and counselling professions)
Course fee:
Rs. 750/-per participant for individuals
Rs. 1,000/- for candidates sponsored by
organisations
(inclusive of course material, lunch and tea)
Residential accommodation will be charged at
Rs.85/- per day including food

|

Amount: Rs
Enclosed vide cash/cheque No.

Signature of participant

Send to
Banjara Academy
Queens Road, Bangalore 560 052
Phones: 2265628, 2260674
Participants are requested to be punctual.
Note: Registration once made, will not normally be
cancelled. However, substitution ofparticipant will
be considered

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
290^ober,2000
.... ........................ '“M

------------ —------ ——-------------------- --------- - -------- ------------------------------- -

.----------- .—------------------------------------------------------- ------ -——---- ----- —----- —----

The science of mental healing
AU things by immortalpower
Nearorfar
tToeachotherlinkedare
Thatthoucan’tsliraflower
Withouttroublingastar—Anonymous
By Dr. Indranill Basu Ray

mebiscus was an old citizen of
Abaccas a small seaside village in
Greece who lived in 800 BC, so the
story goes. Amebiscus was a sad
man. After the death ofhis wife, all
his sons and daughters forsook him because
of his miserly habits. Morose with the hap­
penings around him he grew sadder day by
day till he fell seriously ill, which finally, did
cost him his life. This story, told and retold
many times over the years, is significant
because it amplifies the fact that it was the
sad mental state in which Amebiscus was,
that produced his illness, and finally led to
his death.
Such concepts of intricate mind-body con­
nections where the state of the mind influ­
ences factors that promote physical well
being are nothing new to our ancient medi­
cine. Starting from the Vedas through
Upanishads one may mention that even
physicians and surgeons like Charaka and
Sushruta emphasised primarily on the cre­
ation of the right mental state because the
entire gamut of existence of human being
and certainly one’s physical health depend
essentially on the state of the mind. Despite
the fact that all ancient philosophies that
existed on earth for many centuries were in
consonance in respect ofthe concept ofmind
body unity. This idea, however, did not find
favour with medical biologists. Medical sci­
ence did trace the existence of certain dis­
eases to mental aberration like anxiety,
naming them Psychosomatic illness, but
deeper mind-body links where variance of
mental state directly affected body function­
ing was certainly not what most human biol­
ogists even thought of, let alone believed.
Western medicine lay obsessed with the con­
ventional idea that links between brain and
body remained restricted to those biological
functions of the body that had their highest
centre of control in the brain. The idea of
' mind which.is an abstract entity remained,
vague and ill defined. Thus what inside the
brain was anatomical consisting the mind; if
any, orwhatsortpffunctioning'onthepartof
■ the brain produced ‘mind’ remained
unknown. Thus it is quite ostensible why
medical biologist never even dreamt of any

A

connection between this so called intangible
mind and the very much existing and func­
tioningbody.
The initial glimpses of the mechanism of
functioning ofthe human brain were indeed
stunning. Years of strenuous research by
some of the best brains of this planet have
brought to light certain mind boggling
concepts about the functioning of
brain. However, one of the greatest
triumphs ofthis fast evolving new
biology has been our efforts at
discovering the hidden links /
that intricately connect the //
.mind and the body. Today ifa //
f
person develops a serious z
J f, '
viral infection within ■
z' ■'
weeks of a personal
tragedy, his doctor might /
notjustpushitoffascoin- j
cidental. The fact that the I.
two could be related was '■
first accepted by science ,
when researchers at the
National Institute ofMental
Health at Bethesda, MARY­
LAND, were convincingly
able to prove that mental
states of the brain could
indeed affect body immu- I
nity. The human body is .
regularly bombarded with
a wide variety of infection- \
causing bacteria and virus- i
es. To fight this ever present
menace of both infection and
certain non-infective diseases
like cancer there exists a high- 1
ly specialised immune system '
in the body. This consists of
blood cells called lymphocytes,
monocytes,
neutrophits,
eosinophills etc. that have the
varying capacity of killing
invading microorganism either
bydevouringthemorby releasing
chemicals that inactivate them
Till the early eighties, it was believed that
this independent system had little or no con­ ed, these lymphocytes were for more active
nection with the brain and‘acted indepen­ m devouring virus-infected tissues and
dently to keep the body disease free.
tumours. Melatonin till the late seventies
However, in the late eighties and early had been relegated to the status of not so
nineties it was known that certain chemicals important a hormone. Wnip ft has been
released by the brain activated or inactivat­ credited withfunctidnsas^ereeasproduced these cells of the immune system Thus, mg skin pigmentation to Sating sexual
. melatonin, a chemical released by pineal, a activities in animals, XfiSreptUes.
gland located deep inside the brain, was Itetoctionmhnmans^^fined’argeiy
shown to directly activate certain lympho­
cytes called natural killer cells. Thus activat-

obscure. This severe
knowledge
had probably resulted ip p^tonin not get-

released by certain nerves deep inside the immunesystem cells and vice-versa, inform­
brain, at a site called amuygdala. produces ing each other of their respective state and
euphoric moods in humans. It has been sub­ maintaining a highly efficient, organised
sequently discovered that this chemical and elaborate communication system.
apart from being released inside the brain is These findings opened an^entirely new'
also released into the blood stream. What dimension ofmedicine. It began to be under­
then baffled the investigators was the mys­ stood that effective mental training can
tery about nature indulging in this seeming­ indeed at least delay the progress of certain
ly wasteful process of producing excess diseases if not cure it Which might indeed
chemical that got washed into the blood come as a blessing to the sufferers of those
stream, whilst apparently serving no useful diseases; for which as yet we have nosatispurpose. It was only in the late eighties that factory treatment protocols. It began to be
researchers first discovered that Met understood for the first time that mental
Enkephalin is a chemical that produced trainingcan indeed delay the progress ofcer­
euphoria when released inside the.brain and tain diseases; ifno t cure them, a fact unheard
that it also stimulated our immune system of in the history of the so-called ‘Western’
on entering the blood stream. The mode of Medicine. Research conducted at the same
stimulating the body defence system by Met cancer institute headed by director Ronald
Enkephalin was simple; it activated blood Heberman, psychologist Sandia Levy and
cells called lymphocytes. This was the first Judith Rodin ofthe Yale University reached
instance where direct evidence ofmind-body the same conclusion. They selected a group
interaction was discovered.
of cancer patients who were in remission
Thus when one is in a happy mood, his from their disease after successful medical
capacity to ward offdisease is greater, as his therapy. Since there remains a high risk that
body's defence mechanism is perceptibly the disease might relapse, they were subject­
stronger. A case in favour of the above find­ ed to psychological training as a mode to
ing is the study by Sandra Levy, a psycholo­ increase the patients’ resistance; so as to pre­
gist, at the University ofPittsburgh’s Cancer vent a relapse. Eighteen patients were select­
Institute. The psychologist monitored 36 ed amongst the group and were given an
women afflicted with highly advanced eight-week programme of meditation, men­
breast cancer being treated at the institute. tal relaxation and changing of self-defeating
By the seventh year 12 of the women were beliefs was attempted. Attheendofthe study
still alive. Though digressing a little bit, it it was found that all the patients who took
may be pertinent fo state here, that progno­ part in this programme developed more
sis of highly advanced breast cancer is very active natural killer cells, a type of lymphopoor and many patients die within five ■ cytewhichdestroystumourtissue, than that
years, with almost zero survivability after 10 developed by the rest of the patients who
years. The occurrence of this stage is rarer received only standard medical therapy.
nowadays because of early diagnosis and
This new science called psychoneuroimtreatment with appropriate surgical tech­ munology that endeavours to study the mind
niques augmented by a wide armamentari- and the body
. interactions is still
__________
in a forma
.... ­
umofanti-cancerdrugsthatcanprolongsur- tivestage.Butthedayisnotfar.giventhefast
ting the importance vival by many years, if not cure the disease, pace of research in this area, when a much
it deserved. However, Coming back to our case, this study showed more clear picture would emerge and healwith the advent of more ~that two factors were mainly responsible for' • ing by mental power would be a scientific
sophisticated gadgetry in unison the
' survival
• • of these women. The primary proposition and not a metaphysical experiwith fi-antic search by biologist of sub­ factor was how long each women remained ment as of present Certain words spoken a
stances that mediated day and night cyclical disease-free after treatment and the second century ago adequately summarises the con­
changes in humans, resulted in attention most important factor was a high level of tentions ofhundreds ofbiologists working to
falling on hitherto little-known hormone, happiness and joy (measured by scores on a unravel one of the most closely guarded
melatonin. The fact that melatonin could standard questionnaire) that these surviv­ secrets of this Universe—the mode of funcdirectly stimulate the body defence mecha­ ing womenenjoyed.
■ tiqningofthehumanmind!
nism to ward of intruding invaders was ■
The connection between the mind and the
recognised far later.
body, got more clear as scientists got to There is no limit to the power of the human
Considerable evidences have accumulat­ understand the so-called mind and its differ­ mind—SwamiVivekananda
ed that speaks of the fact that certain other ent aspects like the mood for example. *Not
chemicals released from the brain also stim­ only that: hundreds of different biomole­
Theauthorisacardiologist&theNaiional
ulate the body’s Immune system. Met cules were discovered that were chemical
ConvenorAVorkingGrouponDrues.
Enkephalin is a chemical which, when' messengers running from the brain to the
Pharmaceuticals&Health CarePolicy

Stalking the tigers in the wild ambience of Biligiri Rangana Temple (BRT) sanctuary. See page 5 for story

When the mind becomes Hell
out by her on pre-menstrual syn­
drome, “Earlier, Pre Menstrual
Syndrome was considered as a
culture bound syndrome report­
ed only in western countries.
Whereas studies in India has re­
vealed that even in our country
nearly 75 percent of urban
women experience one or more
of the incapacitating symptoms
a week or ten days before the on­
set of their monthly cycles. In
our study, right from teenagers
to women in their late thirties re­
ported mood swings, irritability,
anxiety, proneness for easy cry­
ing spells, muddled thinking and
so on."

With high stress levels at
home and work and a biologi­
cal make-up that translates
stress to the psychological
plane, women's mental health
cries out for special attention.
her
parents
got alarmed
their
daughter
’s mental
state.at After
locking
herself
upMeera
in thewent
room,
1
much persuasion
agreed
eera’s fiancee
to
to undergo
counselling
was­
USA
after theirand
engage
in
herhaving
and
started
• interest
diagnosed
as
suffered
a
ment.
Ajob
fortnight
later,
‘her
nervous
’. was also
elderbreakdown
brother who
working in the US gave her familater
whenshocking
Meera
dissi­­
ly Mandakini
the
news in
that
haddeveloped
suffered
lence ’sforfiancee
nearly two
Meera
wasdecades
alreadyof
her married
life. But
in her col
own
married
to his
German
­
perimenopausal
phaseexpressed
at the age
league.
Meera initially
of 45 years,
Mandakini
had start
shock
and disbelief.
A few
days ­
ed acutely feeling what is termed
in psychiatry as ‘the trapped
wife syndrome’. She could no
longer endure her mother-in-law
and sister-in-law’s grievances
against her.
A week before her untimely
death, Mandakini had confided
with a close relative. “I am fed up
of my mother-in-law and sisterin-law’s tantrums. My husband
is refusing to set up a house of
our own even after two decades
of our marriage,” and as Man­
dakini started sobbing over the
phone, her relative suggested
that she seek her family’s sup— port and explain her emotional
turmoil to her family physician.
Had she listened to my advice
then probably Mandakini would
have been alive today, noted the
friend.

M

•

®

•

I

•

•

Denial of self
According to psychiatrists
many women experience a dark
feeling of the ‘denial of self’ in
matrimony. If some women sub­
consciously resent the process of
role adaptation, others brood
over their role incompetence.
This type of adaptational pathol­
ogy can lead to what is termed as
a 'trapped wife syndrome’. Such
women lack a close female confi­
dante and due to their bottled up
emotions feel torn apart by the
demands of child rearing, look­
ing after in-laws and constantly
compare their duties with their
husband’s career graph.
Depressed
and
neurotic
women are more prone to psy­
cho-somatic diseases wherein
they become victims of pain
syndromes, chronic low abdomi­
nal or pelvic pain.
According to Dr Prabha
Chandra, “Nuclear families and
the dual role played by the work­
ing woman may put the mental
resilience of the new mother to
test. Soon after delivery, a vulner­
able woman may show stress re­
sponse of varied degrees.”
Depressed mothers show de­
lay in maternal responses lead­
ing to impaired mother-infant
bonding.

•

The National Award winning
Kannada movie of the 1970s,
Sharapanjara based on the novel
by late Triveni and directed by
late Puttanna Kanagal depicted
the hysterical outbursts of a
married woman who acutely suf­
fered puerperal psychosis follow­
ing the birth of her second child.
The heroine Kaveri’s unresolved
conflict about her pre-marital af­
fair gets unravelled through the
reverberating words Veni, Vedi,
Vecil (I came, I saw, I conquered)
Psycho-analysts attributed
Kaveri’s mental illness to a loss
of sense of belonging in her hus­
band’s family after her husband
rejects her on account of the pre­
marital affair.

Andrew Morton, the author of
Diana - her true story describes a
pregnant Diana’s suicide at­

Rape trauma

Nearly ten percent of women the world over suffer from different types of mental illness

since both the stress factors
tempts in the very first year of
faced by women and stress re­
her married life as “messages of
sponse in women are different
complete desperation... cries for
when
compared to the same phe­
help.”
nomena occurring in their male
counterparts.
The above mentioned case
- For each case of a depressive
histories reveal that women’s
mental health continues to be a disorder reported in male, there
truly global health problem, are at least two such cases in fe­
since at any given time, nearly males. So also is the fact about
ten percent of women all over post traumatic stress syndrome
the world would be suffering (PTSS) which is twice more com­
" from different types and varied
degrees of mental illness. Ac­ mon in females than in males.
- In young women, eating dis­
cording to psychiatrists and be­
havioural therapists, ‘Women’s orders like anorexia nervosa, self
mental health’ deserves to be cat­ harm, attempted or parasuicide
egorised as a separate entity are reported far more often than
in young men.
- The hormonal profiles of
women during various stages of
their life make them vulnerable
to various mental illnesses. A
WHO study has found that de­
pression presents the greatest
disease burden for women when
compared with other diseases.
The hormonal fluctuations are
more pronounced during the on­
set of puberty or menarche,
pregnancy, post-child birth
phase (postnatal phase), peri­
menopausal phase and immedi­
ately after menopause.

STRESS FACTORS
Some of the stressors faced by women in India
■ Inadequate financial resources for basic needs.
■ Task overload and professional dilemmas.
■ Stereotyped role expectations by the society.
■ Poor self-image.
□ Deprivational stress due to loneliness (in young widows, di­
vorcees, spinsters and in women whose husbands would be
working abroad for years together.)
■ Sexual abuse and harassment.
■ Abortions, hysterectomy and infertility may also burden a
woman in a distinctly stress inducing manner.
■ Husband's addiction to alcohol is a day to day stressor to a
wife.

- Research has shown that
while some women interpret the
various demands of their life as
challenges and thus are not like­
ly to experience significant dis­
tress, others may perceive the
challenges as overwhelming and
threatening. The latter category
of women may go through in­
tense emotional turbulence.
A woman’s mental health as­
sumes paramount significance
since a mother’s emotional sta­
bility is the fulcrum for the
healthy upbringing of the chil­

dren and for the socio-economic
progress of any family. “Psycho­
logically deviated mothers are
often emotionally flattened and
thus are not able to provide
enough encouragement and af­
fection to their children. The
emotional turbulence suffered
by children of depressed moth­
ers may manifest itself as varied
behavioural problems during
their adolescence," opine behav­
ioural therapists.
According to Dr Mohan K Is­
aac, Professor of Psychiatry,

Rape victims are among those
who undergo severe depression.
Long term reactions are more
mentally disturbing in the form
of post traumatic stress syndrome when consequent to sexu­
al violence, the victim gets bouts
of sudden, agonising, vivid,
NIMHANS. Bangalore, “Most of graphic memories of the trau­
the stress related disorders in matic episode weeks or months
women eventuate on a psycho­ after the painful incident. These
logical plane, whereas in men trigger suicidal tendencies.
According to Dr Issac, “Peo­
the cumulative stress at once can
surface as an organic disease, ple are yet to understand the
such as a heart attack. Women emotional consequences of rape.
quite often require different anti­ Even the relatives of a rape vic­
depressant medication and be­ tim are more concerned about
havioural therapy than men not the girl becoming pregnant than
only because they are biological­ sharing her mental turbulence.”
ly different but mainly because
Psycho-analysts advise men­
the impact of environment both tal catharsis as a form of therapy
at domestic and professional to several mental illnesses. Tills
spheres can tremendously influ­ is a form of medical confession,
ence a woman’s recovery from wherein the depressed woman
her mental distress.”
can share her troubles and is en­
Many women with severe de­ couraged to face the difficulties
pressive symptoms do not re­ with a positive attitude. As psy­
ceive any treatment till a suicide chiatrist Sir Ross has said about
the therapeutic value of mental
has been attempted.
Attacks of ‘tension head­ catharsis ‘A skeleton in the cup­
aches’ are also more fi-equent in board is a gruesome and fearful
women than in men. “Out of thing but if we look at it often
every ten cases of tension enough it will become only a bag
headaches that I get to counsel of old bones!’
AU this brings to mind John
and treat, about seven patients
are females,” says a leading psy­ Milton’s words from Paradise
lost: ‘The mind is its own place.
chiatrist in Bangalore.
Says Dr Prabha S Chandra, and in itself can make a heaven of
Associate Professor of Psychia­ Hell, a hell of Heaven.'"
try, NIMHANS. based on an ex­
tensive research stndv carried

Veena bharathi

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