[Whyus]

Greta thread but...……

While I don't think that MLCers would line up to be studied, I do think that if you took a cohort of, say, recently divorced, tattoed men who purchased motorcycles in their late forties and early fifties — and paid them – you could probably have a sizable group to study.
Really? UM, thats up put in a draw then!!! There are recently divorced, tattooed men with motorcycles reading along who also have Feelings. Also a couple of recently divorced, tattooed WOmen with motorcycles.

[Not Applicable]

Which is what I said.
And supports the thread title premise.

And so, NYM? I am genuinely struggling to understand the purpose behind your point. Let's agree say that you can't find the kind of medical research study that you think needs to be done. Other than just standing on a metaphorical street corner shouting at us about it, your point is....?

Read the thread title again. Maybe that will help.

You may be genuinely struggling with understanding my point, but just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean you have to jump to the conclusion I am standing on street corner shouting for no reason.

Just as the thread title says, let's not oversimplify things. Perhaps MLC is a lot more complex than we know.

Have you ever heard the saying "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?

The more we learn about MLC, the more we should realize how little we do know and the more we should realize the need for more studies and knowledge. That is, if we actually are learning anything at all.

In other words, know-it-alls probably know nothing.

[Not Applicable]

Greta thread but...……

While I don't think that MLCers would line up to be studied, I do think that if you took a cohort of, say, recently divorced, tattoed men who purchased motorcycles in their late forties and early fifties — and paid them – you could probably have a sizable group to study.
Really? UM, thats up put in a draw then!!! There are recently divorced, tattooed men with motorcycles reading along who also have Feelings. Also a couple of recently divorced, tattooed WOmen with motorcycles.

And that's why such a study would be so interesting. Because it would put the stereotype to a test and see if there is any foundation to it.

[marvin4242]

NYM: I for one have been reading everything you say, I have written a detailed response, including how there is much more understanding from the mind/psychology viewpoint about MLC, how our brain/neuropsychological understanding of basic brain functions are limited, much less highly complex behavioral analysis, how we know a lot more about this than everyone keeps saying.

Yet you ignore all of that, and do go back to repeating ad nauseam about hard medical studies. Well one day in the far future we can scan the brain and from the low level stuff derive what is going on with someone. Maybe 200 years or more in the future. And it may not tell us much more than what we understand from the psychological studies. I highly doubt there is a dominant neurochemical component to MLC. So there is no pill, no procedure that will fix it. We have complex psychological structure that are built and reinforced over years, all resulting in highly complicated neural pathways and networks throughout our brains.

So I repeat a different version of Thunders question: as much as i respect you have a particular lens you wish to understand this from what exactly do you think will happen if you did? And why are you so adamant to ignore the much more relevant and knowledgeable field that already explains this if its not simply from fear, bias, or bad experience?

[Helpingme!]

Whyus I didn't know UM had tattoos, ha. Left out the skinny jeans. Wearing those in late 40s and 50s should be on the list. 
Sorry Whyus.  I couldn't pass it up. Rock on brother.

[Not Applicable]

Fear, bias or bad experience?

Seriously? 

No, my interests simply lie elsewhere. My interest is in the brain. That's actually why I joined this forum in the first place, not because it was a support forum. Because I wanted to learn more about how the brain is affected and how it works during MLC. If you don't believe this, go back and read my first posts here.

There is a lot of medical research out there that may help shed light on MLC, but it's not ABOUT MLC. It's about things that play a role in MLC. Nothing about the big picture exists.

Psychology provides a descriptive explanation, but it does not explain the underlying mechanisms and parts of the brain involved.

Someone interested in the socio-economic reasons that there is a high murder rate in Chicago in the summer probably could find an answer that satisfies them in socio-economic data. But a meteorologist who was interested in the weather would probably be more interested in the role the weather plays in making the rates soar and they probably could find weather data to support them too. That doesn't mean either party has fear, bias or bad experience, just a different approach.

in any case, I won't talk about medicine anymore. It's clearly not welcome and I am not going to speculate why, but if anyone is interested in continuing the discussion you can PM me.



 

[Nerissa]

Fear, bias or bad experience?

Seriously? 

No, my interests simply lie elsewhere. My interest is in the brain. That's actually why I joined this forum in the first place, not because it was a support forum. Because I wanted to learn more about how the brain is affected and how it works during MLC. If you don't believe this, go back and read my first posts here.

There is a lot of medical research out there that may help shed light on MLC, but it's not ABOUT MLC. It's about things that play a role in MLC. Nothing about the big picture exists.

Psychology provides a descriptive explanation, but it does not explain the underlying mechanisms and parts of the brain involved.

Someone interested in the socio-economic reasons that there is a high murder rate in Chicago in the summer probably could find an answer that satisfies them in socio-economic data. But a meteorologist who was interested in the weather would probably be more interested in the role the weather plays in making the rates soar and they probably could find weather data to support them too. That doesn't mean either party has fear, bias or bad experience, just a different approach.

in any case, I won't talk about medicine anymore. It's clearly not welcome and I am not going to speculate why, but if anyone is interested in continuing the discussion you can PM me.

As Marvin has explained, there is plenty of work in these kinds of issues being done in leading universities and medical centres but the depth and breadth of the research is beyond the scope of a non professional, general support forum.  My impression, NYM, is that you think of these issues in a literal way.  You have explicitly said you are uninterested in psychological research and are focusing on the brain. It has been explained that this isn’t a problem of the brain.  The mind is a larger and non-concrete concept and so the scope of the work is beyond what you are asking for.  It isn t that people are not interested.  As an analogy, think of the way the treatment of diabetes has evolved - from being about sugar intake in the 1970,s, to understanding metabolism of carbohydrates and the effects of exercise and the understanding that different people have different body chemistry and research into this is   Ongoing. (Eg that some respond to fasting etc). That different psychologies need different treatment plans.  People are complex and need holistic treatment for physical ailments and thisnaplies even more to issues of personality, temperament and life/relationship experiences.

[Nerissa]

Maybe 200 years or more in the future. And it may not tell us much more than what we understand from the psychological studies. I

Marvin refers to brain scans here and says they will not necessarily tell us more than we already observe in psychological studies.  I also find it fascinating that information being discovered by neuroscience confirms and reinforces what psychoanalysis has observed and recorded over the last hundred years or so.  The most prominent practitioners of this kind of work are interested in and marrying both fields.  But in the end the changes need to be in behaviours and thoughts.  So no matter what is going on in the brain of someone with issues related to borderline personality disturbance, for example, the best treatment is behavioural therapy that helps someone recognise and alter destructive thought patterns. Medicine, aside from anti psychotics, where needed,  doesn’t do much for this.

[marvin4242]

NYM: first please realize I was not challenging you, it was a question. You have made much more blunt statements to others and were surprised they were offended. Why is my question offensive?

Also I for one am in no way trying to “shut down” the medical discussion. I just am offering that there may be multiple ways to look at this problems, and narrowing the lens down to one element is a bit like putting blinders on. And I am curious why are you so dismissive of the vast body of knowledge and studies in the field of psychology when you are curious about the explanation. Medicine is one one lens through which we can analyze this.

I do not share your view that psychology doesn’t describe the underlying mechanism, it does rather well. It doesn’t do it at the neurochemical paradigm, rather in the paradigm of stimulus/response, cause/effect, learning/memory/response pathways etc etc. Does not make at any less valid. It would be a little bit like saying I can’t predict the path a ball will take when I throw it unless I can understand all the underlying quantum mechanics of all the particles that make up the ball.

Nerissa: thank you for saying what I was trying to say so much better!   

[Nerissa]

I’m having a break from present wrapping. So....in psychoanalysis there has long been huge emphasis on the mother. Hence the joke -  “If it isn’t one thing it’s your mother”.

Current research (Alan Schore, UCLA David Gergen medical centre) suggests that the seat of ALL emotion resides in the right brain.  That includes moral behaviours.  Research suggests that right brain development depends upon unconscious communication between the right brains of mother and infant.  My tutor described it simply as ‘communication between mother and baby that the “ordinary devoted grandmother” would not be aware of’

Now if that development goes awry, how is it to be altered?  What does it look like?  So far, my understanding is that  the only possibility of remedy  is through relationship.  That could be very good and healthy good personal relationships and/or through a skilled and knowledgeable therapist who helps to encourage empathy and connection.  It also demands willingness to attend long term therapy and a wish to change. Even then it is remedial
Work and not necessarily a ‘cure’ . The brain scan is neither here nor there for the time being, since we can feel lack of empathy or ‘normal’ emotional expression
And relational reciprocity  (we can even feel it through the Internet 😉)