Our constitutional rights are being violated. We haven’t been suspected of a crime when we step onto a plane, but yet, we are being treated as a criminal. Why?

It is so hard to believe or even imagine that so much of our population is on anti-depressant medication.  One has to wonder why we are so depressed, and why the pharmaceutical companies promote their medications as the end all be all to depression.  Anti-depressants come with multiple side effects and drawbacks, they are not the cure all either.  One has to wonder when the ads clearly state a side effect may make you suicidal if the drug is truly safe, or one that you may want to stay away from.

Why were past generations able to deal with life without having to take anti-depressants, sure there was St. John’s Wort that was known for eleviating signs of depression.  I am certain there were other home therapies that were used through out time that we have forgotten about.  Have our lives changed so dramatically that the only way we can exist and be functional is through daily medication?

I look at myself and then think about our diets, my family 50 years ago grew all of the food they needed, as well as raised their own meat on their farm.  While I am lucky that I do can organic vegetables, and I try to stay away from most processed food, but I am no where near the level where my family was.  How much of depression lies on the highly processed food chain that we benefit from where our ancestors did not?

I can not say either way.  I think it warrants a serious look at when a significant number of our population is now on a maintenance drug.  One has to wonder if we are using the right approach in making people feel better.  The cost, the side effects, I have to think there is a better way than leaving a large part of our population stuck with taking anti-depressants.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-3512.html

In a survey of 425 British adults, researchers found that serious poets and visual artists generally had more sexual partners than those who were either not artistic or only dabbled in the arts.

Further analysis showed that one personality dimension — a tendency toward “unusual” thoughts and perceptions — was related to both creativity and sexual success.

That tendency is also seen in people with schizophrenia. And the findings, according to the study authors, may help explain why schizophrenia — a mental disorder that often runs in families — has not been extinguished from the gene pool.

Certain schizophrenia-related personality traits, they speculate, may confer benefits when they are not part of a mental illness. When they instead spur creativity, for example, they may offer a mating advantage, according to the researchers, led by Daniel Nettle, a psychologist at the University of Newcastle.

He and colleague Helen Keenoo report their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Artists, from 18th Century poets to 21st Century musicians, have a well-earned reputation for leading busy romantic lives. But until now, there had never been a systematic comparison to document the phenomenon, Nettle told Reuters Health.

There have, though, been studies showing that creative types have higher-than-average rates of schizophrenia in their families, and that they themselves have a heightened tendency toward schizophrenia-like traits.

Schizophrenia itself has a strong genetic component, and since people with the disorder suffer poor overall health and have a low likelihood of having children, evolution should have lead to the disappearance of traits that predispose to schizophrenia.

But it has not. And some researchers have speculated that the link between schizophrenic traits and creativity — a positive effect — could be one reason.

In the new study, participants disclosed the number of sexual partners they’d had as adults and answered questions that gauge four schizophrenia-related personality dimensions.

One is the tendency toward “unusual experiences,” defined as atypical thoughts or perceptions, or “magical thinking.” This trait, the study found, was more common in serious artists, and people who scored high on the unusual-experiences front also tended to have more sexual partners.

The findings, according to Nettle, suggest that unusual thinking and perceptions, when operating in a healthy person, spur creativity and, in turn, may make a person more attractive.

“Successful creative types are signaling that they have unusual mental qualities that can command the attention of others, and as such, they are likely to bear or sire us children who can do the same,” he explained.

Coupled with other traits, however – such as disorganized thoughts and concentration problems, and social withdrawal — this feature may make a person vulnerable to schizophrenia. In this study, these other traits were either unrelated to creativity and sexual activity or tended to hinder both.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the Royal Society, November 2005.

http://www.coping.org/relations/content.htm

Stephanie

The Pathology of Love
By Sam Vaknin
Author of “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited”

Recent studies buttress the unpalatable truth that falling in love is, in some ways, indistinguishable from a severe pathology. Behavior changes are reminiscent of psychosis and, biochemically speaking, passionate love closely imitates substance abuse. Appearing in the BBC series Body Hits on December 4, Dr. John Marsden, the head of the British National Addiction Center, said that love is addictive, akin to cocaine and speed. Sex is a “booby trap”, intended to bind the partners long enough to bond.

Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki of University College in London showed that the same areas of the brain are active when abusing drugs and when in love. The prefrontal cortex – hyperactive in depressed patients – is inactive when besotted. How can this be reconciled with the low levels of serotonin that are the telltale sign of both depression and infatuation – is not known.

The initial drive – lust – is brought on by surges of sex hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. These induce an indiscriminate scramble for physical gratification. Attraction transpires once a more-or-less appropriate object is found (with the right body language and speed and tone of voice) and is tied to a panoply of sleep and eating disorders.

A recent study in the University of Chicago demonstrated that testosterone levels shoot up by one third even during a casual chat with a female stranger. The stronger the hormonal reaction, the more marked the changes in behavior, concluded the authors. This loop may be part of a larger “mating response”. In animals, testosterone provokes aggression and recklessness. The hormone’s readings in married men and fathers are markedly lower than in single males still “playing the field”.

Helen Fisher of Rutger University suggests a three-phased model of falling in love. Each stage involves a distinct set of chemicals. The BBC summed it up succinctly and sensationally: “Events occurring in the brain when we are in love have similarities with mental illness”.

Moreover, we are attracted to people with the same genetic makeup and smell (pheromones) of our parents. Dr Martha McClintock of the University of Chicago studied feminine attraction to sweaty T-shirts formerly worn by males. The closer the smell resembled her father’s, the more attracted and aroused the woman became. Falling in love is, therefore, an exercise in proxy incest and a vindication of Freud’s much-maligned Oedipus and Electra complexes.

Writing in the February 2004 issue of the journal NeuroImage, Andreas Bartels of University College London’s Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience described identical reactions in the brains of young mothers looking at their babies and in the brains of people looking at their lovers.

“Both romantic and maternal love are highly rewarding experiences that are linked to the perpetuation of the species, and consequently have a closely linked biological function of crucial evolutionary importance” – he told Reuters.

This incestuous backdrop of love was further demonstrated by psychologist David Perrett of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The subjects in his experiments preferred their own faces – in other words, the composite of their two parents – when computer- morphed into the opposite sex.

Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, love is mostly about negative emotions. As Professor Arthur Aron from State University of New York at Stonybrook has shown, in the first few meetings, people misinterpret certain physical cues and feelings – notably fear and thrill – as (falling in) love. Thus, counterintuitively, anxious
people – especially those with the “serotonin transporter” gene – are more sexually active (i.e., fall in love more often).

Obsessive thoughts regarding the Loved One and compulsive acts are also common. Perception is distorted as is cognition. “Love is blind” and the lover easily fails the reality test. Falling in love involves the enhanced secretion of b-phenylethylamine (PEA, or the “love chemical”) in the first 2 to 4 years of the relationship.

This natural drug creates an euphoric high and helps obscure the failings and shortcomings of the potential mate. Such oblivion – perceiving only the spouse’s good sides while discarding her bad ones – is a pathology akin to the primitive psychological defense mechanism known as “splitting”. Narcissists – patients suffering from the Narcissistic Personality Disorder – also Idealize romantic
or intimate partners. A similar cognitive-emotional impairment is common in many mental health conditions.

The activity of a host of neurotransmitters – such as Dopamine, Adrenaline (Norepinephrine), and Serotonin – is heightened (or in the case of Serotonin, lowered) in both paramours. Yet, such irregularities are also associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and depression.

It is telling that once attachment is formed and infatuation gives way to a more stable and less exuberant relationship, the levels of these substances return to normal. They are replaced by two hormones (endorphins) which usually play a part in social interactions (including bonding and sex) – Oxytocin (the “cuddling chemical”) and Vasopressin. Oxytocin facilitates bonding. It is released in the mother during breastfeeding, in the members of the couple when they spend time together – and when they sexually climax.

Love, in all its phases and manifestations, is an addiction, probably to the various forms of internally secreted norepinephrine, such as the aforementioned amphetamine-like PEA. Love, in other words, is a form of substance abuse. The withdrawal of romantic love has serious mental health repercussions.

A study conducted by Dr. Kenneth Kendler, professor of psychiatry and director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, and others, and published in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, revealed that breakups often lead to depression and anxiety.

Still, love cannot be reduced to its biochemical and electrical components. Love is not tantamount to our bodily processes – rather, it is the way we experience them. Love is how we interpret these flows and ebbs of compounds using a higher-level language. In other words, love is pure poetry.

==============================================================
AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)

Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love – Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain – How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com