Why We Need a Frame of Reference

I am not against statistical research.  It is essential.  But too often research studies are a stand-alone  phenomenon;  true unto themselves but  unrelated to a larger  picture and other key phenomena.  They are not plugged into a bigger frame of reference.  And that is my quarrel with constant statistical studies, especially in Psychology.  Let me give you an example.  There is a new study that states: serotonin promotes patience.  The idea is that animals can wait longer for reward once given serotonin. And, not surprisingly, the animals failed  the test after being given something to stop serotonin production.  Ok .  We have the results, but the “WHY” we don’t have.  Their conclusion:  these findings suggest that activation of serotonin neurons is required for waiting  for delayed reward.  OK fine.  Our clinical experience shows that the more activated  the top level neo-cortex, the less impulses break through to force impulsive behavior.  It is one way we know that serotonin is an inhibitory chemical.  We know that very early neglect and  trauma require  the production  of more serotonin. We now know that a dog can be more patient with injected serotonin.  A frame of reference  would  inform us that high level cortical functioning can be recruited to shut down feelings and make us feel better and be patient; that general inhibition can lead to patience.
And that serotonin can shut down feelings and impulses. And when we do that we increase the ability to wait.  My birth trauma patients are often impulse-ridden.

  I  don’t want to drown the fish but here is one more example: almost 20% of patients with coronary heart disease suffer from major depression.  Another 20% have some symptoms of depression.  Again,  Why?    The problem with statistical  studies is that  we get statistical  truths;  and  in the usual  research we get correlations; this correlates with that, etc.  What  we don’t get are causes of disease.  Correlations never do that, and indeed  in our field of Psychiatry and  Psychology we are looked at negatively because we offer causes or at least generating sources.  Scientists are  too often content to do stand-alone research.  And too often  it is the left brain  that is content with statistical  studies because it requires little further imagination.  We don’t have to engage in pesky thoughts beyond  what we see and  measure.  We don’t have to posit implications.  It is one reason we do not get beyond  Freud and/or cognitive therapy.  Is is why we have rigid, inflexible, dry results.  And scientists seem to prefer it that way; equating  dryness with science.

  These are interesting studies(above) but they lack a frame of reference, which is what I require, “a  truth beyond  the facts”.  A frame of reference is essential in order to make sense of our results.  For that we need experience with patients; to see how theory and research studies merge  with clinical observations—the  proof in the eating.  It is the frame of reference that can tie two disparate studies together and provide broader implications.  It is indeed a truth beyond the facts; that truth requires a frame of reference.    It seems that it  is right brain  that supplies the frame of reference, the meaning and implications of  our studies, while  the left brain deals  with point by point statistics.  We need both in our therapy and our theory.  It is why statistical results are rarely enough, yet psychologic science is stuck there and why so little has changed in therapy over the decades.

Take  migraine. We have had success in treating it.  One  research study found that oxygen therapy helped alleviate its suffering.  It was stand/alone research.  Our own frame of reference  after seeing dozens  of migraine patients over the years, indicates  serious oxygen  lack during  the birth  process, usually due to massive anesthesia given  the  birthing  mother.  It causes a serious oxygen decrease in the baby who struggles for air.  One result of  this  oxygen loss is the precursor for migraine—constriction  of blood vessels to struggle with the loss of oxygen.  And what is one treatment for  it?  Oxygen.  And treating dozens of those migraine people  led us to a breadth of data to provide a frame of reference.  I didn’t  have to concoct a theory; I had to observe closely and note what I saw.  I rather doubt that anyone could come up with  our hypothesis with  statistics alone.  At least now after almost  one hundred years of headache research  I still have not seen possible causes mentioned.

  What  is lacking?  A frame  of reference.  We really can’t come up with a frame of reference with  a one-off study.  We need a good deal of information.  With each patient we gather more evidence, and we modify our theory  accordingly.  Our  patients are our research subjects.  We are now correlating  our vital sign  results.  We will  soon know how and when blood pressure and body temperature change with feelings.  Our results are found in our patients; they have  the answers.

  Our clinical work has found depression  to be  a forerunner for later heart disease because of deep repression involved in  both.  And from our clinical knowledge of how early repression sets in.  When in our work we extirpate pain out of the system we alleviate  depression and possibly prevent  heart attacks.

    It's not that we are depressed  and also then we have heart disease; it is that deep suppression  of early pain, often begun in our womb-life, activates heart cells and affects later heart function.  That is, constant repression is involved in depression and heart disease.  Seeing the whole person allows us to develop a frame of reference that statistics usually cannot do.  Both heart disease and depression emanate from the person and begins most often during life in the womb.  No theory of womb-life--  no understanding of its role in heart disease.  So if we treat heart disease  by stand-alone methods,  leaving the  imprints out of the matter, we are possibly ensuring another attack. This is one reason that in therapy with serious disease if we do not address the generating sources, the imprint, there is a constant danger of recidivism.  And yet if we add imagination/frame of reference to our results we are often looked at as unscientific because we have gone beyond the facts. This is a dilemma because too often getting ahead of the facts can indeed be dangerous  and unscientific.  Look at our pal Freud, he posited childhood sexuality out of his own unconscious, nary a fact in sight.

  The danger is that a largely left brain scientist (a right brain scientist is too often an  oxymoron) cannot objectively supply an untrammeled frame of reference.  Our brain research indicated a more equalized brain in patients after one  year of our therapy.  What this means to me is a more objective one; a brain that will follow facts and produce a relevant meaning, not fabricating theories out of the unconscious.