Certain environmental factors and techniques that affect our level of consciousness can greatly enhance the Doctrine Over Person effect which ultimately causes a person to reinterpret their personal history and transform memory in order to meet the demands of a closed religious system. As this has been a matter of some discussion in the past on this blog, I'd like to point out that my primary and brief focus in this post concerns the way trauma alters the brain development of a traumatized child. However, please note the lifelong health effects suffered by adults of both childhood physical and emotional abuse which I detailed
in the afterword (read excerpt HERE) of Hillary McFarland's book,
Quivering Daughters. I've also discussed this briefly in several posts on the Overcoming Botkin Syndrome blog and here at Under Much Grace concerning the contributing pathophysiology associated with stress related illness.
Brief Introduction to Brainwaves and Levels of Consciousness
As described in this previous post, different areas and structures in the brain generate distinct types of brainwave patterns, much like an electrocardiogram reflects the real time manner in which the heart is beating. The heart generates electrical impulses that can be detected with electrodes. In the same way, the brain also generates electrical energy that is associated with particular levels of consciousness. Developments in dynamic brain imaging also corollate with and corroborate data from the older technology of EEG monitoring, offering additional objective validation of our understanding of how the mind works. Please refer to this previous post which describes the basics of brainwave monitoring and how it correlates with levels of human consciousness.
Brainwave
Patterns Reflecting Levels of Consciousness in the Adult
As
described in this previous post, different areas and structures in
the brain generate distinct types of brainwave patterns, much like an
electrocardiogram reflects the real time manner in which the heart is
beating. The heart generates electrical impulses that can be
detected with electrodes. In the same way, the brain also generates
electrical energy that is associated with particular levels of
consciousness. Developments in dynamic
brain imaging also corollate with and corroborate data from the
older technology of EEG monitoring, offering additional objective
validation of our understanding of how the mind works. Please refer
to this
previous post which describes the basics of brainwave monitoring
and how it correlates with levels of human consciousness.
I've
also previously focused on different factors which promote a person's
transition in and out of different levels of waking consciousness in
this series which presents the various aspects of how we can be
influenced by environmental and social factors which predispose us to
become suggestible and easily influenced if not hypnotized. Among
these factors, social
pressures, anticipation
of an exciting time, fatigue, hunger, lighting, music, and all sorts
of different things can influence us to accept things that are told
to us under pressure but would reject if we were not subject to these
factors.
The
brainwave pattern generated by a person who is thinking rationally
and is being a good Berean, evaluating information to see if it is
trustworthy is the primary brainwave state of the fully awake adult.
Children do not think analytically until they are near the age of
twelve, so they do not generate these types of brainwaves.
The
Slower Alpha State of Conscious Relaxed Awareness
As
the following chart notes, slower brainwaves also occur during
consciousness for the adult and is experienced during relaxation,
prayer, and while doing tasks of habit that do not require our
deliberate attention. It is the ideal state for hypnosis as well,
and it is the primary level of consciousness for children between the
ages of 6 to 12 years.
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The
Alpha state can be triggered without our awareness which makes us
vulnerable to manipulation and post-hypnotic suggestion. Many
factors can be used by manipulators to slow down our level of
alertness and our waking brainwave patterns in order to influence us
to accept their ideas. Our body will also adapt to match and mirror
frequencies of light and sound in our environment, and this affects
not only our breathing and pulse which will respond to such rhythms,
but our brainwaves will also speed up and slow down in response, a
phenomenon called brainwave entrainment. Deep, diaphragmatic
breathing and raising our eyes to 30 degrees to look upward will also
cause our brainwaves to slow down, an purely physical response but
ones that we encounter throughout the day. I remind the reader to
learn more about these previously explored topics by clicking on the
embedded links if they are unfamiliar with the material. Children
from the ages of approximately ages 6 to 12 years generate these
patterns while they are awake.
Cognitive
dissonance, the mind-body response to discord in factors in our
environment, thought, and emotions, and how appropriate they are in a
given context can also have a subtle but profound effect on our level
of consciousness, making us even more vulnerable to accepting ideas
that we would otherwise reject and oppose by literally slowing down
our brain patterns. This
series of blog posts explores this phenomenon, and this
series discusses how cognitive dissonance can cause lack of ease
and anxiety when attempting to study the Bible after emerging from
spiritual abuse. Awareness of all of these factors helps us be
better
stewards of our minds when we encounter these pressures,
especially when we understand the many things affect how and what we
choose to think. (We can make a conscious choice to remain alert,
vigilant to evaluate ideas that we may choose to reject.) Our
thoughts are always our choice, except when we are subjected to overt
and covert manipulation.
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Brain
Development and Levels of Consciousness in Young Children
Basically, a infant
is born with a primary and slow brainwave pattern, and as they age,
they grow into faster patterns as different areas of the brain
develop and become active. Adults manifest all of these brainwave
types, but they move in and out of them throughout the day and night.
Changes in levels of consciousness cause observable changes in the
patterns of the brainwaves produced.
The next level of
consciousness in descending speed is the Theta state, experienced by
adults just before falling asleep and waking, and while doing very
repetitive, rhythmic tasks. But oddly, this is also the state of
consciousness that is present during physical or psychological
threat, a deeply emotional state that is concerned with survival and
is associated with premonition and vigilance.
Theta is also the
primary level of consciousness of children between the ages of two
and six years.
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And the slowest
pattern is manifested by adults while they are asleep (and not
dreaming). This is also the only level of consciousness of infants
through the age of two.
(Though a bit off topic, I have to
point out that
Michael Pearl's misinformation about the “diabolical
will” of infants completely falls apart in light of this objective
data about the mind of infants. They teach that children plot and
scheme to overthrow and thwart parents as though it is a conscious
act of will as opposed to responding to rhythm and routine. Children
prior to age 2 completely lack all ability to think in this fashion
and the LACK the brainwaves to prove it. Children do not manifest
faster or more complex wave patterns to remotely begin anything like
cause and effect understanding about anything until about age two,
noted in the first row concerning Delta waves.)
2Feb12 Update: This
new post about "The Two Year Window" describes the effects of neglect (a type of abuse) and the chronic stress response on the brain development of children under the age of two as evidenced by EEG data.
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The Effects of Trauma on Levels of
Consciousness (and resultant brainwave patterns)
Of special concern to us is the
response created by trauma (that which is now also corroborated by
brain imaging of people with PTSD). Trauma causes physiologic
changes in the way that the brain works, and this is reflected by the
sensitive measure of blood flow imaging in the brain. Notable to us,
this physiologic response of survival (wherein the traumatized
person's survival mechanisms in the brain stay active and can be
triggered), and those responses divert blood away from the front of
the brain, the Prefrontal Cortex. This is the part of the brain
responsible for critical, analytical and rational thought and is
associated with a Beta level of consciousness. Subsequently, in
addition to some other features, this response to trauma causes a
diminished ability to think critically and rationally. (A similar
finding occurs in depression.)
Trauma also causes a state of
“derealization,” a certain degree of dissociation, a dreamlike
state that helps a person cope by creating emotional distance for
them between their consciousness and a threatening event.
Unfortunately, the state of dissociation, what is very much
dreamlike, is associated with Alpha brainwave patterns and people who
experience PTSD have difficulty maintaining a Beta level of
consciousness.
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Children and Trauma
In children who have been subjected to
trauma, levels of consciousness (reflected by brainwave patterns) and
sometimes their actual brain growth and development becomes alerted.
At the age of twelve or in the vicinity, if proper development
occurs, the child produces a certain level of Beta waves indicative
of the development of critical thinking. This is why you cannot
effectively teach algebra to an average child before the age of about
ten years, because their brain has not started functioning on that
level yet. They are only able to consider variables and abstract
ideas as they approach age twelve, after their brain develops sufficiently. Until that time, children experience life and learn
concretely and depend upon an adult to anticipate their needs and
lack of ability to protect themselves or plan strategies to
accomplish their objectives. In a way, it is almost dreamlike and
why it is easy to tell them stories of fantasy. Notably, they also
do not distinguish well between fantasy and reality before age
twelve. They are in a dreamy state of consciousness while awake,
observable by monitoring brainwave patters.
When children who have been traumatized
enter this phase of development, rather than growing into a resting
stage of Beta which is generated by critical thinking, the
traumatized child shows much less critical thought than the non-abused child of the same age. They remain in a predominant
dreamlike state of an Alpha level of consciousness because of dissociation, just like a traumatized
adult. They will show Beta activity, but it is not dominant as in their peers of the same age, and
they continue to approach the world through a
dreamlike state of consciousness. Because the brain is so adaptable,
this doesn't remain a permanent state if the child recovers from the
trauma, but without healing, one could say that severely traumatized
children experience the world as though they are in a dream state. They remain children.
Note the following chart which details
the Alpha state of consciousness experienced by both traumatized
adults and children. Recall also that the even an adult does not
readily distinguish from what is real and what is imaginary when in
an Alpha level of consciousness. Essentially, trauma and tactics of
manipulation (through cognitive dissonance) not only lull adults into
a dreamlike state, they keep children from maturing into good,
critical, discerning thinkers. Abuse destroys Bereans and keeps
children from becoming discerning Christians. They grow up, but the
tend to agree with everything every authority figure tells them.
Significance for the Survivors of Hephzibah House
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How does this pertain to Hephzibah
House survivors? I will revisit some of this in an upcoming post,
but for now, let me point out a significant problem experienced by
girls when they get out and return home: the lack of ability to
self-protect. It's a little off topic but demonstrates an important
point. Many girls report that they get molested and raped after they
leave, and they cannot figure out why this would be so problematic,
given what they should have learned in the program.
The effects of
the trauma they experienced and the heavy degree of dissociation
(feelings that things are not real to more severe adaptations of
being outside of one's physical body to memory problems of amnesia,
and confabulation of fantasy memories to compensate for the amnesia)
has disabled their ability to think.
They are like children, and the
abuse to which they were subjected has PHYSIOLOGICALLY altered their
ability to plan, strategize and to think like a normal adult. They
have been reduced to children, probably to about the developmental
age of a ten year old, when it comes to planning self protection and
self care.
When threatened with harm, that threat will trigger their
trauma, they will become even more dissociated (as if they are not
there mentally and in a dream). Because of the areas of the brain
that become active during this kind of threat, the function of the
basal ganglia in the brain is very likely to route their responses in
a way that causes them to respond through “freezing,” and they
will become passive. This is a physiologic response to trauma.
And in closing, very briefly, if a
traumatized young adult who is in an Alpha state of consciousness all
the the time wherein they cannot discern clearly what is real and
what is not real, could it not be possible that they either do not
remember certain events or could have confabulated an ideal fantasy
to fill in periods of amnesia? And if in this highly vulnerable
Alpha state, the ideal level of consciousness for hypnosis, is it not
possible that if an abuser tells them that a particular thing has or
has not happened, is it not very likely that they will be inclined to
believe their
“delusion
of wholeness,” as Lifton and Erikson put it, just to please
their authority figure to gain a sense of worth from them? Is it not
conceivable that they could believe a dream, a fantasy to help them
cope with tragedy?
More to come. More to come.
More to come. More to come.
Please note:
Reference material for the above information can be obtained in any, contemporary studies of
consciousness related to PTSD, basic
neurofeedback therapy texts, current research with
PTSD affected war veterans, war veteran
research/therapy by Peter Levine specifically, current theory concerning
complex PTSD in adults(pdf) which is most prevalent in people who suffered trauma as children,
every lecture (too many to count) that I've heard by
Bessel Van der Kolk and his associates/affiliates, breakthrough developments in
neurophysiologic imaging related to trauma, etc.... This information is foundational and basic knowledge in the
study of PTSD,
child development,
Milton Erikson theory /
Neurolinguistic Programming, etc... I've provided a mere few links to just a few references, as this information consolidates findings taught and supported by all of these noted disciplines. It's almost so ubiquitous, I cannot find a single reference that consolidates all of these findings in a simple link. The most basic place to start would likely be with any
foundational self-help text about neurofeedback for a basic introduction.
