Psyche & Soul 58: SIGNING OFF

Psyche & Soul 58

SIGNING OFF

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-58-Psyche--Soul--123-e15hk6o

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com) signing off with the final edition of Psyche & Soul.

……..

Dear Listeners,

This is the final podcast in the series Psyche and Soul. For the 57 weeks, I have been able to present regularly some psychospiritual reflections on these podcasts. In these reflections I used insights from psychology, sacred scripture as well as the socio-political realities of our everyday life to help us enhance our emotional wellbeing and our spiritual life – our psyche and our soul.

Thank you very much for your encouragement and appreciation which kept me going, week after week for more than a year. A special word of thanks to PT Joseph, the www.donboscoindia.com  web master, and CM Paul of Radio Salesian for facilitating the uploading of the podcast, and to Yesudas Karakkattu for composing and performing the Psyche & Soul theme song and background music.

All the 57 podcasts will be available on www.donboscoindia.com webpage, and www.anchor.fm/boscom  for you to access whenever you want. May these podcasts enhance your psychospiritual journey, take you deeper and deeper into your psyche and soul.

In this final podcast, No 58, I list the weekly podcasts under 8 themes.

Theme 1: Psychospiritual Wellbeing (5 podcasts)

1.      1.Foundations of Health and Happiness.

2.      2. Childhood Foundation of Healthy Relationships:  Trust

3.      3. Childhood Foundations of Healthy Relationships 2: Secure Attachments

4.      4. Threats To Healthy Adult Relationships: Insecure Attachments In Childhood

5.      5. Need Empathic And Admirable People Around Us

Theme 2. There were four podcasts Related to the Corona Pandemic (4 podcasts)

Covid:  A Time of Massive Disruption (19)

6.      6. Self-Care During Covid

7.      7. Coping with Stress and Anxiety During Covid – Physical, Mental and Spiritual Strategies

      Transformation through Community & Compassion (20)

Theme 3: Emotional Wellbeing (11 podcasts)

8.      8. Need Fulfilment and Emotional Maturation

9.       9. Living with Meaning and Purpose

1010 .  Self-Knowledge

1111. .  Self-acceptance

1212..  Balancing Autonomy and Dependence

1313.  Emotions, Health and Happiness

1414.  Living Gratefully

1515.  Generosity

1616.  Hope And Optimism

1717. Resilience: Thriving Despite Adversity

1818.  Stress: Prevention and Relief

Theme 4: Spirituality (6 podcasts)

2121.  Psychology, Spirituality and Religion

2222.  A Splintered, Distorted Spirituality

2323.  Holistic Spirituality: Wholeness, Not Flawlessness

2424.  Spirituality of Simplicity – “Downward Mobility”

2525.  Spirituality of Embodiment

2626.  Moving into the New Year with Hope!

Theme 6: Mental Health (12 podcasts)

2727.  Mental Health and Wellbeing

2828.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Grateful Living

2929.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing Through Meaningful Living

3030.  Enhancing Mental Health and Wellbeing: Some Simple Practices

3131.  Enhancing Mental Health: 7 More Simple Practices

3232.  The Burden of Mental Illness

3333.  Major Depression

3434.  Schizophrenia - 1

3535.  Schizophrenia – 2: Symptoms and Dynamics

36.36  Schizophrenia – 3: Roots And Remedies. 

3737. Anxiety Disorder 

3838. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Theme 7: Personality Disorders (5 podcasts)

3939.  Personality Disorders: What They Are.

4040.  Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 

4141. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.  

4142. Borderline Personality Disorder., 

4343.  Paranoid Personality Disorder

Theme 8: Midlife Dynamics and the Spiritual Journey (14 podcasts)

4444.  Awakening to Midlife

4545.  Midlife Journeying

4646.  Emotional Awareness of Mortality

4747.  Time for Reassessment

4848.  Reassessment of “Dreams. 

4949. De-Illusioning 

5050.  Redeeming the “Shadow”

5151.  (Re-) Emergence of Sexuality and Intimacy Needs

5252.  Sexuality and Intimacy Needs: Women’s Experience

5353.  Balancing the Masculine and the Feminine

5454.  Moving Toward Integrity 

5555.Atonement (At-One-Men)t. 

5656. Aging Gracefully 

5757.  Spirituality for the Post-Midlife Years

 

I conclude with some significant quotes from the podcasts, something I would like to leave as a legacy from these podcasts.

“Acceptance of oneself is …the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life.” Carl Jung

“If you have a WHY to live for, you can live any HOW.” Nietzsche

 “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘Thank you’, that is enough” Meister Eckhart

 “There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

 “Split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and there you will find me.” Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas, #77)

 

Thank you once again, for listening, for your support and appreciation. May your life be healthy and happy!

Theme Song “Listen to the Spirit.” Lyric by Jose Parappully SDB.  Sung by Yesudas Karakkatttu SDB

The Spirit is in us, around us!

Speaking to us…

Through all that happens to us

And around us.

Inviting and exhorting us

To health and wholeness.

Come let us listen to the Sprit

Let’s grow in our psyche and soul.

Background music: Composed and performed by Yesudas Karakkattu, SDB

Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

Psyche & Soul 56: Post Midlife -XIII AGING GRACEFULLY

 Podcast Link:

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-56-Psyche--Soul--119-e14sa5v

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand (sumedhacentre@gmail.com)  with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this edition I present practices that help us age gracefully.

While I was in a neighbouring country for a Workshop I visited a nearby convent where there were a few nuns I knew. While taking tea the Superior of the community told me, “You must visit the youngest member of our community.” I was taken to an upstairs room where I met Sister Gladys (name changed). She had a beaming smile and her entire face had a glow of joy which lit up the room. She engaged me in pleasant conversation. She was 97 years young! She had been lying in her bed for a few months now. She had to be helped on to a wheelchair, for her to move anywhere. Despite her condition she appeared so happy and fulfilled and had the capacity to make others happy. I said to myself, “That’s what means to age gracefully!” My encounter with Sr. Gladys happened more than 20 years ago. But the image of the beaming, joyful sister who had aged so gracefully remains an inedible and delightful memory. There are countless others like Sister Gladys who have been able live happy, graceful lives and enjoy wellbeing even in old age despite many setbacks and limitations.

Post midlife-years can be difficult for a variety of reasons. The slowing down of metabolism and weakening immune system can lead to disabilities and illness. Loss of hearing, impaired vision, and limited motor agility can be particularly frustrating. There can be lack of feelings of self-efficacy for a variety of reasons. The negative attitudes expressed by family/community members, colleagues, and younger people toward the incompetence, dependence, or old-fashioned ways of older people can lead many of them feel quite discouraged about their self-worth.  Despite these challenges it is possible to age gracefully.

RESEARCH FINDINGS

Research on aging provides many insights as to what is required to age gracefully.

The MacArthur Foundation Study on Aging was undertaken by group of 16 scientists drawn from biology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, epidemiology, sociology, genetics, psychology, neurology, physiology, and geriatric medicine. Their conclusion on what leads to successful aging:  the ability to maintain three key behaviours or characteristics: a) low risk of disease and disease-related disability; b) high mental and physical function; and c) active engagement with life.

Mills Longitudinal Study compared cohorts of sick and healthy women at ages 41, 51, 61. This study too identified three characteristics of those who age successfully: a) increase in life satisfaction; b) reduced negative affect; c) increase in generative activities. Negative affect refers to emotions as such as anger, guilt, shame and so on. Generative activities refer to actions that express care for and attention to others.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development - “arguably the longest study of aging in the world” - consisted of three separate cohorts of 824 individuals—all selected as teenagers for different facets of mental and physical health nearly a century ago and studied for their entire lives. The first is a sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920—”the longest prospective study of physical and mental health in the world.” The Second,  is a sample of 456 socially disadvantaged Inner City men born about 1930—”the longest prospective study of ‘blue collar’ adult development in the world.” Third is a sample of 90 middle-class, intellectually gifted women born about 1910—”the longest prospective study of women’s development in the world.”  

George Vaillant, a former director of study, writes in Aging Well:  “It is not the bad things that happen to us that doom us: it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.” Successful aging is also facilitated by a capacity for gratitude, for forgiveness, and loving and being loved by a particular person. Alcohol abuse consistently predicted unsuccessful aging, in part because alcoholism damaged future social supports. Learning to play and create after retirement and learning to gain younger friends as one loses older ones were also significant contributors. Objective good physical health was less important to successful aging than subjective good health.  What is meant by this is that “it is all right to be ill as long as one does not feel sick.”

The Harvard Study also identified some significant characteristics of those who age gracefully: They care about others, are open to new ideas, and within the limits of physical health maintain usefulness to society and help others. They show cheerful tolerance of the difficulties of old age. They insist on sensible autonomy (doing for themselves and by themselves what they are able to) while willing to acknowledge their dependency needs and gracefully accept the help offered them. When ill, they are patients for whom a doctor enjoys caring. They are optimistic and look at the bright side of life. They maintain hope in life. They retain a sense of humour and a capacity for play. They are able to spend time in the nostalgic reminiscence of the past, yet they remain curious and continue to learn from the next generation. They try to maintain contact with old friends while making new ones.

The Nun Study, directed by David Snowdon and colleagues (originally begun as a study of Alzheimer’s disease) asked “Why do some of the sisters age gracefully, continuing to teach and serve, retaining their mental faculties into their eighties and nineties, even past one hundred? Why do others—who have lived such similar lives—appear to lose themselves, forgetting their closest friends and relatives and, in the end, becoming almost wholly disconnected from the world around them?” (Aging Gracefully, p.2)

The risk of death at any given year after age sixty-five is about 25 percent lower for the School Sisters of Notre Dame the subjects of the Nun Study than it is for the general population of women in the United States. What is it that helped these sisters to live dramatically longer (average age: 89; the youngest was 84; the oldest 106 years), and healthier, lives than their lay counterparts? The study provided the following answers:

1. Exercise: All the walking the sisters had done-- at a time when motorized transport was rarely available at the beginning of the last century—had helped them to live long and healthy. Exercise is one of the most reliable ways to preserve cardiovascular health. Exercise improves blood flow, bringing the brain the oxygen and the nutrients it needs to function well. Exercise reduces the stress hormones and increases the chemicals that nourish the brain cells. These changes help ward off depression and some kinds of damage to the brain tissue.
2. Education: About 85% of the sisters in the Nun study had bachelor’s degrees and about 45 % had master's degrees—“astounding statistics for any age group, let alone for women born in the early part of the [20^th] century.” Not only did the less-educated sisters have higher mortality rates, but their mental and physical abilities were much more limited if they did reach old age. These data are in keeping with earlier findings. As early as the 19^th century, British scientists had discovered a strong link between education and health.
3. Language: Language skills also had a significant impact on health and wellbeing in old age. The data from the Nun Study tended to confirm that healthy subjects were more proficient in sophisticated word use. They were apt at using multisyllabic words, such as particularly, privileged, and quarantined. In contrast, the sisters who later developed Alzheimer's more frequently used monosyllabic words, such as girls, boys, and sick.
4. Nutrition. What mattered was not just the quality of the food, the social environment of the meal also mattered. Snowdon wrote: “What I now know for sure is that nutrition for healthy aging is not just about eating certain foods or downing a certain milligrams of prescribed number of vitamins each day. It also depends on where we eat, whom we eat with, and whether the meal nourishes our heart, mind, and soul as well as our body,”
5. Positive Emotions: A positive outlook, especially early in life, contributed to longevity and wellbeing. In the autobiographies the sisters had written when they were an average age of twenty-two years old, positive emotional content strongly predicted who would live the longest lives. The sisters who scored the lowest number of positive-emotion sentences had twice the risk of death at any age when compared to those who were in the highest group. “This is a most extraordinary finding: A writing sample from early adult life offered a powerful clue as to who would be alive more than six decades later,” Snowdon observed.

Interestingly Snowdon refers to two factors that contributed to longevity and wellbeing which was not tested by the Nun Study design, “and yet after fifteen years of working with the sisters, I believe strongly in their importance” he observed.

6. Deep Spirituality. The first is the deep spirituality that these women shared. Profound faith buffers the sorrows and tragedies that all of us experience, Snowdon wrote. Moreover, evidence is now starting to accumulate from other studies that prayer and contemplation have a positive influence on long-term health and wellbeing. A Stanford Research Institution study, for example, has concluded “that the inner life, rather than externals, is central” to health and happiness.
7. Community. Convincing evidence is accumulating from other research, including those cited earlier in this article, that strong relationships as in marriage, membership in churches, clubs, or other social groups, and regular contact with family and friends all reduce the risk of death from the major killers such as coronary heart disease and stroke and enhance longevity. Community was a significant support system that the sisters shared.

A Summary

Summarising the data from research cited, here is a list of attitudes and behaviours that enable us to age gracefully:  Exercise of body and also of mind (through intellectual pursuits, maintaining curiosity and eagerness to learn), nutrition including a positive eating ambience, maintaining positive emotions, balancing independence and dependence, optimism and hope, sense of humour, thankful living, nostalgic reminiscence, helping others through generative activities, caring for and learning from future generation, healing from negative emotions, forgiveness, deep spirituality, and close relationships and community.

Introspection

• What do the research findings on aging gracefully evoke in you?
• Which of the factors that promote graceful aging are you practising? To which do you need to give greater attention?
• What are the implications for you personally, for your family or community?
• You may be aware persons like Sr. Gladys who have been able to age gracefully. Want van you learn from such persons?

Prayer

The Bible mentions a number of persons who have aged gracefully, remaining active and generative into ripe old age, such as the patriarchs Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and  David, Zechariah and Elizabeth… The Gospel of John (21, 18-19) has a scene in which Jesus describes what will happen to Peter in old age. We could read and stay with this passage or the stories concerning the other figures mentioned above and spend some time talking to God about what is evoked in us through this podcast and our reading and reflections.

Have a blessed and safe weekend.

Thank you for listening.

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images

\ Jose Parappully SDB, PhD

sumedhacentre@gmail.com

  

Psyche & Soul 42: BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

Podcast link

https://anchor.fm/boscom/episodes/2-42-Psyche--Soul--91-ev0ao0

 

Hello, this is Jose Parappully, Salesian priest and clinical psychologist at Sumedha Centre for Psychospiritual Wellbeing at Jeolikote, Uttarakhand, with another edition of Psyche & Soul.

In this weekend’s edition I shall describe Borderline Personality Disorder.

Susan phoned her boyfriend John. She wanted to talk to him badly. But he said he was out shopping and will call her back in an hour. Susan was not happy. But she waited for the hour to be over. An hour and half passed and he had not called her back. She called him back and gave him a mouthful, telling him how callous he was, not caring for her, burst into tears, and threatened to break off their relationship. John said sorry and explained what had happened. On the way back from shopping he witnessed a bike accident and had stopped to help and had forgotten to call her. Susan continued to be angry, insisting he could still have called her. John apologized. Now Susan began to feel guilty for the way she behaved. To sooth her feelings she began to cut herself- something she would do whenever she felt hurt…..

PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

The Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by the following:

·         Intense emotionality characterized by frequent and fast mood changes;

·         Uncontrolled, intense anger and rage; sadness and irritability.

·         Intense craving for intimacy accompanied by fear of abandonment triggered by the slightest suspicion of lack of interest on the part of the other and frantic efforts to prevent it.

·         Intense idealization (admiration or love) followed by equally intense devaluation (dislike and depreciation) in quick succession.

·         Relationships characterized by passionate attachments but also frequent and intense conflicts.

·         Self-harming (cutting, bruising, burning)   and suicidal behaviour

·         Impaired or distorted cognitive processes.

·         Underlying fragile sense of self and resulting insecurity and feelings of emptiness.

 

Persons with BPD are often enthusiastic, idealistic, joyful, and loving, but soon may feel overwhelmedby negative emotions (anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, worry, anger, etc.).

They are in exuberant mood when feeling loved, cared for, appreciated and made to feel important. However, with the slightest disappointment they sink into despondency and react with intense anger and rage. They feel every emotion at a very intense level: rage instead of annoyance, intense grief instead of sadness, shame and humiliation instead of mild embarrassment, panic instead of anxiety. Their emotions often tend to spiral out of control.

 

They are very sensitive to the way others treat them, feeling intense joy and gratitude at perceived expressions of kindness, and intense sadness or anger at perceived criticism or hurtfulness. They are especially sensitive to feelings of rejection and can become very vindictive.

 

Naturally, their relationships are characterized by lots of conflict and frustration. They tend to see persons as “all-good” or “all-bad” in a sequential fashion. Their frequent mood fluctuations and swinging from idealization to devaluation make life very difficult and frustrating for those with whom they are in relationship, or with whom want to establish relationships. Their fear of abandonment, combined with feelings of emptiness and self-loathing, and frequent accusations of disloyalty and lack of caring makes those around them feel like they're constantly walking on eggshells, needing to be very careful lest they trigger a cascading dysfunctional behaviours that can include threats of suicide and even suicidal attempts.

 Since they feel their emotional pain with great intensity, they try to sooth their feelings and calm themselves through self-injury, which takes attention away for their emotional pain. Self-soothing approaches often also  include substance use disorders (e.g., alcohol use disorder), eating in excess, unprotected sex or indiscriminate sex with multiple partners, reckless spending, and reckless driving. They do all this because it gives them the feeling of immediate relief from their emotional pain, but later lead to feelings of shame and guilt over consequences of these behaviours. Thus a vicious cycle is often set in motion:  beginning with emotional pain, followed by impulsive and unhealthy behaviour to relieve that pain, then feeling shame and guilt over their actions resulting in renewed emotional pain, and then experiencing stronger urges to engage in impulsive and unhealthy behaviour to relieve the new pain. As time goes on, these impulsive and unhealthy behaviours may become an automatic response to emotional pain.

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS

There are some basic assumptions that persons with BPD hold and which lead to the behaviours described above. These include:

• I must be loved by people important to me or else I am worthless.
• Persons who love me are good and everything about them is perfect. Others cannot be trusted.
• Persons must understand my needs and respond to them in the way I want. Otherwise they don’t really care for me.
• Persons who love me must tell me they love me. If they don’t, it means they do not love me and will abandoned me.
• Nobody cares about me as much as I care about them.  So they can easily abandon me.
• When I am not in a relationship, I become nobody and nothing.
• I will be really happy only when someone makes me the most important person in his or her life and make me feel that way.

ORIGINS

It is generally recognised that there are two basic dynamics in the formation of the borderline personality disorder:

First, inherited biochemical factors, not easily observable on the surface, but responsible for impulsive aggression and affect instability that characterize a patient suffering from the disorder.

Second, early insecure attachments with parents and parent figures, which besides contributing to the above, seriously derail the crucial developmental milestone of basic trust. These also lead to unstable interpersonal relationships characterized by excessive intensity, overvalued expectations, unfounded anxieties. They also lead to distorted cognitive processes.

Borderline personality disorder is partly caused by brain abnormalities that can be identified by brain imaging techniques. Patients with borderline personality disorder may be bio-chemically primed to over anticipate and overreact to real or imagined criticism, rejection or abandonment.  There is impairment in their capacity to regulate or inhibit limbic-driven emotionality or impulsivity. These heritable risk factors, in turn, interfere with the normal attachment process during development, and this disruption can be magnified when there is inadequate parental support. All these cause and maintain profound sense of inner emptiness, emotional instability, interpersonal difficulties and disruptive behaviours.

TREATMENT

It is a combination of biological and psychotherapeutic interventions that really help those suffering from borderline disorder.

For a long time it was thought that borderline personality was not amenable to change in therapy. However, that idea has changed. Today borderline personality disorder is considered a treatable condition.

Data from research show that borderline patients treated by skilled therapists who focused their interventions on the transference and countertransference (relationship between client and therapist) showed a significantly better outcome than those treated with a more supportive approach.

According to experienced therapists, effective psychotherapy for patients with borderline disorder takes time, commitment and persistent. The biggest hurdle is to establish a collaborative partnership that can be sufficiently sustained to do some effective work, without the client unilaterally terminating the treatment. Maintaining proper boundaries of time, place and behaviour is also a big challenge.

Psychotherapeutic interventions are more helpful to manage self-injury and abandonment concerns, while the inherited bio-chemical contributors to the disorder are better treated with medication. 

Borderline behaviour is mostly driven by feelings of low self-worth, fear of abandonment arising from insecurity, and excessive craving for intimacy, approval and appreciation. Hence, responding with empathy and sensitivity to their erratic behaviours, though difficult and frustrating, and providing approval and appreciation and frequent expressions of caring on the part of persons who matter to them, can help those who suffer from the disorder feel cared for and supported and can help reduce and prevent escalation of conflicts.

Introspection and Prayer

·         Do you recognize the features of the Borderline Personality Disorder in yourself? If so, how do you feel about them and handle them?

·         Have you encountered these features in those with whom you relate or those around you? If so, what are the challenges you have faced in dealing with them? What has helped you cope?

 We could hold these people in prayer before God and ask God to provide them the love, appreciation and security they crave…..

Borderline personalities lack self-worth, feel others don’t love them and feel insecure. They tend to drive away those they love by their demands and dysfunctional behaviours. Our God is never put off by our dysfunctional behaviours, but always stands by us and provides us the love and security we crave.

We could read Isaiah 43, 1-5where God speaks of his love and care for us and his promise to never abandon us: “I have called you by name. You are mine. …. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you… You are precious in my sight, …and I love you…. Fear not, I am with you”

We could then stay a while with the feelings evoked in us by the reading and spend some time talking with and listening to God.

Have a healthy, safe and blessed weekend.

Thank you for listening

Pictures: Courtesy Google Images