Tools for Personal Development
An Online Journal

The Wahls Way™ — A nutritional treatment for MS

Source: Eating The Wahls Way™
Terry Wahls MD, University of Iowa professor of medicine, terrywahls.com, The Wahls Foundation.
Accessed 27 January 2012. Passim.

In 2003 Terry Wahls MD was diagnosed with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and soon became dependent upon a tilt-recline wheelchair. After developing and using the Wahls Protocol™, she is now able to walk through the hospital and commute to work by bicycle. She now uses intensive directed nutrition in her primary care and traumatic brain injury clinics. Dr. Wahls is the lead scientist in a clinical trial testing her protocol in others with progressive MS.

Eating the Wahls Way™
Here are three simple food rules to follow to ensure you will have enough building blocks on hand for optimal function of your brain and reduced risk of excessive inflammation.

Eat 9 cups of vegetables and fruit (3 green, 3 sulfur, 3 color) to ensure you have enough B vitamins, minerals (sulfur, iodine, magnesium), antioxidants, and essential fats through food (greens, seafood, grass fed meat, game, wild fish, flax, walnuts) Reduce food allergy risk (go gluten-free and dairy-free) Eat organic, locally grown foods and grow more of your own[...] In the fall of 2007, I had an important epiphany. What if I redesigned my diet so that I was getting those important brain nutrients not from supplements but from the foods I ate? It took more time to create this new diet, intensive directed nutrition, which I designed to provide optimal nutrition for my brain. At that time, I also learned about neuromuscular electrical stimulation and convinced my physical therapist to give me a test session. It hurt, a lot, but I also felt euphoric when it was finished, likely because of the endorphins my body released in response to the electrical stimulation. In December 2007, I began my intensive directed nutrition along with a program of progressive exercise, electrical stimulation, and daily meditation. The results stunned my physician, my family and me: within a year, I was able to walk through the hospital without a cane and even complete an 18-mile bicycle tour. [Read More]

Multiple studies have shown the way to improve health and minimize chronic health problems, including mental problems, is by eating more vegetables. The studies that added vitamins or supplements and did not change the eating pattern have much less benefit than the studies that relied on food. For that reason, I advocate that everyone eat more greens, more sulfur and more color. — Terry Wahls MD, Take charge of your health by taking charge of your food, The Wahls Foundation. Learn about the best ways to get more vegetables and fruit into your diet... (21.07.11)

Amazon.ca |  Amazon.com Dr. Terry Wahls links micronutrient starvation to the epidemics of chronic disease that are overtaking modern society. She explains the key roles mitochondria play in maintaining a healthy brain and body. Americans are eating so poorly, something we all know to be true, that the majority of Americans are missing key building blocks that are needed for brain cells to be healthy. The result is an epidemic of depression, aggression, multiple sclerosis and early dementia. She then teaches you how to eat for healthy mitochondria, a healthy brain and a healthy body in language that is clear and concise, even for those without a science background. [...] Dr. Wahls explains basic brain biology in simple terms. She tells us what vitamin, mineral and essential fat building blocks are needed by the mitochondria and other key structures in the brain [and] explains what foods are good sources for those key nutrients. Over a hundred recipes are provided to help get you started on this new way of eating. [...] Large Print Edition; Apr 01 2010; ISBN/EAN13: 0982175027 / 9780982175026; 364 pages; US Trade Paper; List Price: $40.50 And See: Webcast (10.06.08): Case Report: Neuromuscular electrical stimulation and dietary interventions to reduce oxidative stress in a patient with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. Intensive, Directed Nutrition and Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation for Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, Terry Wahls, University of Iowa; DIRECT-MS (28 August 2010). Neuromuscular electrical stimulation and dietary interventions to reduce oxidative stress in a secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patient leads to marked gains in function: a case report Reese D, Shivapour ET, Wahls TL, Dudley-Javoroski SD, Shields R. Cases J. 2009 Aug 10;2:7601.

Memory works differently, transactive memory, and the cyborg in all of us.

Source: Study Finds That Memory Works Differently in the Age of Google Research | Columbia News (14.07.11) The rise of Internet search engines like Google has changed the way our brain remembers information, according to research by Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow published July 14 in Science. "Since the advent of search engines, we are reorganizing the way we remember things," said Sparrow. "Our brains rely on the Internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found." Sparrow's research reveals that we forget things we are confident we can find on the Internet. We are more likely to remember things we think are not available online. And we are better able to remember where to find something on the Internet than we are at remembering the information itself. This is believed to be the first research of its kind into the impact of search engines on human memory organization. [...]	Source: Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains. Nicholas Carr, July/August 2008, The Atlantic Magazine. [PDF] Links and PDFs added. [...] For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they've been widely described and duly applauded. "The perfect recall of silicon memory," Wired's Clive Thompson has written, "can be an enormous boon to thinking." But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski. I'm not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances — literary types, most of them — many say they're having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. "I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader," he wrote. "What happened?" He speculates on the answer: "What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I'm just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?" Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. "I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print," he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a "staccato" quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. "I can't read War and Peace  anymore," he admitted. "I've lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it." Anecdotes alone don't prove much. And we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition. But a recently published study of online research habits [Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future (18 October 2007)], conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think. As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited "a form of skimming activity," hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they'd already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would "bounce" out to another site. Sometimes they'd save a long article, but there's no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it. The authors of the study report: It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of "reading" are emerging as users "power browse" horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense. Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. "We are not only what we read," says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. "We are how we read." Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts "efficiency" and "immediacy" above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become "mere decoders of information." Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged. Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It's not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains. Experiments demonstrate that readers of ideograms, such as the Chinese, develop a mental circuitry for reading that is very different from the circuitry found in those of us whose written language employs an alphabet. The variations extend across many regions of the brain, including those that govern such essential cognitive functions as memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works. [...] → Read the whole article Within a single generation, digital media and the World Wide Web have transformed virtually every aspect of modern culture, from the way we learn and work to the ways in which we socialize and even conduct war. But is the technology moving faster than we can adapt to it? And is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we've gained? In Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, FRONTLINE presents an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human in a 21st-century digital world. Continuing a line of investigation she began with the 2008 FRONTLINE report Growing Up Online, award-winning producer Rachel Dretzin embarks on a journey to understand the implications of living in a world consumed by technology and the impact that this constant connectivity may have on future generations. "I'm amazed at the things my kids are able to do online, but I'm also a little bit panicked when I realize that no one seems to know where all this technology is taking us, or its long-term effects," says Dretzin. [...] Read More
Source: Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips Sparrow B, Liu J, Wegner DM. Science. 14 July 2011: 1207745. Published online 14 July 2011. [DOI:10.1126/science.1207745] Summary The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made accessing information as easy as lifting a finger. No longer do we have to make costly efforts to find the things we want. We can "Google" the old classmate, find articles online, or look up the actor who was on the tip of our tongue. The results of four studies suggest that when faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it. The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves. From the Science Podcast: An interview with Betsy Sparrow on the effects of the Internet on memory.
Source: Transactive Memory Daniel M. Wegner. Professor in Memory of William James, Department of Psychology, Harvard University. How do people remember things in relationships and groups? Each person doesn't need to remember everything the group needs to know, after all, if each person merely stores in memory information about who is likely to have a particular item in the future. This capacity for remembering who knows what is the key to transactive memory as introduced by Wegner, Giuliano, and Hertel (1985) and Wegner (1986). Transactive memory suggests an analysis not only of how couples and families in close relationships coordinate memory and tasks in the home, but how larger groups and organizations come to develop "group minds," memory systems that are more complex and potentially more effective than those of any of the individuals that comprise them. Cognitive interdependence in close relationships. Wegner DM, Giuliano T, Hertel P. In WJ Ickes (Ed.), Compatible and incompatible relationships. (1985:253-276) New York: Springer-Verlag. Transactive memory: A contemporary analysis of the group mind. Wegner DM. In B Mullen & GR Goethals (Eds.), Theories of group behavior. (1986:185-208) New York: Springer-Verlag. Wegner TG, Wegner DM. "Transactive memory." In ASR Manstead & M Hewstone (Eds.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. (1995:654-656) Oxford: Blackwell. Transactive memory in close relationships. Wegner DM, Erber R, Raymond P. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1991;61:923-929. A computer network model of human transactive memory. Wegner DM. Social Cognition 1991;13:1-21. Google effects on memory: Cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips. Sparrow B, Liu J, Wegner DM. Science. 10.1126/science.1207745.
Source: Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence Andy Clark. Oxford University Press, USA. (2004:pp.3,4,11) Emphasis added. Clark's new book is Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford University Press, USA (31.12.10:318pp.) [...] For we shall be cyborgs not in the merely superficial sense of combining flesh and wires but in the more profound sense of being human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry. [...] Certainly I don't think this tendency toward cognitive hybridization is a modern development. Rather, it is an aspect of our humanity, which is as basic and ancient as the use of speech and which has been expanding its territory ever since. We see some of the "cognitive fossil trail" of the cyborg trait in the historical procession of potent cognitive technologies that begins with speech and counting, morphs first into wriitten text and numerals, then into early printing (without moveable typefaces), on to the revolutions of moveable typefaces and the printing press, and most recently to the digital encodings that bring text, sound, and image into a uniform and widely transmissible format. Such technologies, once up and running in the various appliances and institutions that surround us, do far more than merely allow for external storage and transmission of ideas. They constitute [...] a cascade of "mindware upgrades": cognitive upheavals in which the effective architecture of the human mind is altered and transformed. [...] [... T]he old puzzle, the mind-body problem, really involves a hidden third party. It is the mind-body-scaffolding problem. It is the problem of understanding how human thought and reason is born out of looping interactions between material brains, material bodies, and complex cultural and technological environments. We create these supportive envioironments, but they create us too. We exist, as the thinking beings we are, only thanks to a baffling dance of brains, bodies, and cuultural and technological scaffolsing. Understanding this evolutionarily novel arrangement is crucial for our science, our morals, and our self-image both as persons and as a species.

The trouble with wheat...

Source: On the evils of wheat: Dr. William Davis on why it is so addictive, and how shunning it will make you skinny
Kate Fillion, MACLEANS.CA, (20 September 2011) Links, emphasis, videos and references added.

Amazon.ca | Amazon.com chapters.indigo.ca

William Davis, a preventive cardiologist who practises in Milwaukee, Wis., argues in his new book Wheat Belly that wheat is bad for your health — so bad that it should carry a surgeon general's warning. [...]

[...] Q: How does wheat make us fat, exactly?

A: It contains amylopectin A, which is more efficiently converted to blood sugar than just about any other carbohydrate, including table sugar. In fact, two slices of whole wheat bread increase blood sugar to a higher level than a candy bar does. And then, after about two hours, your blood sugar plunges and you get shaky, your brain feels foggy, you're hungry. So let's say you have an English muffin for breakfast. Two hours later you're starving, so you have a handful of crackers, and then some potato chips, and your blood sugar rises again. That cycle of highs and lows just keeps going throughout the day, so you're constantly feeling hungry and constantly eating. Dieticians have responded to this by advising that we graze throughout the day, which is just nonsense. If you eliminate wheat from your diet, you're no longer hungry between meals because you've stopped that cycle. You've cut out the appetite stimulant, and consequently you lose weight very quickly. I've seen this with thousands of patients.

Source: The gluten-thyroid connection
Chris Kresser L.Ac, Medicine for the 21st Century (18.07.10) Emphasis added.

In the first article in this series, I showed that hypothyroidism is an autoimmune disease in 90% of cases. In this article we're going to discuss the connection between autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and gluten intolerance.

Several studies show a strong link between AITD (both Hashimoto's and Graves') and gluten intolerance. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] The link is so well-established that researchers suggest all people with AITD be screened for gluten intolerance, and vice versa.

What explains the connection? It's a case of mistaken identity. The molecular structure of gliadin, the protein portion of gluten, closely resembles that of the thyroid gland. When gliadin breaches the protective barrier of the gut, and enters the bloodstream, the immune system tags it for destruction. These antibodies to gliadin also cause the body to attack thyroid tissue. This means if you have AITD and you eat foods containing gluten, your immune system will attack your thyroid.

Even worse, the immune response to gluten can last up to 6 months each time you eat it. This explains why it is critical to eliminate gluten completely from your diet if you have AITD. There's no "80/20" rule when it comes to gluten. Being "mostly" gluten-free isn't going to cut it. If you're gluten intolerant, you have to be 100% gluten-free to prevent immune destruction of your thyroid. [...]

Amazon.ca |  Amazon.com chapters.indigo.ca

Source: Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests are Normal Datis Kharrazian DHSc DC MS MNeuroSci. Morgan James Publishing. (2010:344pp.) p.31 All combined, it's estimated 43 percent of Americans are genetically predisposed to celiac disease, and 81 percent are predisposed to gluten intolerance. When it comes to diagnosing celiac disease, other markers to consider are positive antibodies against: Gliadin, a protein in gluten Transglutaminase, an enzyme in the intestines Endomysium, a muscle sheath When any or all of these is positive, it indicates a person is not just gluten intolerant, but has celiac disease. [...]

[...I]f a person with a gluten intolerance or celiac disease eats gluten regularly, her immune system is kept on a constant red alert, toiling virtually nonstop. Here's how it sets the stage for Hashimoto's: When immune antibodies tag gluten for removal, they stimulate the production of antibodies against the thyroid gland as well (again, because they are both so similar in structure). In other words, every time gluten is ingested, the immune system launches an attacknot only against gluten but also on the thyroid gland. What's worse, the immune response to gluten can last up to six months each time it's ingested. [...] All patients with an autoimmune thyroid condition should be screened for gluten intolerance or celiac disease,48 just as all patients with gluten intolerance or celiac disease should be screened for an autoimmune thyroid disorder.49 [...]

48. Celiac disease in North Italian patients with autoimmune thyroid diseases.
    Spadaccino AC, Basso D, Chiarelli S, Albergoni MP, D'Odorico A, Plebani M,
    Pedini B, Lazzarotto F, Betterle C.
    Autoimmunity. 2008 Feb;41(1):116-21.
49. Coeliac disease in Dutch patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and vice versa.
    Hadithi M, de Boer H, Meijer JW, Willekens F, Kerckhaert JA, Heijmans R, Peña AS,
    Stehouwer CD, Mulder CJ.
    World J Gastroenterol. 2007 Mar 21;13(11):1715-22.

The vital interplay of D and K in bone and heart health

Source:
Brittle Bones and Hardened Arteries: The Hidden Link
Julius Goepp MD, Life Extension Magazine. September 2010. PDF

[...]

D and K: A Vital Interplay in Bone and Heart Health

In all likelihood, your cardiologist is unaware that the mechanisms underlying arterial calcification closely resemble the process of new bone formation, involving many of the same cells (including osteoblasts), proteins, and cytokines (signaling molecules).⁹

People with osteoporosis are more likely to exhibit atherosclerotic calcification in their blood vessels. And those with atherosclerosis are more likely to possess lower bone mass. What do these groups have in common? Both exhibit insufficient vitamin K levels.^5-8

Researchers have since delineated the complex process by which the body manages calcium uptake, distribution, and deposition.⁵ Many of the same factors that regulate healthy calcium levels in bones are also implicated in the destructive accumulation of calcium in arteries.¹⁰ Among those factors are specific proteins called Gla proteins, found in bone tissue and in vascular walls, that require vitamin K for their proper function.⁵ Other factors crucial to atherosclerosis and osteoporosis prevention are modulated by vitamin D. These include fat-derived inflammatory cytokines.^5,11

Osteoporosis and atherosclerosis, in other words, both involve insufficiencies of D and K.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D's role in the formation and maintenance of healthy bone structure and function has been established for decades. It is a vital co-factor in bone mineralization through the absorption of calcium and phosphorus. Severe D deficiency may thus lead to rickets, a childhood disease characterized by impeded growth and deformity of the long bones of the body.

More recently, its definitive importance in optimizing cardiovascular health has emerged. Vitamin D inhibits vascular calcification by blocking the release of inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecules and preventing abnormal changes in smooth muscle cells in vessel walls.¹³ Accordingly, low vitamin D levels are associated with increased risk for development of the coronary arterial calcifications seen in atherosclerosis.¹⁴

Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease — including hypertension, diabetes, increased carotid artery intima-media thickness, as well as heart attack and stroke.¹⁵ Vitamin D also reduces gene expression of bone-forming cells abnormally present in the aortas of experimental animals with chronic kidney disease.¹⁶

A 2009 national health survey found "a strong and independent relationship of vitamin D deficiency with prevalent cardiovascular disease in a large sample representative of the US adult population."¹⁷ Low vitamin D levels have also been implicated in congestive heart failure (CHF).¹⁸

Replenishment of low vitamin D levels provides a simple and effective means of reversing many of these risks. To take one example, a 2009 study examined the effect of monthly injections of 300,000 IU of vitamin D3 in a group of deficient subjects with no overt symptoms of cardiovascular disease.¹¹ At the outset of the study, subjects had low flow-mediated dilation of their arteries, a key index of endothelial health. After only 3 months of supplementation, significant improvement in flow-mediated dilation was observed, with diminished post-treatment measures of oxidative stress as well.

These findings have been complemented by recent research into the mechanisms dependent upon vitamin K for optimal heart and bone health—mechanisms that operate both parallel to and in tandem with vitamin D.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K is not a single nutrient, but rather denotes several related nutritional compounds. These can be produced within the human body but not by the body.¹⁹ Gut flora (beneficial intestinal bacteria) generate about 75% of the vitamin K your body absorbs each day, with the other 25% coming from dietary sources.²⁰ Just as importantly, vitamin K is not stored in the body, underscoring the need for daily intake.²¹

A traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans, Nattō is a very rich source of K2. Image Credit: Wikipedia.

It occurs in nature in two primary forms: K₁ or phylloquinone and K₂ or menaquinone. Vitamin K is a cofactor required to convert the amino acid glutamate into gamma-carboxyglutamate, or Gla-proteins.²² Gla-proteins regulate physiological processes controlled by calcium. These include blood coagulation (clotting) and bone mineralization.

Accordingly, Gla-proteins are critical to the formation and replenishment of bone tissue. Unless these proteins are modified by vitamin K, they cannot properly form the matrix in which calcium and phosphorus bind together to make solid, well-mineralized bone. Vitamin K has been shown to stimulate new bone formation and reduce the incidence of vertebral fractures.^23,24

The Gla-protein osteocalcin, normally present in bone, has been found in calcified atherosclerotic plaque lesions, and production of this protein is pathologically upregulated in people with atherosclerosis.^25-28

At the same time, another vitamin K-dependent Gla-protein known as MGP (for "matrix Gla-protein"), normally found in healthy arterial walls, is a strong inhibitor of vascular calcification.^29,30 In other words, by increasing matrix Gla-protein in the arterial walls, vitamin K protects against the calcification-inducing effects of osteocalcin.

Super K with Advanced K2 Complex Swanson Ultra Nattō K-7 Natural Vitamin K-2

This may explain the emergence of compelling evidence for vitamin K as a key factor in overall heart health. To take one example, a large study of more than 4,800 subjects followed for 7-10 years in the Netherlands demonstrated that people in the highest one-third of vitamin K₂ intake had a 57% reduction in risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, compared to those with the lowest intake. And their risk of having severe aortic calcification plummeted by 52% — a clear demonstration of the vitamin's protective effects.³¹ Another study by the same group showed that vitamin K₂ intake was associated with a 20% decreased risk of coronary artery calcification.³² [...]

References...

The Science of Love and the Importance of Secure Attachment

On Thursday, 12 November 2009, CBC Ideas ran an interview with Sue Johnson EdD, an internationally recognized couples therapist. The interview explored the importance of secure attachment in the formation and maintenance of lasting relationships. Dr. Johnson spoke at length about the science of love, and emphasized the pioneering work on attachment theory by John Bowlby (1907-1990), a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

Over the course of the hour, she presented an engaging overview of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT), a short term (8-20 sessions), structured approach to couples therapy formulated in the early 80's by Johnson and Les Greenberg PhD. She presented compelling arguments and inciteful illustrations as she described her approach and the themes explored in her most recent book, Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love.

Hold Me Tight provides a streamlined version of EFT, walking the reader through seven conversations that capture the defining moments in a love relationship, showing how to shape these moments to create a secure and lasting bond. Case histories and exercises in each conversation bring the lessons of EFT to life¹.

Sue Johnson EdD is Professor of Clinical Psychology at The University of Ottawa, Director of the Ottawa Couple and Family Institute Inc. and the International Center for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, and the Journal of Family Psychology. She is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Marital & Family Therapy Program, Alliant University, San Diego.

The following excerpt is drawn from My How Couples Therapy has Changed! Attachment, Love and Science (Sue Johnson EdD, psychotherapy.net, 2008). Two podcasts follow — in the first, CBC's Shiela Rogers interviews Sue Johnson on "Hold Me Tight"; the second is the interview from CBC Ideas, a CD version of which may be puchased at The CBC Shop.

Emphasis in original..
[...] Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy (EFT) [is] a systematic, rigorous, tested set of interventions based on the attachment view of love and bonding. I recently summarized attachment based approaches in a manner that can be offered to clients and the public in Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. The great strength of this new scientific perspective is exactly that it offers a rigorous body of observation and research into what love is all about and how it changes shape and color. More so, it is a tested approach to intervention with excellent outcome data and clinical relevance. Clients also tell us that this way of seeing and working does indeed go to the heart of the matter. In this article I will summarize the attachment perspective and how it is supported by different strands of relationship science (these science strands will be in italics to find or avoid, as you wish!) and how it translates into practice in EFT.

Image Credit: Psychotherapy.net

A new scientific and practical theory of love
The multitude of studies on adult attachment that have emerged over the last decade tell us that the essence of love is not a negotiated exchange of resources (so why teach negotiation skills?), a friendship, Nature's trick to get you to mate and pass on your genes, or a time-limited episode of delusional addiction. Love is a very special kind of emotional bond, the need for which is wired into our brain by millions of years of evolution. It is a survival imperative. The human brain codes isolation and abandonment as danger and the touch and emotional responsiveness of loved ones as safety, a safety that promotes optimal flexibility and continual learning. Jaak Panksepp, in his neurobiological studies finds that loss of connection from attachment figures triggers "primal panic," a special set of fear responses. As Bowlby notes the words anxiety and anger come from the same etymological root and both arise at moments of disconnection, when attachment figures are non-responsive. This need for emotional connection is not a sentimental notion. The basic image of who we are and what our most basic needs are, namely, that we are social animals who seek such connection is reflected in health studies. For example, it is now clear that emotional isolation is more dangerous for your health than smoking and that it doubles the likelihood of heart attack and stroke.

Attachment theory states that we need a safe haven relationship to turn to when life is too much for us and that offers us a secure base from which to go confidently out into the world. This is effective dependency. Many psychotherapy clients learn that their problem is that they are too close or undifferentiated from loved ones. The approach discussed here offers a larger picture. The evidence is that secure close connection is a source of strength and personality integration rather than weakness. Studies show that the securely connected have a more articulated and positive sense of self. Eighteen months after 9/11, researcher Chris Fraley found that securely connected survivors, who could turn to others for emotional support, were able to deal with this trauma and grow from it, whereas insecurely attached survivors were experiencing significant mental health problems. Secure connection is shaped by mutual emotional accessibility and responsiveness. This is the heart of the drama that plays out in the couple therapist's office. The fights that matter in a relationship are only superficially about the kids or money. Partners and therapists can spend many hours talking about these content issues instead of focusing on how the couple talk and more specifically, on the key attachment questions that drive a couples negative dance. The key questions are: "Are you there for me?" "Do I matter to you?" "Will you turn towards me and respond to me?" Partners often do not know how to ask these questions and therapists often miss them or even see them as a sign of immature dependency. [...] [Read in full]

The Next Chapter Podcast (23.05.09)
Shiela Rogers interviews Sue Johnson on "Hold Me Tight"

Ideas Podcast (12.11.09)
CBC Ideas producer Richard Handler interviews Sue Johnson
The independent, autonomous self is lionized in our culture. But recognizing the hold that attachment has on us, is the secret of lasting relationships. So says Sue Johnson, a leading couples' therapist and a Canadian with an international following... Listen Now