Tag Archives: Pain

On the origin of my PhD topic, Music Intervention as Psychotherapeutic Approach

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Thanks to Pravin Jeya for his inquiry as to the origin of my PhD topic.                      Many of you have asked, and without going too in depth into my  passionate affair with fight or flight and the amygdala, I have tried to explain where it began. The post may be found here, and I would encourage you to check it out in conjunction with Pravin’s work.

If one were to ask for my academic or intellectual rationale for choosing music psychology, I would most likely rattle off something matter-of-factly about how I’ve grown up around music and psychology. My parents were psychologists; my mother has two doctorates so academic achievement was always very important. Yet they always stressed the cultural and intellectual importance of music. Music is what I do, and I have a lazy passion for the more philosophical side of things, so it simply ‘made sense,’ as it were.

As to my intellectual rationale for music psychology, it started exactly a year ago. From the time I discovered Dr. Victoria Williamson’s research in the applied neuroscience of music, I’ve been completely enamored with the field. Since I was a young child, I’ve been devoted to the pursuit of music in any way possible. I’ve been involved in music theatre, music video production and engineering, music composition, and music marketing in radio and television. As my emotional intelligence developed, however, I found I also had an intense desire to understand people and their motives. In high school and college, I took classes in philosophy, psychology and ethics. My first emphasis in college was music and psychology. But as I was strongly discouraged from pursuing majors with such ‘different focuses,’ I chose music alone. In line with this, I never resolved to solely do one or the other, and eventually it was cause for a year break before enrolling in a graduate programme. I found I simply could not be happy studying only music or only psychology. Enter my absolute elation upon discovering the Music, Mind and Brain programme at Goldsmiths College, University of London. I believe that their programme’s careful integration of music perception, neuroscience and statistical methods combined with a faculty of such encouragement and expertise will be just the training I seek in preparation of a PhD and a career in the field.

If someone were to ask to explain or justify my ‘non-academic’ journey into exactly what I have chosen to pursue, I still find myself needing to pause and really think it through. One catalyst for this is that my rationale is not static but dynamic, changing and evolving daily into something slightly new and adjusted. I suppose that that should say something in and of itself – the pursuit of music psychology has become my life blood – it’s what I think about most moments of every day. The more I’ve reflected on my own listening habits over the years, the more I realize there are few times I am without music. I use it advantageously in every possible situation. As an ENFJ (extroverted, intuitive, feeling, judging) Jungian personality type, being able to calm and put people at ease is one of my greatest joys, and strengths. Music can turn a moment of happiness into a moment of memorable bliss that stays with you always. It can also turn a slightly vague and uncomfortable memory into a transparent lake of psychoanalytical outpouring. Music is in everything, and it has the power to heal people.

If one were to ask the truly cementing factor in my life that secured music psychology, however, it is most of all the following. Last summer, I lost my step-sister, my father, and my best friend within two weeks of each other. Though I’d dealt with a fair share of hardship in adolescence, I’d never gone through anything of this magnitude. Through the process of witnessing my family’s grief (and my own) in spending time in hospitals and hospice, I felt more than ever an acute desire to help people through their pain. I never cease to be amazed at music’s capacity to bring about a mental resilience. I know music to be a healing tool, because I am a living attestation. There are many who would disagree with my personal ethic, but I continued to teach my private music lessons to children in the morning after I lost my father, and missed not a single lesson until several months later. I’m finding my time now to be alone and to grieve, but I honestly believe that the joy of working with kids in music sustained me through the more terrible moments, and as I said, I’ve kept in reserve the strength to maintain my lessons and lead a research project at the university. I wish to practice music psychology because I know it works. I now desire to delve further into the why, and the how.

My long-term goal is to complete a PhD in using music as a therapeutic tool in those who struggle with self-harm. From there exist many options I’d like to pursue, such as research and music therapy in a clinical setting. Though I have many different interests in listening behavior, emotional intelligence and applied neuroscience, the concept of psychological resilience remains of the most consequence to me, and I’ve many ideas how to pair this with music.

Diana Hereld holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music and Communication. She works currently as a psychology researcher at California State University, music tutor in piano and voice, and teacher for an early childhood music company. When she is not working, she spends her time independently researching all things music psychology and neuroscience, and theology/philosophy when it pertains to the former. Her interest is particularly in the way varied personality types respond emotionally to music, whether that can change over time in consequence of plasticity, and the implications for psychological resilience. She has just been accepted into the Music, Mind and Brain MSc programme at Goldsmiths College University of London for Fall 2012. You can follow her on Twitter @christypaffgen and subscribe to her blog, As the Spirit Wanes: The Form Appears.

The Neuroscience of Emotional Pain, and the Necessity of Perceived Control

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Two nights ago, I read what I believe to be the most personally relevant and  meaningful article I’ve come in contact with in nearly a year. I do not say this lightly,  because I remember the last moment in time I felt this way. I read Halden’s post  entitled Bonhoeffer and the Theology of Romantic Love  not when it was originally  posted in 2008, but a couple of days after New Year’s Day, 2011. It came at the  perfect time-as does the one I’ve just read-because it is about love and loss; rejection and isolation. What  isn’t, after all? Love and death are the strongest of motivators and ordeals, and death  would seem sterile and void of strife were it not for love.

Unfortunately, great as the ups may be, so great are the downs. Having a fair bit of  recent exposure to both tribulations, I would like to share some insight I’ve found in  direct correlation to the more neuroscientific side of things.

At UCLA in 2003, a study was done explicitly on the neural correlates of social  rejection entitled Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion. Obviously,  anyone with access to the internet and a free subscription to a science mag online  could tell you that these have been done before; it’s nothing new to observe the psychological underpinnings of pain when a child is picked last (or not at all) for a game of sport after school. It is new information to me, however, that the physiological aspects in the pain of rejection have now proven quite similar to any other type of physical pain: when we lose someone we love, for whatever reason it may be, it literally hurts. The abstract of this article below may better explain the premise:

A neuroimaging study examined the neural correlates of social exclusion and tested the hypothesis that the brain bases of social pain are similar to those of physical pain. Participants were scanned while playing a virtual ball-tossing game in which they were ultimately excluded. Paralleling results from physical pain studies, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more active during exclusion than during inclusion and correlated positively with self-reported distress. Right ventral prefrontal cortex (RVPFC) was active during exclusion and correlated negatively with self-reported distress. ACC changes mediated the RVPFC-distress correlation, suggesting that RVPFC regulates the distress of social exclusion by disrupting ACC activity.[1]

In the aforementioned, we see that this test was administered to children whilst playing in a ‘virtual ball tossing game’ where they were eventually excluded. If the ACC activity is ‘disrupted’ by such a common and (what many might view as childish experience) what can we say of the potential for anguish of those who lose a spouse? A parent? A child? Of those not only excluded, but abandoned? This brings me to the article in question. Though I’ve found the writing and vocal stylings to stem from a slightly more youthful (and charmingly so!) perspective than I’ve become accustomed in my daily journal fix, pain is pain is pain. We don’t need sappy (and wonderful) song lyrics from Blindside  to tell us that ultimately, at the end of the day, we’re in this together. All of us are searching for an open arm. I could go on forever in tangent about why I can’t wrap my head around referring to God as ‘big other’ or humanity as at last to be but cold, selfish and detached. There is something else at work here, when one experiences pain beyond a certain magnitude. Christie Wilcox does a fine job of breaking this process down for us:

 Evolutionary biologists would say that it’s not surprising that our emotions have hijacked the pain system. As social creatures, mammals are dependent from birth upon others. We must forge and maintain relationships to survive and pass on our genes. Pain is a strong motivator; it is the primary way for our bodies tell us that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Our intense aversion to pain causes us to instantly change behavior to ensure we don’t hurt anymore. Since the need to maintain social bonds is crucial to mammalian survival, experiencing pain when they are threatened is an adaptive way to prevent the potential danger of being alone.

Christie goes on to state the unfortunate obvious: sometimes understanding the evolutionary biology or even rationale behind it all is simply not enough. We may now see the possibly the main hook for me in her article: she turns to music. We all know the studies on how exercise/having sex/listening to music/interacting with art, etc. are proven to release dopamine, arousing feelings of happiness and positive valence. The thing that really caught my attention is something I’m shocked I had not let sink in previously: music stimulates and creates a feeling of control. I cannot begin to list the litany of mental illnesses that include negative outcomes which seemingly stem directly from a perceived lack of impulse control, but just for effect, I will name a few:

A)    ASD (Autism, Asperger’s)

B)    Attention Deficit Disorder

C)    Manic Depression

D)    Paranoid Schizophrenia

E)    Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

F)     Borderline Personality Disorder

G)    The paraphilias (exhibitionism and pedophilia)

H)    Various disorders advocating self-harming behaviors

The list plainly goes on and on. From the little I’ve observed in various interpersonal encounters in various stages of life, very few of us enjoy a major lack of control; those suffering from preconceived abandonment/loss apprehensions, even less. Here we have the ultimate tie-in that I seem to be making quite a lot lately: Chalk one more up for music psychology. I would be telling a blatant untruth if I refrained from admitting I too have found listening to music to be all of the above: exhilarating, liberating, calming, but more importantly creating the massive sensation of immediate…not necessarily peace, or ease, but control.

As I draw near to the day when I must nail down my precise research proposal for graduate school, I’ll again briefly show how this relates to what I want to do, and feel can be done. In that exact moment of conflict (commonly the amygdale hijack) our mental, emotional and physical actions are crucial. Countless sufferers of self-destructive behaviors including those who engage in self-inflicted physical pain, sexual promiscuity, domestic violence, and kleptomania suffer from a perceived lack of control-and will do anything to reclaim it. If one is in control, there is a (even if false) sense that everything will be okay; that everything’s not lost. I very simply believe that like many other (‘healthy’) activities that people engage in, music can be an instantaneous way for the patient to achieve, even if for a moment, control. 

I certainly here digress, but will continue this thought process further in future posts.

[1] Science 10 October 2003:
Vol. 302 no. 5643 pp. 290-292
DOI: 10.1126/science.1089134

As The Spirit Wanes, or The Hope of Plasticity

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“As the spirit wanes, the form appears.”

I first came across these words four years ago, in the art blog of a dear friend. I’ve been in love with Charles H. Bukowski ever since. Though his lifestyle was not one I’d recommend, I cannot convey the number of times I found him not only utterly poignant, but encouraging.

When I began this blog, I promised to explain why I chose those specific words as my title. I suppose the “form” is finally fighting its way to the surface. There is no decorative or esoteric way to say this: the past few months have been the most challenging of my life. I never imagined that so many diverse manifestations of loss and grief existed. During the two weeks leading to August, I lost three separate individuals, all of which I loved very deeply. My father’s death has been the most horrifying by far.

During his final weeks in the oncology ward, I witnessed quite a few examples of how people deal with fear, pain and grief: often to a paralyzing extent. I’ll always remember Kay, the beautiful old woman staying with her husband in the room next to my dad’s. I must have walked past her room twenty times before I found the courage to say hello, and offer her a hug and condolences. We spoke a few times during my stay-why is it so hard, we wondered, to just let go? Love and death are the two most naturally-occurring phenomena we can know, and yet they never fail to leave us cold and nearly unable to breathe.

So why Music psychology? Why neuroscience or philosophy? Why “as the spirit wanes?” Though I experienced a good deal of physical and mental pain in the last year, I feel as if I have almost been numb a vast portion of the time. A sort of desperate numbness, to be sure, but numbness nevertheless. I was unaware of the potential for evolution, development, and vitality all around me. I do not know what’s happened, but then I suppose I do. My spirit has never been so broken, so trampled, or terrifically damaged. I have not been myself the past year, and I’m ready for it to change. The concepts I have recently come to grasp not only allow but demand for revolution such as this.

I’ll never forget during my junior year of college, I was required to take a philosophy course. I dreaded it beyond all else. Though my mother had given me exposure to Jungian psychology from the cradle, in terms of philosophy, I felt my brain just might not “work” that way.

However, within a day of the class I was addicted and desperate for more. I had been re-exposed to the most basic form of existentialism: if we are responsible for our actions, we also then have the freedom not only to choose, but to transcend. As someone who’d grown up alongside the great crusade of mania and depression, this was news to me. What did they mean, I could choose? Though I’d eventually declined, I’d been told I would potentially benefit from medication to control depression and emotionally destructive impulses. Medication or not: for the very first time in my life, I found a freedom to transcend my demons: psychical, neural and emotional. I certainly felt and digested emotion in much the same way, but with a new and infinite freedom in my reaction to discord. I was no longer bound by anything, be it an oppressive and misinterpreted religious code or my tendency to lash out at those I love. I have once more found the same, only infinitely more radical in the concept of Brain Plasticity.

As this dares reach too long a confession, I shall save the specifics of why I have found hope in Neuroscience, plasticity and its potential courtship with music for my next post. But what I have learned, and lived, is this: As the spirit wanes, the form appears. It is truly when we are beaten near beyond the point of recognition that we are then forced to give up, or forced to continue. Inertia demands not only motion, but action; consciousness. One may remain static for only so long. I choose to go forward. We can no longer think of our brains, our neuronal selves, as but flexible and anonymous; as machine. We must affirm our capacity for change and confess our plasticity: evolutionary, adaptive, explosive. We must no longer consent to depression via disaffiliation; to be “blind to our own cinema.” Our brains tell us a story-whether we choose to listen or not. Karl Marx once stated “Humans make their own history, but they do not know that they make it.” And why not? What type of fear or unknown is stopping us from this earth-shattering consciousness of what our brains can do?

I will continue soon in conjunction with a more formulated opinion of Catherine Malabou’s pioneering work, “What Should We Do with Our Brain?” in speculation of a metaphorical and ideological critique of plasticity.

“…At bottom, neuronal man has not known how to speak of himself. It is time to free his speech.” -Catherine Malabou

A Reflection On Grief and Fear

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“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.”

-C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

My father died two weeks ago, during this hour, today. Yesterday would have been his birthday. During the past month, I’ve flown to Seattle and back three times, to be with him, and two days ago for his funeral. I’ve never felt something quite exquisitely distressing as the loss of my dad. It’s not a stabbing, unbearable pain, as one might feel when they are hurt or abandoned by a lover… but more a confusion. A frantic, desperate confusion, and emptiness. All of the clichés I have witnessed over the years now begin to make malevolent sense with sickening clarity.

“I feel as if I’m falling and can’t see the ground.”

“It’s like I’m in a daze.”

“I roam the house, searching for any piece of them left behind, but am left ever with nothing. Not a trace.”

All of these cruel notions, I feel. I go about my days. I continued teaching lessons the morning after he died. I’ve more distracting plates spinning than I can count-but the slightest thing, like a visual in the grocery store of a father holding his daughter’s hand sends me into a silent, trapped hysteria.

But then, there is something else. There are the other clichés; the one’s that I’ve found to be far more detrimental:

“Try not to think about it.”

“You have to keep busy.”

“He’s in a better place.”

It’s not that these aren’t wholly appreciated, and stem exclusively from a caring love. But I’m learning something-it almost flawlessly separates the ones who have felt this pain from the ones who have not. The ones who have lost one such as this? They sit. They listen. They cry with you. And occasionally, you are blessed to receive those beautiful words: “You will get through this. Everything will be alright.” By saying this, instead of minimizing or overshadowing the loss, aftershock and long-lingering effects, you have not only joined the bereaved where they kneel, you have acknowledged their pain and thus bore witness to their anguish. You have given them what they possibly need the very most: the immediate motivation to continue to live.

It’s funny, what we see in movies and television. A month or so ago, I watched the first episode of Six Feet Under (which I swiftly found to be a poor judgment call at the time). But we see these. We see the woman receive the phone call alerting her that her husband has been killed. We see her throw her pots and pans, and ultimately crumple to the floor. We witness this motion in action in Hollywood and Music…and yet it can’t prepare us for when you get that call.

When my mother called me at 6:30 pm Monday, August 1st, I had readied myself, but not for so soon. I had just flown back to LA the night before! It didn’t matter. She said “Diana,” her voice cracked, and my body immediately shut down. I don’t believe I cried, I just remember immediately calling a friend, getting a voicemail, and sitting down. Around 11pm, I received a kind text from someone, and went to bed. What interests me about this? It’s not me. I am an emotional, extroverted, open person. When I feel something, I say it. I feel it to the highest degree. But this? The prospect of losing my daddy? It’s like I’m acting the one way I could not have foreseen: utterly emotionally trapped.

The scariest aspect of this for me is that it’s my greatest childhood fear come to life. From as long as I can remember, to the time I was about 17, I had a dream, recurring being a mild way to describe it. It began as the typical Jungian archetype of the sensation of screaming, but no sound could be heard. Running away from something, but the use of my legs was lost. It always ended with me throwing myself on the ground, and giving up. I couldn’t cause action or motion with any of my faculties, so I gave up. Around then, I would wake, crawl back into bed from the ground, and try to forget.

If we view this from an artist’s perspective, it becomes a bit more interesting. What is the artist’s greatest need? To express themselves, regardless of the possible noble or ill intended outcome. What, then, should be the artist’s greatest fear? The inability to articulate what they deem critical. It is these thoughts that have plagued my mind in recent days, and will reflected upon again in this medium soon, hopefully with a type of resolution to my own shortcomings.

Channeling Emotional Intensity in the Creative Artist

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Thanks to Cheryl Arutt for one of the best, most easily accessible articles I’ve seen on channeling pain in the artist, including some brief (albeit great) insight into the chemical process that stimulates fight-or-flight syndrome. Find it here.