Brilliant Minds, a Look at Freud, Jung and Einstein and the Power of Meditation and Mindfulness
By Karen Crosby (Taken from Karen’s book The Power of the Positive).
Sigmund Freud is one of the most famous names for Neurology/psychology and many other areas relating to the brain, and how it works with the body.
I though it would be worth a look at how he perceived things and relate it to how much challenge we deal with every day.
Sigmund Freud
In the 1890’s a young lady whom was looking after her sick father had lots of pain all over her body (fibromyalgia?) and a lot of gastro intestinal problems (irritable bowel syndrome?). Freud did some meditation techniques with her and the symptoms all went away, he concluded that the brain could cause physical symptoms when under stress.
Today, we are well aware that we can get physical symptoms under prolonged stress, and physical pain causing stress, and I have already looked at the mind – body connection regarding this. However, does this relate to Fibro?
We know that the messages between the brain and the nervous system are wired wrongly causing pain signals where no pain should be present, and this causes us much stress because of the prolonged pain cycles we have to deal with, and I think Freud did kick start our understanding of the mind – body connection, which must help today!
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, which explored the theory that unconscious motives control a lot of our behaviour. Other innovations of Freud’s were:
Hypnotism and how it could help the mental illness.
Dream analysis and free association, now known as “the talking cure”
Freud asked his patients to say whatever came to mind, using words to verbalise the preconscious mind and that was the origins of the psychoanalytic method.
He developed two related but distinct theories about humans, the theory of human mind and human behaviour, and a clinical technique for helping unhappy (he used the term neurotic, a term a little disliked today by some) people.
He is most famous for his contribution to modern psychology in his conception of the unconscious. In the 19th century, the trend most dominant in the Western world was positivism, the claim that we could accumulate knowledge about our world, and ourselves with the ability to exercise control over both. However, Freud did not believe this, because he said we are not fully aware of what we even think, and often we act for reasons not connected to our conscious thoughts. He proposed that our awareness existed in layers, and some were occurring below the surface, and dreams provided the best analysis of our unconscious life (“royal road to the unconscious”).
He developed ways of interpreting dreams to explore the argument that the unconscious mind exists, and he developed a method for gaining access to it.
Today his theories and accomplishments are hotly debated throughout the world and we hear phrases like “that is very Freudian” when we see certain behaviours, as though we all know who Freud is via the “collective unconscious” (Jung) which is kind of ironic.
Freud versus Jung
Freud divided our personality into three parts: -
The id – representing our unconscious wants and instincts, and our needs, similar, I think to the concept Maslow later had – his “hierarchy of needs”.
This does very much (in my opinion) relate to fibro, since we have basic needs to feel safe, something we often do not feel when faced with the numerous symptoms of this debilitating condition.
The superego – standing for the voice of society.
The ego – the conscious “I” which tries to reconcile the conflicts between the id and the superego.
Carl Jung was a famous student of Freud, and was a Swiss Psychologist.
Jung classified people into two main groups however, the introverts and the extroverts, in line with their social and emotional interaction.
Introverts were restrained, quiet, retiring, shy, but with quiet determination, thoughtfulness and independent.
Extroverts were energetic, outgoing, confident, adaptable, flexible team members. With this outgoing confidence they required stimulation of others to perform well and therefore less at ease with solitude.
This method was instrumental in treating mental health problems but not often used to determine physical ailments.
Does this mean people with fibro must be introverts because we do not always want to mix with others? Of course not! However, whatever Jung thought of the two types as he saw it, we get challenges that influence whether we feel like hiding away, or going out socialising!
However, when you think about it as I have been for a long time, when Freud talked about helping patients with psychosomatic problems, i.e.: - physical illness caused by or aggravated by internal conflict or stress, it had been proved in the modern world that stress levels do cause illness in the physical body, as discussed and studies all over the world in modern science! Food for thought?
Funny side of things
The ancient Greek physicians Galen and Hippocrates (and those in Elizabethan times) believed that we had four personality types:
Sanguine or happy, melancholic or sad, choleric or angry, and phlegmatic or listless. They said that each personality type was the result of an excess in a particular humour – or body fluid: - blood, yellow bile, black bile or phlegm, and these were in turn related to the four elements. Fire with blood, air with yellow bile, earth with black bile, and water with phlegm. I am glad I live in modern day!
The reason I wanted to take a look at Einstein, is that he used meditations to let his creative mind open, and I promote meditation at all times, since I have practised and then taught it for many years.
I may not be a genius like he was, but I often meditate on any problems I am faced with in life, before I make decisions!
I have practiced Reiki on many people over the years living with chronic pain, and by also doing deep meditations with them (some developed by myself). I have helped them cope and come to terms with their conditions, helped with pain levels, and taught them to quieten their emotional reaction to pain, which uses the power of the mind to lessen their anxiety and fear. It works, I have seen it time and again!
Einstein
Not many people fully appreciate what Einstein was all about. He was a forward thinker, a genius and lived far ahead of his time. When you think about his intellectual prowess in terms of how driven he was, he used to say that most of his ideas came to him during a little trip away from the outside world and this was all from the inside whilst in a meditative state. Indeed so much research has been carried out since then, and looking back over history also found many philosophers, scholars and the movers and shakers of history did not get their ideas from being overly ambitious, driven or ready to stand on other people in order to achieve success. These people did meditation, they recognised mindfulness on a level we may struggle with in present day, and they all had visions and ideas whilst sitting communing with the universe. A lot of people sadly would be scared to explore the mindfulness phenomenon because of being afraid to lose their edge or let their guard down, but mindfulness is a positive tool for a very busy modern world, and can be used very powerfully to better ourselves, our lives and our way of thinking.
Albert Einstein and lots of other scientists and philosophers always valued kindness and compassion, and curiosity in our daily existence, and Einstein even believed that these qualities were more than a good personality trait, but rather knew that these attributes led to a clearer and more productive way of thinking, working and developing. This is surely what mindfulness and meditation is all about.
Einstein wrote this:
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security”.
This inner security he described, is something we with fibro very often lack!
Mindfulness
I have written an earlier article on Mindfulness meditations, but here are some studies to share:
There is evidence that mindfulness meditation can promote benefits of physical health by improving the immune system response and fight off disease more effectively, thus speeding up the healing process.
In 1998 a study was carried out with people having moderate or severe psoriasis. Thirteen of the subjects meditated alongside their phototherapy treatments. Ten had clear skin after forty sessions, whereas out of the ten receiving only the phototherapy, only two had cleared within the same time. (Kabat-Zinn, J., Wheeler, E., Light, T.)
Earlier, in 1985 a study was conducted with chronic pain patients over ten weeks, and mindfulness meditation showed that 36% of participants showed improvements in pain levels, 87% improvements in mood and 77% improvements in psychological distress. (Williams, K.)
Williams also conducted a MBSR study in a workplace wellness program in 2006. Participants reported a 31% decrease in medical symptoms, a 17% decrease in “daily hassles”, and a 31% decrease in psychological distress!
I hope this has given you all some food for thought, and a happy pain-free month!