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The Biology of Emotions

Redirecting Self-Therapy (RST)
for Anxiety and Depression

E. Van Winkle, Retired Neuroscientist
Millhauser Laboratories
New York University School of Medicine
Mail to: Murray Hill Station, P.O. Box 893
New York, NY 10156 USA

"If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."        The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

Suppressing anger cause a toxicosis in the brain.  All children are born with healthy anger, which is part of the fight or flight reaction.  When parents mistreat or neglect us, even unintentionally, they often cause us to suppress our anger.  No parent needs to be perfect, but we must be allowed to have justifiable anger.  The suppression of anger is more damaging than the trauma itself.  It causes a toxicosis that leads anxiety, depression, and addictions.  Even the lullaby,  “Hush little baby don't you cry,“ serves the parent, not the child.  Our parents no doubt had to suppress their anger as children, and this self-therapy is for them as well.  As adults we unconsciously form codependent relationships, which are re-enactments of childhood relationships, to set a stage for releasing repressed anger and grief.  Many of us have sought partners, bosses, and friends who remind us of our parents and have been unhappy in these relationships.

Repressed anger causes anxiety and depression.  There is a flood of anger in our brains.  When you learn this simple biology, the self-help measures will come naturally.  When anger is continually suppressed, toxic amounts of neurochemicals that store repressed anger accumulate in the brain, clogging up neural pathways where memories of our parents are stored (1,2).  We may not remember the childhood trauma.  Our brains periodically try to release the excess neurochemicals during detoxification crises, which are excitatory nervous symptoms. Nerve impulses are often diverted through the wrong neural pathways.  As a result, anger may be misdirected toward someone who is innocent or partially innocent, or directed inward as guilt or self- destructive thought.  Or the diverting of nerve impulses may cause a variety of other symptoms, from anxiety, to mania, to delusions, even to psychotic behavior.  Depression usually follows a detoxification crisis.  But these detoxification crises, which cause excitatory nervous symptoms, are healing events - the opening of floodgates to release repressed anger.  If we mentally redirect anger toward our parents and other past abusers during the excitatory nervous symptoms, more floodgates can open, and this speeds recovery.  Our addiction to people (codependency) and overlying addictions to stimulants, chemical or psychological, will only slowly subside because, as in homeopathy, these stimulants trigger the necessary detoxification crises.

Redirect anger during nervous symptoms.  Recognize excitatory nervous symptoms as signals the brain is trying to release the neurochemicals that store repressed anger.  You will find many ways to release anger.  When symptoms appear, do not suppress them, but redirect the emerging anger toward your parents, not in person, but by pounding on a bed and yelling at them while picturing them or thinking about them.  You are not attacking your parents, but only the memories of them stored in your brain.  You are getting angry at their sickness.  Never try to recall or re-experience early trauma in detail.  It is not necessary and can cause severe emotional pain.  An excitatory nervous symptom might be the pounding in your chest when confronting someone in a current interaction.  This is neurotic fear and a signal that repressed anger from childhood trauma is emerging.  Other symptoms that signal emerging anger are anxiety, panic attacks, tremors, palpitations, compulsive thoughts or behavior, mania, insomnia, nightmares, paranoia, judgment, resentments, revengeful thoughts, loneliness, feelings of rejection, and fear of abandonment.  Symptoms might be guilt, shame, low self-esteem, or suicidal thought, which are caused when anger is turned inward.  These are all detoxification crises and opportunities to release and redirect anger.  Get to the anger and redirect it as often as possible throughout the day.  If it would be too noisy to yell out loud, redirect anger by talking quietly in your mind.  Parental voices stay in our heads saying things like, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”  Tell those voices to “shut up”!  Symptoms might be cravings for stimulants, sedatives, sedating foods, sex, psychological stimulation, or meditative techniques to quiet the mind.  Other symptoms might be misdirected rage or aggressive behavior toward others.  If anger is intense and out of proportion in a current interaction, most of it is repressed anger from childhood and needs to be redirected to early caretakers.  Do not direct intense anger toward others in person.  Walk away from abuse.  If intense anger is triggered in a current interaction, pound on a bed and direct some anger to that person, but mostly to your parents.  After releasing most of the anger privately by pounding on a bed, calmly tell the person in the current interaction you were uncomfortable with their behavior.  Explain to others that you may over-react during this recovery process.  Memories of other past abusers who were parent figures for you, for example, male or female authority figures, are laid down in common neural pathways, and you will need to redirect anger to them as well.  They might include relatives, bosses, doctors, clergy, officers of the law, other persons in authority, partners, or friends.  False notions of God as a judgmental parent are stored with memories of past abusers, and it helps to get mad at God as well.

Mood swings may worsen, but are temporary.  Releasing anger has a fast antidepressant action.  You may feel a temporary  “high” followed by increased depression or a drug-like sleep.  Remind yourself that the depression will lift, or you may be able to trigger a detoxification crisis by pounding on a bed.  Crying often follows, and feelings of grief may last for many months.  Headaches, sweating, fever, and other acute physical symptoms, which are detoxification crises, are common.

Detoxification crises will subside.
In time detoxification crises, that is, the excitatory nervous symptoms, will be less intense and less often.  If you let go of addictions before using the therapy, including the addiction to sedating foods, you may have a rather dramatic release from anxiety and depression.  If you let go of addictions while using the therapy, your recovery may take longer.  After publication of the longer version of this article on the Internet (3), those who had changed their diets to mostly raw food began to share the characteristics of normal persons in a few months.  Normal people feel alive but content, are friendly but enjoy being alone, are patient but cannot be pushed around, feel sad but not depressed, and they have a sustainable quiet mind.  They are incapable of violence unless in self-defense.  They have a relaxed posture, fall asleep more easily, and have a lighter but restful sleep.  They work efficiently and seek pleasure when not at work.  Short-term memory and concentration are improved.  I.Q's can soar.  Childhood memories may return, but without the painful emotions attached.  Anger when triggered will still be mixed with anger from the past, and it will be necessary to continue redirecting anger indefinitely.  Anger will be mild and related more and more to current interactions.  Even when your anger is entirely about the current interaction, feel and express it privately, and then confront calmly if appropriate.  If you suppress anger, neural pathways can become clogged up again, and symptoms may re-occur.

Physical health should improve.
Toxicosis in the brain results in periodic over - and understimulation of the pituitary gland and other control organs, leading to peripheral disease.  When the detoxification process is finished, psychosomatic disorders - better termed neurogenic - disappear.  Because you will be attracted to healthier diets, you are less likely to be physically sick.  If you do get sick, symptoms will be milder.  Neural pathways are clear, and the nervous system is better able to do its daily job of detoxification.  Eat as much raw food as possible and avoid stimulants, sedatives, processed or overly cooked foods, refined sugar, bread, grains, and dairy products on a daily basis.

Freedom from emotional disorders and addictions will be permanent.
Eventually the fight or flight reaction will be restored, and you will have healthy anger and sadness when appropriate.  Addictions will cease.  By processing your anger when triggered, you will have a sustainable euphoria, which is not a “high”, but is best defined as freedom from anxiety and distress.  You will be reborn with the capacity to love and be loved.

"If you bring forth what is within you, What you bring forth will save you."
   The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

Author Note
I was not an abused child by society's standards, but was left by my mother in my crib to 'cry it out' and listened to my father rage, not at me but at my mother, brother, and sister.  I learned to suppress my justifiable anger very early.  I was an autistic child and in my twenties was diagnosed as schizophrenic and locked for four years on the violent ward of a mental hospital.  I spent much of the time in the mattress room raging against the tight sheets of a straight jacket, or I turned my anger inward in suicidal rage.  One of the shock treatments didn't make me unconscious, and I felt pain and panic as the electricity surged through my body.  It was like being electrocuted, yet still alive.  Over the next thirty years I was confined in more than twenty hospitals, re-diagnosed many times, given every drug known to psychiatry, and had serious addictions.  At age 60 I was re-diagnosed with major depressive disorder, then manic-depression, and had symptoms of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.  In those years in hospitals only one nurse had a sense of what I needed.  She came to my room where I was tied to a bed in restraint, untied me, and gave me a tray of plastic dishes.  "Throw these at the wall, dear," she said.  Had I known to picture my parents on the wall, I might have begun to heal.  I wanted to be locked in those hospitals.  I never knew why, but it was an 'acting out' of a fantasy - a re-enactment of having been imprisoned in my crib - and an opportunity to release my justifiable anger toward my parents.  When I understood this and used the self-therapy, I recovered permanently.

Please study the article carefully.  Any questions should be answered by re-reading the article.  Refer to the References for a more detailed description of the self-therapy.

References.
1.Redirecting Self-Therapy (RST) for Anxiety and Depression, by Elnora Van Winkle, book in press, 2001.
2.Van Winkle, E. The toxic mind: the biology of mental
illness  and violence, Medical Hypotheses 2000;  55(4): 356-368.
(3)   http://www.gocure.com 
http://www.redirectingselftherapy.com 

Disclaimer:  The self-help measures are of a nature of advice given in 12-step programs and are not intended for children under age and in the care of their parents without parental permission.  The therapy is safe when the anger is redirected and if there are no serious health conditions.  It is best not to make changes in work or relationship during the recovery period unless you are in danger.  I cannot assume responsibility for any misunderstanding of the biological concepts.  If you use this self-therapy you do so at your own risk.  This article does not suggest discontinuing professional therapy or the use of prescribed drugs as ordered by physicians.  The self-help measures can be used along with other therapies and medication.	9/9/99