Comments on: Early childhood stress is associated with elevated herpes antibodies

By: Debbie Thurman

Debbie Thurman — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:33:47 +0000

Warren, I have not looked into neuro-emotional technique in several years. Clearly, it is in the holistic realm of quackery to the thinking of some. My husband calls the doctor who performed that little demo on me “Dr. Chicken Bones.” LOL. He also does other interesting things to his patients.
One of my daughters received some cranio-sacral therapy for a back injury when she was a young teenager. It involves a therapist manipulating the body to take advantage of its electro-magnetic field — the hands are supposed to “close the circuit” and facilitate healing. I got interested in such stuff when I read Candace Pert’s “Molecules of Emotion.” She speaks of the body’s innate “intelligence” and the information feedback loop, which I suppose could account for any relevance in the neuro-emotional thing.
I don’t think these theories or practices are any less controversial than things I have been subjected to in psychiatrist’s offices and that go on every day in traditional medicine. I also find orthomolecular medicine and its applications to mental health to be quite interesting. The pharmaceutical companies have a lock on psychiatry. Small wonder many people would be ignorant of alternative therapies.

By: Warren

Warren — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:47:32 +0000

carole – thanks for the link – haven’t been able to look at it but I will.
The UCLA study is ongoing and will be enlightening as will be the Sanders study which is (as I understand it) in press somewhere. Won’t be long…

By: Warren

Warren — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:46:05 +0000

4-5% is the effect size which is an estimate of how much variation between two groups is explained by the abuse. There is much unaccounted for in explaining why one person goes one way and another the other way. There is much overlap between the two groups and abuse does not help much make the discrimination. So we are not talking about an increase in probability.

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:44:00 +0000

Warren

For a man, however, it is less clear. While the new study found a significant association, the effect size was about 4-5% – moderate but not to the degree that I would say sexual abuse was a necessary condition for the outcome of SSA.

Abuse/neglect lowers the immune system of children and assuming that SSA can be triggered by a common childhood infection I would say that a 4% to 5% increase sounds about right. I don’t know if anybody has ever looked into it but I wonder if boys from broken homes show a tiny uptick in the numbers who have SSA. It would probably be less than abused/neglected kids but it might show up too.
—
Another good one might be to see if there was a slight increase in SSA among men who suffered chronic illness is an infant or toddler. Premature babies might be the perfect test.

By: carole

carole — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:30:48 +0000

Warren,
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-origins-of-suicidal-brains&page=2
Perhaps you’ve already read this, but if not I thought I’d give the link. It’s an article that examines the possible roots of suicide–suicide victims have an abnormal distribution of GABA receptors as compared with non-depressed people who died of other causes. The researchers argue that their gene expression was epigenetic and they offer the hypothesis that these people had early life experiences that led to the methylation, thus the problems with protein synthesis. (I do wonder how they know this since these people were not examined when they were born. In other words, how do we know these genes were not methylated much earlier?)
The article also refers to another link I gave weeks ago, the McGill university study about how the genes of suicide victims who suffered abuse in childhood were more likely to be methylated than the genes of those who were were not abused and have not committed suicide. (Unfortunately, in that study nothing was said about the genes of those who were abused in childhood and who hadn’t commited suicide.)
This also reminds me of the current SSA UCLA study that is examining if there is a link between SSA and methylation of genes.

By: Debbie Thurman

Debbie Thurman — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:50:27 +0000

Mary, I think the best we will ever be able to do in discovering the etiology of something as complex as same-sex attraction is to clear out alleyways of possible causes — a process of elimination. Some of those will prove to be empty or blind alleys, and some will have suspicious connections lurking in them. Sexual abuse is one of those. Temperament, familial dynamics and events, cultural influences, and biological roots all probably have a say, I think. And what I think is probably just s valid as what anyone else thinks as proving this stuff may be downright impossible.
How many people respect the hidden mystery in all this? I rather like that we are unfathomable creatures in some senses. It drives us toward our God and Creator, as it should. We are all subject to the fallen nature of this world. That’s why, in the long run, we cannot find our way through the maze of humanness on our own. And we are not highly measurable to empiricists. I like that, too.
Will we ever come to realize that we are chasing our tails in seeking to know our deepest inner mysteries? Isn’t it, after all, as King Solomon pointed out long ago, a futile chasing after the wind? Can it make us happy? Vanity is needing to know what can’t be known.

By: Warren

Warren — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:44:43 +0000

Sexual abuse can be profoundly distressing or it can be ignored and discounted as being a bad experience that a person is glad is over. The event is always wrong and morally reprehensible but does have differential effects. I would never deny a woman’s sense that abuse shaped her current experience of sexuality. For a man, however, it is less clear. While the new study found a significant association, the effect size was about 4-5% – moderate but not to the degree that I would say sexual abuse was a necessary condition for the outcome of SSA. Shaping for those who experienced it for sure but one may be SSA without experiencing it.
And that is really what we are looking for in science is a general parsimonious account for an outcome. At this point, we don’t have it.
Debbie – I can’t find any evidence in favor of Neuro Emotional Technique. It sounds like muscle memory and Richard Cohen with a different method. According to this website, it is one of many unsupported approaches that probably relies on placebo. Honestly, there is nothing that seems plausible in the descriptions I’ve read. Nor have there been any controlled studies.

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 14:39:16 +0000

Debbie,
I agree with you that sexual abuse in women can have a huge impact on their sexuality. I, too, was sexaully abused as a child and experienced SSA. Although 50 % seems easily dismissed ( we know that 50% of girls are not being molested) While it is my opinion that sexual abuse does not cause SSA – in some children it may depending on tempermant and other factros. What some people are not looking at is that not only do we have SSA going on but there may also be an aversion to male sexuality once molested and we are saying no to that rather than saying yes to SSA (SSA may be just a default in some) .

By: Debbie Thurman

Debbie Thurman — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:43:58 +0000

Several observations:
The study you cited seems to have addressed the impact of sexual abuse more than physical abuse or neglect as a possible precursor to SSAs. Warren, your summary didn’t mention that. I thought I was reading something different at first. When you state “abuse and neglect do not relate to adult sexual orientation,” don’t you need a qualifier as that might cause confusion over what kind of abuse you are referring to?
Is it possible the SSA impact of childhood sexual abuse on girls is harder to measure than in boys, given the fluidity of female sexuality? Anecdotal evidence (survey results) indicates a pretty high correlation, yet we seem to be always getting more studies on men. Is that because science is male-dominated or women are too complex? LOL.
In my women’s recovery group, 50 percent were sexually abused as children. That may be a random thing as the sample is small, but it makes sense to me as I know how being molested as a child impacted my own life. I also believe parenting and family dynamics, along with individual temperament, make a difference. I say this because I have carefully considered my own life history while observing that of my adult daughters thus far.
Have you ever heard of neuro-emotional technique? It’s a holistic means of locating the body’s “memory” of traumatic events that leave a detectable physiological footprint hiding. I had a practitioner demonstrate it on me once. I was skeptical, but he put me through a little body strength test, while walking me backward through the years of my life. When he got to the age of 8, my strength suddenly and dramatically left me. That’s when I was molested, though he knew nothing of my history. Intriguing, to say the least. FWIW, I have a very strong immune system. Always have had. Never missed a day of school in 12 years.
You probably know about Candace Pert’s and other researchers’ work with stress and neuropeptides and the immune system correlations. It’s always fascinated me because of my past battle with major depression and SSA. I am aware of some prenatal events (pathogenic and emotional) in my mother’s life before my brothers and I were born, as well as extreme stressors when we were young. I think there was a definite impact. One brother had schizoaffective disorder, too.
Another thing worth noting: With all this pathogen theory research and its impact on mental illness development, will same-sex attraction have to be put back into the DSM at some point? I predict that would never happen as political correctness (extreme confirmation bias) has permanently overshadowed the scientific method. Yet, look at where this may be leading. Makes the debate more interesting.
I have come to believe that reparative work is valid for some, but perhaps not for others. There is always a danger in making any one method king.

By: Warren

Warren — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:16:19 +0000

@carole:
Not sure what you mean. We didn’t know until this report that their response to herpes was different.