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EFFECT OF STRESS BREAKDOWN ON THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP

admin — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:32:28 +0000

One of the early symptoms of stage three breakdown is an inability to tolerate high levels of sensory stimulation. Previously enjoyable stimulation can become disagreeable and actually uncomfortable. Sexual stimulation, likewise, can become disagreeable.

In this stage of stress breakdown, men and women, particularly women, who previously enjoyed an active sex life, can be turned off sex for no reason apparent to either partner. The real reason is, of course, simply that the nervous system cannot tolerate high levels of stimulation. However, it is rare that couples have the insight to accept this as an explanation and leave it at that. If they did, there would be less unhappiness arising as a result of what these couples usually wrongly see as a failure of their sexual relationship.

Some women who are accustomed, at times, to having sexual intercourse with their husbands without orgasm, may be satisfied, when they are suffering from stress breakdown symptoms, with the warmth of close contact without orgasm. ‘I just don’t want to be bothered with feeling anything’, she says. Unfortunately, this turning off sex may be misinterpreted, usually by both of them.

There are always enough unresolved difficulties between husband and wife in any marriage which can be used to explain why one or both of them seem to have lost interest in each other sexually. Pressed for an explanation for the current lack of sexual interest, wife or husband might bring up one of their old, unresolved conflicts as a reason. The other partner might erroneously believe, then, that it is necessary to solve this particular problem in order to restore the former sexually-satisfying status quo. When this problem seems to be irresolvable, he or she may feel deceived or humiliated, hurt and rejected.

In our society, where it is culturally acceptable or normal for women to lose interest in sexual activity at times in their lives, a relatively young man who begins to lose interest in sexual relationships with his wife is usually suspected of having another woman, or of being mentally ill. It is often the wrong assumptions and misinterpretations in this situation which lead to trouble. Take, for example, the case where a couple was both experiencing stage three symptoms, behaving in unusual ways, responding strangely. He turns off sex, she thinks he has another woman (he hasn’t); she decides to behave in a way entirely inappropriate for her and goes out and picks up a casual lover. Such an out-of-character change in behaviour is not uncommon in third stage breakdown.

The marriage might then fail, not on the basis of the primary lack of sexual interest, but because of the unfortunate responses which might result.

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LOSS OF THE ‘LAW OF STRENGTH’ IN CONDITIONED REFLEXES UNDER CONDITIONS OF SEVERE STRESS BREAKDOWN

admin — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:18:55 +0000

In stage three stress breakdown the law of strength of the nervous system no longer operates; the more intense the stimuli coming in to the nervous system in preparation for eating, the less the response might be. The proper reception of food into the stomach and the efficient initiation of the appropriate stomach, gall bladder and pancreatic responses to the food, might well be interfered with. Thus real difficulties with the initial handling of food could arise as a symptom in third stage stress breakdown. Such a disorder would usually be described as nervous dyspepsia.There is a reflex concerned with the elimination of faeces, which we human beings are able to inhibit to some extent. This is the gastro-colic reflex. When food reaches the stomach, the large bowel automatically increases the rate of propulsion of its contents towards the rectum. Thus our bowels usually move after breakfast. However, if we don’t eat breakfast, the regular association of eating breakfast at that time of day will result in a bowel movement anyway, because the nervous system has been conditioned to move the bowels first thing in the morning.We have usually learned to inhibit this reflex later in the day. Most people find they don’t have to move their bowels after lunch at work. Some people do, some don’t. We have therefore learned how to inhibit this reflex when it is socially inappropriate for our bowels to move. We can see that the task we set the nervous system with regard to when we will allow elimination of faeces is very complex, and it is not difficult to imagine that malfunction of these conditioned reflexes in third stage stress breakdown might be responsible for abnormal large bowel activity. This disordered state is usually diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome.
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ANXIETY DISORDERS/WORKING THROUGH THE RECOVERY: BETTY’S CASE

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:23:35 +0000

Betty had worked extremely hard on her recovery. She had been able to return to work three months ago and was really happy to be back in the workforce. Although she’d had the occasional bad day, Betty was able to work through them and she had begun to feel that she had finally recovered. That was until last week. Now Betty was beginning to think the disorder was returning. Her anxiety was increasing and the attacks had returned. She knew that returning to work had been stressful, but she was happy in her job. She couldn’t understand why the anxiety and the attacks were back. To all intents and purposes life was normal. Her husband and children were fine. Although Betty realised it was hard to run a household and work at the same time, she felt it was worth the extra effort. Her father’s death two months ago had been traumatic but she felt that couldn’t be the reason. Betty wondered if it was the argument she had had with her mother and sisters. The issues had still not been resolved and each time they were together the atmosphere was quite tense. She knew the anxiety and the attacks were making her feel tense, but she couldn’t understand why they had come back. Betty thought that she needed to be more aware of what was causing stress in her life!

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CHILDREN’S SLEEP PROBLEMS/BUILDING THE BASICS: SLEEP NEEDS AND PATTERNS

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:01:35 +0000

The purpose of looking at norms is not to say that all children have the same needs and can be neatly categorized. Because you are reading this book, it is safe to assume that your child does not fit the pattern outlined. It is also safe to say that you are not pleased and you sense something is going wrong. The purpose of this section is not to make you feel worse about yourself or your child.

Norms are very useful to pinpoint problem areas—to help you establish where you are now. Using the norms, you can begin to look at your situation realistically. You will have something to compare your experience to besides, “When you were a child…” and “None of my children….”

Norms are also useful in setting realistic goals. When the problem is solved you will have clear comparisons for determining how far you have come. Read this section with these thoughts in mind.

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ST JOHN’S WORT: IT REALLY WORKS

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:37:36 +0000

Although a common maxim holds that ‘seeing is believing,’ this statement is actually not always true. Seeing can be quite deceptive, as anyone knows who has witnessed the tricks of a competent magician. Conversely, we believe many things that we do not actually see, for example that the earth revolves around the sun. But in some ways the maxim carries the weight of truth: Those things that we cannot see are hard to believe, which is one reason why they gave poor Galileo such a hard time when he maintained that the sun and not the earth was the centre of the solar system. Similarly, controlled treatment studies can appear quite unconvincing if one doesn’t believe in the treatment and the studies are performed by someone else. I encountered this phenomenon after conducting numerous light treatment studies in patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or winter depression. The studies from my group at the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as those of numerous colleagues, told a clear story. Light therapy worked. Yet many psychiatrists who had never treated a single patient with light therapy remained sceptical. On the other hand, the successful treatment of a single patient with this modality was in certain instances more persuasive than all the published data on the topic. So, after studying SAD for several years and treating many hundreds of patients with light therapy, I was amused when an old colleague approached me at a meeting and said to me with an air of discovery, ‘You know that light therapy that you have been talking about all this time? I treated a patient with it and the damn thing works.’

In truth, though, it is wonderful to discover a phenomenon for oneself even if it has been described a thousand times before. And so it was for me with the use of St John’s Wort in depression. I had read about controlled studies performed in Europe and had actually seen some of the data. Yet it was only when I saw some of my own patients benefit from the herbal remedy that I felt the excitement that might be expected to greet the arrival of a novel form of treatment for an old and nasty adversary – depression.

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