Do you like sex? I certainly do. I love how close sex can bring me to someone I care about, and I love how it can deepen my understanding and appreciation of that person. I love how much healthy pleasure it brings into my life. I love how sex can bring me to delightful altered states of consciousness, and I love the feelings of acceptance and contentment and trust it can create in me and my partner.

In fact, I love sex so much I've made a hobby of learning more about it. My site is going to share some of the insights I've gained as I've grown in my understanding of this fascinating and wonderful aspect of human experience.

I know there is a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding about sex. I'm 35 and I've been there. I remember my first sexual experience and how frightening that was. The boy I was in love with ripped off his pants in the front seat of his car and jumped me. Before both of us knew it, it was over. I'm talking less than one minute.

Then I went through a one-woman sexual revolution (age 22-26) of my own. It wasn't until I went through therapy as an adult, recovered my self-esteem and read some books on sex and intimacy, that I discovered what meaningful sex was all about. And yes, it does help to have a knowledgeable and talented lover...

... but there's more.

Don't you find it wonderful when a lover is really into what you two are doing together, and he or she seems actively, passionately, and completely absorbed in the pleasure you two are creating? Isn't it great when he or she is experiencing deep, overwhelming delight and directing that energy and appreciation back at you? It's a profound irony that one of the most effective things you can do to become a better lover is to learn to appreciate pleasure even more, but in my experience it's true. In my opinion, the three most important elements to becoming a better lover are learning to feel, choosing what pleases you, and empathy.

And that's what I emphasize in my site. Great sex isn't an orgasm. It's an experience!

Happy Lovemaking,
Krista

next: How to Have Good Sex Homepage

"A Transformational Healing Process has begun on the planet Earth. Due to a profound change that has taken place in the energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness, resources are now available to us to do healing that has never before been possible in recorded human history. Human beings now, for the first time, have the capacity to directly address the core issues of the human dilemma".

The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney

"The conditions on the planet have changed! That is the Joyous news that I have to share with you. The dance is changing. Since before the dawn of recorded history, the dance of life for humans has been primarily one of survival, of endurance, of suffering.

We have now entered a very special time in human history. An Age of Healing and Joy has dawned in human consciousness on this planet. We now have tools, knowledge, and most importantly, clearer access to healing energy and Spiritual guidance than has ever before been available in recorded human history on this planet.

The dance is changing. A Transformational Healing Process has begun on planet Earth. We have begun the process of breaking out of the vicious, self-perpetuating cycles of destructive behavior that humans have been trapped in for thousands of years. The destructive dance is changing into a dance of healing."

*

"That is what this is all about! The second coming has begun! Not of "The Messiah," but of a whole bunch of messiahs. The messiah, the liberator, is within us! A liberating, Healing Transformational Movement has begun. "The Savior" does not exist outside of us "The Savior" exists within.

We are the sons and daughters of God. We, the old souls, who are involved in this Healing Movement, are the second coming of the message of Love.

We have entered what certain Native American prophecies call the Dawning of the Fifth World of Peace. Through focusing on our own healing the planet will be healed.

We all have available to us within a direct channel to the Highest Vibrational Frequency Range within The Illusion. That highest range involves consciousness of the Glory of ONENESS. It is called Cosmic Consciousness. It is called Christ Consciousness.

This is the energy that Jesus was tuned into, and he stated very plainly, "These things that I do, you can do also." - by atoning, by tuning in.

We have access to the Christ Energy within. We have begun the Second Coming of the message of Love.

The dawning of the Age of Healing and Joy is the dawning of the Fifth World of Peace when humans will learn to walk in balance and harmony."

*

"Humans have always searched for our Spiritual connection. Every human who has ever lived on this planet has ached for, yearned for, Spiritual full-fill-ment. Every human who is not in denial feels the hole inside that comes from Spiritual dis-ease, from feeling disconnected from our Spiritual Source.

What is so wonderful, what is so Joyous and exciting, is that we now have clearer access to our Spiritual Higher Consciousness than ever before in recorded human history. And through that Higher Self to the Universal Creative God-Force.

Each and every one of us has an inner channel. We now have the capability to atone which means tune into to atone, to tune into the Higher Consciousness. To tune into the Higher vibrational emotional energies that are Joy, Light, Truth, Beauty, and Love.

We can tune into the Truth of: "at ONE ness" Atone = at ONE.
Atonement = at ONE ment, in a condition of ONENESS.

We now have access to the highest vibrational frequencies - we can tune into the Truth of ONENESS. By aligning with Truth we are tuning into the higher energy vibrations that reconnect us with the Truth of ONENESS.

This is the age of atonement, but it does not have anything to do with judgment and punishment. It has to do with tuning our inner channel into the right frequencies."

"So there is good news and bad news. The good news is that a New Age has dawned in human consciousness and that we now have tools, knowledge, and access to healing energy and Spiritual guidance that has never before been available. We are discovering the rules of the game that we have been playing for thousands of years by rules that don't work.

The bad news is that it's a stupid game or at least it feels like it some of the time. The more we understand that it is a game, that this is just boarding school, the easier it becomes to nurture ourselves by not shaming and judging ourselves. We are going to get to go home. We don't have to earn it - that's what Unconditional Love means." (Column "Spring & Nurturing" by Robert Burney)

"Doing that grieving is overwhelming terrifying and painful. It is also the gateway to Spiritual Awakening. It leads to empowerment, freedom, and inner peace. Releasing that grief energy allows us to start being able to be emotionally honest in the moment in an age-appropriate way. It is, in my understanding, the path that the Old Souls who are doing their healing in this Age of Healing and Joy need to travel to get clearer about their path and accomplish their mission in this lifetime."

(Column "Further Journeys to the Emotional Frontier Within" by Robert Burney)

The following is an excerpt from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney
Molecular Biology

"We have been doing this human business backwards. The reason we have been doing it backwards is that the energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness on planet Earth was reversed in its relationship to Truth for tens of thousands of years. It is not reversed anymore!

As I stated earlier, the knowledge that we need to understand the larger perspective has been unfolding in all areas of human endeavor. That includes the field of molecular biology. Biologists have discovered a phenomenon that is mind-boggling. They call it a morphogenetic field, or M-field. This is an energy field of consciousness. They have discovered energy fields of consciousness exist not only for animals but also for objects we think of as inanimate, such as crystals.

A biologist named Lyall Watson coined a term having to do with this phenomenon. That term is the "hundredth monkey effect" This is the story of how the term came about, as related in Beyond The Quantum by Michael Talbot.

Watson relates an unusual incident that allegedly occurred in the 1950s in a population of Japanese monkeys known as Macaca Fuscata on the island of Koshima just off the east coast of Kyushu. It seems that while studying the local population of these monkeys, researchers started feeding them sweet potatoes and would dump truckloads of them on the beach for the monkeys to retrieve. The problem was that although the monkeys had developed elaborate feeding habits for all of their indigenous foods, they had never seen sweet potatoes before. Their dilemma was not that they did not like the new treat, but that the sweet potatoes were covered with sand and grit - an unpleasant problem that the monkeys had never before confronted.

As Watson tells the story, the monkeys struggled with the problem for awhile, like picnickers assailed by ants, and then an eighteen-month-old female, a sort of monkey genius the researchers knew as Imo, solved the dilemma. Imo discovered that if the gritty sweet potatoes were dunked in the ocean, not only did it remove the sand, but it added an interesting new flavor. Imo next taught the trick to her mother, then her playmates, and slowly the new habit gained a small following in the Koshima colony.

Then something remarkable transpired. As Watson relates, the details of what happened next have not yet been published because the primate researchers involved knew that what they would be disclosing was too heretical for general scientific consumption. It seems that one morning the number of monkeys that had learned Imo's washing technique reached a sort of critical mass, and then, suddenly, by that evening, every monkey in the colony was washing potatoes in the surf. Not only that, but researchers reported that troops of monkeys on other islands and even a troop on the mainland at Takasakiyama also suddenly and spontaneously began practicing Imo's washing technique. Although the researchers on Koshima had not observed at precisely what number of monkeys this critical mass was reached, for the sake of speaking about it Watson refers to the monkey individual that put the entire population over the threshold as the proverbial "hundredth monkey."

Biologists found that principles which were known to apply in physics also applied in biology in certain ways. An electromagnetic energy field can only accept a certain amount of energy of a reversed polarity that is, if the energy is positive it can only accept so much negative and vice-versa until it reaches a decisive point that is called critical mass. When a negative energy field reaches critical mass it reverses and the whole field goes positive.

What these biologists discovered is that an energy field of consciousness existed for these monkeys, and that when enough of the monkeys, the "hundredth monkey," had adopted a new survival technique, their energy field of consciousness reached a point of critical mass and altered to make that new technique, that new survival tool, available to all of the monkeys of that species.

Energy Fields

Energy fields of consciousness exist. Energy fields of intellectual and emotional consciousness for humans exist in relationship to every type of relationship, of interaction, that humans experience.

Each human being is an energy field, made up of interacting atomic and molecular energy fields. When people come together they form a group energy field. Groups have incredible power because they form a more powerful energy field than an individual does. It is sometimes easier to access the higher vibrational transcendent emotions in a group than as an individual.

That is why it feels good, why it feels like the energy is powerful and positive in most Twelve Step meetings, and in some churches and Spiritual gatherings, because it is. It is a higher vibrational energy field.

Whenever two or more are gathered in the name of Love and Truth, in the name of healing, there is incredible power.

Any single soul's evolution, its awakening, affects all souls because we are all connected. We can, like Imo the genius monkey, create a space, create a new level a new aspect of consciousness that other humans then have access to. It is not any accident that most great inventions, most great breakthroughs, were formulated in more than one location in the same time period. Once one breaks through and creates the space, others may follow.

A single soul's healing advances the healing of all souls imagine the power of two or more.

The effects of group healing and awakening ripple out through human consciousness to affect all Souls. It ripples out in geometric proportion.

Polarization

The energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness on this planet was reversed in relationship to the Truth of the God-Force because of the polarization of the energy field of Collective Human Intellectual Consciousness.

The Lower Mind.

Polarization, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, caused humans to see life, both externally and internally, as a battle of warring polar opposites: black and white thinking.

The polarization of the Lower Mind caused the connection to the Higher Mind to be weakened. It caused static and distortion to disrupt the channel between human self and Spiritual Self.

This polarization created the illusion of disconnection, of separation. It caused the Spiritual Beings who were in human body at the time to start focusing on the external reality of the illusion so much that they did not even notice that they were losing their connection to the God-Force. They eventually forgot that they were connected to the God-Force and began to believe that they were individual human beings who existed as entities separate from an external Source. They forgot that the power that they had access to came from the Spirit and not just from themselves. Eventually, (after The Flood) they would even come to believe that they had the power to cause separation that they were powerful enough to have done something so bad that God would abandon and punish them.

The Truth is that we are powerless to separate from the God-Force because separation is an illusion. Free will is an illusion on the highest level. No being has the power to separate from the ONENESS of God.

It is necessary and healthy to take responsibility for our choices, to accept our consequences, and to try to make healthy decisions on a human level. Integration and balance involves a process of learning to accept healthy responsibility on a human level at the same time that we know we are being guided by a Loving Spiritual Force.

The Force is with us!

It does not mean we can sit back and do nothing. It also does not mean we have to do everything. Either way is out of balance. We have to plant the seeds, and nurture the garden. It is in the growth that the miracle occurs. Whether or not the seed becomes a rose is in the Great Spirit's hands. We are powerless to turn a seed into a rose without the Goddess.

We are powerless out of human ego-self over this life business. We have access to all of the power in the Universe out of our Spiritual Self out of our Spiritual connection to Higher Consciousness.

As a direct result of polarization, the energy field of Collective Human Emotion.

next: New Age Misinterpretations of Metaphysical Truth

Click Here

This is a copy of a Health Visitor-delivered training programmes for parents of pre-school children diagnosed with ADHD produced by the Mental Health Foundation.

Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 14

1. Abusive Parents
2. Hatred and Anger
3. Narcissistic Regression versus NPD
4. Narcissists and Abandonment
5. Deleting Past Sources of Narcissistic Supply
6. Realizations
7. Narcissism and Nihilism
8. Narcissism and Genetics

1. Abusive Parents

When abusive parents abuse - they are children again, trying to cope with their own past abuse. It is through the abuse of their children that they are trying to resolve open conflicts, to "balance the accounts", to regain a sense of justice and predictability and internal peace. If abuse is a fact of life, a natural phenomenon, an inevitability, something parents are supposed to do to their children - then all is well, past abuse hurts less, and a serenity of mind is restored. This is an accountancy of pain in which each entry is a writhing, screaming, aching child.

But the abusive parent IS such a child himself or herself. This is what makes abuse impossible to cope with emotionally. Because to do so means to have the insight that we never had caring parents, that our parents were children, and that, therefore, we were never really loved as every child deserves to be and should be.

Is it better to give life in an instant and take it away over many years - or not to give life at all? I am not sure what the answer is.

If we hate and loathe ourselves - does this preclude hating and loathing our tormentors and abusers?

Aren't they the reason we hate ourselves in the first place?

Should the fact that we share genetic material with someone shield him or her from well deserved hate, scorn, contempt, and upbraiding?

Are abusers exempt from punishment only because they were abused before? Is this the world we inhabit: mechanical, unstoppable, deterministic? No free will, no love, no forethought, no consciousness, no conscience, no sentient beings capable of remoulding themselves through inspection and introspection?

Our abusers are accountable to us, the abused - because they could have behaved differently.

In this case "love thyself" does NOT, cannot go together with "love thy parent", for instance.

If you let your abuser go, you ARE.

While if you do not - you are NOT.

Your abusing parent NEGATES you. You are like matter and anti-matter, positive and negative, acid and base. He attacked your very BEING when you were defenseless, unable to resist his doubting of your existence. And his voice keeps casting doubts on your existence, from inside. The hatred that you feel is your BIOLOGICAL reaction to this voice. HE permeated your cells first - and they react allergically, forming antibodies of hatred that begat fear (of being left alone) that begat rage.

And as long as he possesses you and inhabits you and infests you - you do NOT exist really and fully. This is the choice you are facing:

Being - but alone, or Not Being - in the company of the poltergeists of your childhood.

This is the famed Stockholm Syndrome. Hostages side with their captors rather than with the police.

I heard the view before - that shame and grief are bound together, one probably a derivative of the other - and I disagree with it strongly. Grief has for too long been considered to be an auxiliary emotion, a derivative reaction, a "reactive" sensation. In my view, it is a SPECTRUM of emotions (shame included, for instance at one's helplessness). Trying to reduce it to a one-dimensional construct is wrong. It is interesting to note that Love and Grief - the two strongest emotions known to Mankind - have been reduced this way so often.

2. Hatred and Anger

Hatred is often massively suppressed anger, ossified into the weird stalactites and stalagmites of hatred.

Hatred does not flow - anger does. Hatred is a structure - anger, a stream.

Hatred is a being, it permeates every cell. It feels so natural that it is hardly ever noticed. It speaks through anger, though. Hatred is static - anger the dynamics, its energy, its changing aspects, its holographic angles.

Anger you feel, hatred you live.

What is wrong with hating those deserving of hate? I can see nothing wrong in an emotion PER SE. If it is proportional and directed at the appropriate target - it is correct and true and worthy. There can be no healing where emotions are suppressed, even (perhaps, especially) negative emotions. Emotions are created to be felt, even the extreme ones, fostered in extreme circumstances by extreme monsters masquerading as human beings.

If I were you, I would have befriended my hatred. I would have studied it and let it study me. I would open up to it and allow it to inhabit me.

Afforded the luxury of being unconditionally accepted, maybe your hatred would not feel the pressing need to assert itself. Its existence not threatened by false morality of "right" and "wrong" and "negative" and "positive" - perhaps your hatred will allow you to accept yourself. Strike an agreement with that which can never go away. And remember: it is not YOU who gave birth to this monster and bred and fed it and indulged it. It is your father. It is HIS hatred that merely resides in you. Isn't it only very ethical and righteous to return a deposit to its rightful owner? You are returning HIS hatred to HIM. It is the way of the world. This is how it has to be. And you should feel no guilt, or shame, or blame for succumbing to that which is greater than us all: to human nature.

3. Narcissistic Regression versus NPD

Narcissistic reactions (regression) are short term and not all-pervasive.

The regression is reactive, directly attributable to a specific event, and highly correlated with other grief and loss related reactions.

Moreover, in narcissistic regression, the narcissistic behaviors do not persist. They recede with time until they vanish completely. They do not overtake the whole personality, or permeate it.

They are confined to specific areas in the life of the affected person. They rarely involve lack of empathy and are more inclined to include grandiosity and magical thinking (omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence).

Narcissistic regression sometimes appears with substance abuse.

There is no conclusive evidence that alcoholism and narcissism are related.

You must also clearly distinguish alcoholism from social drinking or reactive drinking (for instance, due to a life crisis).

BUT

Impulsive behaviors (drinking, gambling, reckless driving, or compulsive shopping) ARE one of the criteria of the Borderline personality disorder (though not of NPD).

Most addicts have narcissistic TRAITS. NPD is an addiction to Narcissistic Supply. The 12 step programs address this attribute of addicts DIRECTLY by attacking their narcissism. They are obliged to relegate the control over their lives to a higher power (not necessarily God).

4. Narcissists and Abandonment

Narcissists are terrified of being abandoned exactly as codependents and Borderlines are.

BUT

Their solution is different. Codependents cling. Borderline are emotionally labile and react disastrously to the faintest hint of being abandoned.

Narcissists FACILITATE the abandonment. They MAKE SURE that they are abandoned. This way they secure the achievement of two goals:

1. Getting it over with - The narcissist has a very low threshold of tolerance of uncertainty and inconvenience, emotional or material. Narcissists are very impatient and "spoiled". They cannot delay gratification OR impending doom. They must have it all NOW, good or bad.
2. By bringing the feared abandonment about, the narcissist can lie to himself persuasively. "She didn't abandon me, it is I who abandoned her. I controlled the situation. It was all my doing, so I was really not abandoned, was I now?". In time, the narcissist adopts this "official version" as the truth. He might say: "I deserted her emotionally and sexually long before she left".

This is one of the important Emotional Involvement Prevention Mechanisms (EIPMs) that I write about extensively here.

5. Deleting Past Sources of Narcissistic Supply

I am a narcissist. I was married to a wife for nine years. I thought and felt that I loved her more than myself, that she was my extension, a vital organ, a life sustaining substance, a drug.

The minute we divorced - she was deleted from my archives. I never spoke to her again. Not because I am angry at her - but because she is not a worthwhile investment any longer. With limited resources of time and mental energy I began vigorously pursuing other sources of narcissistic supply. She no longer constituted one, even potentially - so, why bother? She was so effectively deleted from my mind and memory that I find that I have no interest in what has or hasn't happened to her in the slightest. I rarely if at all think about her or us.

Had she tried to contact me I would have regarded it as an insolent intrusion upon my private life, a waste of my precious and cosmically significant time, a boring, irrelevant post mortem of a now defunct business venture with nothing to gain from it. I would in turn be flattered (that she emotionally NEEDS me so, that I am indispensable), then I would have gotten bored and then simply angry at having to go through all this. I would have become discourteous and finally abusive in an effort to terminate this utterly superfluous exchange.

It could be speculated that my behavior is a defense mechanism against the pain and hurt inflicted upon me by her abandonment (what I call EIPM - Emotional Involvement Prevention Mechanism here). But this is, at the very best, a very partial explanation. I behave the same with "close" friends, business "associates", other women in my life who never hurt me nor were contemplating to. No, the better, more complete explanation is the shift of scarce energy from a defunct source of narcissistic supply - to a newly promising one. The shift is so abrupt and so total that it is MECHANIC, not human. Hence the apprehension and tremendous agony of those who are its objects.

Many theoreticians and clinicians came to the conclusion that narcissism is, indeed, a disturbance in development, growth interrupted. They invented special technical and non-technical terms to describe this: "Puer Aeternus" (the Eternal Adolescent - a term coined by the Jungian Satinover) or "The Peter Pan Syndrome" (though the latter was not exclusively linked to narcissism).

Freud - as opposed to Jung and others - regards narcissism as a permanent, fixated regression to very early childhood. The narcissistic feelings of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience compensated the child for the creeping realizations of powerlessness, object temporariness (mother or other objects disappear sometimes), and ignorance. It is a defense mechanism the child - with the help of a "good enough mother" (Winnicott) - is supposed to dispense with later in life. But if the mother (or other primary caregiver) is not "good enough", the child feels too insecure to overcome his narcissism and "gets stuck" at that stage for the rest of his adult life. The narcissist refuses to grow and face his own limitations and the world which he perceives - after his the model provided by his mother - to be hostile, unpredictable and cruel.

Much more in FAQ 64 and FAQ 25

6. Realizations

I realized:

• That the only enemy worth considering are inside me.
• That only semantics separates illusion from reality.
• That being hurt is a not a conscious decision or a choice -
  and that therefore, I should stop feeling guilty or blameworthy.
• That it is only through others that I can be led to myself.
• That my detractors possess only the power I give them and never more.
• That "Everything Flows" is both a source of sadness and a source of hope and strength.
• That, therefore, sadness is a source of hope and strength.
• That only I possess the licence and the wherewithal to perpetuate my abuse.
• That even my premeditation is accidental.
• That my intelligence is a double edged sword.
• That anything I say can and will be used against me but it should not deter me.
• That my omnipotence is powerless and my ignorance is omniscient.
• That I live only once and am whiling my present away mourning the past and fearing the future.
• That, in the face of dead ends, it is best to reverse course.

7. Narcissism and Nihilism

I don't think that there is a necessary connection between the will to power (Nietzsche) and narcissism. Narcissism has more to do with UNREALISTIC, grandiose fantasies, and lack of empathy. A realistic pursuit of power would not qualify as narcissism, to my mind.

To my mind, the "morphogenetic field" of "cultural narcissism" is a set of potentials. It includes many possible behaviors (some of them socially permissible, others not). The narcissist, having been subjected to abuse (doting and spoiling are forms of abuse because the child is treated as the parents' extension) - selects from the set of potential behaviors those behavior patterns that define him as a narcissist.

The big mystery is: why do we select behaviors the way we do? Why does one react to abuse by developing a personality disorder and another be seemingly glossing over it? I think that the answer is: genetics. Our repertoire of reactions (=personality) is genetically predisposed.

8. Narcissism and Genetics

There is a lot of research that shows that the brain - plastic as it is - reacts structurally and (dys-)functionally to abuse and trauma. The brain seems to retain an astounding level of plasticity well into adulthood and this would tend to explain why talk therapy works (when it does).

Large scale experimentation or surveys have been conducted in relation to many personality disorders (Borderline and Schizotypal, to mention but two). Hereditary components have been clearly demonstrated in some PDs (example: there are significantly more schizophrenics in families of schizotypal PDs than in control group families, or families of other PDs).

Brain structural differences have been demonstrated in other PD's (Borderline). Only NPD went almost un-researched. Not only because it is a relatively new mental health category (1980) - schizotypal and ADHD, for instance, are even newer. The reason seems to be that therapists and researchers simply hate working with narcissists and their (usually narcissistic) parents, etc. The narcissist makes the therapist's life a living hell. But, then, what is new?

next: Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 15

Overview of meditation as an alternative treatment for anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic pain and other mental health and health conditions.

Meditation of one style or another can be found in most of the major religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. Generally, Eastern religions have tended to concentrate on meditation as a means of realizing spiritual enlightenment. This has usually also included many health promoting practices. In the West, meditation has been embraced for both reasons, too, although many people know it most as a self-help tool for promoting good health and for stress management.

Many forms of meditation result in the clearing of one's mind and this promotes a sense of calm and heightened awareness. During meditation, the brain's activity, as mapped by a device called an electroencephalograph (EEG), alters significantly. The most well-known brain waves evident during many kinds of meditation are called alpha waves. These brain waves accompany relaxation of the entire nervous system. Gamma, delta and theta brain waves accompany other types of meditation and are associated with various altered states of consciousness. Scientific studies show that the regular practice of meditation can be a powerful healing tool.

A range of disorders

Regular meditation can be used to help to treat a range of disorders, including:

• Anxiety
• Chronic pain
• Depression
• Headaches
• High blood pressure
• Insomnia
• Migraines
• Stress
• Life threatening illnesses.

Soothing the nervous system

Resting the mind has a dramatic effect on brain activity. When the brain moves into an alpha wave state, many physiological changes occur, starting with the autonomic nervous system. One of the main roles of the autonomic nervous system is to regulate glands and organs without any effort from our conscious minds. The autonomic nervous system is made up of two parts, called the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. These systems act in opposite yet complementary ways; the sympathetic nervous system 'revs' the body, while the parasympathetic calms it down. Chronic stress or burnout can occur when the sympathetic nervous system dominates for too long. During an alpha wave state, the parasympathetic half of the autonomic nervous system comes to the fore. This results in lowered blood pressure and heart rate, a reduction in stress hormones, and slowed metabolism. If meditation is practiced regularly, these beneficial changes become relatively permanent.

Different types of meditation

Meditation has evolved out of many different religions and philosophies, which means there are a number of different techniques to choose from. Some examples include:

• Concentrating on the breath - consciously noticing the movement of air in and out of your nostrils, or counting the breath in variety of ways.

• Emptying the mind - allowing the mind to clear and 'float', gently pushing aside any stray thoughts, or allowing thoughts to float in and out of awareness.

• Looking at an object - focusing your attention, but not necessarily your thoughts, on the shape, sound and texture of an object, such as a tree or a candle flame.

• Movement - using a physical technique like yoga, Qi Gong or Tai Chi to still the mind by coordinating the breath and the body with gentle movement.

• Using a mantra - repeating a word or phrase over and over, either out loud or silently, to focus the attention, perhaps timed with the breath.

Practicing meditation

Whatever your preferred technique, it helps in the beginning to have a quiet place, a comfortable sitting position and around five minutes to half an hour without outside distractions. Set an alarm if you don't want to lose track of time. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to sit cross-legged on the floor in order to meditate. You can sit in a chair, or sit up in bed. You might just fall asleep, however, if you try to meditate lying down, which defeats the purpose of doing it.

Meditating every day at around the same time can help to develop a regular habit and make it easier and quicker to slip into deeply meditative states. Although you can master meditation by yourself, some people prefer to attend classes and learn in a group from an experienced teacher.

Trying too hard

Trying to meditate is a lot like trying to sleep - attempting to force it often makes it more difficult. Thinking of a meditation session as a chance to relax rather than as a discipline you have to master can make a great difference. If your attention wanders, practice acceptance and avoid getting annoyed with yourself. Simply direct your attention back to what you are doing and experience the moment.

Special considerations

In the instance of serious mental illness, meditation should be used with caution, if at all.

Where to get help

• Your doctor
• Yoga, Qi Gong and Tai Chi teachers
• Meditation teachers.

Things to remember

• Meditation is the deliberate focusing of attention to bring about feelings of calm, heightened energy and awareness.

• Regular meditation offers many health benefits, such as reduced stress and blood pressure.

• There are many different ways to meditate, such as using a mantra, looking at an object or focusing on the breath.

back to: Alternative Medicine Home ~ Alternative Medicine Treatments

A Primer on Depression and Bipolar Disorder

II. MOOD DISORDERS AS PHYSICAL ILLNESSES

H. Public Policy

I would like to say a few words about some reforms needed in public policy if we are to give people with depression and bipolar disorder, in particular, and people with chronic mental illness in general, a reasonable chance for adequate treatment. I am not a sociologist or a political scientist, so I must leave it to others to devise methods for actually accomplishing these goals.

First, there is an urgent need for some kind of adequate health insurance for both physical and mental illnesses, available to all people at a price they can afford. For mental illness this system should provide all needed services ranging from diagnosis, to talk therapy, to medication, to hospitalization, if necessary. I know that there are those among us who will be quick to utter the dreaded words "socialized medicine", the kiss of death to all policies designed to help the victim instead of enrich the doctor. So be it. I have seen "socialized medicine" at work in Europe, and I learned that mostly it does work, particularly in Scandinavia. So long as mental health services must be purchased by the consumer, the rich will be adequately treated and the poor will live in misery, a gross mockery of their equal inalienable human worth.

Whenever I visit Washington DC, I feel an intense sense of outrage when I see the groups of shabby homeless men (mostly) clustered for survival on sidewalk heat vents from the great white marble palaces our government likes to house itself in. Up close, one sees that they are filthy, their clothes are filthy and ragged, shoes even worse, and that they give every appearance of being depressed and/or unable to connect meaningfully with reality.

Studies show that (roughly) half the group has serious problems with alcohol or street drugs. The bulk of the others people with chronic mental illness who have been dropped by the existing public mental health system. They filter down to the bottom, unable to care for themselves, and struggle with the unrelieved misery of their illness. And I ask myself "Is this what a 'superpower' does for its citizens? Allow them to sink to a level of personal degradation not usually seen outside of the third world? Dooming them to a hell from which they can hope to emerge only by dying? Would anyone knowingly consign his/her fellow human to such a fate?"

The way I see it is that if this country is rich enough to blow away billions of dollars a year in tax breaks to wealthy corporations, then it can easily afford to provide adequate health insurance to all its citizens. Some national priorities need to change, and soon!

A second issue is providing adequate supervision and direction to our public mental health system at local, county, and state levels. It is well to recall historically that when effective medications for mental illness became available, the majority of the patients in large state and federal mental hospitals were released on the theory (i.e. assumption) that they could then be treated effectively on an outpatient basis at the local level.

In theory, a network of well-financed Community Mental Health Centers and half-way houses were to be established to provide this care. Unfortunately there was no follow-through: federal aid was diverted to other ends, and community based services were left the responsibility of local governments, who found themselves swamped by a large influx of people needing care, while having no new source of revenue to pay the costs. In many states existing Community Mental Health Centers tended to focus on the less serious problems (personal adjustment, conflict management and resolution, divorce, etc.) and people with chronic mental illness found they had nowhere to turn: the local centers were unable or unwilling to treat them, and the hospitals were closing down.

Happily this problem has been recognized, and in the past few years a number of states (in response to federal mandate) have given their systems a major reorganization. In some cases, state and local chapters of NAMI have played an important, even decisive, role in representing the interests of people who have chronic mental illness. In those states where this process worked well, much improved access to the system resulted for people with chronic mental illness. The job is not done yet, and everyone interested in conquering mental illness: those who have chronic mental illness, family, friends, all of us, must continue to press for improved services for people who have chronic mental illness at all levels of government.

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Which alternative treatments work for depression and anxiety? A succinct summary of the scientific evidence.

Most people with depression or anxiety try to manage the illness themselves. Some of these self-management approaches have undergone some reasonable scientific testing and can therefore be tried, especially when the depression is not severe or life-threatening.

• Some common strategies like drinking more alcohol or smoking cannabis are clearly unhelpful.

• Other people try alternative therapies or adjusting their life-cycle. Some activities like increased physical activity or attention to sleep patterns are clearly beneficial.

• Herbal remedies and other alternative health practices may be either helpful or harmful.

• Some of these approaches have undergone some reasonable scientific testing and can therefore be tried, especially when the depression is not severe or life-threatening. Treatments in the 'poor evidence' box below need more studies to see whether they are helpful or not.

TABLE 1. EVIDENCE-BASE OF DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVE TREATMENTS FOR DEPRESSION

*SAMe is an amino acid that occurs naturally in cells. # Vervain is a traditional herbal remedy for depression consisting of the aerial parts of a flowering plant.
Source: Jorm AF, Christensen H, Griffiths KM, Rodgers B. Effectiveness of complementary and self-help treatments for depression. MJA 2002; 176 Suppl
May 20: p. S84-96.

TABLE 2. EVIDENCE-BASE OF DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVE TREATMENTS FOR ANXIETY

*The evidence for the alternative treatments in this column pertains to specific types of anxiety disorders ranging from generalized anxiety disorder to obsessive compulsive disorder. #Autogenic training is a self-relaxation procedure that is based on passive concentration on bodily perceptions (eg. heaviness and warmth of legs). ##IInositol is an isomer of glucose and it occurs in the normal human diet with around one gram per day being consumed. Source: Jorm AF, Christensen H, Griffiths KM, Parslow RA, Rodgers B, Blewitt KA. Effectiveness of complementary and self-help treatments for anxiety disorders. MJA (in press).

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VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: Language on this site is sexual in nature. Not recommended for younger or sensitive viewers.

I'm Krista. Welcome to The Psychology of Sex website for both women and men.

I don't know about you, but I used to have very mixed feelings about sex and/or a relationship with someone else. When I was in counseling, my therapist would say this is normal for everyone. "Sometimes you want it, sometimes you don't," she'd say.

Then I'd chime in: "and sometimes you want it with someone else and other times, you're better off alone."

Since sex isn't just about procreation anymore, I think that's what makes it so confusing for people. What's right? What's wrong? How do you handle the mechanics of sex, your sexual desires, and balance that with any emotional feelings you may have?

Self-esteem plays a big role in how you feel about sex and how you handle relationships. Communication is another big issue. You need to learn how to talk in a way so the other person can hear and understand you.

And then there's always "I didn't know that!" or "what's wrong with me?"

Most sex guides I've come across concentrate on "technique" - this position, these toys. You won't really find that here. For a moment though, I want you to think back on your sexual history and replay in your mind one of your favorite sexual experiences. What were the key elements of this experience that made it so good for you? I'm actually willing to bet that the key elements didn't have much to do with technique at all, and had more to do with passion and energy.

I'm not a licensed therapist or sex counselor of any kind. I just have a strong interest in the subject. Hopefully you'll find some answers to questions you might have and as you can imagine, the psychology of sex is very interesting.

I invite you to come inside and explore it with me.

• how to have good sex

• sex and intimacy

• sexual fantasies

• sexual problems

• sexual health

• sex therapy

• women and sex

• men and sex

• teenage sex

If you found it informative and helpful, I hope you'll pass the word around to others you know and click the link to send this page to a friend.

Have you ever wondered what your (or anyone else's) sex life is like, compared to the average sex life of the world population?

next: All This Sex Talk - You Must Want It, Right?

Is it possible you have an ego state disorder? Do you dissociate? This questionnaire may help you decide if you should get help now.

1. Do you sometimes find yourself "zoning out" in the middle of a conversation, nodding your head appropriately, but unable to get yourself back in it and fearful that you will be found out?
2. Did you spend a lot of time in fantasy as a child, so much so that teachers or parents criticized you for being "in another world" a good bit of the time?
3. Does fantasy interfere with your life as an adult? Do you daydream about pleasant things so much that it jeopardizes your job or compromises your relationships?
4. Do you feel like quite a different person from time-to-time?
5. Do friends suggest that you seem quite changeable, different from day-to-day?
6. Are you accident-prone?
7. Do you make a lot of "Freudian slips" -- where you think one thing but say or write something quite different, even the opposite?
8. Do you have a sense that part of you is missing or had to be jettisoned along the way?
9. Do you notice things about your sex life that you think are weird, like hating to be touched in ways that most people seem to enjoy?
10. Do you have large chunks of your childhood that are devoid of memories?
11. Are you more indecisive than most of the people you know?

[A score of six or more "yes" answers is suggestive of Ego State Disorder.]

Caution: This is not a standardized test, and the scoring is only suggestive.

next:  Understanding Dissociative Disorders Through Dissociative Signs and Symptoms

Many women and men who have been the victims of childhood physical, sexual, and emotional abuse suffer from depression. The articles here deal with different aspects of abuse and depression.

Depression and Child Sexual Abuse

There is a growing controversy over whether child sexual abuse (under age 18) is related to adult depression or adjustment. Numerous studies have reported that child sexual abuse is related to adult mental health problems including depression.

When Abuse Stops, Depression Eases

Meanwhile, a 2003 study on domestic violence indicated that increased risk of depression appears to be a consequence of spouse or partner abuse rather than a character trait of victims.

Evidence of that comes from the study of 397 women in Seattle who had reported abuse during a 14-month period from 1997 to 1998, the researchers say. They monitored the women for symptoms of depression, checking in three months, nine months and two years after the initial report of abuse, and they also surveyed them on subsequent physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

As the violence decreased or stopped, the women's risk of depression fell as well, says lead researcher May Kernic, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington. It dropped 35 percent when abuse ceased altogether and 27 percent when physical or sexual abuse stopped but psychological abuse continued. The findings appear in the June 2003 issue of Violence and Victims.

About 1.8 million women are abused by a male partner each year, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey, and previous studies have shown that such violence increases the likelihood of depression and other psychological problems.

For the most comprehensive information about Depression and Treatment, visit our Depression Community Center here at HealthyPlace.com.

next: Abused Children Face Depression Risk As Adults
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