A Cause of Sundowners and Psychosis

Generating a theory of psychotic episodes and epilepsy

After watching a couple of episodes of medical mystery shows on TV, I developed a theory that episodic seizures or dissociative behavior might have to do with parts of the brain going into a hyperflammatory state.  In the show Diagnosis, little Sadie developed frequent seizures after an infection.  And in another show, several sweet children turned into periodic monsters after another infection.

This theory made sense to me because there is evidence that inflammation is being implicated in an increasing number of psychiatric conditions.   Also while low level inflammation helps cells repair, once inflammation gets too high, it can get very destructive for the surrounding tissue.

I wondered if I would get a chance to test my theory with my clients.

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Why We Need an Integrative Approach to Brain Health

Many unanswered questions

During my graduate degree in Neuroscience in the 1990’s, the more I learned, the more I realized how young the field was.   While the lectures were comprehensive, when I’d start to try to take what I learned into real world scenarios of how these mechanisms affected the individual, there were more unanswered questions than answers.    No wonder the solutions to so many mental health, psychiatric and neurological conditions felt so inadequate!

So as a patient, when doctors would tell me that I would have to learn to just accept my condition, or alternatively that “it was all in my head”, I knew both answers meant that the doctor didn’t know how to help me.

And because they didn’t have solutions, and I wasn’t crazy about taking the drugs they were peddling, I started looking to see what Alternative Medicine had to offer.

My Search for Integrative, Holistic Brain Health

I tried acupuncture, chiropractic care, cranial sacral therapy, Body Talk, Neurofeedback, brainwave entrainment, yoga, meditation, herbs or supplements.  I adjusted my nutrition to optimize my mental and cognitive health, and maintained a well balanced exercise regimen.

But other than addressing diet and exercise, none of these methods, addressed root causes.   I believed root causes had to be addressed from more than just the traditional Western medicine point of view.   Whatever I was searching for, it had to be embracive of the wisdom imparted by healers from a variety of schools of thought.

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Her Secret to Reverse The Aging Process

Getting Older Fast

When I first met Diane seven years ago, I was attracted to her warmth and her engaging stories.  She is an animal communicator, and practices Healing Touch, and I keep telling her she should write a book with all the interesting stories she tells!    But I was concerned for her.  She has several autoimmune diseases.  She struggled with walking more than a few yards due to pain and difficulty breathing.  She was taking pain medications three times a day.  She seemed old for her age, and she was in her late 50’s.

Her Secret to Reverse the Aging Process

Then a couple of years ago, after not seeing each other for months, we got together  for dinner, and I was stunned by her transformation. 

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How our Brains Foster Wrongful Convictions

Wrongfully convicted

Back in college my social psychology professor, Elliot Aaronson Ph.D., told us a story over 3 lectures that had us absolutely riveted. It was about a young man Bradley Nelson Page (not to be confused with Dr. Bradley Nelson), a UC Berkeley student who had been accused of murdering his girlfriend.   Dr. Aaronson led us through all the factors of the interrogation that led Page to a false confession of her murder.

That story left me with a sense of awe about how effective persuasion could be.  But it also left me profoundly disturbed about how it could be used, and the implications it had on our “justice” system.

We heard how the police used various mechanisms we discussed in class to force Page to concoct a story that allowed them to frame him.   As a college student, Page could have never imagined that the police would lie and use such manipulative tactics to force a confession!   He later recanted his confession after he was given enough space and rest to think clearly.

But his recanting wasn’t sufficient.

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Ghosts that Interfere with Healing

I was searching for effective means to address psychosis, and talking to a colleague (an M.D.), who shares my passion for integrative healing modalities.   I asked him if he’d heard about effective approaches to address psychosis, and he pointed me to Dr. Barbara Stone and Robert W. Alcorn, MD who straddle the world between western medicine, shamanic healing and energy medicine.

Earthbound Spirit Attachments:  aka ghosts

On their website, souldetective.net, I was guided to learn about earthbound spirit attachments (aka ghosts).   I learned that they are beings that aren’t able to pass on to another dimension for a variety of reasons.   Often they are confused and don’t know they are dead. Sometimes they don’t want to leave because they are attached to things on earth.  Some are afraid of having to face what they’ve done on earth, and some have unfinished business.

I learned that there is a device called the Luminator that helps people see these entities with Polaroid photographs.

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