Bobbing Around

Paying for 'Progress'

   For over sixty years, we have been flooding our planet with substances that have never been seen before. We have poisoned our own nest. The results have been many: the extinction of entire species, the current epidemic of cancer, the still unrecognised but insidiously rising epidemic in human stillbirths and birth defects, and many other health problems.

   Some people are so badly affected by these foreign substances that they are unable to live normal lives. Here is a request for help from a group in Britain. Their aim is to help such people.

Dear Dr Rich

Dear Sir

   I hope you'll forgive my writing to you, but frankly we are desperate to find funds to save a Multiple Chemical Sensitivity / Allergy / Gulf War clinic here in the UK, and we have very little time in which to do it and I am hoping that I can interest you in our cause.

   I write on behalf of our charity The Environmental Law Centre, (Elc) -www.elc.org.uk which we founded a year ago. Everyone running the charity is a volunteer within his or her own specialist expertise. We found that over the years working as professionals there is an ever increasing gap for help being provided to people with little or no means to achieve either legal redress (since the removal of legal aid) or afford medical treatment when their health has been damaged by environmental exposure of some nature.

   We work closely with people who have been exposed to chemicals as a result of various experiences, from domestic homes to industrial workplaces and even war conditions. Here in Britain, there is a unique purpose built hospital, which we are being given the opportunity to buy (the previous owners forced to sell through ill health). It is specially designed with its own air and water filtration systems and can accommodate a total of 12 in-patients. It provides a 'clean' environment in a 'negative' atmosphere.

   The owners are giving Elc first option on the building as we intend to use it for the purpose for which it was built. We are also confident in our treatments and management programmes as we have top experts in various fields who are willing to help us once we have been able to obtain funding and get everything up and running. A fundamental approach to our treatments is 1) not to compound problems by pumping patients with even more drugs but to detoxify them using a variety of methods suitable to each individual, 2) encourage their own immune systems to 'kick in' and work more effectively and 3) most importantly to educate these people on how to best self-manage themselves in order that they may achieve a reasonable quality of life. At present we have people who have been house bound for four years or more and even some who are too ill to leave their beds.

   The building is the only purpose built hospital in the UK that specialises in allergy and toxicological problems. A recent European study showed that in our daily lives we are exposed to some 300 chemicals many of which are toxins and cause problems ranging from 'general discomfort' to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and its severely debilitating effects to even triggering dormant cancer cells. Many of these problems are not yet medically recognised here, as they are in the US and other countries, and hence our problem in finding financial support in the UK. We are also getting more and more Gulf War Veterans being referred to us for help, which we are giving, but with the hospital we could do so much more for these and other people. These people are desperate and we need help to help them. It is so frustrating to turn people away because of lack of facility rather than lack of knowing how best to help them.

   The sad fact is that as long as we continue to poison our environment and homes with various chemicals human health will steadily decline - from trends in patients coming to me that I deal with, I would expect that within ten years most children are going to be suffering with some form of chemical allergic reaction or poisoning. Unless we can get the authorities to recognise these problems disasters like Camelford (in which we aided at the time of incident twelve years ago and still are) or the Gulf War Veterans will continue to occur. Currently only one person from the Gulf War Veterans has health enough to maintain employment, most seem to be dying like flies.

   We are very committed to this cause as there is such a need and desperation among people who come to us, as they have usually exhausted all other mainstream medicine that has also drained them of their financial resources. We need someone who has compassion and understanding for what we are aiming to provide and maybe you may feel you could contribute and help save this hospital. We need £100,000 to make this happen.

   We have a business plan for the hospital and would be happy to provide one for you. It would simply be a tragedy if this hospital were lost from people who are crying out for such a facility.

In hope,
Dr Kartar Badsha
On behalf of Elc
[t] +44 1704 547418
[f] +44 1704 549091
ksb@elc.org.uk

Zen Strikes Back

   One of the reasons I am able to help sufferers is that I have been there myself, and occasionally stumble back into that dark territory. Long ago, I have worked out ways of pulling myself out of depression, but still it srikes, sometimes in response to things around me, sometimes without warning, a ravening beast springing at me.

   I have found a new weapon against it. I was feeling down one day, dragging myself along step by slow step, when a movement caught my eyes. It was a cold, crisp, sunny winter's day and that delightful aerobat, an Australian magpie, had just flown onto the topmost branch of a tall mountain ash.

   By the time I arrived at my house, perhaps a minute or two later, I had a poem in my head. It took me five minutes to write it down and polish it. I was not fully happy with it, because the successive thoughts did not terminate at the end of each verse. Three weeks had to pass before the poem was complete:

I know the thought is quite absurd,
But it’d be fun to be a bird.
To soar above the treetops high
And fly under a pale blue sky.

 

Colourful beasts flitting around
Their singing a beautiful sound --
Birds are people with little brain
And that’s a big plus: let me explain:

 

Sorrows and worries do not last
But quickly become a distant past.
The joys of NOW fill all the world --
It is quite clever, being a bird.

 

Live now: no despair without hope,
Don't remember? You will not mope.
Come to think, you don’t need wings
To get such a good view on things.

 

   I like this little bit of doggerel so much that I am making it the centrepiece of my 'Welcome' page at my psychology site. And when recently I suffered a rejection from a publisher, I kept repeating the poem like a mantra, and it reduced the usual one-week grieving period into half a day.

Specific Phobias

   Most people are afraid of some things, but these fears are not in any way crippling. A phobia is different. It rules the sufferer's life, even if the unfortunate person acknowledges that the fear is irrational: "I can't help it. I know the bridge is safe, but I feel sick if I have to go over water."

   A phobia is characterised by a feeling of intense anxiety that is triggered by a specific object, situation, animal or activity. If left to itself, it invariably spreads, taking over more and more of the sufferer's life. Someone with an irrational fear of spiders may get to the point where s/he refuses to get into a car, will not dare to go to the movies (where a spider just might descend from the ceiling in the dark), and feels compelled to douse the bedroom with insecticide before turning off the lights. S/he will react with fear to pictures of spiders, and even to spoken or written words about spiders.

   Intense fear feels awful. People will go to great lengths to reduce or avoid it, and this explains why phobias tend to spread. The sufferer reduces fear by avoiding situations that are reminders of the feared object. In turn, these initially marginal stimuli become habitually associated with fear, and are avoided.

What causes a phobia?

   In some cases, a phobia is a response to a traumatic event, often suffered in childhood. However, much more frequently, it is acquired through learning from other people.

   If no-one in a child's family is scared of spiders, s/he won't become a spider phobic. However, suppose the mother is scared of spiders, but without this fear in any way interfering with her life. The child will probably copy her fear of spiders. Without realising it, the mother may subtly condition the child to feel such fear. That is, the special attention the child gets to 'help to cope' with the fear rewards the child for feeling fearful. This can go on until the child's fear of spiders becomes far more intense than the mother's ever was. Fears which get cosseted and fed in this way tend to grow.

How to defeat a phobia

   Above all, a phobia is a habit. It can be broken in the way all habits can: through prevention of the undesired activity, and its replacement by alternatives.

   Psychologists have been curing phobias for over forty years by using some variant of the technique of systematic desensitisation. The sufferer is provided with a safe setting in which s/he is taught to completely relax. This turns off the 'sympathetic nervous system', and therefore all feelings of fear. While in this relaxed state, s/he is exposed to carefully graduated experiences that originally induced some level of fear. The 'ladder' of fearful situations is constructed by the sufferer, and exposure is in his/her control.

   Typically within about eight sessions, fear of the phobic object is reduced to the point where the person's life is no longer restricted. This does not necessarily mean a complete absence of fear; the level of residual fear aimed for is specified by the client.

   Variants involve either imaginal or 'in vivo' exposure, or a combination of the two; and a gradual procedure from least to most fearful versus 'flooding' in which the sufferer faces the most fearful situation to be conquered, with extensive support.

The role of drugs

   A person may be so handicapped by a phobia that his/her life becomes impossible. Under these circumstances drug treatment may allow enough relief from fear to allow the person to perform the tasks of living.

   However, medication can not eliminate the problem. A huge body of scientific evidence has accumulated showing that the kind of behavioural treatment described here is an effective way of conquering a phobia.

'Symptom replacement'

   According to psychoanalytic theory, phobias indicate deep seated problems which must be attacked over years of intensive therapy. Under this view, curing a phobia by behavioural means will inevitably lead to the emergence of new symptoms.

   Research conclusively indicates that this is not true. When a phobia has been controlled by systematic desensitisation, flooding or similar techniques, it stays controlled, and is not replaced by new fears or other psychological abnormalities.

A few references

Achternberg, J. (1985) Imagery in healing: Shamanism and modern medicine. Boston: New Science Library/Random House.

Bernstein, D. A. & Borkovec, T. D. (1973) Progressive relaxation training. A manual for the helping professions Champaign, Ill: Research Press.

Kendall, P. C., Chausky, T. E., Kane, M. T., Kim, R. S., Kortlander, E., Ronan, K. R., Sessa, F. M. & Sigueland, L. (1992) Anxiety disorders in youth: Cognitive-behavioral interventions Allyn & Bacon

King, N. J., Hamilton, D. I. & Ollendick, T. H. (1988) Children's phobias: A behavioural approach Chichester: Wiley.

Marks, I. M. (1981) Cure and care of the neuroses. New York: Wiley.

Masters, J. C., Burish, T. G., Hollon, S. D. & Rimm, D. C. (1987) Behavior therapy: Techniques and empirical findings (3rd ed) San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Morris, R. J. (1996) Fear reduction methods. Ch 5 in Kanfer, F. H. & Goldstein, A. P. (Eds) Helping people change. 3rd ed. Sydney: Pergamon.

O'Leary, K. D. & Wilson, G. T. (1987) Behavior therapy: Application and outcome. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.

Rich, R. (1999) Anger and Anxiety: Be in charge of your emotions and control phobias. Electronic book available at http://anxietyanddepression-help.com/

Siegel, B. S. (1986) Love, medicine and miracles. New York: Harper & Row.

Internet Resources

1. Interviews for Writers

   One way for a writer to attract attention is to be interviewed. Another is to interview other writers. Over the past couple of years, I have 'chatted' about myself to a number of interviewers, and they are keen to find new partners in this enjoyable and entertaining way to promote books.

   Here is a list of links to these interviews. You may qualify to be interviewed by one of these people, and even if you don't, you will probably enjoy other interviews at the same web sites.

   Unfortunately, I am not an organised and systematic person. When I was born, the total amount of tidiness was limited. So, I was given enough to be tidy in my thinking, but none was left over for the physical world. At least, that's the excuse: I may well have missed some. Please let me know if you know of a missing interview featuring me!

• Linda Eberharter is the publisher at Atlantic Bridge. She was the first to interview me for her e-zine 'E-book junction'.
• Next was an interview at Word Museum, a very active web site run by Lori Soard.
• More recently British publisher and writer Karen Scott interviewed me and was kind enough to display the cover and first chapter of Sleeper, Awake. Her web site is Author-network.com.
• Next was Sally Odgers, a writer who has my full admiration. Her number of titles number in the hundreds, as you will find out if you visit her web site. Sally has a regular column on Australian writing at Suite 101.com, and this is where she placed our chat, in two parts: here and here. Note that Sally's series is on Australian writers, so if you are from elsewhere, you either need to migrate or lie in order to have her interview you.
• Christine Spindler is the writer of a series of psychological thrillers featuring 'Inspector Terry'. She did it differently: she sent me her questions one at a time, a strategy that induced me to think more than usual about each answer. The result was posted at her web site. Christine's interest centre on psychological issues.
• Finally, Valerie Hardin did the opposite. Her concept is 'the instant interview: just add water.

2. A Resource for Healers

   Are you a doctor, psychologist, social worker or someone similar? You will find Dr Jack Miller's 'Friday Notes' to be invaluable. Each week, Jack has a theme, and lists links to sources of information on it, each with a short descriptive paragraph. His web site is http://www.athealth.com

On the Rules of Writing

   I recently joined a vibrant email community called 'A Book Writing Fanatic'. Rose, the lady who owns the list, devises a weekly assignment, which is attempted by whoever is inspired by it. Alas, I have no time to spend on such pursuits, but one of her questions prodded me to reply. She asked if it was ever acceptable to break the rules of good writing.

   Here is my answer, for what it is worth:

   Language is a sort of a contract, an informal but binding agreement for two or more parties to follow the same rules. I can't understand Swedish because I don't know the rules followed by Swedes. These rules are completely arbitrary, but you simply can't communicate without them.

   Tomorrow enthidely bogomerr, but hofinandy.

   You don't agree? Well, you are not likely to disagree either.

   The meanings and spellings of words, syntax, conventions of capitalization, punctuation... all of them are mere customs. And yet, these customs are what language is.

   Some of the rules of communication vary over sub-populations. In English-speaking countries, you write 'colour'. In the related but separate language, American, you write 'color'. In English books, an em dash has a space at either end. In American it doesn't. Such minor differences still allow communication, but they are all-important to writers. Should one of you submit a book to an English or Australian publisher, you will have to change languages in the way I do when I write for the USA.

   So, at long last I come to the question: is it all right to break the rules, or does this merely show you up to be ignorant?

   Like all artforms, writing is first of all a craft. What would you think of a chef who can't cut neat slices from a roast? What of a potter who needs someone else to decide on the kiln temperature? How about a bricklayer who can't lay up straight and level courses?

   

   Here is a direct quote from the feedback I recently gave to a young lady whose story had potential, but was infested with a plague of 'head hopping': the Point Of View incessantly changed, sometimes more than once within the one paragraph:

   "...the head hopping is excessive even from the most relaxed criterion. Please go through, and for each scene, choose one 'witness' whose account we follow. When a change in POV is needed, have it signaled with crystal clarity.

   "There are reasons for this. The main one is to minimize the extraneous analytical load on the reader. When you are reading, you do a translation from a set of arbitrary symbols into an imaginary world where, ideally, you are one of the participants, or at least you are a fly on the wall. This illusion is what keeps the reader enthralled with a book. Anything that weakens it or, Heaven helps us, breaks it, must be avoided. This is why sentences should be easy to parse, concepts direct, language clear and unambiguous. And this is why we need to avoid anything that places an extra load on the reader, like remembering whose eyes she is looking through at this instant. It is easy to maintain the illusion that, for the moment, I am a particular character within the story. It is much more work for me to be simultaneously two or more people. Very soon, I'll ask the question, 'hey, who am I right now?' and that's it, my illusion of being in the story is gone. Have this happen a few times, and I might never finish the book."

   I once saw an adobe house where the bricks were laid in a form like waves instead of in straight courses. This was real art, involving a lot of extra work that resulted in a beautiful effect. It could not possibly have been done by someone who couldn't lay up a straight course. Similarly, it is sometimes excellent to deliberately break almost any rule. Certainly.

   I've just done it. The last word above is not a sentence, yet it does an excellent job of emphasizing the point. It works, but only because I use such devices with extreme caution. Put one in every paragraph, and the writing merely looks sloppy and ingorant. And here we are again: the last word of the previous sentence is not a typo. It makes a point by breaking a rule.

   In summary, then, rules are there to be broken, but only with full cognizance, and for a particular purpose -- and not too often.

About Bobbing Around

   I have circulated this first issue to all my friends, relations, colleagues in one of my many fields of interest, and to those people who have asked for it. Most of these are voters in my 'free edit contest'.

   If you received a copy of Bobbing Around and don't want a repeat, it's simple. Drop me a line and I'll drop you from my list.

   You may know someone who would enjoy reading my rave. Bobbing Around is being archived at http://mudsmith.net/bobbing/, or you can forward a copy to your friend.

   If you are not a subscriber but want to be, email me. Subject should be 'subscribe Bobbing Around' (it will be if you click the link in this paragraph). In the body, please state your name, email address (get it right!), your country and something about yourself. I also want to know how you found your way to my newsletter. I hope we can become friends.

Contributions are welcome, although I reserve the right to decline anything, or to request changes before acceptance. Welcome are:

* Announcements, but note that publication date is neither fixed nor guaranteed;
* Brags of achievements that may be of general interest, for example publication of your book;
* Poems or very short stories and essays that fit the philosophy and style of Bobbing Around;
* Above all, responses to items in past issues. I will not reject or censor such comments, even if I disagree with them.