Background to the Dover Psychology Blog

It is now quite evident that there will never be an opportunity to present a comphrehensive description of the archaeotrauma, or of the important derivative proposal: the possibility of a testable and non-Lamarckian [1], "Internal Evolutionary Mechanism".

This reality, coupled with the loss of my original website [2] when AOL stopped providing this service for all of its members in late 2008, has led to an evaluation of what can realistically be achieved under circumstances which are always quite difficult, and quite frankly, sometimes impossible.

The result of the appraisal is, of course, "Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town"; a CNAME sub-domain of evospychology.com, once intended to hold the "comprehensive description".

As far as the Evolution and Psychology categories are concerned, a blog solution enables the research results to be presented as a "work in progress", with the initial posts mostly consisting of material previously published elsewhere on the internet.

The first posts in the Abuse, Abuse in Dover and Social Psychology categories, on the other hand, are likely to be more evenly balanced between the "old" and the "new".

The Dover Blog will also include categories reflecting other aspects of my life here. "Dover History", for example, will feature videos and photos - along with background information - of locations in and around the town (many of these entries will subsequently be used to illustrate more general psychological principles in Social Psychology, etc.)

Owing to the relative ease with which existing material can be 'translated' into a blog format, I expect "Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town" will appear to be a history website (rather than a psychology one) for the first month or two!

John Latter / Jorolat

[1] Also see Jean-Baptiste Lamarck:

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck, usually known as Lamarck, (1 August 1744 – 18 December 1829) was a French soldier, naturalist, academic and an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with natural laws...

...In the modern era, Lamarck is remembered mainly for a theory of inheritance of acquired characters, called soft inheritance or Lamarckism. However, his idea of soft inheritance was, perhaps, a reflection of the folk wisdom of the time, accepted by many natural historians. Lamarck's contribution to evolutionary theory consisted of the first truly cohesive theory of evolution, in which an alchemical complexifying force drove organisms up a ladder of complexity, and a second environmental force adapted them to local environments through use and disuse of characteristics, differentiating them from other organisms.

[2] Most of the original AOL website has been permanently stored by the Internet Archive at Evolution, The Evolutionary Mechanism, Psychology (AOL).

[1st Revision: 2nd August, 2009]

What is the Archaeotrauma? (Part 1)

The "Archaeotrauma" (alt. Archeotrauma) is an unfamiliar name for a familiar phenomenon: the psychological wound a horse sustains when it is "broken"; other mammals, including human beings, are equally susceptible.

The word "Archaeotrauma" has been formed by placing the linking vowel (or interfix) -o- between archae ('first') and trauma ('wound'). The term reflects:

a) The point in the evolutionary timeline when such wounds first became possible.

b) The fact that it is the first psychological wound a human being can sustain.

Why invent a new word? 

The phrase 'psychological trauma' means many things to many people.

A few years ago, for example, a counselor on a BBC Radio 4 news program was being interviewed about the services offered to those who had been affected by being involved with a rail disaster.

Towards the end of the interview, the reporter asked, "What exactly is a (psychological) trauma?". The counselor replied along the lines of, "If there is a single moment when it feels as if all internal defenses are about to be overwhelmed, then that is a trauma".

That is not a trauma at all. In fact, it is the "internal defenses" themselves which are the trauma, specifically the archaeotrauma.

A person such as the counselor depicted is someone who has sustained an archaeotrauma, almost certainly in infancy (hence the "terrible twos"), and then adjusted to its pseudo-permanence.

When later involvement with something like a rail disaster occurs (and much less dramatic or obvious events, besides) then the previous adjustment to life may no longer be sufficient to keep the first wound suppressed.

In everyday life, when people say that a particular experience has been 'traumatic', they invariably mean that they have had internal contact with the surface of a pre-existing wound.

The phrase, "Well-adjusted to life" actually means, "Well-adjusted to the archaeotrauma": being internally adjusted to anything is a clear indication that the trauma exists.

The reason for the difference between the 'popular perception' of trauma and its actual reality, if not already self-evident, will become more apparent in Part 2 of "What is the Archaeotrauma?"

To sum up, the word "Archaeotrauma" has been coined in order to define a very specific form of trauma, with very specific characteristics, and from which all secondary uses of the phrase "psychological trauma" are descended.

How does the Archaeotrauma come into being? 

The trauma is formed when rapidly increasing instinctive anger reaches such an intensity that a "break" occurs at a point of overload: this is why the horse suddenly appears to 'give in', or a screaming infant suddenly goes quiet and becomes 'floppy').

It can happen very fast: during the time it takes to turn a toddler's head around when they're not 'paying attention', for example, or when a parent - in 'exasperation' - suddenly holds down the kicking legs of an infant in order to put a nappy on.

Creating the Archaeotrauma: The First General Rule

If a parent's greater physical strength is equated to an immovable object, and the capacity for instinctive anger of a baby to an irresistible force, then an archaeotrauma will be formed when the one is unrelentingly imposed upon the other with the conscious intent of achieving 'unatural submission'.

Note that:

a) "Hitting, "Smacking", "Striking", etc. do not need to be part of the scenario.

b) If an adult demonstrates an unnatural satisfaction in achieving psychological domination over another adult (see an attempt at this in, "The Biggin Street Incident: The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back") then this is the stongest indication possible that the adult concerned will behave in a similar way towards their own children: mal-adjustment to an unresolved psychological history gives such a person no choice in the matter at all (irrespective of whatever image the "walky-talky" part of their personality may project).

A "Hands On" approach is not the only way to inflict such a trauma on natural life, however, "Hands Off' techniques also work: applying a 'fixed feeding routine', for example, can also create the wound.

The Archaeotrauma is the most catastrophic form of child abuse that can be inflicted and is easily sufficient to cause cot death (or SIDS: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

More on "Hands On" and "Hands Off' will be uploaded at a later date.

Is the Archaeotrauma 'reversible'?

The answer is a simple, "Yes". The reason why, on the other hand, is an eight word answer that can only be properly understood within the context of non-Darwinian evolution.

If the presence of the trauma is equated to having adjusted to what has become the 'ongoing dull ache' of a dislocated shoulder, then resolving the trauma requires facing the far greater, but transient 'pain' of putting the arm back into its socket. This, of course, results in regaining full use of the arm!

Mental Illness

Finally, as will be seen in later posts, the archaeotrauma can become compounded by post-trauma experiences. An individual who is in this position may subsequently be diagnosed as suffering from a 'mental illness'.

[First Revision: 27th July, 2009]
[Second Revision: Minor edits, 29th July, 2009]

The Biggin Street Incident: The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back

In the mid-1980s, a 27 year-old woman called, "Karen" was admitted to St. Augustine's Psychiatric Hospital, Chartham, near Canterbury in Kent, suffering from a mental illness so severe that at one point the Senior Consultant said, "Perhaps it would be better if Karen were to spend the rest of her life in hospital."

 

Main Entrance (Administration Block), St. Augustine's County Asylum, Chartham, 1875-1993

 

On admission, the combination of mental illness and administered medication gave Karen the appearance of what can only be described as 'catatonic': her face was as stiff and immobile as if carved out of wood, the irises of her dull lifeless eyes appeared to be painted on; Karen drooled, she didn't move, nor did she respond to any attempt to talk to her.

If Karen had spent the rest of her life in hospital then she would have done so as a human vegetable.

Acting as a private individual, knowledge of a specific type of psychological trauma [1] was employed in order to "bring back" Karen to a point where the usual agencies were able to take over.

A more complete account of Karen's story will eventually appear in this "Abuse in Dover" category. For now, it is sufficient to say that Karen, as a number of the more experienced staff at St Augustine's already knew, didn't have a mental illness at all: her condition was simply the result of nearly 27 years of non-stop psychological abuse.

None of the people who contributed to Karen's condition - everyone from parents and siblings to virtual strangers - ever saw themselves as abusers. On the contrary, the people responsible wouldn't have thought there was anything remarkable about the the way they had behaved towards her.

This morning - Wednesday, 24th of June, 2009 - I was making my way into town from Robsons Yard in the Tower Hamlets area of Dover when a cheerful voice said, "Hello, John!". Looking up, I saw the bright and smiling face of Karen. A face that was a little too bright, perhaps, for Karen has continued to need intermittent support throughout the years from the time her awareness of the world had been restored.

Nevertheless, Karen most certainly does have a life of her own that for two decades now has both been experienced and enjoyed: whatever else may happen in the future, Karen can never go back to her previous condition.

By way of contrast, on Monday of this week a middle-aged man was walking along the shopping precinct in Biggin Street, heading towards the Town Hall.

A woman of 20 or so, who was coming the other way, saw the man whereupon she suddenly changed direction and then deliberately walked by so close to him that the man had to turn away in order to avoid a collision.

Location of the Biggin Street Incident, Dover, Kent, UK

The man showed no other awareness of the woman as he continued on his way and this, coupled with the look on the woman's face when she first saw him, suggested she knew of the man, rather than they had had any previous contact.

Human behaviour is as varied as the apparently infinite range of patterns found in a kaleidoscope.

Knowledge of trauma, with its 'point of origin' in the older (in evolutionary terms) structures of the brain, is equivalent to knowledge of the far fewer internal coloured pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope that give rise to the 'infinite range' of externally observable patterns.

Once the nature of the coloured pieces of glass is known, along with how they interact, then sub-ranges of the external patterns they are able to generate become quite predictable.

In other words, a perception may be developed that can differentiate between outward behaviour of natural origin and that which is a function of an acquired psychological history (or, as is usually the case, any 'mixture' of the two).

From observational and inter-active experience, and as a function of instinctive response, this perception is no more than what many a psychologically injured child demonstrates providing post-trauma experience has not begun the process of transforming a 'victim' into a 'perpetrator' (eg such as becoming a 'bully').

Without such perception, Karen would still be in hospital.

When the woman first saw the man in Biggin Street, her face hardened as she internally reacted with the surface of a 'capacity for violence' that she hadn't been born with, and which now exists in the place of more natural attributes (there's no such thing as a free lunch: later posts will show how the presence of one thing necessarily means the absence of another).

Additionally, even though the woman was only accessing the 'tip of the iceberg', her potential for violence exerted so powerful a grip that she was unable to walk towards the man in anything like a natural manner: instead, she had to march.

Nor was this a case of an attempted 'minor physical assault' - the man was too powerfully built for the young woman to be confident of the outcome of such a direct confrontation.

What the woman was confident of, however, was demonstrating her capability to psychologically harm and distress natural life; beneath this lies the potential to inflict trauma, and ultimately, to physically kill.

The mechanism is very simple: by allowing the tip of her unnatural violence to show, the woman radiated the psychological message, "I have both the capability and the conscious intent to kill you": it is this collusion between the consciousness and a corrupted psychological history that identifies this woman as a professional abuser (at the other end of the spectrum, Karen would conventionally be seen as a professional victim).

The effectiveness of this type of approach is determined - rather obviously - by any pre-existing psychological wound the intended victim may have.

If, for example, the man in Biggin Street had had what he considered to be a 'vulnerability', but which in reality was an unrecognized and unacknowledged childhood trauma created (usually) by a psychologically violent parent, then seeing exactly the same potential for unnatural violence within the woman would typically cause an internal reaction with the 'vulnerability'.

Any resultant outwardly visible expressions of fear or anxiety would have made the woman feel unnaturally exultant. In addition, any behaviour implying submissiveness - such as if the man had scurried out of the way, for example - would be the 'icing on the cake' and only heighten the woman's unnatural feeling of domination.

Part of the reason this incident in Biggin Street has proven to be, "The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back" is because the young woman is but a single representative of an easily identifiable class of abusers who are a Clear and Present Danger to Natural Life - and child abuse is only one aspect of the harm they inflict on anyone unfortunate enough to come within their 'sphere of influence'.

And that sphere of influence can be quite large: there was a strong impression that the woman knew of the man, but that they had never met before. If so, then "gossip" may very well have been what had pre-triggered the woman's acquired capacity for violence.

Gossip is a very common mechanism employed by abusive personalities in order to pass their victims around from one to another (of which more will be posted later).

From seemingly casual and innocent conversations with personality types similar to that of the young woman, it is clear that they have no self-awareness of being abusers.

Indeed, if one of these abusers told another of their kind that someone else was an abuser, then it wouldn't matter if the allegation were true or not: with their unnatural violence triggered, the real abuser would target the hapless victim and feel nothing short of righteousness as they did so!

Astonishingly, professional abusers of this type almost always see themselves as the "good guys" - after all, from their perspective, they only attack the natural life within those, whether child or adult, whom they have judged to be in some way "naughty".

One characteristic which is worth mentioning here is how an abuser, once they are in 'kill' mode, will often interpret any ensuing signs of psychological fear in their victim as evidence of 'guilt' - as if they say to themselves, "Aha! you must be worth being damaged more than I first intended to!"

It apparently never occurs to an abuser to ask themselves where their capacity for violence (whether it be physical or emotional, or any combination thereof) comes from, and nor do they ever look in the mirror and dimly begin to realize that the biggest source of 'badness' in their world is looking right back at them.

This is the first post on the, "Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town" website and the validity of the foregoing statements will only become apparent once sufficient background material has been provided in the relevant research categories (Evolution, Psychology, Social Psychology).

There is a caveat to understanding the research, however, which may be illustrated by the following updated post originally made to a forum:

A few weeks ago I watched a television reporter interview a female show-jumping rider who had just completed a clear round in an international competition. As you might expect, the rider radiated both happiness at what had just been achieved and also excitement at what the next stage might bring.

Throughout the interview the woman kept glancing affectionately towards her horse and occasionally patted its head. Her enthusiasm was contagious: towards the end of the talk you could hear the smile in the out-of-shot reporter's voice as he suggested the horse be given an extra sugar-cube for its 'performance'.

It is not possible for a horse to accept being ridden by a human being unless the horse has sustained the specific type of trauma (the Archaeotrauma - see [1]) that is at the core of this research - and it is worth noting that the empathy Monty Roberts (the 'horse whisperer') first found with horses was based on recognition that they had both suffered similar kinds of wounds at the hands of his father.

The real relationship between rider and horse is this: "I will care for, and love you, for precisely as long as you do exactly what I want. Should you wish to go right when I want you to go left, however, then I will hit you with a whip. This will cause internal reaction with the psychological wound created when you were "broken", you will fail all over again, thus enabling me to re-establish unnatural control.

Similarly, when a horse shows "affection" towards a rider, it is basically saying, "Thank you for not hurting me at the moment, and thank you for the sugar-cubes which provide a further diversion from the ongoing ache of the internal wound". In other words, the relationship between rider and horse is of psychological, rather than natural, origin.

Human relationships, no matter how pleasantly the public image may be presented, can also be based on the same underlying principle. Indeed, even if the human equivalent of the whip is only used occasionally, prolonged exposure is probably still sufficient to induce any number of psychosomatic illnesses ranging from asthma to cancer. As far as projected public images are concerned, all that glitters is not gold.

Any aversion to the natural reality of the relationship between horse and rider being an abusive one will make understanding the research categories difficult. This is because the material that will appear in them reflects the nature of life, and the injuries that can occur to it, on the 'other side', so to speak, of any and all acquired 'aversions'.


[1] The Archaeotrauma - the psychological wound a horse sustains when it is 'broken'; other mammals, including human beings, are equally susceptible.