Subject: Evidence-Based Medicine: Cognitive Regulation vs. Emotional Regulation
Date: 2020-07-16
Dear Department of Psychiatry,
Psychiatric pharmacology for depression, bipolar illness, paranoid schizophrenia and other emotional dysfunctional disorders is based in a theory of emotional dysfunction and the need for emotional regulation. This theory works and has provided the bases for the best available evidence-based medicine. But what if this theory can be proven to misrepresent the evolved cognitive/emotional dynamic regulatory mechanism?
Newtonian physics works, but it didn’t bring about the nuclear age. Emotional regulation works, but it no longer is the best available evidence-based medicine. Psychological, psychiatric, and pharmacological theory of aberrant emotion driving destructive behavior arising from emotional dysregulation and disorder which requires emotional regulation and control is based within 3000-year-old religious and literary linguistics. Emotions-as-effect theory is based in modern evolutionary science and cognitive research and changes the 3000-year acceptance of aberrant emotion driving destructive behavior because of emotional dysregulation.
(see attached manuscript (8700 words): “Emotions-as-Effect Theory: The Linguistic Semantics of Emotional vs. Cognitive Regulation”)
Emotions-as-Effect Theory
“Goddess, sing me the anger, of Achilles, Peleus’ son, that fatal anger that brought countless sorrows on the Greeks and sent many valiant souls of warriors down to Hades, leaving their bodies as spoil for dogs and carrion birds: for thus was the will of Zeus brought to fulfilment” (Homer, 800-700/2009). With these beginning words written almost 3000 years ago, Homer’s Iliad linguistically sabotaged hundreds of millions of years of emotional evolution. The civilized arena was staged for aberrant emotion driving destructive behavior. In turn, this destructive behavior arising from emotional dysregulation and disorder required emotional regulation and control. Emotions-as-effect theory reconstructs the evolutionary bases of good- and bad-feeling emotions as the perception, by consciousness, of a biochemical physiology within the body and the brain precipitated by an evolved and nurtured cognitive neural circuitry. Emotions, feelings, and moods are perceptions of an internal state of biology precipitated by cognition. Homer’s emotions, feelings, and moods are a carefully nurtured neurolinguistic cognitive construct of the mind. Contrary to the linguistics of Homer, emotions are not causal, and they are neither destructive nor constructive; rather, they are indicators of the presence of very real destructive and constructive – and causal – cognitive behaviors.
Synopsis
1) Emotions-as-effect theory uses the principles of evolution to understand and to define emotions as the good- and bad-feeling perception of neurological and biological changes within the brain and body precipitated by cognitive activities stimulating an “emotional” neurology. This “emotional neurology” is not emotions but rather the neurology that activates the changes in neurological and biochemical physiology of the brain and body that are then perceived as emotions.
- Through the evolutionary process, good feeling emotions, feelings, and moods correlate with a healthy, vigorous, and vital physiology of the brain and body.
- Likewise, through the evolutionary process, bad feeling emotions, feelings, and moods correlate with an unhealthy, weak, and debilitated physiology of the brain and body.
- Therefore, emotions, feelings, and moods are indicators of physiological states of the brain and body and can be used to evaluate cognitive activities.
2) Evidence-based practices such as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) with its theory of adaptive information processing (AIP), forgiveness therapy, mindfulness, positive psychology, and interpersonal psychotherapy are all founded on the notion of changing cognitive activities. Cognitive activities are ultimately evaluated by the existence of good- or bad-feeling emotions. This is the use of emotions-as-effect theory.
3) Recognizing emotions-as-effect theory within modern evidence-based practices will improve their efficacy because emotions can be re-entrusted with their evolutionary role.
4) Evolution has orchestrated, biologically speaking, a morality in which what feels good is good and what feels bad is bad. Now, humanity must nurture new algorithms that pivot emotionally negative cognitive activities onto emotionally positive cognitive activities that reflect a healthy biology and compassion and respect for the self and others.
(ref. “Emotions-as-Effect Theory: The Linguistic Semantics of Emotional vs. Cognitive Regulation”)
Psychiatric pharmacology based in cognitive regulation vs. emotional regulation
There is a need for psychiatric treatment to use drugs and medications that help consciousness to regain its own power and responsiveness to its own emotional biofeedback system. These medications should also help consciousness break away from a narrow and myopic world view which can spiral cognition out of control. There is a need for pharmaceuticals that can help create a biochemical/physiological environment where the personal powers of an individual’s consciousness can start making attempts to be more responsive to his or her emotional biofeedback system. These new agents must also augment the brain’s neuroplastic capacity.
These new types of pharmaceuticals would aid individuals in their capacities to use their own cognitive skills, abilities, and reflexes to co-function with their emotional biofeedback systems. As a patient’s new skills are developed and new neural circuits are cultivated, the need for and the types of pharmaceutical assistance change. There always should be the goal to eventually remove pharmaceutical assistance entirely. But, like the hand on the hot stove, the neurocircuitry within the brain can be “damaged” so extensively that no amount of training and development will ever succeed because entire functions of the brain may have been irreversibly programmed into destructive patterns. In such cases, there is the possibility that the mind/body/emotion chasm may be permanent, resulting in a need for permanent pharmaceutical intervention and, in some cases, hospitalization. Nevertheless, new pharmaceutical research is required to address a new paradigm in which cognition drives the biochemical physiology that emotions perceive.
Masking Neurological Processes
There is a danger of medications masking destructive cognitive behaviors that normally are exposed through erratic, abnormal, and convoluted emotional feedback. If these emotional reflections of aberrant mental and physical behaviors are ignored or camouflaged with pharmaceuticals and if irregular cognitive behavior is left unaddressed without proper psychological counseling and therapy, cognition may fester unabated and create a myopic vortex of circular mental and physical behaviors. This psychosis can break out with disastrous consequences to the patient and to others, who may become characters in a manically conceived tragedy played out in real life.
The approach proposed in emotions-as-effect theory does not negate the importance of pharmaceutical therapy, rather, it redefines its purpose, which is to target the brain’s neuroplastic environment and to help individuals redevelop a healthy cognitive activity in response to their perceptions of emotional feedback about their biochemical/physiological states of being. As discussed earlier, a person has an evolved emotional biofeedback system that promotes cognitive behavior that feels good emotionally. Negative emotions promote avoidance behaviors. Mental illness may be defined as a consciousness’ inability to constructively respond to their own internal dialog between cognition and emotional perceptions and the inability of consciousness to actively engage in emotionally positive activities that are useful, healthful and life-giving. Pharmaceutical therapy should augment psychological therapy to create conditions for redeveloping the neural networks that reinforce evolutionary design.
New Opportunities in Medicine
The argument presented here for understanding emotions as a product of the evolutionary process opens up vast new opportunities and possibilities within the fields of psychology and pharmacology to rehabilitate the cognitive foundation of mental illness while recognizing and honoring the evolutionary role of emotions. There is certainly a need to identify new medications that are appropriate the healing process. Pharmaceuticals need to work with and augment the cognitive rehabilitation processes within psychotherapy. And, most importantly, the argument presented here opens the possibility of a new hope for patients. Patients may now approach daily psychological and pharmaceutical therapies with the hope and anticipation of new healing possibilities and a journey back into well-being and joy.
Conclusion
A successful return to well-being and joy takes work on the part of both caregivers and patients. If pharmaceutical intervention is required to stabilize a patient’s cognitive behavior, there is still a need to develop programs that reduce this pharmaceutical impact. As a patient’s rehabilitation promotes the new skills and habits necessary for consciousness to respond to emotional biofeedback in a healthy and productive manner, less invasive drug therapy is required. Any healing and return to wellness are dependent on the desire, determination and fortitude of patients to seek wellness and to develop healthy new habits and patterns of cognitive behaviors in response to their emotional biofeedback. Likewise, the desire, determination and fortitude of the therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, and pharmacist play their roles within the patient’s healing process of restructuring cognitive and emotional neurology and a return to well-being.
Responsibilities of a Doctor of Philosophy
Since I began voicing my concerns over psychological and pharmaceutical therapeutic methodologies erroneously based within causal aberrant and destructive emotions, over a million (MILLION) Americans have committed suicide, millions of other people have been put in incarcerating conditions that only amplify their psychological injuries, and mass shootings continue with no review of the psychological environments that are fostering all of these atrocities and that are oblivious to emotions’ evolutionary design. Lack of academic questioning and review of psychological and pharmacological emotional theory is a true crime against humanity.
Will you continue the instruction and edification of an emotional/cognitive dynamic regulatory mechanism based in a 3000-year-old literary and religious linguistics because it has provided evidence-based medicine…and ignore its rebuttal?
If evidence-based practices (EBP) such as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) with its theory of adaptive information processing (AIP), forgiveness therapy, mindfulness, positive psychology, and interpersonal psychotherapy are falsely founded in an illusionary cognitive construct of the mind called “emotional dysregulation” then what is all their research proving? The foundation of these EBP’s is an evolved emotional bio-feedback system as described in “Emotions-as-Effect Theory: The Linguistic Semantics of Emotional vs. Cognitive Regulation”.
Welcome to history…. or not.
Passionately,
Andrew O. Jackson
https://emotional-evolution.com/
Attachments: “Emotions-as-Effect Theory: The Linguistic Semantics of Emotional vs. Cognitive Regulation”; “Memoir – Hell on Earth-As is Heaven”
Any attempt to understand and affect the internal human environment must be taken with an understanding of the changing biochemical/physiological conditions of that environment as indicated by an evolved emotional neurocircuitry of the human body.
Andrew O. Jackson suffered from psychotic mania and suicidal depression and was in and out of mental hospitals from 1979-1996. Once after another “blackout” period, he “awoke” in a mental ward and wondered how he got there this time. The nurse said he went up to a police car and told them that his friend needed help. His “friend” was a trash can. Another time he “awoke” with a rope in his hand ready to put an end to this torturous life when a voice asked him, “Can you go on?” “They” wanted him to continue this existence a while longer. He replied, “Yes” and got himself to a hospital.
Around 1992, in a moment of inspiration that has now led to his emotions-as-effect theory, he began a self-directed healing program using his emotions as feedback for his biochemical, neurological, and physiological state of being. After a couple more psychotic episodes – one that landed him in the El Paso county jail and led to a divorce from his first wife – and after seventeen years of therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, he no longer needed the benefits of their assistance. He has been medication free and without disassociation, depression, or mania episodes since 1996.
Since 2005, he has been writing to academics around the world advancing a new emotional paradigm that defines cognition as causal to and emotions as an effect of biochemical, neurological, and physiological states of being. Emotions, instead of being regulated by cognitive behavior as current psychological academia prescribes, have evolved to guide cognitive behavior for the health, well-being, and prosperity of the individual.
He has an MS in Technology Education and an MS in Management Technology from the University of Wisconsin – Stout. He was a high school shop teacher, a college CAD (computer aided design) instructor, a guest instructor in China teaching quality and inventory management, and a quality manager at an OEM (original equipment manufacturer). He is now happily married and retired from mechanical engineering, spending his summers sailing and winters alpine skiing.
(For an expanded bio (4600 words) see attachment: Memoir – Hell on Earth-As is Heaven 20-07-10a)