Smacking A Child – Good or Bad Psychology?

The ‘Old school – New school’ divide on smacking will be heightened by the research findings of a joint project conducted by the McGill University in Montreal and the University of Toronto. The study was made of two groups of West African children of five to six in age, one group from one private school and one from another. 63 youngsters were involved. And did smacking cause more psychological problems than it cured? Yes. And here’s why.

The six year olds did much better if they avoided corporal punishment, scoring ‘significantly higher’, than those who were smacked. It is even claimed that a harshly punitive environment could have downside effects on young childrens’ verbal intelligence and their executive functioning ability.

To compare effectively, one school used corporal punishment for a range of misdemeanours, whereas the other used verbal warnings and time-outs. Significant too was that all the children came from the same home background, same area and their parents actually were in favour of corporal punishment.

The monitoring of the children surrounded tests of their executive functioning skills in relation to some tasks set them.

The report claims too that the study demonstrated that corporal punishment does not teach children how to behave or to improve heir learning.

Interestingly from a cognitive standpoint, it was found that smacking reduced the child’s ability to think on the spot and change their behaviour, as against those given verbal correction. And sustained smacking made it more difficult for them to control their behaviour in terms of any rules or to get them to understand the justification for them.

The research reported by the Daily Telegraph would suggest that smacking – and even moderate smacking at that- is far more than just an issue of the human rights of children. It has serious implications for the psyche of children. If it leads them to set up behavioural patterns to defend themselves, such as lying or other hidden anti-social activities, then these could dog them for the rest of their lives were they to continue uncorrected.

Gerry Neale

 

Squaring Circles New Book Review

A psychology student has just read Squaing Circles and has published a review on this link.
 See http://thebookdentist.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/squaring-circles-by-gerry-neale/

The Book is available from Amazon at www.amazon.co.uk

Squaring Circles. All essential boxes are ticked!

So writes Sarah Jennings Independent Professional Reader. She says, Gerry Neale’s Squaring Circles is a book which has much in its favour. Not only is the book a captivating and utterly thought provoking novel, it is also an extremely valuable resource in terms of granting insight into the inner psyche, of the character who exemplifies so many of us and our traits, but, thereby, our own psyches, subconsciousnesses, modes of thought and methods of behaviour.

The style the author has adopted in Squaring Circles is tremendously sophisticated and effectual. By utilising the first person narration perspective so well, one is given a wonderful insight into how Jonathon perceives not only himself, but also the world around him and the other characters who make his week of self discovery so illuminating. This is an incredibly clever and successful way of drawing the reader right into the heart of the narrative and making the outcome of events a matter of no mean indifference to him.

Structurally, the work progresses very well and it is clear that here too meticulous attention has been paid to planning and plotting. I love the fact that the time scale of the work is so short. This is no long drawn out family saga, it is a pacey, punchy quick work which takes a week out of the life of its protagonist and uses that week to explore not only every facet of that character’s personality but also allows the reader substantial opportunity to explore his own.

Prose passages are expertly and excellently handled throughout the work and it is clear that Neale is a natural writer. There is nothing staid, dull or forced about the way he writes, quite the contrary, there is a sense of real urgency and thus, every thing that is show to us, from the perspective of Jonathon, takes on a vivid and dazzling realism, once again, drawing the reader into the work and making him take a backward step, observing his own life and behaviour patterns just as the hero is forced to do.

The dialogue too adds much of value to the work and introduced a sense of immediacy which really does make the reader feel like a fly on the wall, centre right in the heart of the story. All the verbal exchanges are realistic, believable and well placed, giving new dimensions to the narrative and varying the pace beautifully.

 
To succeed in the literary world in the present climate, an author must not only be able to write well, but be able to write exceptionally, not only have something to say, but to say it powerfully and must not only be able to invent a narrative, but to sustain that narrative for its duration. In Squaring Circles all these essential boxes are ticked and the result is a work which could, in my opinion, prove a suitable rival to those of already established, even prize winning authors.

One of the features of the work which makes it so successful is its total uniqueness. In all my time as a professional reader I have never come across anything quite like it before and Neale has done just that. The result is a book which would fit equally as well in the self help and spiritual development section of the bookshop as it would in the contemporary literary fiction department and this is not something which I actually thought it was possible to achieve, yet Neale has done so easily, skillfully and should be very proud of what is, in my opinion, bordering on a masterpiece.


The book is available from Amazon on www.amazon.co.uk

SQUARING CIRCLES - EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING

By  Lorraine Harper:

Gerry Neale was intent on writing a story with a difference. He wanted to combine that story with a particular theme of Cognitive Behavioural Thinking, a subject he has mentored on- and off-line to groups and to individuals for many years. Essentially, he wanted to give the reader a clear insight into the nature of the emotional battle to be fought when we seek to make behavioural change.

He explained, “The hero of the book, Jonathan, found that tackling personal behavioural issues to bring about beneficial change is not impossible, but it is often not straightforward either. It takes more than commitment, though that is vital. Jonathan discovers it even takes more than obtaining a clear understanding of the origin and nature of the behaviour which we have identified as a constraint or inhibition on our life which and which we wish to change.”

Gerry Neale highlighted a third ingredient which leaves many readers unprepared and largely ill-equipped to achieve behavioural change. “It is their lack of awareness of the likely emotional implications of their intent to change. Non fiction books can counsel objectively on this. But it is difficult in non fiction to demonstrate the extent of the inner struggle which can be involved.”

He added, “For most readers, it is their lack of awareness that their troublesome behaviour is almost certainly emotionally based, that can turn a reader’s struggle into trauma. Many behaviours have not been learned as a physical pattern, like a tennis serve or a golf swing. They were established as the response to shock, or loss, or hurt, or death of a partner and similar traumas.”

In the novel, as soon as Jonathan then begins to tread his way into the emotional realms of himself to try to achieve change, all manner of instinctive constraints kicked in, each unique to him. His deepest feelings can even be so inexplicably aroused by the mere idea of trying to shake off a habitual reaction to certain triggers, Unguided, he would have had the option to surrender to those constraints early. He could justify to himself that his mission to achieve change in his own case is unattainable. Despite his cerebral understanding of the cognitive issues involved, he could conclude his emotional faculties fall far short of the full armoury needed to achieve beneficial behavioural change.

Through following this story of one week in Jonathan’s life, the reader is able to accompany at close quarters a hero of a fictitious story as he attempts and then actually begins to achieve change. The story of the hero, told in the first person is far more instructive. Every negative and positive thought is admitted and every feeling shared with the reader.  

The Author hopes that the reader will follow step by step how the hero learned by sensing and feeling what goes on within his heart and mind. The story reinforces how these reactions are not limited to Jonathan. Other characters in the book indicate that many more of us are able to embrace and achieve the change which initially we think is beyond us.

Without the correct direction, changing emotionally based behavioural patterns can seem as daunting as trying to square circles mathematically! For this reason, the author has given the reader access to both cerebral and emotional guidance, but in one book. So many who have read pre-publication copies claim to have found the novel intriguing for its story but, more importantly, helpful to them emotionally.

Lorraine Harper

Lyricamus Limited

Squaring Circles is published by Pearl Press Limited 

It can be obtained direct by going to  
Amazon on www.amazon.co.uk
www.pearlpress.co.uk 
or to UK bookshops online.

ISBN  978 0 9568688 2 4

Bad Memories? Scientists Say They Could Be Erased!

I Am Sceptical! But I Believe The Research Is Worth Following
A team from Lund University in Sweden using EEG brain scans to study the brain have produced some interesting provisional findings. Their claim is that it is possible for a person to have a selective memory. With that would come the ability to screen out memories for a sufficient period of time for them then to be forgotten completely.
The thrust of their claim is that tests on volunteers who took part allowed the team to detect the moment a memory was apparently forgotten, and that it was possible that by burying the memory for long enough it could be permanently erased from the brain.
The author of the study, Gerd Waldhauser, admitted however that aiding the forgetting of a traumatic event would be a more complex task. He does believe though that if memories have been buried long enough they could be very difficult to retrieve and the more often that a particular memory is suppressed, the more irrecoverable it may become.
For anyone with traumatic emotional memories wanting to take this information literally, I would urge them to exercise caution. It still seems to me that the brain's ability to respond immediately when faced with a dramatic event unfolding in front of us remains unchallenged. What happens is that our brain instinctively conducts its own memory scan, trawling for any relevant memory which could help us in any way to decide what to do in the face of the current challenge.
I would rate the chance very high that it would not matter how much we have tried to suppress an unpleasant memory and even seemingly forgotten it - or whether we had seemingly screened it out successfully to achieve the same apparent effect. Faced with a sudden threat or event, our automatic brain scan could still unearth it from the deepest parts of our sub-conscious, given its relevance to our current predicament.
So I would also say that if this scientific study is to help those who have undergone traumatic experiences, then counsel them first to deactivate and defuse the most toxic parts of their memories. Only then with the memories reframed help them to bury those images, so if ever the brain still succeeds and instinctive recall of the past event does take place, its impact on them is likely to much reduced.
Failure to do that would leave them vulnerable to suffering from the hideous mental and emotional recall of their original trauma on any coincidental re-occurrence..
Also, if all manner of behavioural strategies were adopted naively after the first experience in order to protect future feelings, they will remain in the brain to act as a continuing  inhibitor even if the actual event causing them has been forgotten. Only by personal or professional review could these be neutralized.

Let’s keep an eye out for the further research, but not behave as if we can be spared the hurt of our worst memories, certainly for the time being.

Gerry Neale
Author of "Squaring Circles: From The Dark Into The Light"
A Novel of Self Discovery
 
   

How Can I Escape The Legacy Of My Mother's Emotional Abuse?

Sally Brampton In Yesterday's Sunday Times Wrote a Most Powerful Article Which Should Be Widely Promoted.

The fearful inheritance derived from a parent's abuse and the longterm damage it causes is there to see in the starkest of terms. More to the point, it describes so powerfully the toxic effect of such abuse in cognitive terms. It is not just that the abuse impacts on a child and causes it to establish emotional defences against further hurt. Nor is it that those defenses have longterm behavioural implications for the sufferer. It is that the defences and resultant behaviour themselves become so wrapped in the toxin, that one's very ability to break free is damaged and disabled.

That acts like a computer worm and bores its way deep into our sense of self worth and self-esteem, neutering our will to combat it. It seems to set up justifications to do nothing, to accept the damage inflicted on us as our lot and even attach a sense of disloyalty to it all were we to try to shrug it off.

All I feel I can add to it is a health warning: don't think this only happens in severe cases of abuse. The milder forms of of abuse can have seemingly reduced impact, but it can be just as insidious. Without us knowing, it can reside within us simply to knock out our resolve and self-worth to take on something new when we would wish to.

As Sally Brampton alludes, more of this is known now. Mercifully professional help is available meaning we do not have to slave under these toxic effects of many forms of abuse.

Gerry Neale
Author of "Squaring Circles" - a cognitive novel   www.squaringcircles.co uk

Additional Information available from http://squaringcirclesbygerry neale.blogspot.com

The book can be obtained from Amazon www.amazon.co.uk

Is This Yet Another Animal Emotion Parallel For Squaring Circles?

Surprise! Surprise! Dogs suffer emotionally if left alone while their owner is out all day working. A report on research appears in the UK Sunday Times Today (03 07 11) under the title "Feeling Wuff With Home Alone Syndrome." and this needs further airing.

This follows details of the new documentary "Buck" about the Horse Whisperer and horses reactions to human emotion.

In the research on dogs, a sample of situations were filmed to watch their behaviour once the owner had left for work for the day.. What transpired surprised the researchers and the owners was that the pets did not settle into a quiet, compliant and patient frame of mind waiting for their owner to return. Nor did they merely occupy themselves with needless activities. They fretted, whined and displayed signs of being disturbed and distressed by the inexplicable solitude.

Personally this no longer surprises me. Time was when I would have thought otherwise. Now however I see too many signs that pets of varying kinds which appear capable of expressing affection towards us and pleasure at our company, are disturbed when it is not reciprocated. In consequence it is of little wonder to me that they get upset.

What I fear too, is that our children can only suffer similarly if we treat them in the same way. Surprising it may be, but loneliness can even affect them when we are in the same house at the same time. It can occur when we are engrossed in our own activities for long periods of time, expecting them to make themselves scarce.

As time progresses research on human relationships will undoubtably intensify. I believe it will turn a number of conventional parenting activities on their head. Also I suspect strongly that one of the most difficult cultural and behavioural adjustments we will have to make is accepting that we all have to be so much more aware at how unwittingly we can create emotional and behavioural disturbance in our children by how we handle their down time when as parents we are otherwise engaged.

We can no longer assume that children have the innate ability to resolve emotional upset unaided. They do not. And nor can we assume that whatever naive pattern or strategy they adopt themselves to deal with an emotional issue will have a short shelf life.

It becomes increasingly clear that children's ill-informed reactions and ineffective attitudes can remain with them long into their adulthood and then for as long as they lack the will to correct them.

Just as a dog can be trained to withstand hours of loneliness so could a child. But such compliance comes at a price - probably for the family in the short-term, but almost definitely, for the child in the long-term.

Gerry Neale author of the "self-discovery" novel called Squaring Circles

Squaring Circles: Latest Reviews and Testimonials Are Published

First full reviews are available on Squaring Circles at www.squaringcircles.co.uk on the Book Review page.

The Book is available in paperback from Amazon at www.amazon.co.uk