Hank's The Harry H Health Roadshow
The MIND, EMOTIONS
and PERSONALITY
Nobody knows what the Mind is, and nobody knows exactly what emotions are. And personality can be sticky and tricky. It is generally thought that all of these are non-material aspects of the individual person. But science, and particularly medical science, has not reached the point at which it can accept the abstract as easily as that composed of substance because the abstract cannot be accurately measured. Indeed, many medical ‘scientists’ dispute that there is such a thing as the Mind. And some biomedical scientists, like Dr Candace Pert – for whom I have a tremendous regard –claim that emotions are merely neuropeptides, responding to stimuli.
So why is it that almost all of us, including most medical doctors, constantly talk about the Mind as if everybody knows and accepts what it is? While in reality relatively few of us have a clear understanding of what it is, no matter how strong our belief that it exists. And just to add another complexity into the mix, let’s throw in thoughts.
If the Mind isn’t a material substance, neither are thoughts. I don’t think anybody can deny that thoughts occur. It has been estimated that people have between 12,000 and 50,000 different thoughts a day. Conscious thoughts and feelings are caused by low-level neurological processes in the brain, it is said. What does all that mean? Can a scientist reach into your brain and point to a neuron that’s thinking about how you’d like a nice cold beer because it’s such a hot day? Of course not. And I’ll wager that not in a million years will science ever be able to do that.
Let me give you an example of thought: taking a penalty in a football match. You train and train so that you can do it perfectly – without thinking about it. Like how we learn to walk and talk … once we’ve learnt it we just do it. But when you are in a penalty shoot-out situation in a really important match, you are more likely to think about your penalty before you take it. And the thinking often interferes with the performance. A little like trying to remember something that has slipped your mind; the harder you try to remember the less likely you are. Then a few minutes later, when you’ve actually given up trying, it comes back to you. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that at some time or another.
Perhaps there are a few things we can say with confidence: mental is subjective, physical is objective; mental has a first-person modality of existence, physical has a third-person modality about it – it exists; mental is intentionality, physical is non-intentional.
And how can you avoid considering intuition, perception, insight and deep understanding? None of them are material yet without them we cannot function fully as individuals. Already we are building a formidable abstract presence within each one of us. If we then bring in experience – which is a memory of a past event – we have yet another factor. Is memory tangible or intangible? Does anybody actually know? They talk about actions laying down imprints in some part of the brain – usually thought to be the amygdala. But nobody, to my knowledge, has been able to pinpoint a memory trace or imprint. Dr Eric Kandell, at Columbia University, seems to have established that there is a biochemical change that takes place at a receptor level that forms a molecular basis for memory.
Any activity requires energy. The Mind and its mental processes are rooted in energy states. The most probable, because I don’t know any more than anyone else does, form of energy used in thought processes is electromagnetic energy. Mental fog, often thought of as confusion, might be brought about by some neurological disorganisation, or alternatively by a disruption to the energy flow. Did you know that mental fog is often caused by dehydration and can be cleared by swallowing a glass of water. Why is water so important? Well, one reason is because it facilitates the flow of subtle energy throughout the body.
Everything isn’t just based in the past or the present. What about expectations? Do we each have rules that we expect others to follow? Do we expect certain results from certain actions? Or are most of us caught up in a cycle of negative self-fulfilling prophecies? Haven’t most of us learnt that people do things when there’s a payoff and avoid doing things when there is no payoff? Avoiding can lead to deviousness.
What’s the real difference between optimism and pessimism? I’m not talking about the glass half full or half empty, because in my book the glass is always full – if not with the supposed liquid then with electromagnetic energy. Aren’t both optimism and pessimism just different sets of beliefs? Shakespeare told us that ‘nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so’. So we’re back to thinking again.
And, of course, we have what is said to distinguish us from all other animals, imagination. Surely that cannot be a tangible substance?
Winston Churchill said a fanatic is a person who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. He also said the empires of the future are the empires of the mind. So he obviously thought we all have a mind.
Mark Twain said that age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. He also said ‘I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up’. So he also didn’t question whether or not we have a mind.
‘Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind,’ said William Shakespeare. ‘I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.’
‘There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.’ Those are the words of Ronald Reagan. Not regarded as the world’s greatest ‘mind’ but certainly for eight years of his life the world’s most powerful person.
I once had a patient with split personality. When she came in she said, ‘Allow me to introduce myselves.’
I want to avoid the typical psychologist’s trap of placing people into one category or another because everyone is an individual – even those who might fall broadly into one or other category. And I also want to avoid psychobabble, like introverted, extroverted, intuitive, neuroticism, schizophrenia – which hardly no two psychologists can mutually define – manipulative, and the like. Someone … well, Raymond Catell, to give him a name, said there are sixteen different factors that make up a personality. Someone else, W.T. Norman, suggested there are five big ones. I would suggest there are in excess of six billion.
But we do all continue to categorise people as being funny, moody, or fearful, bold or depressing, and so on. So let’s play the game, add a few new categories, and see where it leads us.
Like the ‘abandoned’ person. The person who, probably from early childhood, almost expects the people around him to desert him. Maybe they’re afraid to say what they really think for fear of driving others away. People coming into their life only to leave shortly afterwards. They never allow anyone to get too close to them for fear they will walk away after a while. Or else they cling to people desperately because they fear being left alone again.
There’s the approvalitic person – the one who’s always looking for approval. They drive themselves hard, seeking recognition or wealth – without which they would feel worthless. They get resentful if attention is paid to someone else. They literally demand attention. We all know them. Perhaps some of us fit into that category ourselves. Or have close friends who do.
The catastraphising person who sees the slightest setback as a calamity. Every event in their life is almost like the end of the world for them. There is the hypochondriac person, who feels that no one pays any attention unless they are ill or in pain. They might even use illness to punish another. They even allow their condition to deteriorate in order to gain yet more attention.
Then there’s the abusiac, a person who has been abused – possibly countless times – and who is usually very guarded with others, even those who know him/her. There is always the fear that if they drop their guard they will be abused again. They are constantly wanting to test people out, to see how far they can be trusted – if at all. They see everyone as being a liar and a cheat.
The list is virtually endless, humans being as diverse as they are. But there are other aspects of personality, too. Personalities that are attracted to certain other personalities, and the question of Why? Is it purely chemical? Or emotional? Instinctual, perhaps? Certainly behavioural, Pavlov or Skinner would argue.
People hide behind excuses. The excusiastic. They have an excuse for everything that goes wrong in their lives. Does this define their personality? If so, what are excuses? Are they real or imagined by the person making them?
Can a person change their personality? Are most people even aware of how others see their personality? Or is it like the leopard’s spots? Ever thought about that belief? Of course a leopard can’t change its spots – they are part of its physical being. The personality, or a person’s behaviour, is not – as far as we know – a physical part of us, so therefore might be changed. Do some illnesses result from our personality? If so, does that mean that if we can accurately describe a person’s personality we can predict their probable illnesses?
What about the personality who always has a hidden agenda? They can be tricky. They lead you on, allow you to think all the things you want to think because they are so far ahead of you that you can’t see you are being led into a trap. They will test your personality to the limit sometimes because they are always going to get their own way no matter how determined you are to get your own way. How can you combat that? Simple: you can’t. Why? The very fact that their agenda is hidden means that only they know the final outcome … you are merely being led along as though you had a collar and lead around your neck.
Another difficult one is the jealous personality. Where you have to watch every word, every gesture, every nuance, for fear of being accused. They feel that you need to account for yourself at all times. That they have the right to control your life and your actions. That they have the right to determine who you can talk to.
There are the Oppositionists, the ones who immediately oppose whatever is suggested to them. They’re on the defence most of the time and tend to be rebels, though they might not know why. They usually resist every attempt to cajole them in any way and can make life very difficult for themselves and for those who know them.
How about the vampire personality? The one who wants to suck everything out of you … friends, money, knowledge, possessions … then just blows you away without even kissing you goodbye!
Or the loveaholic, who falls in love with almost everyone they meet? When they fall in love with you, at first you might feel a tendency to fall for it. Why not? It seems genuine enough, and maybe in the mind of the loveaholic it really is love …but that’s because she/he doesn’t understand what love really is and thinks that any kind of attraction to someone is the real thing, which of course it isn’t. It can be very wearing, however, to be on the receiving end of this kind of person because any kind of rejection can be taken badly … even leading to a deep depression or the threat of suicide.
Perfectionists are some of the most difficult people, especially if you live with them. Perfectionism is a form of compulsion. Nothing satisfies them. They set high standards, not only for themselves but for everyone else, too. Standards that even they cannot attain. They cannot accept that they cannot do better and are eternally compelled to strive to achieve more and improve on what they are and have. They simply cannot accept themselves, which makes it difficult for them to accept others … who could never come up to their standards even. To make things even worse, they often see things in terms of life or death. They can never accept that doing your best is good enough … you can always do better. Much of their time is spent pursuing perfectionism in everything they do and many of the things they should be doing get left undone … there simply isn’t enough time to do everything.
Then we have the procrastinator. The world is abundant with procrastinators and perhaps we are all guilty of procrastinating at times. But the true procrastinators are those who do it all the time. For them it is always ‘I’ll do it tomorrow. Too busy now.’ Whatever the situation, no matter the importance, there is always a reason why they cannot make a decision or take the action required at that particular moment – probably when it is needed most. Nobody enjoys visiting the dentist but how else are we going to get our teeth fixed? Maybe next week … or the week after. As for paying bills, let ’em wait a bit longer. Another day or two is nothing to them. And so on.
There is another kind of personality that can be quite scary … the person who won’t make any kind of commitment. They won’t commit to a relationship, to their job, maybe not even to their friends. So no one ever really knows where they stand with such a person. If you can’t commit, can you be trusted? The two seem to go hand-in-hand – commitment and trust.
Intolerance tests a lot of people. There can be several underlying reasons for a person who is intolerant but they often get labelled bigot as well, while it might just be impatience. Perfectionism can cause a person to be intolerant of someone less demanding. Sometimes we see it in others but fail to see it in ourselves.
There are others who won’t do anything unless there is an adequate pay-off for them. That doesn’t necessarily have to be financial but there does need to be some kind of reward. If not, why make the effort?
There are so many other types of personalities and I’ve already mentioned several. Perhaps later, new ones will arise from discussion.
Let’s go back to personality. There’s a lot more to personality than type. How does one attain a recognisable personality? Is it inherited or acquired? How many times do we hear it said ‘He takes after his father (or mother)’? Alternatively, it is also frequently said, ‘He/she behaves this way because of the way he/she was brought up.’ So that doesn’t throw much light on the subject, going by what people say. It could be that initially we inherit personality characteristics and as we grow older we add to or enhance or expunge this personality and replace it with something else. Could that be the leopard changing its spots? And by personality do we mean identity? Are they not both concepts, and are personality and personal identity not the same thing? Or does personality mean what you are while identity means who you are?
People remind of us animals, don’t they? ‘He’s like an elephant – never forgets a single thing!’ ‘Oh, she’s very prickly – like a porcupine.’ ‘They’re just like a bunch of sheep – all followers and no leader.’ ‘He’s so slimy – like a snake!’ ‘She’s got eyes like an eagle – never misses a thing.’ ‘He’s like a bloody peacock – forever preening himself!’ or ‘He’s as proud as a peacock.’ Not all animals or birds have just one personality, obviously. ‘As sly as a fox, that one.’ ‘As greedy as a vulture.’ ‘Blind as a bat.’ Clearly, it is not only people who have personalities, animals also have them. As anyone who owns a pet will vouch.
Have you ever noticed how people tend to choose a partner with a similar personality even if it is a disaster every time for them? One example of this could be the woman who goes from one wife-beater to another. Or is it that she in some way encourages her partner to beat her? Not because she enjoys pain – although some women do – but because it is a part of her personality?
The next big question is, If I don’t like my present personality is it possible to change it? And if it is possible to change, how do I go about it?
Emotional defences, hidden agendas, long-term beliefs, jealousy, delusions, anger, trauma, fear of letting go, envy, secondary emotions, self-doubt, self-destruct and many other traits can be influential factors in determining the type of personality we have. If we want to change a personality we don’t like, these could be areas that need to be explored.
It is worth remembering that we can’t change someone else’s personality. They can only do that for themselves. But we can, perhaps, help them explore various areas that might help them resolve issues. The question is, where do we want to start?
ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE
HELEN: I think I’m a genuine procrastinator. I’m aware of it all the time, it drives my partner crazy. I constantly try to remedy it but to no avail.
HH: What form does your procrastination take?
HELEN: Well, I always avoid any difficult or unpleasant task. Even opening a letter is beyond me, so I don’t. Letters pile up, some of them personal but possibly important, some of them bills, which I delay paying. It isn’t because I can’t pay, I just don’t want to face up to them.
HH: Any others?
HELEN: I hate any kind of pressure on me. I don’t like to rush … not for anything, not even for something I know I’ll enjoy.
HH: What do you think would happen if you hurried?
HELEN: I might get bad news sooner. Or someone might be trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do. What can I do, Harry?
HH: You’ve already taken the first step – recognizing it and wanting to change. So let’s take it from there. I can not, obviously, take you through a complete treatment because of the time element. So what I will do is give you a number of options and let you select the appropriate ones to be explored later – probably when you are on your own. In the meantime, Helen, if you’ll come up here and sit down on that chair. [waits while Helen comes to the stage and sits down]
Okay, you might prefer to take a couple of deep breaths, sit back and relax, and close your eyes. This is not hypnosis, but sometimes it is better not to have visual stimuli affecting your thought patterns. What I’d like you to do is this. Go back to the last time when you consciously put something off. No need to tell me what it was, but go back to that point and when you are there just nod your head so I will know. [there is a wait for a couple of minutes before Helen nods her head]
Good. Now just think about that for a moment and at the same time scan your whole body from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. Is there any part of your body that seems associated with your procrastination? Maybe a tingling sensation, a feeling of warmth or cold? Perhaps even an ache or slight pain? If you become aware of anything happening, just nod your head again so I will know. [waits a couple of minutes before Helen nods her head] Okay. Can you place a finger on that part of the body? [Helen places a finger on her cheek, just in front of her left ear]
Right, Helen. Keep your finger on that place while we continue. Now I want you to think about what would happen if, instead of procrastinating, you had gone ahead and dealt with whatever you were faced with at the time. Can you do that? [Helen nods. HH waits for a few moments before continuing] Can you tell me if the sensation you had beneath your fingertip is still the same or has it changed in any way?
HELEN: The sensation has gone.
HH: Okay. What sensation were you getting?
HELEN: Well … I suppose it was a kind of tinnitus – a ringing in the ears. I think I felt a little dizzy as well.
HH: Does that tie in with how you feel when you normally procrastinate? Do you get either or both of these symptoms?
HELEN: Now that I think of it, yes.
HH: Which do you get?
HELEN: Well, I seem to have tinnitus most of the time anyway. But I wasn’t aware of the dizziness until now. Now that I think about it, nearly every time I procrastinate I get this feeling of … I’m tempted to call it vertigo. It doesn’t last for more than a minute or so, maybe even less.
HH: Do you still have either of these feelings now?
HELEN: Only the tinnitus.
HH: Right. All you acupuncturists should be able to tell us what the point is.
VOICES: Small Intestine 19.
HH: Good. And normal indications of SI 19?
VOICES: Tinnitus and vertigo.
HH: So it all fits in, doesn’t it? Which means, Helen, that if we can get rid of your procrastination we will probably also get rid of the tinnitus as well. [Helen smiles] We have a Myoneurology treatment called Homeostatic Set Point [see Appendix A]. If I tap that point, SI 19, about 50 times, like this [taps point] it will hopefully do the trick. And before somebody asks, What if it doesn’t? the answer is that we can tap it some more. And it doesn’t have to be my hand doing the tapping. Helen can tap there herself.
HELEN: I’m not quite clear on this, Harry. Do you mean that my problem has now gone away, or do I have to do the tapping every time I start to procrastinate, or what?
HH: Only time will tell on that one, Helen. I’d like you to report back on that and tell me what happened. I honestly don’t know. As a matter of interest, you had some tinnitus earlier. Do you still have it?
HELEN: [after a lengthy pause] It seems to have gone. So is this treatment a cure for tinnitus as well as procrastination?
HH: It is a standard acupuncture treatment for tinnitus – I think you know I don’t use the term cure.
LUKE: I hate to ask this after what you’ve said, but what if this tapping doesn’t stop the procrastination? Is there anything else we can do?
HH: Well, one thing you can do is this: using the same point again, SI 19, you can ask the patient – I don’t want to use Helen for this because I’ve just given her a treatment and I don’t want to interfere with that, so Helen you can go back to your seat, thank you – and ask the patient, ‘Would you be willing to reduce your procrastination to once a day?’ and test the deltoid. If the muscle stays strong, the answer is yes, if it goes weak the answer is no. So, depending on which answer you get, you can modify your question. You can vary this so much with a little imagination. For example, if the patient is willing to reduce it to once a day, you can say, ‘Would you be willing to reduce it to once every second – or third or fourth – day?’ Or to a certain time of the day. Or to only certain kinds of thing that he/she procrastinates about. I’m sure you’ve got the idea.
If you can get a weak muscle on any of those questions, you have something to work with. So, using the same point – which the patient keeps a fingertip on – you, the therapist, can then go to the other acupuncture points on the head according to the list on the Homeostatic Set Point treatment.
Something else you can do is to ask the patient, ‘What would happen if you stopped procrastinating?’ See how they answer that. I’ve known people break down when I ask that question because the full realisation hits them. They know they have been hiding behind something, and they might not have known what that something was. Until you ask that question.
LUKE: What is there about that question that could make them realise that when they couldn’t realise it before?
HH: Usually it’s some kind of trauma. Or some bad experience that happened at an earlier stage of their life. Whatever it was, it reveals itself when they start to realise what would happen if … It’s a confrontational question. It forces them to face whatever it is they’re hiding from – whether they do that consciously or otherwise. The way it usually pans out, once they know what the underlying problem is, they can deal with it. Or they can allow you to help them deal with it. And, of course, you can use that same question for a whole lot of different issues, not just procrastination.
FRAN: My partner is a very jealous person. He’s suspicious all the time. Every time I take a phone call, or get a letter or whatever. Sometimes, I’ve caught him with my mobile, checking up on my texts, in or out. Nothing I do or say makes the slightest difference and it’s starting to make life hell. Is there something I can do about that?
HH: This is usually a case of building trust. Either he lost trust in you or else he never had it in the first place. Or it can be insecurity on his part.
FRAN: I think it might have happened in a previous relationship he had because he’s spoken about that. I don’t think he can trust anyone now.
HH: Okay. The first thing we have to be aware of is that we are not dealing with the person with the problem. Ideally, I would want to see your partner and work out a treatment plan according to what I could glean from him. As with all health or mental problems, the person has to want change. What we have here is you wanting change for him – which he might not want for himself, or be willing to work towards. What I’m saying is that our hands are somewhat tied before we start.
FRAN: I appreciate that.
HH: The first step that you can do is to define exactly what you want from your partner. I would advise you to write it down in short, simple and positive terms. You need to have something with which to measure progress as you go along because this is not the kind of problem in which you are likely to get an immediate cessation of jealousy. I don’t know your partner’s name and I don’t want to, so I’ll call him Rudy. So you write down all the ways in which his jealousy affects you. For example, you want to be able to make any telephone calls you want. That’s a positive need. A negative need would be, ‘I don’t want Rudy to check up on my phone calls.’ You want to be able to speak to anybody – male or female – of your choice whenever you wish. Not, ‘I don’t want Rudy checking up on who I am talking to.’
So let’s be clear: this is where you define exactly where the problems lie. It is not, in itself, the treatment of the problem. First, you are going to have to look very closely at yourself – consider carefully anything you are doing that might arouse jealousy in your partner. What can you do to change that so as not to arouse jealously? What can you do to build trust? Does your partner have low self-esteem? Is he a control freak, wanting to have a control over all your activities? Is he afraid of losing you? Has he been abandoned in the past? Did he suffer from deprivation during his upbringing? Is there a history of jealousy or mistrust in his family? Is there any evidence that your partner suffers from delusions or paranoia? Are you aware of any allergies that he might have, especially food allergies? These can sometimes affect the brain and mental thinking, so they need to be eliminated if they exist. Does he have any amalgam fillings in his teeth that might be leaking mercury into his bloodstream?
This is about as far as I can take it since the problem lies with a third party and not with yourself.
FRAN: Thank you, Harry. At least it has given me some avenues to explore.
HH: You could always try the killer question: If he were no longer jealous, how would it change your life? See how he answers that because it could give you vital clues as to how to proceed. Another killer question would be: What does being jealous give you? Again, from his reply, you might be able to gauge how to proceed. He might say, ‘It gives me control over you’. You could then follow that up with, ‘What would happen if you no longer controlled me?’ See how he answers that. Getting down to such basics might enable you to work a solution out between you.
The other thing, of course, is to do what you can to elevate your partner’s self-esteem, which is probably the reason for the jealousy on his part. Look closely at any areas in your own life where you can help allay his distrust. For example, make sure you only call friends when your partner is around. Make him feel part of your life that maybe you had withheld from him.
SHANE: Can I ask you about amalgam fillings leaking mercury into the bloodstream? I have a feeling that could lead to all kind of other problems as well.
HH: Do you have any amalgam fillings yourself?
SHANE: A mouthful.
HH: As soon as I asked you I realised it was a silly question. [laughter] You’d better come up here and we’ll see what we can do. [Shane comes to the podium] Before I do anything, can I ask if you would call yourself a jealous person?
SHANE: I’ve had times in my life when I’ve been jealous. But I also think I’ve had provocation.
HH: I have to tell you that testing and treating for heavy metal toxicity is quite a long and laborious session, which I’m going to have to try and abbreviate to fit it in. Okay. So if we find you do have some metal toxicity it’ll be interesting to discover if it helps with the jealousy. Just stand comfortably and relax while I give a short spiel on metal toxicities. The first thing is to put things in perspective. Quite a number of dentists are now recommending that all amalgam fillings should be replaced, which can create a lot of anxiety because not everybody with metal fillings has toxicity from them. An amalgam filling that is leaking mercury should TP when we use a simple Myoneurology test. So, Shane, if you don’t mind touching one of your fillings with the tip of a finger while I test your other arm … and it goes weak. Now touch another tooth that does not have a filling with the tip of your finger, and let’s see … perfectly strong. So the muscle shouldn’t go weak when he touches an amalgam filling.
I guess we all know by now that the body is a truly wonderful compensating mechanism. Nearly all the symptoms we show are actually compensations rather than the originating problem. That’s why blood tests are more significant than most of us realise. For example, when you do a blood test and find that the blood sugar is either too low or too high, that is significant because it indicates that the body has already exhausted all its ability to compensate. In other words, the body has become taxed beyond its endurance. A recent report showed that a ‘health drink’ contained 22 teaspoons of sugar. Could you imagine having a cup of tea or coffee with 22 teaspoons of sugar?
Well, the same thing applies to toxic metals. The body is compensating so well that the only time you, as a Myoneurologist, finds that a TP weakens a muscle, it has gone beyond the ability of compensating.
JENNY: Can I just clarify this, Harry. Are you saying that we could be testing and getting strong muscles because the compensations are masking an underlying problem?
HH: I’ve opened a can of worms here, haven’t I!
JENNY: Well, it’s like saying, what’s the point of testing in the first place because strong muscles aren’t necessarily giving us a real picture. I feel devastated!
HH: I can understand that, Jenny, but it’s like everything else we do … there is usually an answer. What you find when a muscle test shows up a weak muscle is that you have uncovered a blatant case which has gone beyond compensation. Which is okay, because if you then go on to eliminate the compensations you get down to the real problem.
JENNY: I’m getting really confused here. How can we possibly know what all the compensations are?
HH: I don’t suppose anybody knows all the compensations. I certainly don’t. You just find out as you go along, like I have done. But since we’re talking about heavy metal toxicity right now, I can tell you that the compensatory system is the endocrine system. And the most usual compensatory glands are the adrenals, thyroid and gonads. These three glands make up for about 99 per cent of heavy metal toxicity compensations, so the other glands are rarely called upon for this purpose.
One of the great discoveries we’ve made is that when one of these glands is in the process of compensating for heavy metal toxicity, it interferes with the visual righting reflexes. Some of you might not know what this is so I’ll run through it briefly. We have reflexes that help us remain in an upright position whenever we’re standing: if we lean – or fall – too much in one direction the muscles on the opposite side automatically reflex so that we don’t fall over. Now it just happens that turning the head activates the same reflex muscle. So what’s new is that we can use the head turn while we’re testing a muscle to see if the endocrine system is being employed to compensate. So if I test Shane while he touches a metal filling [tests] and … his muscle has gone weak. So we want to find out if his endocrine system is compensating so Shane turns his head to the left and … his muscle has now gone strong. Now obviously, Shane is not about to fall down while I’m testing him so activating the visual righting reflex is what is taking place.
SHANE: So what is actually happening?
HH: What is happening is that the head turn is reversing the compensation. Just for a few seconds. But enough to tell us whether a glandular compensation is taking place. So now we can go to the neurovascular points on the head to check each of the three glands I mentioned earlier. If you turn to page … 32 of your handouts, you can see a diagram of Bennett’s neurovascular points [see Appendix A], and the three points we want to test are sartorius, through which we can test for the adrenals, the supraspinatus for the thyroid, and the teres minor for testing the gonads. So we’ll just test these in turn while Shane is TPing one of his fillings, and they all test strong. Now we’ll go back again and retest, this time also turning the head to one side. And look what’s happened … the only one that now tests weak is the teres minor, indicating the gonads are compensating. This isn’t unusual and I can tell you that overstressing the gonads can in time lead to lack of libido, prostatitis, impotence, and hydrocele – that’s an enlargement of the testicles. Interestingly, I have had several male patients presenting with hydrocele, and in the majority of cases I’ve traced the underlying cause to heavy metal toxicity. Now the way to treat for this compensation is to lightly rub the teres minor NV point while the head is turned in the direction that made the muscle go weak. Then we retest and look what’s happened. The muscle is now strong. Now I’m going to show you something which fooled me for quite some time when I was first developing this treatment. I’m going back to test both the sartorius and the supraspinatus again just to make sure that they haven’t taken up the role of compensating now that we’ve fixed the gonads. And … both test strong.
So now we are ready to test for actual heavy metal toxicity. And Shane is going to TP a filling and I test his other arm … which is strong. Remember, when we tested before fixing the compensation, the same test gave us a weak muscle? And Shane can turn his head in one direction, then the other, and the muscle remains strong. So now, the test for heavy metal toxicity is to TP a filling while I TP the neurolymphatic point for the pectoralis major clavicular – the PMC – and let’s see what happens. Now the muscle has gone weak. The TP for the PMC, by the way, is T5 on the spine, which is also on page 32 of your handout [in Appendix A].
Our next task is to find out which heavy metal is causing the problem. There are about twenty heavy metals that can be harmful to humans but the most common ones are lead, nickel, mercury and cadmium – which all mimic the symptoms of arthritis: they make parts of the body stiff.
SHANE: So the symptoms of arthritis doesn’t necessarily mean it’s arthritis?
HH: Exactly. It’s always worth testing for heavy metal toxicity when someone presents with arthritis. Okay, so to test for which heavy metal is causing the problem I use a test kit of vials which contains the energy of all the various heavy metals. If you don’t have a kit you would have to use a sample of each of the heavy metals. For lead, nickel, mercury and aluminium it’s easy enough to get samples … it just becomes a little more difficult and unwieldy to have samples of all the other metals. So if we test Shane holding a different vial in one hand while still Tping the same filling… [tests] and we find the metal which makes the muscle go weak is nickel. Apart from amalgam fillings, a major source of nickel is processed oils. When you buy a bottle of oil, like sunflower, olive, safflower, et cetera, it is usually a very clear liquid because it has been passed through a nickel filter. That’s part of the processing, otherwise the oil would look very murky and unattractive so you might not want to buy it. It is inevitable that over a period of time the nickel residue in the oil will become absorbed in the human body, and that can become a toxicity.
So the next thing we want to do is find out which part of the body is being affected by this toxicity. About ninety-nine per cent of the time, it will be the liver, kidneys or brain … or maybe all three of them. So we can do a two-point test between the filling and the alarm points of those three organs … the one missing from your diagram on page 11 of your handouts [see Appendix A] is the alarm point for the brain, which is the acupuncture point Du 20, called Baihui – which means the meeting point of a hundred points. If you draw a line from the tip of the ear lobe to the apex of the auricle and extend this line upwards on the scalp until it intersects the midline, Du 20 lies at this intersection. And if we test that against the filling, we find that the muscle goes weak. And against the liver and kidneys the muscle remains strong. Okay, so now we know that in Shane’s case, leakage from the nickel filling is affecting his brain.
SHANE: I knew something had been affecting it! [laughter]
HH: Okay, so finally, we want to treat the organ so I’m going to give Shane seven drops of this remedy from the same kit as the heavy metal tests … there’s a remedy for each individual heavy metal. But if you haven’t got a kit, what you can do is go to the neurolymphatic point of the affected organ – which in this case is Du 20, the alarm point: I have to point out here that the brain doesn’t have neurolymphatic points, only neurovascular points, so Du 20 is the NV point, which has the same effect as a NL point would have – and tap 10-20 times while Tping the filling.
SHANE: And is that job done? Am I now free of heavy metal toxicity?
HH: For that filling, yes. I did say at the beginning that this can be quite a lengthy process, depending on how many fillings a person has. We would have to repeat the whole procedure for every filling.
Maybe after that we all need a change of subject.
BERYL: I am something of a perfectionist, which brings me all kinds of problems. I think it is good to have a high standard in everything I do but the main problem is that very few others come up to my expectations. Consequently, I am constantly being dissatisfied with the efforts that others make, even though I realise they are doing their best. How can I change this without lowering my own standards, which I am reluctant to do?
HH This is form of compulsion, which can be very difficult to treat. Not impossible, but difficult. If I got six perfectionists together and ask them to define what perfectionism is, I’d get six different answers. I wouldn’t mind betting that you are never satisfied with your own efforts, that you constantly have a sense of letting yourself down? Am I right?
BERYL: Absolutely. I never enjoy anything I cook and no matter what I do I feel I should have done better.
HH: This is because you lack focus on the real thing.
BERYL: I can’t agree there, Harry. I think I focus too much.
HH: You jumped in too quickly there, Beryl. I was going to say that you do focus but you focus only on the mistakes or the short-comings rather than on the successes. I would make another bet and say that other people are always complimenting you on what you do even though you see it as failure. [Beryl nods, ruefully] Somewhere up here in your head [tapping his own head] you have the mistaken idea that you are superhuman. Let me tell you that you are not. Nor is anyone else. Being superhuman means that you need to exceed excellence. Even the most exacting job – let’s say a diamond cutter, where precision is paramount – sets down certain standards. And most of the time, most diamond cutters achieve the precision demanded. Job done! They don’t need to exceed that precision. You mentioned cooking. Let’s say you make a birthday cake for your daughter – it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a daughter, we’re just using an example. You might make a cake that has everyone gasping with amazement and satisfaction. Everyone except you, that is. You would be thinking, ‘What if I had done this, or that? I’m sure I could have made it better.’ Let me tell you, perfectionism – for the most part – is a concept. That’s all it is. A personal concept of what you think something should be. A beautifully cut diamond is perfect. The cutter doesn’t need to go beyond that. Neither do you, Beryl. Here’s yet a third bet: you are often late in most things you do, and this causes panic and anxiety that you won’t get finished on time. Right? [Beryl nods] So this fuels your dissatisfaction. You keep thinking, ‘If only I had more time’. Time doesn’t usually have much to do with it. Most people have enough time to do what they need to do. Only the perfectionist requires more time because what they’ve done in the allotted time is never enough. They want better. So my advice, Beryl: stick to cooking and don’t become a diamond cutter. [laughs]
Making mistakes is part of being a human being. It is how we learn to become better. I don’t suppose Beryl is the only person here who is a perfectionist. So this applies to all of you. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Let me tell you what happened to me once. I was one of a long list of speakers at a conference on homeopathy which was being held at the Royal Homeopathic Hospital in London. I sat in the auditorium listening to other speakers before me and let me tell you, I sat there in awe. One after another was going up there on the podium, relating how they had cured seemingly impossible cases. I dreaded going up there and giving my talk because I felt it would pale against some of their work, which was all met with thunderous applause. On the spur of the moment, when I was called up to the dais, I decided to scrap my talk and do something else. I went through a whole catalogue of mistakes I had made over my years in practice. One after another, including the time I had used an acupuncture needle and accidentally collapsed a lung while working in a hospital in Sri Lanka. The patient survived, but it was a salutary lesson for me. Anyway, at the end of my session, I was greeted with a standing ovation, and was later declared the speaker of the evening. Which was another great lesson for me: never be afraid to admit your mistakes and, more importantly, make sure you learn from them. And the PS is: I never punctured another lung in my life.
GERALD: Is this perfectionism like seeing everything in black and white? Not able to see all the shades of grey in between?
HH: No, it’s more like seeing everything in black, which would relate to negativity, where white would relate to positivity. So the perfectionist doesn’t see things in terms of some things are perfect, other things are failure. To them, everything is a failure because everything can be improved on. Many things can be improved on – though they might not need it – but another facet on the Chopard Blue Diamond ring might have knocked a million dollars off the selling price. More isn’t necessarily best. If we added another hydrogen atom to H2O, we wouldn’t have drinking water any more, we’d have an acidic water called hydronium. So let’s not try and be too perfect.
Sometimes, we need to take a good look at what we have instead of always looking for what we lack.
MELANIE: You didn’t mention guilt in your introduction, Harry, but I’m sure there is such a thing as a Guilty Personality isn’t there? I don’t know whether this is the same person who is always apologising? Like bumping into a chair and saying ‘Sorry!’
HH: These are people who decide to lay down a list of rules for themselves – they should do this, they must do that kind of thing. And they keep on breaking their own set of rules and then feel guilty about it. What they need to see is that the actions they feel guilty about are only actions. They accept the blame for their actions and then turn it in on themselves – almost in a state of self-loathing, or certainly self-condemnation. They need to learn self-acceptance. So guilt is the action and not the person – or personality. As for apologising, that is a question of self-worth or self-esteem, in which a person sees herself as being unworthy. Even a chair is her equal – or maybe even her superior.
GERALD: Maybe it’s jumping the gun but I’d love to know what can be done about changing a personality. Is it genuinely possible, or does it only last so long before the old personality kicks back in again?
HH: That would depend on whether you are born with a personality or whether it has been acquired. How many people think you are born with a particular personality? [a few hands go up] And how many people think a personality is acquired? [a forest of hands go up] Okay, that is an overwhelming group opinion. As William Shakespeare wrote, ‘Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so’. So if a personality is acquired, then it can be changed in the same way. What we, as therapists, have to do is try and establish what caused it to be formed a certain way.
You will all have heard of the various sayings, like You are what you eat, You are what you think, and so on. I’m going to add yet another to the list: You are what you create. Everything about you, the way you look, the way you behave which includes eating habits, et cetera, is the way you have created it to be. And that includes your personality.
LAURA: I was fascinated by your comments on animal personalities and how you likened them to humans, which I’m sure we could all identify with. How can we use this as treatment?
HH: It isn’t intended to be a treatment, more a means of identifying a personality in colourful terms. It might be a way of pointing you in the direction of a treatment.
JAYNEY: What about actual personality disorders as opposed to personalities?
HH: Ah, well that would take us in a different direction – perhaps Clinical Psychology. Which is beyond our scope here.
JAYNEY: But how can we distinguish one from the other?
HH: Well, WHO – the World Health Organisation – laid down a classification into what it called three clusters. Cluster A comprises Odd or Eccentric Disorders; Cluster B is made up of Dramatic, Emotional or Erratic Disorders; and Cluster C is Anxious or Fearful Disorders. You can see from those classifications that it would require a great deal of time to examine each of them, which is why we have to sideline them here.
JAYNEY: Would it take too much time to elaborate just a little on those?
HH: In a word, yes. But I can pass briefly over them. Paranoid and schizoid personalities would come under the Cluster A heading; The B group would include a pervasive disregard for social conventions and the rights of others, instability in self-image, self esteem, personal identity, and behaviour – often leading to self-harm. A pervasive attention-seeking, including inappropriate sexual seductiveness, and a sense of superiority over others. And Group C includes a sense of social inadequacy, inhibition – often leading to avoidance of social interaction – a psychological dependence on others and perhaps an obsessive-compulsive personality.
JAYNEY: Thanks, Harry. That’s something to work on.
BRIDGET: I get quite a number of clients who were abandoned in early life – maybe a parent or guardian, or whatever. It would normally be someone who they felt safe with. As a result, they go through life finding it very difficult to place their trust in another person in case the same thing happens. Do you have a silver bullet for people with that predicament?
HH: Not as such. The reason for that, Bridget, is that there can be so many different underlying causes. It isn’t always as simple as saying somebody abandoned or rejected them in early life because there is a reason for everything. Even the birth of another sibling can cause the mother to move her main attention from one to another child, and this might be construed as abandonment whereas in reality it would not be abnormal. Or a separation might be caused through divorce or death – something a parent might have little control over, although a young child might not necessarily see it that way. Even being sent to a boarding school or similar institution might be seen by a child as a rejection, while the parent might be seeing it as giving her child the best possible opportunity in life through a good education.
So perception has to be distinguished from actuality. A person several years later might not be in a position to understand – or even to know – what was in a parent’s mind at the time of separation. So trying to get into the mind of your client might not be straight-forward, simply because the answer might not be there. In which case, instead of working from the cause, you might find it necessary to come up with a strategy that will ameliorate the situation.
Perhaps a starting point would be to look at the people with whom the client is currently involved. See whether the types of people are stable or unstable. People with criminal backgrounds, heavily into drugs, habitual gamblers, or who are chronically depressed or who have a history of psychological disturbance, are not going to provide the kind of stability your client is seeking. Looking into past relationships to see what caused them to end might also hold clues. Does your client always tend to choose the same kind of person as a partner, does she find it difficult to ever get close to another for fear of another abandonment?
RAY: I seem to get an awful lot of clients who suffer from chronic inferiority. It has become part of their personality and has the knock-on effect of making it difficult for those people to make new friends. How can I make them feel that they deserve new friends?
HH: This is a very difficult problem to overcome because they feel undesirable to everyone else. They don’t have anything to offer anyone so why should anyone ever like them or love them? That’s how they feel. They dread for anyone getting close enough to them to see the real, unlovable person underneath.
This feeling of inferiority has become an established belief. Nothing is going to change that belief until it is replaced by another, even stronger, belief. So this is the area you have to work on. I can’t tell you what that belief should be … you would have to ask a series of questions to determine that from your client. It is unlikely they are living in isolation, so find out some of the things they offer other people. Maybe they do a service for someone, in which case you can emphasise how important that service is, and how much it is appreciated by the person receiving it. Try and give them reason to believe they are worth something, and build on that as you can.
I like to play a game called ‘What if …’ So you could say to your client, ‘What if you no longer felt inferior? What do you think would happen?’ And you can follow up whatever reply you get with another What if? question. It requires a little ingenuity on your part to keep the thing going but if you can then you will get beneath the wall he/she has put up. If you can do that, I would say you have made considerable progress.
JEANNIE: I am constantly getting clients who seem hell-bent on a Self Destruct course which is preventing them from ever making any kind of progress with their life.
HH: Yes, the world seems to be full of them. It’s like chopping off your nose, and you wouldn’t do it unless you were getting some kind of reward for it. Remember, there is almost always a reward for whatever action we make, and sometimes the simple answer is to find out what that reward is.
The psychiatrist, Dr John Diamond, devised a very effective test for determining Self Destruct. There is a point behind the navel that the ancients called the Lyden gland, but which we now know to be the centre of the Enteric Nervous System. It goes like this: Get the client to place the tips of his/her fingers on the navel and test the muscle. Should be strong. Client removes fingers and therapist places his/her fingers on the navel and tests the muscle. Again, the muscle should test strong. With the therapist’s fingers remaining on the navel, client then places his/her hand on top of the therapist’s and muscle is tested once more. It should remain strong. However, if at this point the muscle goes weak, this is an indication that negativity is stronger in the client than positivity … or, in other words, the client is on a self destruct course.
[IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ON THIS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW VIA MESSAGEBOARD. THANKS FOR READING.]
Tags:
2 user(s) like this
