This is a NY Times article on PTSD that shares some important and perhaps surprising research. \u00a0 Turns out the cure for even PTSD is talk therapy. \u00a0The innoculation against it – some 75% of people who are traumatized never show any PTDS symptoms – is in the quality of their early relationships.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/24\/opinion\/tales-of-the-super-survivors.html?_r=1<\/p>\n
Notice that although my book is “Stop Lying”<\/a>, this article points out a well known – among researchers – quirk of lying: \u00a0A little, properly used, actually helps. \u00a0(I never said all lies were destructive.) \u00a0This is similar to something\u00a0that’s been seen in couples – those in successful long term relationships often have slightly (or not slightly) distorted views of their partners.<\/p>\n The author also talks about grieving, overcoming the trauma, and how a large part of it is in the creation of a story. \u00a0I agree. \u00a0Sort of.<\/p>\n We seem to need stories but often that need drags us into creating lies. \u00a0 In the book I have coming out soon – by Christmas, they tell me – I’ll talk about the destructive lies at some length. \u00a0But here’s a quick excerpt about the more mundane ones.<\/p>\n Too many times I have read accounts in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal of something I either witnessed or participated in, and found that I scarcely recognized the event.\u00a0 It had been tarted up to make a good story, given a good humorous buildup and punchline, or treated with reverence that wasn’t there, or given a zing that it didn\u2019t have.\u00a0 I’ve seen thoughtful, observant people do this.\u00a0 I suspect, at least in my less cynical moments, that the writers of those stories were not always aware of altering them in the telling; that is, I think they were unconsciously distorting things.\u00a0 The playwright and performer Alan Bennett was talking on camera about Sir Alec Guinness the actor, and he said that \u201cwhat strikes me is that there’s never been a convincing imitation of him”.\u00a0 In that same documentary on Guinness, the author John le Carr\u00e9 did a priceless and dead on impression.\u00a0 When a cast member of Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> took over the direction of one of the movies, Patrick Stewart who plays the captain talked enthusiastically in an interview about how there has to be a Star Trek veteran at the helm to do a successful Star Trek movie.\u00a0 Two of the Star Trek movies that were the greatest critical and popular successes were written and directed by Nicholas Meyer, a Shakespeare scholar who at the time had never even seen Star Trek.\u00a0 I mention these stories because I do not believe that the people involved are stupid, reckless, or unreasonable.\u00a0 Yet the lies come so naturally!\u00a0 The celebrated novelist Saul Bellow wrote in one of his most famous books (Adventures of Augie March, 1953) “One day\u2019s ordinary falsehood if you could convert it into silt would choke the Amazon back a hundred miles over the banks”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a NY Times article on PTSD that shares some important and perhaps surprising research. \u00a0 Turns out the cure for even PTSD is talk therapy. \u00a0The innoculation against it – some 75% of people who are traumatized never … Continue reading