The Flaw of Talk Therapy

During her childhood, a woman named Mila was severely abused by her narcissistic parents, both physically and psychologically. This abuse had gone on as early as she could recall. Born in the pits of hell, Mila was often beaten and yelled at by the two demons that created her. These demons also treated each other poorly. The male demon was a raging alcoholic that often hit his wife during his drunken spells. He periodically gambled the family money away. The female demon smoked a pack of cigarettes a day to cope with the colossally crummy circumstances that her husband put the family through. She often threw items at her husband to express her anger towards him. During her childhood, Mila was trapped in a nightmare. Most children wake up at the climax of a nightmare. Mila would wake up to a nightmare that would seemingly never end.

As soon as she was of legal age, Mila left her parents’ home to escape from the Devil’s flames. She got a job in retail and found a cheap apartment. For a couple of years, she worked and would take a class here and there at a community college. Mila wasn’t sure what she wanted to be, but she sure as heck knew she didn’t want to work in retail for the rest of her life. During that same time span, Mila felt a void in her life. Something was missing. Life felt empty.

Years after she had left her childhood home, Mila married a man she met at her job. She ceased being lonely. The bottomless pit she felt for a long time had disappeared. Was it love that filled this pit? No, it was lava and flames. She found herself in a violent relationship not much different to that of her parents. Mila’s husband was an alcoholic like her father. Mila often found herself screaming at her husband like her mother did to her father. Upon realizing the reality of her long-withstanding situation, Mila decided to end the marriage to her husband. Enough is enough! The abuse must end!

Once the divorce was finalized, Mila decided to go to talk therapy. She heard that therapy changed the lives of a handful of people she knew. In her first few therapy sessions, Mila went over her childhood and marriage. Her therapist suggested that people cling naturally to what is familiar. Despite hating the mistreatment, Mila was complacently comfortable with said disrespect. Anything unfamiliar is foreign. Some people stubbornly stick with the realm they know rather than plunge into an unknown one.

After attaining key insights into her life, Mila decided to discontinue her sessions with her therapist. With this newfound knowledge, Mila mated with and married another man…a man just like her ex-husband. She divorced him. Her head twisted like a tornado. How did she get herself in this situation a second time? Shouldn’t she have learned her lesson? Is talk therapy ineffective? It depends.

According to the NIMH, psychotherapy aims to help people identify and change disruptive emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Psychotherapy is a branch within the traditional psychology industry. For decades, the conventional approach of this industry has focused on merely one of the two components of psychology – the mind. How do experiences shape the mind? Is “mind over matter” valid? Why do some people have tougher minds than others? At face value, these questions seem thoughtful; however, they consider only the mind.

Before revealing the other component of psychology, it would be beneficial to be aware of situations that talk therapy can resolve. Take the case of Jamal, a young man who grew up in a ghetto. Jamal’s father, a former gangbanger, has never met his son. He could be dead for all we know. During his childhood, Jamal’s mother was addicted to weed and mostly neglected her parental duties. When Jamal turned 18, he knew little about being a functional adult. He could not cook a clean, healthy meal. Nor had he ever washed dishes or done laundry. He knew nothing about budgeting. He never drove a car since he lived in a densely populated city.

With the above in mind, someone like Jamal would be an excellent candidate for talk therapy. Some people lack proper role models in their lives. Such people also lack useful schemas to reference for guidance. A competent therapist will provide the appropriate mental models to assist these sorts of people.

At this point, you are likely wondering why talk therapy helps only some people. Talk therapy fails to account for the other component of psychology – the body. Indeed, the mind reflects the body and vice versa. One’s psychological makeup is influenced by both the mind and the body. For people like Mila, the body needs to be considered as well. More specifically, the nervous system ought to be examined.

Written by Stephen W. Porges and Seth Porges, Our Polyvagal World (2023) is themed on the premise that the state of the body influences the mind. The wiring of our nervous systems affects our psychology. “How safe we feel is crucial for our physical and mental health and happiness.” This succinct statement, found in the first chapter of the book, summarizes the book and the Polyvagal Theory. The latter involves the vagus nerve. From the brain stem, the branches of this nerve travel throughout the body. This nerve is linked to the functioning of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).

The ANS controls the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The activation of the former excites the body, while the activation of the latter (partially) immobilizes the body. From your days in school, you may recall that the former is called the “fight or flight” system, and the latter is called the “rest and digest” system. Your body needs access to extra energy when you are in danger and is designed to store energy when you are safe. This is true for non-human animals as well.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the sympathetic nervous system was primarily activated by real danger; lions, tigers, and bears. When your life as a caveman was not in imminent danger, your “fight or flight” system was dormant. Instead, your parasympathetic nervous system was replenishing your body. For most of human evolution, this balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems was in perfect harmony. As we advanced, we began constantly stressing out over situations that aren’t inherently harmful to us; public speaking, tests, job interviews, traffic, to name a few. The hormones and other chemicals produced by this stress are taking a toll on our bodies.

With regards to health, one could reason that, for the most part, in this modern age, the sympathetic nervous system is “bad” for us and that the parasympathetic nervous system is “good” for us. Such reasoning, while understandable, is faulty. This is where the Polyvagal Theory diverts from the traditional idea implied by that reasoning. “Immobilization,” a parasympathetic response, can indicate either safety or severe danger. If you cannot cope with danger by running away or defending yourself, your body will likely “freeze” or “play dead” like an opossum to suppress the overload of erratic energy.

In Our Polyvagal World, a metaphor based on the colors of the three traffic lights is used to symbolize three states that our bodies can experience. The first state is called the “green” state. This state occurs primarily when a person feels safe. It’s the best state to be in for calm, peaceful social engagement. The second state is the “yellow” state. When our bodies are in the yellow state, our senses are heightened to more finely scope the environment around us. We can react more quickly at the expense of healing. The last state is the “red” state. Our bodies shut down when in this state. The green and red states involve the parasympathetic system; the yellow state, the sympathetic system.

Among the animal kingdom, mammals can experience all three states, while reptiles experience only two. Since, unlike reptiles, mammals can experience the green state that allows for socialization and cooperation, they were able to dominate the land.

Like many other mammals, humans are social creatures. We rule this world by working together. Humans need each other to survive. This need can be seen in our youth as well as the young of other mammal species. Play among young mammals is an important part of psychological development. Play trains a child’s body to switch between the green and yellow states smoothly. Perpetually smooth switches between the two decrease the likelihood of a child becoming stuck in the latter. We call this “resilience” or “the ability to ‘bounce back’” in our conventional lexicon. The green state is the most optimal for childhood development due to its connection with critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability.

Even though most children love to engage in play, some children are socially maladjusted. How come? Because they are wired to feel unsafe. “But they are safe,” one may rebut. The feeling of safety is just as important as actually being safe. Childhood development is logarithmic, not linear. This means that the difference between the ages 4 and 3 is greater than that of 5 and 4; the gap between 3 and 2 is wider than that between 4 and 3; and so forth. The first seven years of a child’s life are the basis from which the personality of said child will develop. The earlier a child is trained into a fearful state of being, the (disproportionately) harder it will be to undo the damage.

Because of such detrimental training, we share a planet with many people who feel unsafe even when they don’t need to feel that way. Across the globe, loads of people are traumatized or otherwise, from a psychological standpoint, insufficiently adjusted. Grandiose and subtle behaviors they partake in demonstrate this reality. Their bodies are screwed up, not solely their minds. The mind mirrors the body, and the body brings forth insights about the mind.