Source: PHQandA, Message 1708Schizophrenia as a Developmental Disorder
It is indeed a trying experience to watch loved ones go through illness, especially a stigmatized and misunderstood one like mental illness.
The following medical background looks at the condition with a different perspective, as a developmental disorder. The human brain is a marvel. It can re-assign functions when one or more parts is damaged or malfunctioning. Once the physical brain is assisted by the healers to reach proper function, the patient would still have to learn to do self healing to maintain the proper health of mind and body.
Medical Background:Schizophrenia is a mental illness with 2.5 million victims in the United States alone. The first symptoms usually appear when people are in their late 20s, but neuroscientists now believe that the seeds of the disorder are often sown during fetal development.
That is when the brain is wired up; nerve cells grow and divide, building connections with each other. The basic flaw in the brains of many schizophrenics seems to be that certain nerve cells migrate to the wrong areas when the brain is first taking shape, leaving small regions of the brain permanently out of place or miswired. Such errors in neural architecture may have one or more causes, which remain to be discovered.
The chief symptoms of schizophrenia include apathy, a blunting of emotions, delusions and the hearing of internal voices. Once these symptoms begin, they typically wax and wane for the rest of a person's life.
The origins of the disorder have long been mysterious. Once attributed to poor communication within families, the condition is now recognized as a disease of the brain, as seen in differences between schizophrenic and normal brains.
The idea that these differences arise during fetal development, said Dr.David Shore, chief of the Schizophrenia Research Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., "is one of the leading candidates for explaining how the changes we see in the brains of schizophrenics might have come about."
But that theory does not solve the entire puzzle. "Schizophrenia is probably many different kinds of problems that converge on the same syndrome, not just a single disease," said Dr. Daniel Weinberger, chief of the clinical Brain Disorders Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. "But based on the weight of evidence, half or more of schizophrenia seems to be due to abnormalities in fetal brain development."
Evidence for that new theory comes from several different sources, including autopsies of patients' brains, family movies taken when patients were as young as 2 and epidemiological data.
One of the more convincing reports, based on tissue from autopsies and published this month in The Archives of General Psychiatry, showed neurons out of place in the prefrontal areas of 7 of 20 brains from patients with schizophrenia and in none of the 20 brains from people without the disorder. The study is the fourth of its kind to report wayward cells in various parts of the cortex in people with schizophrenia.
The out-of-place cells are unexpectedly large residues of the neural subplate, a structure that guides other neurons to their proper sites. The subplate forms about the fourth month of pregnancy. It gradually disappears almost entirely within the first month of life, having performed its task of aiming neurons toward their location in the cortex.
"The migration of brain cells through the neural subplate occurs almost entirely in the second trimester of fetal development," said Dr. Steven G. Potkin, a psychiatrist at the University of California at Irvine and a co-author of the study, with Dr. William E. Bunney and Dr. Edward Jones.
"If you disrupt this migration, cells end up in the wrong place or have faulty connections -- and that's what we found in the brains of the schizophrenic patients," Potkin said. "The maldistribution of these cells suggests an abnormality in the subplate."
Experiments on cats by Dr. Carla Shatz, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Berkeley, has shown that making cuts in the subplate at an equivalent period in the development of the cat brain produces cortical cells that are miswired or out of place. Just what might cause the neural subplate to fail to perform its duties isa matter of surmise. Potkin speculated that "there may be a wide range of causes, from a faulty genetic mechanism to environmental insults, like the mother having a virus that penetrates the placenta, all of which interfere with the operation of the neural subplate during the critical months of fetal brain development."
One nagging question for proponents of the new theory is why no symptoms of schizophrenia appear for two decades or more if the brain abnormalities are present from birth.
One answer is that there are, indeed, signs of coming trouble throughout life but that they are subtle and easily missed. The British Medical Research Council tracked every child born in Britain in the first week of March 1946, assessing them every two years or so until they reached the age of 43. Dr. Robin Murray, a British psychiatrist, found subtle childhood differences among those who later developed schizophrenia.
At most milestones of neurological development -- analyzed by looking at things like when each infant first sat up and teacher ratings of each child's performance -- the development of the schizophrenic group, on average, was delayed.
"There were no gross abnormalities, but a lifelong pattern, on average, of delayed maturation of their brains," said Dr. Weinberger, who reviewed the cumulative evidence linking lifelong neurological problems to schizophrenia in The Lancet, a medical journal, last year. "For instance, at six months, about a third of babies are two weeks or more late in sitting up. For those who later developed schizophrenia, two-thirds were late. As a whole, their lags suggest subtle abnormalities in neural development."
When researchers in a 1994 study asked the families of patients with schizophrenia to provide them with home movies of the patients as children, they found more signs of unusual neural development. At age 2, for instance, these children tended to display slightly odd hand movements that would not have troubled their parents at the time but would have been recognized by a trained eye as a sign of troubled motor development.
The study by Dr. E. Fuller Turrey, M.D. reviewed 65 research projects carried out on individuals with schizophrenia who had never been treated with any antipsychotic medication. In many, the individual had only recently been diagnosed with the disease. The projects measured the structure and function of brains of individuals with schizophrenia and compared these with normal controls. Neurological and neuropsychological measures of brain function showed the most consistent and largest differences between patients and controls. Measures of brain structure, such as MRIs, and measures of brain metabolism, such as PET scans, were also significantly different but less impressive. The brain abnormalities were not localized to a single part of the brain but instead implicated a variety of interrelated regions at the base of the brain.
Developmental neurobiologists funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have found that schizophrenia may be a developmental disorder resulting when neurons form inappropriate connections during fetal development. These errors may lie dormant until puberty, when changes in the brain that occur normally during this critical stage of maturation interact adversely with the faulty connections. This research has spurred efforts to identify prenatal factors that may have some bearing on the apparent developmental abnormality.
In other studies, investigators using brain-imaging techniques have found evidence of early biochemical changes that may precede the onset of disease symptoms, prompting examination of the neural circuits that are most likely to be involved in producing those symptoms. Meanwhile, scientists working at the molecular level are exploring the genetic basis for abnormalities in brain development and in the neurotransmitter systems regulating brain function.
The term "schizophrenia" was introduced in 1911 by a Swiss psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler. The word comes from the Greek schizo meaning "split" and phrenia meaning "mind." Bleuler wanted to convey the split between what is perceived, what is believed, and what is objectively real. He did not mean that the person with schizophrenia is split into two personalities, but that there is a splitting away of the personality from reality. The concept of "split," however, has led to schizophrenia being confused with multiple personality, a less common and very different psychiatric disorder, much publicized through such stories as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Three Faces of Eve, and Sybil. Today, many health care professionals regret the existence of the term "schizophrenia" because of the confusion and misunderstanding that surround it.
Added to this basic confusion is a history of blame. Families agree that blame is a major stumbling block to seeking and receiving support.
In the late 1800s and the early part of this century, three competing views about the nature of mental illness gained acceptance in the psychiatric profession.
Biological psychiatry grew from the research of Dr. Emil Kraepelin in Germany; psychoanalysis from the findings of Dr. Sigmund Freud and his colleagues in their studies on neuroses in Austria; and behaviourism from the work of Dr. John B. Watson in the United States. Kraepelin's views predominated the thinking of psychiatrists in Europe, while both psychoanalysis and behaviourism (see Glossary) flourished in North America (Andreasen, The Broken Brain, pp. 11-20).
In the 1950s, many North American psychiatrists began to believe that schizophrenia resulted from a form of psychic trauma inflicted on the individual early in life, typically by parents. Mothers of those with schizophrenia were believed to be over-anxious, obsessive, and domineering. These women were labelled "schizophrenogenic." One mother said she almost understood this. "When you are pushing to get help for your child, it is easy for some to 'put the cart before the horse' and point to this pushiness and tension as the cause of your child's problem, rather than the result of it." Gradually, blame was placed on the family as a unit. Theorists noticed poor family functioning where there was someone with schizophrenia, and confused the effect of the illness with its cause.
Two other theories contributed to the mythology surrounding schizophrenia. The American psychoanalyst Thomas Szasz pronounced that schizophrenia, like all other mental illnesses, is a set of behaviours, not a disease. The late R.D. Laing, a British psychiatrist, suggested that it is really a "healthy" response to an insane world. People burdened with terrible stress act "crazy" in an effort to adapt.
Scientific research and factual data have discredited these theories. Unfortunately, they were all popular enough at one time to have gained public attention. You may still run into health care professionals who will suggest that you "caused" your relative's illness, and that a continuing family relationship may hinder recovery.
Aside from the history of blame, the symptoms of the illness itself can often add to the stigma of schizophrenia. The odd and unpredictable behaviour, poor functioning, or lack of good health habits can be disturbing to others. News coverage on acts of violence or suicides committed by people reported as having schizophrenia serve to add to the stigma, even if unintentionally.
PRANIC HEALING TREATMENT:(message 677 from Master Fe)- Apply general sweeping with EV for 3 cycles.
- Sweep front and back solar plexus with LV or EV. Inhibit with LB.
- Sweep front and back heart with EV. Energize with EV through the back heart.
- Sweep and energize with EV the ajna, forehead, crown, and back head chakras. Sweep the entire brain thoroughly.
- Sweep and energize throat and ear minor chakras with EV.
- Sweep basic, navel, and sex. Energize with WHITE.
- Sweep meng mein and spleen thoroughly.
- Create chakral shields on the front and back solar plexus, ajna, back head, crown, throat, and ear minor chakras.
- Create an auric shield.
- Patient to practice Meditation on Twin Hearts regularly.
There should be an intention of removing and disintegrating the negative elementals and negative thought entities lodged in it and the sealing of cracks and holes on the protective webs. Cleansing and energizing have to be done alternately.
Love and light, masterfe
In addition to the above-mentioned protocol, include the following:- Healer: Practice properly the Meditation on Twin Hearts with Chakral Self Healing daily. Do the healing after doing the Meditation.
- Invoke before,during and after the treatment. Include a request for healing angels and ministers to assist in the healing until the patient is properly healed.
- Use salt water disposal unit at all times. Flick your healing hand regularly while sweeping and energizing.
- Impregnate the projected pranic energy with compassion and loving kindness; use will at a minimum.
- Meticulousness and clear intentions get better results.
- Include thorough cleansing of the liver in Step 2.
- Imagine yourself healing the patient also during the brain and nerve development stages as you apply step 4 of the above protocols. While energizing the ajna, simultaneously lovingly instruct the ajna to distribute the EV to all the brain and nerve cells for properly developing them.
- While energizing the back heart, visualize the projected energy activating the front heart Sweep thoroughly and energize the base of the brain and the entire spine, both sides of the spine all the way to the end of the tailbone with EV.
- Include thorough cleansing of both kidneys and adrenalin glands for step 7.
- Include healthy balanced nutrition and daily physical exercise in the treatment.
- Proper treatment by medical professionals is not to be disregarded.
- Encourage the patient to do daily blessing and service. Regular tithing for proper healing is adviseable.
- Regular salt water baths especially after stressful activity.
- For the first 2 weeks of treatment, repeat treatment every day, several times per day depending on the severity of the condition. Gradually reduce treatment to 3 times per week. Continue treatment for a minimum of 90 days.
- Stabilize and release projected pranic healing energy.
Maintenance healing treatment will be needed.
Applying the pranic treatment as described will treat the back pain of the patient.
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