Brain Clinics Australia
Frequently asked questions
(FAQ)
What sort of psychological conditions do you treat at Brain Clinics Australia?
Our Clinic focuses on problems like depression, anxiety, stress, worry and sleep. Related issues include difficulties dealing with traumatic memories, getting on effectively with people, life coping issues, avoidance behaviour, procrastination, addictive behaviour and difficulties with self regulation.
Can these psychological problems be fixed?
Definitely. They reflect the impact of past experiences on the way the brain and mind deal with the present. This impact is embedded in the brain in two ways. First, as the beliefs and values that underpin decision making and voluntary action. Secondly, as conditioned emotional responses to triggering events that remind us of the original experiences and drive feelings, emotional thinking and conditioned (automatic) behaviours. Such conditioning can be reversed if the mind commits to it and uses that commitment to detach the emotions from the memories. A good psychologist will teach you how to do this, as well as how to challenge and change unhelpful and disruptive beliefs and values. With focus and commitment to change, the problems will generally disappear. This involves hard work - it's a form of unlearning and relearning - but that work should lead you to a state of well-being. Without the work, however, the problems are unlikely to go away.
But what about drugs? Can’t my doctor give me medications that will fix the problem?
None of these medications detach the conditioned emotions and resulting painful feelings from your memories. Thus, they never actually fix the underlying problems. At best, they make global changes to body chemistry, and as such affect all memories and related brain networks. The outcome may make you less susceptible to the more troubling memories, but they are still there and can still re-emerge. And often will, particularly if the drugs lose their potency with continuous use. Also, the medications may have unwanted side-effects that may cause difficulties for you.
So are medications for depression, anxiety, stress and sleep a waste of time?
Not necessarily. For example, you may have difficulty finding the commitment to making the specific psychological changes needed for you to reach a state of well-being. In such a case, the medications may give you that extra ounce of vitality and drive needed to bring commitment to change, and to bring the work required within your reach. And once the changes are made, the medications may no longer be required.
How can I be sure that psychological therapy will produce the benefits sought?
An important indicator of an effective psychologist is their ability to understand well how mind, brain and consciousness work and work together in the production of emotions, feelings, thoughts and behavioural choices. They may not work together well after stressful and traumatic experience; or when these experiences sap your internal strength, your drive, your vitality, self belief, and your sense of autonomy. An effective psychologist will able to understand and draw on a model of how such things go wrong in the complex networks of the brain and the body. And in so doing, understand how your personal experiences have led you to your state of depression, anxiety or stress, to explain this to you, and advise what to do to reach good mental health.
OK. But can I realistically expect this sort of assessment and treatment at your clinic?
Emeritus Professor Richard Clark is a psychologist with over 35 years experience in clinical practice. He has researched and published widely in the areas of depression, anxiety and stress, amongst other conditions. His research and knowledge is strongly psychobiological in orientation and grounded in a deep understanding of what needs to happen both psychologically and biologically for well-being to be obtained. He has a deep and evidence-based understanding of mind, brain and consciousness functioning and how they work together in the body in the production of emotions, feelings, thoughts and behaviours. He has developed an effective psychobiological model with high face validity for helping clients reach well-being and has been effective in treating many people with psychological disorders over the last 30 or so years.
What are the symptoms of depression?
Depression reflects a loss in vitality for life. Drive goes, there is a pervasive sense of emptiness and purposelessness, there is a general lack of motivation for anything, there is often a loss of self-worth, an unwillingness to take chances and seek opportunity, social withdrawal. Most of all perhaps the dread feeling in the pit of the stomach becomes unbearable and can often be there day and night. Sleep is often a victim. In general, the sorts of problems experienced reflect difficulties in dealing with the challenges of life. This can include difficulties dealing with people and situations, decision-making, feeling overloaded, experiencing loss in motivation and drive, having low self-confidence and self belief and a resistance to seeking opportunities, and an unwillingness to take chances and more. You will never really reach your potential until you become the master of your thoughts, feelings and actions. Effective psychological therapy and a commitment to change and undertaking the work required will help you address this.
What are the symptoms of anxiety?
There are a number of different types of anxiety. Generalised anxiety incorporates a pervasive fear of things going wrong. There is a sense of unease in the pit of the stomach. There is awareness and worry about this feeling and uncertainty about what it means. There can be difficulty and fear about making decisions. Your worry may become so overwhelming that you enter a state of panic. You’re aware of unusual physical sensations in your body, such as increases in heart rate, sweating, trembling, butterflies, a tight chest, even a sense of nausea. Avoidance is often the strategy you use for many of the things you do, or don’t do. You can box yourself in, doing less and less as your avoidance gets worse. You find it difficult to relax, your mind often races, sleep becomes a problem as you can’t switch off. Life’s problems are constantly a buzz in your thoughts. You become short tempered, feel edgy, intolerant. Once again, effective psychological therapy and a commitment to change and undertaking the work required will help you address this.
What other types of anxiety are there?
Another common type of anxiety is social anxiety. In essence, this is a fear of people, or more particularly of how people might hurt you emotionally. It often involves fear of social situations and avoidance of people. It also involves feelings of emotional pain and a mental preponderance of worry about the feeling. You might worry about what might be wrong with you; or imagine that people might think badly of you, or that they might judge you badly, or embarrass you or do other bad things to you. The emotional fear about people or social situations that you now feel was conditioned in you from earlier life experiences, and it now appears even when there is nothing to fear. Once again, effective psychological therapy and a commitment to change and undertaking the work required will help you address this.
What about stress and worry? My head never seems to switch off.
Stress is an overwhelming sense of being overloaded, not being able to complete things in time, a sense of not being able to manage. You can never relax, you don’t know what to do to feel a sense of peace and calm. Your mind is always racing. Sleep is also a victim of this condition. You tend to overreact to things. You become difficult to deal with and your relationships can suffer. Learning the causes of stress and how to address and resolve them is key. Understanding what the brain and body are doing to cause and sustain stress is crucial. Dr Clark will explain all this and teach you the strategies to deal with and overcome stress and worry, and to get rid of the sleep difficultiess they cause.
I’ve been told that early life experience is often the basis of adult coping difficulties and for conditions such as depression, anxiety and stress. Is this true?
Yes, this can often be true; though not always. Early life experience is formative in shaping the networks of the brain that determine what you decide, feel, think and do. These networks are not there when you are born; but were gradually created to provide you with knowledge and conditioning to help you to eventually function independently. If the brain is well formed through such experience, it has good knowledge about the world, knows how to use the world to satisfy needs, can deal effectively with most challenges and holds an effective and well-informed value system as the basis for decision making. When well formed, the brain will hold a robust conceptual framework, together with effective conditioned memories that allow fluid conscious and subconscious interaction with the world. When well formed, the conceptual brain will hold a strong sense of identity and self-worth and hold well established routines for effective self regulation in a competitive world of choice and challenge.
A poorly formed brain in these regards can result from early life trauma and stress, in which needs are not well satisfied, not having had a stable, safe and predictable environment, not being provided with a clear and consistent set of values in the home in early life, not receiving love and validation from those that care for you, and not being taught to be responsible for your choices or how to learn and grow through the consequences that result. Under such circumstances, the brain forms networks for dealing with the world that are dysfunctional, and provide the “shadow behaviours” adopted by the child to meet its needs and/or to overcome the limitations, stresses, traumas and problems it experiences. These networks might work somewhat for the powerless child, sometimes providing the needs otherwise denied, or avoiding the pain of abuse. But they rarely work effectively in an unforgiving adult world, leaving the adult with deficient strategies for securing well-being, in a world of adults focused on their own needs.
But can psychological therapy get rid of emotionally painful feelings? The feelings I have sap me of vitality and strength, of drive and purpose. I want to feel joy, calm, serenity, happiness. I have none of this.
Feelings are centre stage in psychological therapy. Feelings represent the brain’s awareness of emotions, which are neurochemical and neuromuscular actions in the body and brain. These feelings can seem positive, or they can seem negative. They derive from life experience, in which your brain attaches negative or positive values in response to such experiences. When the experiences occur again, or even sometimes just some element of that experience that is in itself benign, the brain automatically reproduces the emotion in the body as a flag or warning about the present experience. You then feel the emotion. And if the emotion is physically negative in its action in the body, you feel bad. And if the emotion is physically positive, you feel good. It is that simple.
Feelings are just a language to tell you what is happening. It is the old, reptilian communication system that can often serve you well in satisfying needs or avoiding danger. But it is not a sophisticated language, it is very black-and-white, unable to take context and nuance into account in situations. It is nothing like the language of words and symbols, which is extremely sophisticated and has led to the development of the world we live in, together with the supportive arts, humanities, sciences, technology and engineering.
Unfortunately, negative emotions can be triggered and released under conditions in which nothing is actually wrong. It is just that something in the present experience reminds the emotional brain of the original stress or trauma. Under such conditions, the emotional brain just assumes there is a problem (like a smoke alarm going off when there is no fire) and tells you so through the emotion you the feel. And this is where the language of words gets involved, when you unsuccessfully try to understand and interpret the meaning of the unpleasant feeling. Psychological therapy is often about teaching you how to deal with feelings under conditions where nothing is actually wrong. When the feeling is a false alarm or miscue. An effective psychologist will explain what to do, which is usually not that difficult conceptually, but it is still hard work requiring a commitment to change, action and patience.