How Pressure Can Make You Stronger & Sharper
Author: Ian Robertson
Bloomsbury Publications: 2016
Page: 241
Price: 499
“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased … Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff …?” asked Macbeth, projecting Shakespeare onto the Freudian plane – another astounding aspect of the Bard’s understanding of the human mind. Lady Macbeth wasbeing treated by a ‘doctor’ who suggested that the “patient needs to minister to [her]self”(a futuristic reference to Freud’s “dialogue” with the patient?) but contemporary analysts dismissed Lady Macbeth’s hallucinations,culminating in her suicide,as a case of “guilty conscience”; others,less fortunate,were burnt at the stake for perceived or suspected witchcraft or were subjected to various forms of exorcism and physical torture – cases that modern day psychologists might have diagnosed aspost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and treated accordingly.
But how far have we really come towards understanding the human mind-brain? The book under review examines mental disorders as a consequence of trauma (ranging from sexual abuse to bereavement of close relatives, from being witnessesto horrifying accidents to personal failures) and aging (as in Alzheimer’s). Professor Ian Robertson, the author of the book under review, walks us through several cases and the long painful journeys back to personal balance; he also takes us through his numerous journeys into the humongous amount of research done into the mysteries of the mind. For instance, for the causes of Alzheimer’s he decides to examine all the possibilities like the consumption of alcohol, sexual abuse, IQ level, common genetic profile, learning and awareness, contact with relatives, friends and children. The more education you have had in your life the smaller chance there is, he says, of the diseaseshowing. At each stage he finds that astonishingly detailed research has been done and findings recorded in various countries; these he painstakingly examines with reference to his theories – the most interesting of which is Friedrich Nietzsche’s axiom: what does not kill me, makes me stronger. He acknowledges that Nietzsche saw “individuals as agents who could harness their own power as against being subjects of uncontrollable forces”.
Sexual abuse as a child, he says, may set off a life-time of self-exploration, forcing decades of thinking, emotional turmoil and counselling to “free the self and personality of this alien intrusion”. The consequent mental working through the terrible experiences may provide a kind of cognitive enrichment for some. The emphasis is on “some”.A source of some consolation to social drinkers is that there is no direct link between alcohol consumption and dementia – depending on the limits of awareness and control that one crosses, or doesn’t!
The findings as to Alzheimer’s perhaps merit a detailed description. The author says we should be as concerned about it as we are of global warming. To the ubiquitous question about the disease being hereditary, the author finds a “strong genetic element” in the(mercifully rare) form of the illness that strikes people before the age of 60. Then, on examining the aspects of the IQ level and the extent of education,he concludes that they are to a large extent,Alzheimer-resistant. However, it is not only the number of years of education you have had in your younger years but more so the extent of use of the brain as you progress into old age that matters – a continued process of learning and self-awareness. But by far the most effective “protection” against the illness is contact with children, relatives and/or friends close enough for you to confide in them and call on them for help. This again emphasises the need for the feeling of being in control. Watching television for relaxing, he warns, is both cognitively undemanding and linked to feeling of passivity and drowsiness; it reduces arousal – and therefore gradual loss of control over one’s life. Mentally challenging activities and social networks, on the other hand, boost arousal and protect the brain from dementia.
This leads us to the proposition that our personalities are not “fixed” but can be changed. Robertson says that the book is about developing a new understanding of how we can ‘tune’ our mind-brains using both hardware and software, to increase our performance, to cope positively with life’s adversities and to rise to challenges; for its only by believing that we have some control can we find the right mental balance for the challenges that face us.
Although the subtitle of the book promises to show the reader ‘How Pressure Can Make You Stronger & Sharper, the author admits that stress is a two edged sword – it can distract and inhibit you, or it can boost your abilities and push you nearer to optimal performance. Therefore there is such a thing a “good stress”.Stress can only ever be good for someone when they retain some control.
Robertson deals then with stress as seen in the various consequences of trauma viz. Fear (which causes surges of adrenaline sometime in waking life, sometimes as nightmares), Arousal (as in being forced to be alert and aware), Anger (as an overwhelming emotion that pushes you forward, to demand what you want), among others. Anger,particularly, is a tricky and complex emotion which can be dangerous when it is turned inwards or suppressed rather than reinterpreted. Against anonymous others or against “fate”it needs to be reappraised; justified anger against real people can help you energise yourselfto face the challenge.
To become stronger after bad things happen, you need to find a balance, between approach and avoidance, optimism and pessimism, reward-seeking and punishment-avoidance. And above all there is a need for balance of self which is not easy. In this context, the blurb on the front cover of the book which says, ‘You can change, and here’s the proof’ seems to trivialise the contents of the book, converting it to the self-help category.
