From South Georgia to South Africa

 I originally wrote about my interest in geneology (family origins research)  beginning with the genogram I was asked to create in 1992 while in psychotherapy training. Maybe I was wrong about when my interest in prehistoric humans began. Maybe it began before the family genogram.......... Maybe it began when I used to search the plowed fields of South Georgia for arrowheads ( such as these in the pic above). The center arrowhead I found in 1972. It was lodged in an uprooted tree stump on the edge of a river. I will never forget the feeling of seeing it sticking out from the roots of that fallen tree. I later learned it was from a Native American Tribe that lived in Georgia around 3000 BC......They were us-- homosapiens. They too had traveled Out of Africa around 55,000 BC. When we turned to head toward Europe they turned to turned to travel to Northern Russia,  and later crossed the Bering Straight to settle in America around 20,000 BC, and into my home state  of Georgia by about 5000 BC.....Little did I know that when I was looking for arrowheads in the fields of Georgia that Lee Berger Phd, now the Director of the Department of Human Evolution at Wits University in Johannesburg South Africa, did the same when he was a boy. And in GA!! One reason I wanted to visit the fossil vault at Wits is because I had read Berger's book and knew he  and I shared this same experience. And I was thrilled beyond measure to meet Berger in that fossil vault in 2015. By the way, I was 19 years old when I found that  large ancient Native American artifact in the center of the pic above. I believe the journey started then!!

Psychotherapy, Geneaology, and a Trip to Africa!

Have you figured out the connection between psychoanalytic therapy ( and now neuropsychoanalytic therapy via the writings of Mark Solms),  genealogy ( family tree research), and paleoanthropology ( the search for our human origins in Africa)? It is all about who we are and where we come from. .......In psychoanalytic therapy you go back through your personal childhood. I am fortunate to have spent a number of years doing that ( and have now  learned neuropsychoanalytic  therapy in the last few years). In genealogical research you take it a step further to the tracing of your ancestors to their beginning in history. I have done that as well. Just this year I was able to travel to the United Kingdom and visit the countries of my ancestors origins. And when you travel to Africa to study ancient human fossils, as I was able to do ( in 2015), you get to go all the way back to the beginning of your roots in humankind's origin....... So, psychoanalytic/neuropsychoanalytic psychotherapy.....  Family Tree Research in the United Kingdom ..... And a  trip of a lifetime ---the trip to Africa  to study ancient human fossils.... These experiences in searching for my roots  have helped me to discover more about who I am, and where I came from!!

2Kathy Melton and 1 other

Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Lecture Five Part 1" How to Treat the Mind" Why We Seek Therapy

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WHY WE SEEK THERAPY

It has been five years since my trip to Africa to learn more about human evolution. At that time I had spent a number of years studying evolutionary biology and it’s contribution to psychoanalysis. The big takeaway of the relationship between these two disciplines is we are motivated at a deep unconscious level to survive and successfully reproduce. We are driven at this unaware level by our genes that desire to get themselves into the next generation so that the human species can continue to exist. This happens over and over again and is testimony to the fact our earliest ancestors did just this, and they survived and we are the result of their survival and reproductive success. This is not really new information. Charles Darwin told us this in the 1800’s and Sigmund Freud reiterated it in the 1900’s when he created psychoanalysis and taught that we are all motivated by deep unconscious needs and desires. What is new for me is how I am now finding these older truths, updated with evolutionary biology integrated into neuroscience, so applicable to my work as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist.

In this lecture about how to treat the mind, I want to start by talking how neuroscience sheds light on why patients seek out neuropsychoanalytic treatment. >

Now my patients do sit down in the chair and say, “ Just yesterday I felt like I wanted to survive and reproduce in order to get my genes into the next generation." Nor do they say they are motivated to raise their children well so they will survive and reproduce and get their genes into the next generation. These motives are unconscious. We are not aware of them. We do not think them. They are innate and built into us. Nevertheless we are motivated by them at our deepest level and much of what we do is a result of these unaware of built in motives. For example take Parental Investment Theory: This theory says if you have children then your genes reside in each child. These genes want to get into the next generation. So there is a lot of hidden motivation that causes your children to want to survive to adulthood and successfully reproduce in order to have their own children.

So these hidden motives that are built into us are called distal motives. Distal means at a distance from our conscious minds. These distal motives lie behind what motivations we do feel, experience and think about—motives that we are very much aware of. And these are called proximal motives. Proximal means close to consciousness. So we do fee these motivations. For example we feel the motive of love for our children. This feeling we are very much aware of and this proximal motive is what causes most parents to do the best job they can in raising their kids.

Now we are talking desire and needs that indeed we do feel. For example we all need to feel safe ( FEAR when not met.) And when we do not feel safe we feel anxious or afraid, so we seek to deal with this danger, and if we do we feel better. If we cannot reduce the fear or anxiety we feel worse. This need for safety is also built into us. But we feel this need for safety very strongly, and if this need is not met we might seek a consult with a therapist.

Modern affective neuroscience has taught psychoanalysis that we have seven basic emotions/needs. These are: Safety(FEAR when not met.); Obstacle removal ( RAGE when not met.); attachment ( PANIC/GRIEF when not met.); SEEKING;LUST;CARE;and PLAY. These are emotional needs that all humans experience. (Psychoanalysis calls these needs drives or innate motivations.) I have mentioned the first of these seven emotional needs/drives which is Safety( FEAR when not met.) The second universal emotional need/drive is the need for love (Attachment or PANIC/GRIEF when not met.) We all need someone to love us. This need is first felt in childhood when we are seeking our parents’ love. But the need for love, closeness, and care from significant others continues throughout adulthood. What happens if this need goes unmet? We first feel panic anxiety and we seek to reconnect with our caregiver. If we are successful the panic feeling subsides. If we cannot reunite with our attachment figure then our panic anxiety turns to despair, grief, and even depression. Panic anxiety and grief often bring folks to therapy.

The third innate emotional need is the need to get our basic needs met. This requires the ability to remove obstacles that may stand in the way of our getting our needs met. When this need is not met we feel RAGE. RAGE can range from mild irritability to extreme anger to pure rage. Clients sometime seek out therapy when they are experiencing overwhelming anger. The fourth inbuilt need is the need to love others, especially our own offspring. We all need others to CARE for and nurture--especially our own offspring. When we are not able to express our love for others then we may feel unfilled or depressed and therefore need therapeutic help. The fifth emotional need is to find a mate. Everyone needs a significant other with whom they can meet their need for sexual fulfillment or LUST. . Many people come to therapy with sexual frustration, lack of desire or impotence.

The sixth deep emotional need is adventure. We all have a need to SEEK out new experiences, people, things, and ideas. We need to forage about looking for new and exciting ways to get our basic needs met. This is the search for novelty. When folks cannot get this need met they may feel frustrated, anxious, or despairing. These feelings may lead them to seek treatment. The seventh and final primal need is PLAY. All children need to play. All adults also need to play. Playfulness brings joy. Playing with others requires team work and social relationships. Competition, winners and losers, and social groups are all a part of the need to play. Those who cannot find playful pleasure with others often seek out psychotherapy.

These seven innate emotional needs(drives) and the resulting bad feelings we feel when they are not met in healthy ways, often motivate clients to pursue therapy. The therapist’s job is to help the client see that the way they are trying to get their need met is not working. That is why they feel bad. The way they are trying to meet their basic need is a childhood way that may have been their only choice as a child but clearly is not realistic as an adult. Childhood solutions do not work well for adults. We need more realistic ways to meet our needs.

For example if you find yourself throwing an emotional fit everytime you do not get a basic need met and acting like a petulant child, you probably will find that this act does not get you what you need. Such a childish solution just does not work very well in the real world of adulthood. Now with the help of a therapist you must come not only to recognize that this is not the way to get your need met, you must now learn new more mature ways to do so. And then you must actually change your behavoir over time to acting in more adult ways. This is what therapy is for, to help you see what your are repeating unsuccessfully in your adult life that may have been your only choice as a child. When over time you begin to see what you are doing, come to understand where it comes from, and how to change it, your therapy will come to an end. This will happen because now you have adopted new ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving that actually do work to get your needs met in the mature adult reality that we must all live within.

C. Alan Melton, D.Min., LPC

calanmeltonw@gmail.com

Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Lecture Six, Part 1 " How to Treat the Mind" Defense Analysis

DEFENSE ANALYSIS

In earlier lectures I have spoken about the role of interpretation in neuropsychoanalytic treatment. I explained the part played by both transference and extratransference interpretations. But we cannot always begin with these type of interpretations. Why is this the case? Because of DEFENSE. Part of the way our minds operate is we defend ourselves from unpleasant feelings in order not to feel them. To feel the feelings would make us too uncomfortable. So we defend ourselves from the discomfort.

When patients come to treatment because their defenses have failed them (which is most often the case), they will be feeling their unpleasant feelings. But when their feelings are adequately defended against, these defenses must be interpreted before transference and extratransference interpretations are attempted. Only after interpreting these defenses can we move to transference and extratransference interpretations of the unworkable, repressed, childhood prediction. For example, let's say when you were a young child your Father would scold you harshly everytime you asked him to PLAY with you. And you wanted to destroy him, kill him, or somehow remove him from the home. But he was bigger and stronger than you, and you could not get rid of him. You felt RAGE toward him as an unwanted obstacle getting in the way of your meeting your PLAY needs. You were also afraid, however , if you expressed your RAGE roward him for being in your way, he would harshly punish you. So you had a conflict that needed resolving. But your little ego was not mature enough to come up with a good solution/prediction to the conflict. So you came up with the best prediction you could at the time which was, " I cannot remove him and get my PLAY needs met, so I will comply with him and forgo meeting those needs."

This was not a workable prediction because the obstacle who stood in the way of your getting your need met was still there. But it was the best solution you could come up with at the time. So to get rid of the anxiety of an insoluable conflict/inadequate prediction, your ego repressed it into your unconscious ( This is primary repression in Freud.) But because the prediction did not work ie, the frustrating obstacle was not removed, you were still left with the feeling of RAGE ( due to prediction error.) Now your ego had to call on the other defense mechanisms to defend you against the feeling of RAGE (Freud referred to these other defenses as secondary or after pressure defenses.)

These defenses would be either the more realistic neurotic defenses such as reaction formation and isolation of affect, or the less realistic narcissistic/borderline/psychotic level defenses such as splitting, introjection, projection and disavowal. Your ego at this time chose the neurotic level defense mechanism of reaction formation. The reaction formation caused you not to feel RAGE but to feel it's opposite, love. But, here is the most important part--your RAGE feeling did not really go away. It was still there-- just defended against.

Now as an adult your rage is so well defended against that you find yourself unable to express RAGE at all--even when you need to. This greatly limits your life. So in order to "undefend" your childhood RAGE you need a neuropsychoanalytic analyst/therapist to help you interpret the reaction formation defense against it-- to dismantle it, so you can feel the RAGE, learn where it came from, understand the unworkable prediction that led to it, and eventually change to a new prediction that will eliminate the need for it. The eventual new prediction will allow you to remove obstacles like your Father from your life. It will say," Instead of destroying persons like my Father who get in the way of my PLAY need, I will assert myself with them and demand they stop. If they refuse, I will end my relationship with them."

And since the new prediction works, and you have successfully removed the obstacle in your way, you no longer feel the RAGE. There is no longer any need for the RAGE, and therefore it does now indeed go away. And since there is now no RAGE, there is no need for the reaction formation defense against it.

In Modern Freudian psychoanalytic treatment this process is called Defense Analysis. As shown above, we follow a similar process in neuropsychoanalytic treatment. The difference comes in understanding the relationship of primary repression to the secondary after pressure defenses. ) Neuropsychoanalysis believes primary repression represses the unworkable childhood prediction. The other after pressure defense mechanisms then defend against the resultant unpleasant feeling. It is these after pressure defenses that the neuropsychoanalytic clinician must interpret first, before being able to interpret the repressed prediction that has caused the unpleasant feeling. The repressed prediction itself then is best interpreted through transference and extratransference interpretations. The interpreted repressed, unworkable old prediction is then eventually replaced with the new workable prediction. But replacing the old prediction with the new one requires what psychoanalytic treatment calls " Working Through."

Introductory Lectures on Neuropsychoanalysis: Preface; Why Psychoanalysis Must be Grounded in Biology

What is true of the mind at the psychological level is true of the brain at the biological level. ( This is Dual Aspect Monism in Freud and Neuropsychoanalysis). We are homo sapiens who biologically by evolutionary design are motivated to survive and reproduce. These motives of survival and reproductive success are distal motives that we are not aware of consciously, and we do not feel them. We have learned about them through our knowledge of evolutionary biology and the neurosciences, but we do not experience them subjectively.

In order to aid in our survival and reproductive success our minds evolved other motives that are proximal. Proximal motives we do feel ( see the neuropsychoanalyst Mark Solm's paper "The Conscious Id".) We experience them subjectively. We experience pleasure whenever we do anything that enhances our survival and reproductive success, and we experience unpleasure (Freud's term ) when we do anything that does not enhance our survival or reproductive success. Take sex for example: We do not consciously have sex because we want to have reproductive success and make sure our genes are carried into the next generation. We engage in sex because it is feels pleasureable (the proximal/conscious motive.) But the reason evolution made sex pleasureable is to encourage us to engage in it in order to have reproductive success and make sure our species survives generation after generation.

These experiences of pleasure and unpleasure occur at the psychological/feeling level of the mind. But feelings too are a function of the brain. It is as young children we first learn to do what is pleasureable and to avoid what is not. We have to adjust psychologically to our family environment and whatever in it feels good, gives us good thoughts, or rewards certain actions with postive survival and reproductive results--this is what we do. If it pleases Mommy then it feels good. If it displeases Mommy it feels bad. So we adapt (form unconscious, repressed predictions says neuropsychoanalysis) in the psychological meaning of the term to our family situation and to our immediate cultural environment. These psychological adjustments (predictions) to our families and our culture, beyond what is innate, are what form our personalities and make us who we are. And most of this forming of our personalities takes place before we are seven years old. However, we are always being formed by what is innate and part of our biological nature ( drives or basic emotional needs in the Id ) combined with what is learned ( by our egos) and part of our nurture.

This is why psychoanalysis must be grounded in evolutionary biology and the neurosciences. If not psychoanalysts will fail to attend adequately to our innate biological givens, which in psychoanalysis are called DRIVES ( ( Basic emotional needs in affective neuroscience, coming from the Id.) Having studied evolutionary biology and neuroscience, I have come to see the importance of grounding psychoanalysis in it's parent discipline of biology ( this interdisciplinary approach today is called neuropsychoanalysis.) When we do this we obtain knowledge about the unconscious distal motives underneath the proximal felt motives of consciousness.

In my own theory and technique of psychoanalytic therapy I am now integrating the contributions of biology. Unfortunately, in my view, some psychoanalysts do not believe in the necessity of such integration. To me this position refuses to accept that we are homo sapiens--a species of primates. We are mammals and we share much in common with all mammals, our closest cousin being the chimpanzees. As mammals we have biological drives ( basic emotional needs) that are mammalian, and if we do not take this aspect of a nature into account, we do not get a complete picture of ourselves as modern humans.

Therefore, for me, in order to provide our patients with the best possible psychotherapeutic experience we need to know the biological sciences as well as the psychological sciences. And we must allow this knowledge of biology to contribute to our understanding of the mind that we have learned from psychoanalysis. Only then will we be offering our patients a complete understanding of themselves as whole persons, as body and mind entities, brain and mind together, nature and nurture combined. That is why I continue to advocate for all analytically oriented therapists to ground their psychoanalytic understanding and treatment in biology.

My Retirement Speech from the Valley Pastoral Counseling Center

I first want to thank and recognize my most personal supporters and encouragers, my family, for being here this afternoon and caring for me through the years. I next want to recognize my therapist brother who started out as a pastoral counselor. I am further happy to have here today two groups of our life long friends.

Others who have been great supporters through the years are here as well:

My psychiatrist friend and colleague who also studied psychoanalysis.

And my long time friend and colleague who has traveled a similar path to mine. He began in pastoral ministry. Moved to pastoral counseling, then psychoanalysis, and finally neuropsychoanalysis.

I thank you all for being here today to celebrate with me and for our long and continued history together!

The next groups I wish to recognize and thank for being here are first: My fellow therapists at the pastoral counseling center. I have known some of you for almost twenty years. Second: The Interns and Residents I supervised over the years. You taught me as I taught you. Third: The Boards of Directors over the years. We could have not accomplished the mission of the pastoral counseling center without your oversight and fundraising. Fourth: Office staff and volunteers. You worked behind the scenes to keep the Counseling Center functioning smoothly from within as well as reaching out to the community........

As I thought about what I might say today, two questions came to my mind. The first one was, " Why did I come to the Valley Pastoral Counseling Center?" That one was pretty easy to answer. I needed a job! Which was true, but more seriously, I had just graduated from a Pastoral Counseling Institute which including training to become a LPC. And, at the age of 40 I was wanting to transition out of the pastorate and into the specialty of pastoral psychotherapy. My long time friend who was then the executive director here at Valley Pastoral, was kind enough to create a position for me as a staff psychotherapist. I was very grateful to be here!

The second question I asked myself was, "Why did I stay at Valley Pastoral until retirement?" ( Note that I retired from Valley Pastoral but subsequently began a small private practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy). That question was a little harder to answer. One reason I stayed so long was the work itself. Thanks to our expanded mission statement, staff therapists could do not only therapy, but also supervision, education and consultation. So , I got to do here much of what I loved doing! I got to do psychoanalytic psychotherapy--1100 patients for whom I am most grateful. I got to do supervision--14 students who taught me almost as much as I taught them. I got to write--two books, 100 Blog posts, The History of the Pastoral Counsrling Center, and many newsletter articles. I further got to give numerous talks/lectures in the community. I got to lead the counseling center through 12 years as the Executive Director  and a number of years as clinical director and training director. I got to continue my education through the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the International Neuropsychoanalytic Society. And I also got to travel-- one trip being to the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, Austria.

And, through all of these various roles, I was fortunate to be able to help many different patients, supervisees, and others in so many different ways. So I now had to ask," Why would I have NOT stayed here until retirement?"

But I stayed for another reason as well. And that was because of you all here today-- the Valley Pastoral community-- the historical community of the Valley Pastoral Counseling Center. You have been my community throughout all these years. You as therapists, residents, interns, supervisees, Board Members, office staff, and volunteers. It is our relationships that kept me here. Our relationships we forged as we worked side by side fulfilling the mission of the Center. I have valued our relationships, both past and present. And it those relationships with you in this room that I will take with me into this next chapter retirement from VPCC. 

Dunagan Family History- My mother's mother's family!!

One of the nice things about living in VA is that most of my family tree started right here, at least once they got to the USA. THAT IS TRUE FOR THE Meltons, Dodgens, and DUNAGANS. ......You will not believe that the Dunagans, upon leaving IRELAND came to Orange County VA where my family lived for 12 years from 1983 to 1995!!! THIS IS THE STORY OF HOW MY MOTHER's maternal family came from Ireland to Orange VA to GEORGIA. THE FIRST Dunagan I know about was WILLIAM Dunagan who lived in LIMERICK IRELAND circa 1680.( MUCH OF WHAT I know of the DUNAGANS CAME FROM COUSIN GEORGE DUNAGAN of GAINSVILLE Ga. I FOUND HIM ON THE INTERNET and soon learned he had done OUR entire Dunagan family tree research back to IRELAND. I was thrilled when he invited my family and my Father to visit him in 1993.) WILLIAM OF Limerick IRELAND son's name was THOMAS, christened in 1706 . Thomas was the FIRST Dunagan to travel to America. HE MOVED HERE WITH HIS FAMILY IN 1738 and settled in ORANGE County VA, to live with the John Pickett family. They lived and worked there for 3 years until he could pay MR. Pickett for his travel costs to the USA..........THOMAS's son was Joseph Sr. In the 1760's he moved to GREENVILLE County SC, and later in 1796 to Ga. Joseph was born prior to 1742. HE WAS MARRIED TWICE and had 6 sons. HE WAS A METHODIST preacher. HIS SON born in 1771 was Ezekiel. HE WAS CALLED MAJOR by the Cherokee Indians. HE had 13 children with Lydia Ann BROWN, and 1 child with MARGARET Wallace. COUSIN George, who did this research descends from EZEKIEL AND his first wife's son Joseph........OUR family descends from his son ISAAIH who was born September 25, 1808. EZEKIEL had been a soldier in the war of 1812. HE RAISED HIS FAMILY NEAR DUNAGAN CHAPEL , a METHODIST CHURCH IN Gainsville Ga, and was buried next door in the Dunagan family cemetery. I WAS ABLE TO SEE HIS GRAVE WHEN I visited Cousin George in 1993. HE DIED March 10,1836 and was buried there with his wife Lydia. ( More DUNAGAN family history to come in my next post.)