About Us

  MY 40 YEAR QUEST to UNDERSTAND and EFFECTIVELY TREAT

                 “MENTAL ILLNESS” (NeuroPsychoSocial Disorders)  15/3/2007

I have been a busy family doctor in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, since 1963. My work gives me great motivation and satisfaction, and never more so than in the last 9 years.

When I first went into Family Medical Practice in a working class area in 1963, on average I was called out once a fortnight to an unconscious patient who had overdosed on barbiturate tranquillisers or sleepers. Once I had to pull a dead woman from her kitchen gas oven while she was still warm. I bought books, went to lectures and workshops, and in 1968 tried to clarify my understanding in this field by starting to write my own book, which I wanted to call "Simple Psychiatry". But it wasn't simple and I didn't get very far. In 1980 I did a 4 week intensive residential course at the Western Institute for Group and Family Therapy in California. Their work at that time was mainly based on Transactional Analysis, Gestalt Therapy, Group Therapy and Family Therapy and it was a very mind expanding if somewhat confusing experience. In 1981 I did the first year of the Gestalt Institute of Perth's part-time but substantial and very helpful course in Psychotherapy. But despite all the information I got from these experiences, I still felt that I was not getting to the bottom of things.

Problems I often came across as a family doctor, but had difficulty understanding and treating for many years included Worry, Stress, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Social Phobia, Depression, Sleep Disorders, Low Self Esteem, Repeated Chronic Relationship Problems, Marriage Breakdowns, Giftedness Brilliance Success and Failure all in 1 person or all in 1 family, ADD and ADHD, Delinquent Children, Child Abuse, Sexual Crimes, Obsessions, Perfectionism, Dangerous Anger Rage and Violence, Physical Fighting, Road Rage, Domestic Violence, Armed Robberies, High Speed Car Chases, Compulsive Gambling, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Cruelty, Sadism, "Nervous Breakdowns", Attempted Suicide, Fatal Suicide Attempts, Dexamphetamine, Ritalin, Dangerously Heavy Smoking, Alcoholism, Heroin, Speed, Marijuana and Cocaine Dependence and Addictions and taking 50 or 100 Valium or Serepax tablets per day without getting drowsy or going to sleep..

In 1982 I moved to a much higher socioeconomic level district, where I saw very few attempted suicides, but still many people with difficult psychosocial problems, which spoiled their lives. I expanded the counselling side of my practice and again tried to write a book, this time called "The Basics of Mental Health". I wrote 15 chapters and this helped me to clarify my understanding and to focus my observation and research. However after reaching the tenth draft by Easter 1988, I once again gave up. I hadn't cracked it. I felt I hadn't got onto the right plane, or onto the right wavelength. I hadn't got to the bottom of things.

What has given me so much motivation and satisfaction in the last 9 years has been the fact that in those years I have at last made great strides forward in successfully diagnosing, understanding and treating all the NeuroPsychoSocial problems that my patients suffered from but that I had not been able to understand or to treat satisfactorily. In calendar year 2002 I treated 736 new addiction patients who came to my Chemical Health Centre for help. Between them they had every NeuroPsychoSocial Disorder there is, in every possible combination. I was able to do much more to relieve human pain and suffering and to improve my patients' health and quality of life in that year, than in any previous 5 or 10 year period of my 45 year career as a doctor. In 2003 we only saw 400 new patients, in addition to many old patients, and devoted much more time to studying our results, and finetuning our systems of diagnosis and treatment. This has further increased our capacity to comprehensively, accurately and quickly diagnose all of the problems each of our patients has, and to treat each of these problems, quickly and effectively. In 2006 we made further great strides forward with the 3rd edition of my book Beating Heroin and the development of a better diagnostic checklist, The Beck Mini Discomforts Dysfunctions Checklist.

When I started to work intensively with addiction patients in 1998, and then did a 4 day workshop on EEG Biofeedback with a Californian PhD in Physics, in Brisbane in 1999, I got onto a different plane and felt I was really getting to the bottom of things. I learned many very valuable things which enabled me to at last clearly understand "mental" or "psychological" sicknesses and injuries.

Firstly I found that about 60% of the addiction patients I was seeing suffered from Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD). Also that virtually 100% of them suffered from Anxiety, Depression and Insomnia (ADI) and Low Self Esteem. This caused me to read about these particular disorders and to observe my patients very carefully. I worked my way right back to the primary disturbed physiological mechanisms that underlie these disorders. I came to more deeply understand brain chemistry, and for the first time, to understand the importance of brain electricity. Your brain has many millions of tiny cells in it and each cell produces tiny amounts of chemicals and electricity. These tiny amounts of chemicals and electricity join up to produce stronger flows of chemicals and electricity. Through these flows of chemicals and electricity your brain controls itself and your whole body. Disturbed brain chemistry and disturbed brain electricity cause the disturbances which underlie all of the problems I had had difficulty in understanding.

I learned that "mental" or "psychological", social and addiction problems all have their basis in faulty brain function, either Inherited (genetically determined) or Post Injury (traumatic) in origin, and should really be called NeuroPsychoSocial Disorders, not just Mental or Psychological or Social Disorders.

I had been playing the game unsuccessfully because my eye was not on the ball. The ball is the brain, where psychosocial disturbances are concerned. I had been trying to understand and piece together vague, ill defined, theoretical, up there, detached, "mental" or "psychological" factors, complexes, interactions etc etc.

Finally the penny dropped. "The problem is the brain!" And the fastest, easiest, most effective and most cost effective way to understand what is going on in someone's brain, is to put electrodes (sensors) on their scalp and ears and feed the electrical flows that emerge through a computer with appropriate software. In 5 minutes you can put the electrodes on someone's head, be looking at the strength of the electricity coming out of their brain, displayed on the computer screen, and see where and how it is normal, or abnormal - too strong, too weak or too variable.

I also learned that much greater emphasis needed to be placed on social injuries to the brain. Social traumas or injuries can shock or jolt a person's brain into producing too much or too little of important brain chemicals (neurotransmitters such as Serotonin, Noradrenalin and Dopamine) that are needed to support a normal healthy life. Social traumas or injuries can also shock or jolt a person's brain into producing too much or too little electricity, in ways that are not compatible with normal healthy feelings, performance and life.

We all know that a social or psychological shock can cause our hands to shake and perspire, our heart to race, our breathing to change in rhythm and depth, with gasping or sighing. In severe cases panic attacks, vomiting or fainting can result from severe social and psychological shocks. It therefore should not surprise us that brain function is also affected by social and psychological shocks or jolts from the outside world, through what the eyes see and the ears hear and through the senses of touch, taste and smell. Like the shakiness, palpitations and changes to breathing, the changes in a shocked brain are usually temporary, but sometimes become permanent if the shocks are severe and/or repeated.

I learned that social injuries can be even more disturbing to a person's brain chemistry and electricity and then to their life, than physical injuries to the brain, such as those caused by motor vehicle accidents. The damage to a child's brain function and then to their life, from the shock and stress of being sexually abused by a family member or a family friend,  may be much more serious and lasting than the brain damage from a motor vehicle accident that put them in intensive care for a week or a month.

What I finally learned was that in treating people with difficult NeuroPsychoSocial and Substance Abuse problems, success was achieved:

1. By diagnosing all of the NeuroPsychoSocial Disorders the patient has, and then,

2.       By correcting

      (i) the disturbed brain chemistry, and

(ii) the disturbed brain electricity, and

(iii) any disturbed ideas/beliefs/values, and

(iv) the diet and

(v) any lack of exercise

3. All at the same time, all at once, in a comprehensive, intensive treatment program and
4. that this requires a multidisciplinary team, not just a one man band; and
5. that this team requires a minimum of a Medical Doctor, a Counsellor, a NeuroTuning (EEG Biofeedback) Therapist and good technical support.