Perfect in Herself
January 24, 2010
by: Gay Bradshaw, Psychology Today
Who then is free? The wise man, who has dominion over himself; whom neither
poverty, nor death, nor chains affright; brave in the checking of his appetites,
and in contemning honours; and, perfect in himself, polished and round as a
globe, so that nothing from without can retard, in consequence of its
smoothness; against whom misfortune ever advances ineffectually. —Horace
The Roman poet speaks from experience: he was no stranger to poverty, death, or
misfortune. His father had been a slave and Horace himself fought alongside
Brutus, of et tu fame, in the bloody civil wars that followed Julius Caesar's
assassination. Unfortunately, their armies were eventually defeated, Brutus
committed suicide, and the sword-carrying poet returned home to find the family
property confiscated by victors.
Horace sets a high, and admirable, standard for us to maintain a self "polished
and round as a globe" particularly in the face of traumatic events. Those who
manage to overcome unimaginable psychological and physical ordeals discover that
the self can tap into deep reservoirs of resilience, conferring not only
survival, but internal integrity. However, Horace's model self is neither static
nor immutable.
How often have you heard said of someone who has experienced a violent event or
other overwhelming experience, "She just isn't herself anymore"? The
ever-smiling outgoing bonne vivante has suddenly become expressionless and
withdrawn to the point of hostility, a shadow of the person before trauma.
Others astound with their apparent lack of change. They step back into life,
picking-up former careers or pursuing new ones with vigor, and engage in
everyday habits of housework and holidays. Traces of their hardship are barely
distinguishable from the lines and pouches that come with age. The past
disappears seamlessly under the carpet of time, beguiling family and friends
into forgetting that once their father or sister almost succumbed to endless
terror. However, outward appearances and physical survival can mask who lies
within.
The story of Primo Levi is a haunting example of the incongruity between
physical exterior and psychological interior. He lived decades beyond the
horrors of the Holocaust, developed a successful career as a chemist, and became
an internationally acclaimed writer. Yet, in what is generally assumed to be an
act of suicide, he plunged to his death from the third story of his apartment
building.
Whether or not Levi's death was self-inflicted is a personal matter best left to
his friends and family. More significant is the reminder that there is much more
than meets the casual eye in the liberated prisoner who greets the fresh air and
sunlight with exhilaration and re-joins community—yet not.
When passing judgments on others we are cautioned to be wary of projections. Our
impressions may reflect less an individual's genuine psychological state than
our own wishful thinking or cultural conditioning. This lesson extends to the
experience of other species, illustrated most vividly in the case of animals
kept in cages and confined in zoo exhibits.
Lucy eats, plays a harmonica, and paints pictures for visiting children at the
Edmonton Valley Zoo. She is a 34 year-old Asian elephant who lives alone in a
concrete enclosure in the frigid cold of Canada since the age of two. Lucy has
survived and she looks very much like an elephant. Or does she?
A recent scientific study assessed Lucy's health listing a number of ailments
uncharacteristic of a young female elephant: "rheumatoid arthritis, foot
abscesses, toe nail cracks, foot pad problems, abscess in hip region, chronic
respiratory problems in the form of trunk discharge, breathing from the mouth,
blocked nostrils, wheezing, [and] obesity."[2] Unlike her free-ranging
contemporaries, Lucy has "a severe obesity problem, has never experienced
pregnancy, given birth, or propagated her own progeny." Issues relating to
eating and sleeping disorders "are related to loneliness or mental or
psychological problems."
Lucy is described as "dull, inactive, [and] relatively disinterested in any form
of physical activity." She displays stereotypy and rocking, the repetitive
behaviour characteristic of prisoners kept in sustained, stressful confinement.
Additionally, she shows
no ear flapping. . . and tail/trunk movement is absent. She often appears to
be trying to support herself by leaning against a wall or object; which may be
due to her leg problems, arthritis and/or obesity.[2]
When Lucy is not on exhibit, zookeepers "make efforts to motivate or ‘force' her
to walk, meaning it is not necessarily performed voluntarily." Based on
thirty-nine parameters relating to physical condition behavior, housing,
nutrition, and other factors used to estimate overall wellbeing, Lucy received a
3 compared with scores of 10 received by her wild counterparts. Most tellingly,
perhaps, is this simple observation: "Lucy walks slowly, unlike the majestic
walk seen in elephants in the wild."
Like many prisoners, Lucy's physical state documents the ravages of forced
confinement and isolation. Stress seeps into the body leaving enduring scars.[3]
But what happens inside, to the mind? What might the mind look like if we could
see it as we do the physical form?
Drawing from what we know about the neuropsychology of trauma, let us perform a
gedanken experiment using Horace's perfect sphere as a model of the self to
imagine the state of Lucy's mind. In so doing, we speculate on the psychological
topology of Lucy's self as she evolved from a baby in elephant society to a
young mature female in the prime of her chronological life.
Records show that Lucy was wild-born into a presumably typical elephant family,
raised under the care of a mother and aunties, all immersed in verdant Sri
Lankan forests. In the language of psychologist John Bowlby, Lucy formed a
secure attachment with the capacity to self-regulate affect and to adjust
appropriately with changes in her environment. Her traditional upbringing speaks
of good psychological health and an intact sense of self, resembling Horace's
resiliently perfect sphere.
At age two, Lucy was orphaned (cause unknown) and shipped across the ocean to
the zoo. Since elephants are not weaned until the age of four or five years of
age and female elephants remain in the-closely knit natal group for life, we can
also assume that the loss of her mother and family was physiologically and
psychologically traumatic comparable to other documented cases. [4] This
profound relational trauma comprised the first deep cut into the polished
sphere. But more were yet to come.
A second, great gash in Lucy's self developed with years of social isolation.
Her struggle with subzero cold and snow so very different than her native
tropics, was etched line by line with every year. The restricted life within
barren enclosures deepened psychological lesions.
After more than thirty years of chronic stress, the spherical intact self
mirrors the body on the outside. Though somewhat functional and elephant in
form, Lucy has become wrinkled, distended, and distorted. She stumbles, barely
able to walk. Her stereotypy and disinterest in the outside world suggest that
she is withdrawing, her vision increasingly turning inward and sightless after
years of staring at the same horizon obscuring grey.
Captivity is unnatural for any being. Science, in its embrace of trans-species
models of brain and mind, blurs the distinction between the man condemned to
internment and the elephant on exhibit. [5, 6] Whether made captive by concrete
walls or electric fences, suffering is the same for an elephant, parrot, human,
or any other animal. Bars and walls without imprison the soul within.
Lucy still lives. Sparked at birth in the magic of pachyderm society, the flame
of her essential self burns. When the nascent self is nurtured, then even when
confronted with trauma, it can access resources internalized unconsciously in
childhood that "permit the restoration of one's capacity for love." [7] Her
keepers say she has a "calm personality", has never harmed anyone, and is well
liked: this and her upbringing speak of an intact self underneath the scarring.
Lucy is a bright soul "against whom misfortune ever advances ineffectually". But
for how long?
References
[1] The Satires of Horace and Persius, London: Penguin, 2005. p. 222.
[2] Varma, S. 2009. Welfare Status of Lucy the Elephant: An Investigation into
the Welfare Status of the Elephant Lucy in Valley Zoo, Edmonton, Canada. In
press.
[3] van der Kolk, B. 1994.The Body Keeps The Score: Memory & the Evolving
Psychobiology of Post Traumatic Stress. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 1(5),
253-265.
[4] Bradshaw, G.A. & A. N. Schore. 2007. How Elephants are Opening Doors:
Developmental Neuroethology, Attachment, and Social context. Ethology, 113:
426-436.
[5] Bradshaw, G.A., & R. M. Sapolsky. 2007. Mirror, Mirror. American Scientist.
94(6): 487-489.
[6] Bradshaw, G.A. 2009. Kin Under Skin: What elephants and humans have in
common. Forbes Magazine. September 13, 2009.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/12/science-elephants-humans-opinions-contributors-neurobiology.html
[7] Krystal, H. 2004. Optimizing Affect Function in the Psychoanalytic Treatment
of Trauma, in Living with Terror, Working with Trauma: A Clinician's Handbook,
Danielle Knafo, ed. Lanham, Md.: Bowman and Littlefield, pp. 283-96.
Photo Credit: Zoocheck Canada
Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/37465
Links:
[1]
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/12/science-elephants-humans-opinions-contributors-neurobiology.html
[2] http://www.zoocheck.com/campaigns_elephant.html
[3]
http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/teaser/2010/01/lucy-behind-barscropped.gif
[4] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/bear-in-mind
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