They don't really; they just figure it on a 50-minute hour.
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Robin Pearce "The wit of a graduate student is like champagne.
Boston University Canadian champagne."
[EMAIL PROTECTED] --Robertson Davies
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On Fri, 9 Feb 2001, Jim Guinee wrote:
>
> Psychoanalysts Live Longer
>
> New Study Further Links Mind and Body
>
> By Denise Mann WebMD Medical News
>
> Reviewed by Dr. Jacqueline Brooks
>
> Feb. 2, 2001 -- A new study suggests exactly why Sigmund Freud,
> referred to as the father of modern psychoanalysis, may have lived to the
> ripe old age of 83 in a time when the average life span was only about 50
> years.
>
> A soon-to-be published study in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of The
> American Psychoanalytic Association found that psychoanalysts live longer,
> on average, than men in the general population and men in other medical
> specialities.
>
> "We can say that psychoanalysts have a 44% lower death rate than
> medical doctors including psychiatrists and neurologists, and 48%
> lower than men in the general population," says the study's author,
> Edward H. Jeffery, an independent researcher in Northridge, Calif.
>
> Psychoanalysis is based on the observation that individuals are often
> unaware of many of the factors that determine their emotions and behavior.
> These 'unconscious' factors may result in unhappiness, troubling
> personality traits, difficulties in work or in relationships, or
> disturbances in mood and self-esteem. Typically, the patient comes in up
> to four or five times a week, lies on a couch, and attempts to say
> everything that comes to mind. These conditions permit the emergence of
> aspects of the mind that people are not usually immediately aware of.
>
> Analysts and those in analysis hope that all this talk may help
> lessen stress, which is known to have a negative effect on the immune
> system.
>
> Still, the exact reason for the findings are unclear, says Jeffery.
> Perhaps there is something life-extending about talking through
> problems and emotions but "another major variable that may account
> for the lower mortality in this profession is the careful way in
> which psychoanalytic institutes select their candidates for training. They
> reject applicants who seem to have serious psychological problems," he
> says.
>
> Therefore, psychoanalysts may be mentally healthier than the general
> public or even psychiatrists, Jeffery says.
>
> His next step is to try and do a study comparing psychiatrists who
> undergo psychoanalysis to psychiatrists who have not and see how the
> two groups compare in terms of longevity.
>
> In an editorial slated to accompany the new study, Norman Doidge, MD, a
> psychoanalyst at the University of Toronto writes that the new study
> "makes us wonder whether this treatment has the power to prolong life."
>
> He adds that a recent German study found that people undergoing
> psychoanalysis made one-third less medical visits than those that did not,
> and other research found that women with advanced breast cancer who
> participated in weekly group therapy sessions extended their survival
> rates by 18 months.
>
> "Orchestra conductors live longer than other types of professionals
> because they jump around a lot and get exercise, but this doesn't
> account for psychoanalysts," says New York psychoanalyst Arnold David
> Richards, MD, also the editor of the Journal of the American
> Psychoanalytic Association.
>
> "My feeling is that psychoanalysts have all been analyzed and have
> the tools to deal with conflict and stress. This is very positive for the
> immune system and the other systems of the body that have been implicated
> in causing disease," he tells WebMD.
>
> All this talk may spare us from some of the diseases that tend to
> kill people early, Richards says.
>
> The new findings "really speak to the mind-body connection and
> probably the mediator is through the immune system," says Leon
> Hoffman, MD, a New York based child psychoanalyst and the chair of
> the American Psychoanalytic Association's committee on public
> information.
>
> Studies have shown that people with less stress are less prone to
> colds and other illnesses, says Hoffman.
>
> "As we are learning more about the importance of the immune system
> and the connection between psychology and biology, this work
> highlights the importance of trying to deal with psychological issues and
> that they can have a profound effect on physiological health," he says. --
>
>
