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Home » The science behind The Linden Method
The science behind The Linden Method
The 'Little Albert' Experiment - Fear conditioning and anxiety disorders
John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)
John Broadus Watson was a noted American Psychologist who established the Psychological School of Behaviourism. Watson believed showed how he could take twelve healthy children and by creating behavioural changes, could 'design' people to be however he wanted them to become.
Watson showed that even deep seated emotions such as fear could be conditioned using his behavioural techniques. He used a small child of 11 months called 'Little Albert' and conditioned him to be frightened of random objects such as a rabbit, a dog and (incredibly) some wool! Watson showed these objects to little Albert and at the same time, made a very loud noise.
The experiment was an enormous success as Little Albert became conditioned to respond with fear when presented with the chosen objects alone. Watson had conditioned anxiety and this caused shockwaves amongst the psychological fraternity which believed that the fear response was something pre-programmed into humans and couldn’t be changed. The pioneer of this belief was world famous psychologist Sigmund Freud.
As unethical as this experiment was using a small child as an experiment (which is incredible), it showed, without doubt, that fear responses could be increased by fear conditioning and that anxiety disorders can be created and eliminated given the correct treatment.
This theory is the foundation to The Linden Method which proves 100% that Watson’s theory and his conclusive experiment with Little Albert are correct and that in the same way as anxiety can become programmed into someone, it can also be deprogrammed.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in the small Pennsylvania town of Susquehanna.
In 1945, he became the chairman of the psychology department at Indiana University.
Skinner's theory of Operant Conditioning stated:
"A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future."
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
In other words, by practicing the same behavior, negative or positive, that behavior eventually becomes instinctual! Just like practicing being anxious!
His theory became the basis for much of modern psychology's theories on behavior and habit.
August 18, 1990, B. F. Skinner died after becoming perhaps the most celebrated psychologist since Sigmund Freud.
National Institutes OF Health
Below are references to research carried out by international research institutions with regard to the Amygdala, anxiety disorders and operant conditioning.
It's a strange world! This Press Release from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) talks about how their research has shown that the Amygdala is responsible for the anxiety response and that through training, a group of rats where taught how to be less anxious.
What!? I proved this a decade ago! That's how The Linden Method works! The only exception being that my Method doesn't want to bombard your head with electromagnetic radiation!
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
EMBARGOED BY JOURNAL
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
2:00 p.m. ET
Contact:
Jules Asher
NIMH Press Office
(301) 443-4536
Mimicking Brain's "All Clear" Quell's Fear in Rats
Researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered a high-tech way to quell panic in rats. They have detected the brain's equivalent of an "all clear" signal, that, when simulated, turns off fear. The discovery could lead to non-drug, physiological treatments for runaway fear responses seen in anxiety disorders.
Rats normally freeze with fear when they hear a tone they have been conditioned to associate with an electric shock. Dr. Gregory Quirk and Mohammed Milad, Ponce School of Medicine, Puerto Rico, have now demonstrated that stimulating a site in the front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, extinguishes this fear response by mimicking the brain's own "safety signal." They report on their findings in the November 7, 2002 Nature.
"Repeated exposure to traumatic reminders without any adverse consequences causes fear responses to gradually disappear," explained Quirk. "Such reduction of fear appears to be an active rather than passive process. It doesn't erase the fear association from memory, but generates a new memory for safety."
The researchers recorded electrical activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex as rats were fear-conditioned - taught to fear a tone by repeatedly pairing it with a shock. Then they abolished this conditioned fear by presenting the tone without the shock; the animals no longer froze when they heard the tone.
Although inactive during both procedures, neurons near the middle of the prefrontal cortex, the infra limbic area, fired conspicuously when the tone was sounded on the following day. This activity proved to be the brain's way of signaling that the tone no longer presaged a shock. The more the cells fired, i.e. The louder this safety signal, the less the rats froze. Animals that showed the most infra limbic activity behaved as if they had never been fear conditioned at all.
The researchers then electrically stimulated the infra limbic area in rats that had been fear conditioned but not extinguished - in effect, simulating the safety signal, while pairing it with the tone. Remarkably, the rats showed little freezing. Later, the rats continued to be unafraid of the tone even without the stimulation, suggesting that memory for extinction was strengthened by experimentally mimicking the safety signal.
Since the prefrontal cortex is known to project to the amygdala, a hub of fear memory deep in the brain, the researchers propose that increased activity of infra limbic neurons in the prefrontal cortex strengthens memory of safety by inhibiting the amygdala's memory of fear. They speculate that stimulating parts of the prefrontal cortex in anxiety disorder patients, using an experimental technique called trans cranial magnetic stimulation, might help them control fear.
NIMH is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Federal Government's primary agency for biomedical and behavioral research. NIH is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Research on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (one of the five main anxiety disorders) announced by Psychology Today in 2002, concluded that:
"It has been found that the fear response is coordinated by a small structure deep inside the brain, called the Amygdala. The Amygdala, although relatively small, is a very complicated structure, and recent research suggests that post-traumatic stress disorder may be associated with abnormal activation of the amygdala. Once fear is conditioned in the amygdala, it is virtually indelible."
No, it's not indelible but it can be difficult to shift! - Charles
Psychology Today Originally published by Psychology Today: 2002-10-10
References: Bremner, J.D., Randall, P.R., Scott, T.M., Bronen, R.A.,
Delaney, R.C., Seibyl, J.P., Southwick, S.M., McCarthy, G., Charney, D.S., & Innis, R.B. (1995).
MRI-based measurement of hippocampal volume in posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry,
152, 973-981. Narrow WE, Rae DS, Regier DA. NIMH epidemiology note: prevalence
of anxiety disorders. One-year prevalence best estimates calculated from ECA and NCS data. Population
estimates based on U.S. Census estimated residential population age 18 to 54 on July 1, 1998. Unpublished.
Stein, M.B., Koverola, C., Hanna, C., Torchia, M.G., & McClarty, B. (1997). Hippocampal volume in
women victimized by childhood sexual abuse. Psychological Medicine, 27, 951-959.
LeDoux J. 'Fear and the brain: where have we been, and where are we going?' Biological
Psychiatry, 1998; 44(12): 1229-38.
The National Institute of Mental Health concluded that:
"By learning more about brain circuitry involved in fear and anxiety, scientists may be able to devise new and more specific treatments for anxiety disorders. For example, it someday may be possible to increase the influence of the thinking parts of the brain on the amygdala, thus placing the fear and anxiety response under conscious control."
It's already is possible folks! - Charles
NIH Publication No. 3879
Scientific information and/or review for this revision were provided by Steven E. Hyman, M.D.,
Richard Nakamura, Ph.D., Matthew Rudorfer, M.D., Linda Street, Ph.D., and Elaine Baldwin, all
of NIMH, and Una McCann, M.D., now of The Johns Hopkins University. Editorial assistance was
provided by Clarissa Wittenberg, Margaret Strock, and Melissa Spearing of NIMH.
