The Delpasse-Effect

- 35 - 3. 0 The latest research results (Source: Badische Zeitung and ZDF online) When neurobiologists meet psychotherapists there are two possibilities: The neurobiologists will explain that the mental is just an electrical or chemical reaction of the brain, or the psychotherapists assert that the essence of the soul cannot be found in the physical substance that is the brain. (Therefore, nothing has basically changed.) Something astonishing happened during the 51st Psychotherapy Week in Lindau in 2001: The neurobiologist and brain researcher Gerald Hüther2 from Göttingen explained to the psychotherapists there that: • The soul configures the substance of the brain. The entrance of neurobiology into the sphere of psychotherapy is dramatic. Hüther talked about a paradigm shift. The most important - for psychotherapy revolutionising - result from the latest brain research: • The brain is not complete after its development phase has ended and then gradually breaks down; it is rather of a plastic nature. The brain remains capable of further development all its life. Its development depends on its experiences. Hüther reported about an investigation with London taxi drivers where one was able to measure that the centre for spatial imagination, the hypothalamus, was larger the longer they were driving a taxi. Experience shapes the brain. Hüther: “I can only now think this, because such a lot has happened in regards to brain research over the last ten years.” Neurologist Hüther didn’t shy away from talking about things that could not be measured: About the experience, that innate influence factor that is anchored somehow in the brain and in the whole body. Hüther: “If nothing goes under the skin anymore, no new experiences can be made”. But he also ascertains, that experiences do indeed go under the skin and that they are able to change cells there. Hüther takes his impartiality to talk about no longer measurable factors from his experiences with the measurable. Ever since the dogma of a no longer changeable brain has fallen by the wayside, a new world has opened up. Dogmas fall, the views of the world changes. This also became clear in Lindau with the scientific sensation of the previous year: The Human Genome Project. The cell researcher Friedrich Cramer had dismissed the concentration on the human genome as a “completely obsolete concept” right from the start. Phenomena like the soul say considerably more about human beings. - Hüther maintained: With the decoding of the human genome, Craig Venter had only found out that the secret of life cannot be found there. “The human brain is genetically shaped to such a minute degree so that we can learn as much as possible.” Another important aspect is the gut: It has a net of 100 million nerve cells that reach from the oesophagus to the rectum. This so-called abdominal brain works independent from the brain, the nerve cells make all the important decisions for the gut autonomously, ergo everything to do with digestion and transport. The brain does not interfere. Science now investigates whether the gut is not only responsible for our digestion, but also responsible for our feelings in our abdomen. 2 Gerald Hüther, Dr. rer. nat. Dr. med. habil, is a Professor of B=Neurobiology at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Göttingen. Prior to that he dealt with brain development disorders and the long-term modulation of monoaminergic systems at the Max-Planck Institute for experimental medicine. As a recipient of a Heisenberg scholarship, he established a laboratory for basic research in neurobiology. Amongst other things, Hüther is a member of the Society for Biological Psychiatry, AGNP, ISTRY.

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