Neuroplasticity, Change And Hope
A friend asked me recently why I was interested enough in neuroplasticity to undertake the creation and maintenance of a blog on the subject. I replied, and I had to think for a moment, that I found it exciting because it was a new frontier in medicine. The friend happens to be a physician and her response was a knowing smile and a nod. I have read that almost all of our knowledge in the field of neuroscience has been gained in the last ten years. But there is more to my interest than that. Neuroplasticity means hope, hope that things will change. I read a post on a site called MD Junction by a patient who is particularly depression prone. She takes great comfort, not that new findings in neuroscience can treat her depression but that it can help reverse negative behaviors and habits. Current thinking in the treatment of neurological disorders is that if you don’t have symptoms you don’t have the disorder. For example, a firefighter might have been diagnosed with ADHD in high school but in his high stimulation job, he functions quite well–so no symptoms, no ADHD. To me this means that the disorder gets separated from the person. Not long after my diagnosis, a friend said to me at a low point, “You are not an ADHD person–you are a person with ADHD.” I still have symptoms, even on medication but I have never forgotten the hope inherent in my friend’s statement. And he would know because he too has been diagnosed with ADHD. Hope means many things but perhaps the most important is the idea of change. St. Augustine said that hope has two lovely daughters: anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.