Dr. Martha L. Hyde, Ph.D.
I am presently an independent scholar based in Texas.
Descriptions of what I am working on at present are found at the links below.
I can be reached at:
mind_equals_body@yahoo.com
Links to my Professional websites:
Author: mlhyde
Making a Bicycle Your Own
A bicycle rapidly becomes a personal piece of property when you have to rely upon it for your transportation. This means you have to be able to carry things you bought at various stores, including groceries, and items you need to move with you to various destinations. The internet showcases many adaptations that people have made to their bicycles to achieve the mobility that all of us want.
The Value and Dangers of Lithium for Living Organisms
We have heard about lithium batteries, but do you know what role lithium plays inside our own bodies? Do you know that it is much more than the stuff inside batteries or in the prescription medicine?
Updated 1 Sept 2014
Comment on 
“Lithium Battery Industry Keeps Going, And Going …” on Morning Edition 9 May 2011, where I criticize those who think of lithium as an inert substance and suggest that it is a primitive but very powerful ion carrier in natural systems. Presence in large quantities in the natural habitat might pose ecological dangers as well as endanger humans who mine it.
National Health Care: Political Problems and Solutions
Should we have a national health care policy? Isn’t there a better way to handle basic health care needs and reduce the cost or stem the rise in cost of health care?
The U. S. still does not have a national health care policy. Oh, yes, we have tried to start a conversation on this topic, way back in the 1990’s during the Clinton presidency, but nothing was achieved. With President Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act, we have made a tiny step toward some kind of national health care policy, but about half of the states decided not to extend Medicaid for the poor, pretty much defeating the purpose of the Act in those states. Worse, health insurance premiums are rising there to cover the costs of the poor who are getting extended Medicaid in other states. I discuss then Candidate Mitt Romney’s comments on a health care policy, and one state’s attempts to solve the problem. I offer discussion about several ways to achieve affordable health care for all.
Help for Homeless Hollywood Street Kids
There are many kids in trouble who were probably rejected by their mothers at birth. Are we seeing the tip of the iceberg? I examine one news article which may have provided evidence.
Com
ment on “Help for Hollywood Street Kids’ Broken Dreams” on Morning Edition on 14 May 2011, where I discuss how these street kids may be children rejected by their mothers before the critical ages of three weeks, three months, and three years, how winning their trust may never be fully successful and how to help them survive when their brains never had the chance to fully develop social ties because of that rejection by the mother.
Posted 14 May 2011
Updated 19 June 2011
Summary:
NPR Reporter Gloria Hillard interviews an outreach worker, Moises Cabrera, of Covenant House of Los Angeles and some street kids who fled poor living conditions elsewhere to come to Hollywood because it was familiar and appeared to be a place where they could live their dreams, only to find homelessness. Continue reading
Helping Soldiers with Brain Injury to Return to War
A lot of soldiers returning from war have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) or show evidence or damage, especially as seen in post-traumatic stress (PTSD). There are many mind-body medicine techniques that can help heal the brain.
Comment on “Returning To The Battlefield, With A Brain Injury” on All Things Considered on 10 May 2011, where I discuss the neurological symptoms of brain injury, how the brain automatically attempts to repair the damage that causes them, and how using mind-body medicine techniques may offer at least relief from symptoms and at best may enable full or partial repair of the brain.
Updated: 9 June 2011
Mindfulness Techniques
Updated 26 July 2016
What is “mindfulness”? How is it more than just “paying attention” to something? How do psychologists, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts use it? How can we, as the general population not specializing in psychology use it?
Some of these answers will be found here. However, this concept will go further than has ever been done before. In order to do so, the reader is warned that any really effective method for treatment takes a lot of training, but that doesn’t mean book training, necessarily.
This post is a description of what “mindfulness” means to the psychotherapist, how it can be used to monitor and change physiological functioning, how one can train the nervous system to use this technique to its fullest. How it fits into the pantheon of mind-body medicine techniques is described, with examples of how it can be used. Other discussions include how the brain works when the person practices mindfulness and what the patient/practitioner is capable of doing by using this technique. This article is a mix of straight reporting and personal observation, with examples of how the author used mindfulness with other mind-body techniques.
GOP Lawmakers Push for Stricter Abortion Laws
The Supreme Court has guaranteed the right to have an abortion to all women. Yet there are still attempts to prevent their making that choice that are truly harmful to all women. There are ways to bring the number of aborted fetuses down every year, and still provide all women with the rights to which they are entitled. Yet, many states don’t want to do that.
Comment on “GOP Lawmakers Push for Stricter Abortion Laws” on All Things Considered on 10 May 2011, where I discuss how these laws are a ridiculous method for getting rid of all abortions. I suggest that lawmakers instead work on helping women with those aspects of life that make it too difficult for them to take on the burden of giving birth and raising a child, of preventing the child from growing up unwanted by his/her mother, and thus preventing much bigger costs to society than the costs of psychological, social, medical and economic support needed by women to raise a child successfully to adulthood.
Updated: May 21, 2011
Summary:
Bills banning funding or increasing the hoops women must jump through before getting an abortion are being introduced in states across the country. Since the GOP doesn’t think it can pass a bill in the Senate with these controls, they are increasingly attempting to pass them in Republican-controlled state governments. Continue reading
Science Says Diets Cannot Fight Chronic Pain
Updated: 01 Sept 2014
Pain. We all have it at some time. Headache, joint pain, back ache, muscle cramps, stomach ache. You name the organ, and we can feel pain there under different circumstances. Many solutions have been suggested for getting rid of the pain. Should we get rid of it totally? or are we missing the point of having pain at all? Most would agree that we have to treat chronic pain, or we could “go crazy.” It is more than just a nuisance for many. Is there a difference between chronic pain and acute pain? What can we do to alleviate pain?
The Four Pillars of Support Affect Mothers’ Decisions
Updated 15 Oct 2011
There are four important aspects of human life that play a major role in women’s reproductive decisions. Since she alone bears the risk of losing a life growing inside her, she alone gives birth to that new life. She alone is responsible for the care and feeding of the infant (although bottle-feeding has freed women from some of the time constraints, even if it is not as good for the infant as breast-feeding), and the care, feeding, and subsequent growth of all children until they reach an age where fathers can offer as much support as the mother can. She must be recognized for her power, taught how to exercise it wisely and given complete societal, familial, and government support so that she can be the mother needed by her child and by society as a whole. Even children raised by gay couples must have a parent who can take over these duties as well as a biological mother should. The impact of psychological, social, medical, and economic forces against the mother is huge and must be rallied by society in support of the mother, the child, and the family in all cases. Continue reading
Politics and Rage Against Women
Mothers have an enormous power over children because they are responsible for so many aspects of life and development. However, women can be powerless in the face of society’s pressures. Fathers, on the other hand, because they cannot give birth, and are not physiologically adapted toward nurturing very young children, often cannot exert such a powerful influence on their own children. Power is perceived very differently by both sexes as a result. The powerlessness of the mother causes such an anger in their own children that it reverberates throughout society at all of its levels, individual to family to city, state, and country.
Comment on “House Passes Bill To Bar Tax Subsidies For Abortion” on All Things Considered on 4 May 2011. Much of the action by congressional members against abortion is a result of a rage against women as a result of the powerlessness of their own mothers.
Updated 21 May 2011
Summary:
This bill doesn’t just ban federal funding for abortion, it also extends the ban into the tax code. HR3 ends ability to write off abortion as a tax deduction under medical expenses, it also ends being able to use medical savings accounts as a way to pay for abortions, or tax credits to buy insurance plans that include coverage of abortions. (See my comments on another report at All Things Considered 10 May 2011, “GOP Lawmakers Push for Stricter Abortion Laws“). Continue reading
Visualization Techniques
What is visualization (guided imagery)? Does it work? Specifically, how can you make it work? Visualization is part of an arsenal of mind-body medicine practices that can aid in healing, get rid of toxins, microbes and cancer. Presented here are anecdotal information given in the news and other sources, and personal observations about using visualization for treatment of PTSD, toxin removal, and emotional and physical repair of the brain. Visualization can also be used as a method for understanding how the body works in the level of detail that most physiology courses fail to address. It is most effective when combined with other mind-body medicine techniques. It also helps to be an educated patient/doctor who already have present in their brains images of cells and tissues of the body.
Updated 30 Aug 2014
Types of PTSD
Posted: 23 April 2011
Updated: 27 June 2012
The types of PTSD as defined by the American Psychiatric Association are classified differently here, because I think that they should be categorized by the physiological responses of the patient. I do this to emphasize the fact that the brain is a physiological and anatomical organ that houses the “mind” and all behavioral responses are programmed in the brain, either dynamically, or before birth. The symptoms shown by a person having PTSD will differ primarily based upon important aspects of brain development, simply because all we ever experience in life is stored in the brain, accessed by centers in the brain, regardless of whether or not we consciously remember the details, or even the fact of the event having occurred. This observation has been demonstrated in countless experiments and surveys in neurological research. Continue reading
Special Case of Type I PTSD: Rejected Children
Major Update: June 28, 2014
Introduction
What is a “rejected” child? It is the child who was unplanned, unwanted by the new mother, who is never accepted by the mother as her own until after the critical window of brain development closes at three years of age. Such a child suffers from what can be called Type I PTSD and will show some typical behaviors. The picture presented here is often the worst case scenario, but there are clearly some cases in the news which are relevant. Rejection at any age can be devastating. However, one can reasonably deduce that the earlier it takes place the worse its effects are on a person. It can be safely assumed that rejection before the age of three will have the strongest and most lasting effects. There are many people who will suffer PTSD from being rejected by one or both parents and/or family who will display similar symptoms.
There are several types of rejection. There are children who reject one of their parents, generally because of the trauma associated with divorce when one parent wins the affection of the child and the other parent loses. Some children reject a parent because they perceive that this parent committed an unforgivable act. More than likely, no single event leads to that kind of rejection, but the culmination of a series of behaviors that finally breaks the parent-child bond. One of these events may be associated with the failure of a good parent-child bond from having been formed in the first place.
For more discussion on this topic see my blog post Types of PTSD. Continue reading
Physiological Responses to Terror
What are the physiological effects of terror? The word “stress” would come to mind to most people, that a strong emotion like terror comes from one of two things:
- a single, unpredictable, but extremely life-threatening event which triggers a fear of that event repeating whenever a person experiences a similar stimulus, or
- the chronic exposure to stress, causing a fear of the stressful events or even of stress itself.
What was an annoyance at first can escalate to anxiety under chronic exposure. Anxiety can then escalate to fear.
Updated: 12 Aug 2014
Emotional Representation in the Brain
We all tend to think of “emotion” as those feelings we experience under certain circumstances. The “bad” emotions of a person who suffers emotional trauma tend to range from anxiety, to frustration, to fear, to sadness, to depression, to anger, to rage. These words, I think, best portray a sequence of emotions that we will express as the severity of emotional trauma increases. I think they also depict the strength of response by the individual that is demanded by the brain as unrelenting bad conditions occur.
Updated 15 Aug 2012
Behavioral and Emotional Responses to Terror
Posted: 23 April 2011
Updated: 19 July 2011
What happens after a terrorizing event, emotionally, physiologically, and behaviorally? Most people think that we would remember the most significant aspects of the terror but I also discuss how the nervous system can block some of these for our own survival’s sake. I discuss some important aspects of memory that are pertinent here. I then discuss one of the most frustrating of symptoms to victims of terror, helplessness. Continue reading
Surgical Approach to Sleep Apnea
Is surgery necessary or even better than alternative treatments for sleep apnea? Is it appropriate even if we don’t know the cause?
Comment on “How to Beat Sleep Apnea? Cut It Out (Surgically)” on Morning Edition on 14 March 2011, where I discuss how doctors need to consider environmental causes other than germs, like toxins, as a cause of sore throats. Toxins can damage tissue, attracting predatory microbes. They can also interfere with nerve transmission, preventing proper muscle contraction, gland secretion, and control of fluid flow in the subcutaneous tissues of the nose and throats.
Updated: Aug 16, 2011
Summary:
This report described cases of sleep apnea in adults. NPR reporter Patti Neighmond interviewed Dr. Erica Thaler, an eye, ear, nose and throat surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. She describes a patient, Daniel Sheiner, who had an obstruction at the back of the throat which caused his sleep apnea. He tried different methods to allow him to sleep through the night, but none worked, so she performed a type of robotic surgery that removed excess tissue that had built up in the back of the throat that included swollen tonsils. Another doctor, Rashmi N. Aurora, says surgery should be suggested only for younger patients, and describes several other techniques that can be used. Continue reading
Treating Sleep Disordered Breathing in Kids by Tonsillectomy
A tonsillectomy is now being used to treat sleep apnea and snoring in kids. They did away with that operation to treat infection. Will they discover it is not wise even for obstructed breathing during sleep?
Modified comment on “Say Aaa! Then Zzz: Tonsillectomy Helps Kids Sleep” on Morning Edition, 14 March 2011, where I discuss how doctors need to consider environmental causes other than germs, like toxins, as a cause of sore throats. Toxins can damage tissue, attracting predatory microbes. They can also interfere with nerve transmission, preventing proper muscle contraction, gland secretion, and control of fluid flow in the subcutaneous tissues of the nose and throats.
Updated 16 Aug 2011
Treating the Criminally Mental Illness Cases
How we think mental illness is caused greatly affects how we treat it. Those severely mentally disordered people who have committed crimes are being treated in mental hospitals without proper supervision. The safety of health professionals is at risk.
Comment on “Changes Sought After Death at Calif. Mental Hospital” on Morning Edition on 19 April 2011. See also the report on Morning Edition on 24 May 2011, “California Ordered To Reduce Prison Population“, and on All Things Considered 23 May 2011, “High Court Rules Calif Must Cut Prison Population“, where I discuss how combining severely mentally ill criminals in mental hospitals without proper safety precautions creates an extremely dangerous work environment for professional hospital workers. I take issue with the use of the term “genetic” to describe a cause of mental illness, since there is always an environmental interaction with genes.
Updated 25 May 2011
Summary:
The death of a patient who had to be subdued by hospital staff for attacking another patient has led to more debate about what to do about the mental hospitals in California who have swelled with patients referred to them from the criminal justice system. This death happens just after the state has been asked to do something about the increasing violence because of a previous recent death of a staff member. The state’s response? California’s OSHA levied fines because the hospital had violated state labor law. The answer so far has been to lift the hiring freeze at the hospital. Continue reading
Mind-Body Medicine in Research and Practice 
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