The Revolution Psychologists Have Been Looking for in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Begins Here

The neurology of right-ear-driven left-brain dominance — the Tallman Paradigm — that explains fundamental aspects of human behavior, both normal and aberrant, explains how behavior can be corrected and fine-tuned with Focused Listening music therapy that strengthens the ear. The Tallman Paradigm demonstrates why “focused” is the superior initial approach rather than a “binaural” method.  This essay is directed to psychologists and other practitioners using CBT, who often will find it useful to pair Focused Listening with their CBT therapy.

A person who has regained left-brain dominance after  years of medication and other unhelpful treatments for a mental illness has suffered huge losses of normal learning experiences. Returning from a condition in which the person has been physiologically and socially infantalized, such a person needs understanding and support while reintegrating into normal social life. The medical and non-medical culture alike are not familiar with the role of the ear in behavior and health. Psychologists and other practitioners of CBT are ideally positioned to assist in that social rehabilitation. However, the trend of “mindfulness” in psychology could be counter-productive for these individuals. The weakness in their right ear has kept them in unhelpful states of right-brain consciousness. Their normal learning capacity has been restored but needs exercise. The kinds of learning they have missed need to be discussed and practiced, especially in the social sphere.   Unless addictive behaviors remain, their primary need is for re-entry strategies into the social and employment mainstream. The understanding that their illness was a treatable ear condition, for which they are the living proof, may be difficult for others to accept and daunting for the individual to affirm. CBT adapts easily to those challenges. 

Whether as one-on-one talking therapy, group therapy, or written materials designed to elicit written responses, CBT works with the language communications networks in the brain. Animal studies are designed to elicit physical responses rewarded by food pellets. Human studies are designed to elicit positive emotional responses to complex changes in self-destructive and socially problematical behavior. Unknown to most psychologists, psychiatrists, and physicians is the fact that human language communication networks are controlled primarily by the right ear. The ear is altered when it is exposed to high-frequency sound. The following discussion includes a brief and simplified description of my discoveries pertaining to the etiology of normal and aberrant behavior in neurology controlled by audition. My books are available through my website www.northernlightbooks.ca

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is an effort to change socially or individually problematical, i.e., destructive, behavior by leading the client through a series of rational tasks intended to reinforce rational, healthy responses to unhealthy thought patterns and behavior. Those CBT stimuli may be verbal or written and take the form of exercises in thinking about problematical behavior in new ways. CBT can incorporate physical activity, which helps to embed new learning. Some CBT takes extreme measures of negative reinforcement, which Jeffrey M. Schwartz rejects as unsuitable to professionals and harmful to the client (Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley, The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, New York: Harper Perennial, 2002). At the other extreme, practitioners enter into paroxysms of self-examination regarding their “sensitivity” or “techniques” by which they introduce CBT to their clients, as if the therapist is to blame if the CBT does not achieve its goals. They make efforts to examine new neurological research in respect to the precision of their diagnoses of their clients’ presenting problems. The Tallman Paradigm was discovered out of the mainstream of neurological research. This essay introduces you to what I learned during the 10 years of our schizophrenic son’s illness and during my research after I had healed him twice from his debilitating condition.

An understanding of the etiology of many behavior problems as ear-related and an appreciation for the simplicity of effective treatment helps to mitigate the CBT therapist’s diagnostic and interactional anxieties.

A download of the full text of the essay is available  for US$5.00 at the email address here.