Reuven Feuerstein, A leading Light in the World of Hope.

[Guest guest]

Professor Reuven Feuerstein was a Jewish psychologist who in the 1950's started to treat Jewish children who had very low IQ. Too many of these children had a very low IQ so he figured it had nothing to do with genes but was most likely the result of trauma that had occurred during the 2nd World War. He developed techniques to help these children to regain their normal IQ and became convinced that IQ is not solely determined by genetics, but by other factors as well. He was considered a crank by orthodox medicine and completely ignored but he became famous when he treated Flora Keays, child of Cecil Parkinson, a British politician, because she had very low IQ resulting from an operation she had when she was four years old, for her epilepsy, which caused severe brain damage. She had the IQ of about 48, and was considered a non functional human being, an imbecile, and yet he restored her to normal intelligence. He believed that IQ was not fixed and developed theories about neuroplasticity well before the science was able to prove it.

His opponent was Professor Eysenck, who believed that our personalities, IQ, and neurosis were determined solely by our genes and could not be altered and he became a well respected scientist because his theories fitted in well with the establishment at the time who wanted to believe in the natural hierarchy of things. But now we know that Professor Feuerstein got it completely right and Professor Eysenck got it completely wrong. Eysenck believed what he wanted to be believe and made the science fit in with his prejudices. Eysenck made a lot of money but Feuerstein would treat people for free. Happiness is not about wealth.

Feuerstein has treated many people with an IQ of below 50 and yet they have gone on to get good degrees at leading universities. He has even treated people who have had half of their brain removed, because of severe epilepsy, and yet with his techniques they have gone on to develop normal IQ and functioning.

Now his methods are being used to treat chronic schizophrenics as well with very good results. He say's we are not fixed by our genes, or early life events, and that we can all change and heal. There is always hope.

So, keep working at your ACT because you can turn this whole thing around, and be totally free. All humans suffer anxiety, but to be free is to know how to ride it. Anxiety is not a bad thing or an illness. Fear, i.e. risk, with love and passion, is what life is all about.

Although I am going through hell again, as usual, I have experienced moments of complete happiness recently, and boy old boy, it's an incredible world when I recconect with my past. One day I shall write about it.

Kaivey.