January 31,2013: Gunther Pohlmann Society Meeting

This week was a meeting of the Gunther Pohlmann Society. We have enough new members in the group, many who did not know our Dr. Gunther Pohlmann. Therefore, the first part of the meeting was spent discussing Gunther and his ways and why we devote the fifth Thursday in every month that it occurs to discussing something that either Gunther wrote himself, or something that we feel would have been in his discussions.

Today, his daughter, Heidi, brought a copy of his article Children of War published in Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol III, No. 4, pg 374.
This peer reviewed Journal, the voice of the Society of Adolescent Psychiatry, published a special group of articles, attempting to consider "How Can the Children of World War II German National Socialist Sympathizers and Jewish Survivors Talk to Each Other?" Introductory article Pp. 350-353. by David W. Cline.

Dr. Cline opened his Introduction with a quoted section from the poem, Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tenneyson.

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world,
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulps will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Children and War: A Personal Perspective on Childhood in World War II and Post-war Germany Pp. 374-378.  Guenther P. Pohlmann

Abstract:  War is a major cause of traumatic stress for children and adolescents. German children who were born just before WWII experienced multiple stresses during and after the war. In addition to the losses and deprivations associated with the war, they had to face the shame of their country's defeat and responsibility for the war, and many lived with the knowledge of their families' complicity in the Nazi atrocities -- something that was largely unacknowledged and never discussed. While in some cases, war trauma results in an ever repeating cycle of violence; in others, the children who experience war are remarkably open to reconciliation and peace. While genocidal violence has recurred -- in Camboida, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, for example, there is hope that the children who live through these experiences can help to bring an end to these horrific events. The author offers his views on how the unique perspective of these children can inform us. He describes his experiences and his observations of his contemporaries and peers who were children in Germany during World War II, and adolescents in the post-war era. Some of these children have led the way in the ultimate acknowledgement of individual and collective responsibility and in taking steps to ensure that the horrors of the genocide would not be repeated.

If you would like to purchase copies of any of these articles in this special section of the Journal of Adolescent Psychiatry, go to this link.
http://www.benthamscience.com/contents-JCode-APS-Vol-00000002-Iss-00000004.htm

Dr. Gunther Pohlmann and Dr. David Kline had become friends when both were sent to Iraq in the first Gulf War. Gunther was involved in setting up a MASH type hospital during that war. Both doctors worked on dealing with psychiatric issues that later affect the young men who are in battle. They developed the use of meditation, mostly in the form of TM to help and other techniques during debriefing that helped prevent or as an initial treatment for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Many forms developed then are still used today in our wars.

Interestingly, currently TM has been used prior to sending men to war to try for primary prevention of PTSD and similar disabilities. As an aside, in a recent newspaper issue, there was also an article about using meditation to treat arthritis. Inflammatory markers have been measured in the blood of study subjects and they are significantly reduced, showing objectively that meditation helps not just reduce the pain of arthritis but actually reduces the inflammatory cause of arthritis.

Discussion at the end of this meeting reminded us of several sources that our group has particularly enjoyed during the past year and even before. They include:

Dr. Weil's article: Why We Are All Addicted?

Pema Chodran:  Shenpa. We have discussed this article before. There was some discussion of the definition of shenpa. Todd has kindly provided us with a copy of this article. Hit Read More down at the bottom to see this article again.

Recommendation for a new book by Jonathan Haidt, author of  The Happiness Hypothesis, in which the author examines ten "great ideas" dating from antiquity and their continued relevance to the happy life.
His new book is entitled: The Righteous Mind. This book is about the difference in thinking between conservatives and liberals.

On the light side, apparently a poll was taken asking whether people thought this country was currently divided. The results of the poll were 50% to 50%, Yes and No. The pundits are still arguing about that.

September 29, 2011: Guenther Pohlmann Society Meeting

     Recall that when a month has 5 Thursdays, on that 5th Thursday, our Spirit Mind Body Group holds a meeting of the Guenther Pohlmann Society in our friend, Guenther's honor. For those newcomers to our group and our blog, Guenther was a remarkable human being. He was a member of this group from the very beginning until his sudden demise several years ago. Guenther was born in Germany, and immigrated to the United States when he was a young man. His father had resisted the Nazi movement in Germany and suffered because of this resistance. Yet many 19th century German philosophers made their mark on Guenther. He read and frequently quoted: Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and (though Danish) Kierkegaard. He also did a lot of writing about his own world view. He thought that our human brain was "hard wired" for the need for religious belief, perhaps because many of our religious groups and ideas were formed while our early human family lived in a place devoid of stimulation, the Middle Eastern desert. Yet he also believed that even Eastern religions have many similarities to our Judeo-Chrisitan background. I remember him questioning whether even Jesus could have traveled to the Far East, to become affected by some of these similar ancient belief systems. He often quoted Lao Tsu and the Zoroastrians. In addition, Guenther was highly well read in many other fields. He could speak on almost any topic. We always joked at this meeting, if our speaker was not present yet, or we had an opening in presentation, that Guenther would walk in the door, and we would say: "Guenther, can you present something to us today?" and lo and behold, he would! In his field of work, Guenther was known as the "physician's physician." He had a remarkable questioning mind for medicine at its finest. At our weekly Grand Rounds educational meeting at Columbia Hospital, no matter the topic, the speaker knew that eventually during the meeting, Guenther would raise his hand and pose a deep question about the medical topic and then he would often answer the question himself right then. He was a pulmonologist and nuclear medicine doctor who then became an intensivist. He always taught the internal medicine residents at Columbia and also the entire medical staff. He announced his retirement and we had the usual retirement party for him at Columbia, but he never really retired. He still taught the medical students and residents and still over saw various functions at the hospital that kept his figure seen in the corridors right up to his death. Guenther was also an excellent photographer and we have held sessions at this meeting to view some of his photos. He left a volume of writings and we have often used our meeting of the Guenther Pohlmann Society to read through some of these writings. On other occasions we read material that would have likely represented Guenther's view of things, in his memory. Such is the case for this week's meeting. Todd D. led the discussion.
Please read on for the article featured for this meeting: Why We Are All  Addicted by Andrew Weil.

June 30, 2011: Gunther Pohlman Society Meeting.

My Grandfather, Guenther Pohlmann, and me, Nikolas his grandson, in January, 1996.

To commemorate my Grandfather, I will not cook for you…

…nor will I not put on a magic show….

However, I will present on a topic my Grandfather and I often discussed together: World War II. More specifically, it is about the bomb.

Indeed, Nik did present a very fine film that he created using many film clips of the preparation of the atomic bomb, through Los Alamos labs, the delivery of Fat Man and Little Boy to the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Film clips showed the devastation and graphic images of the deaths that resulted. There was discussion about the justification for using the bomb to save American lives in a longer dragged out war where the Japanese home islands would have to be invaded. We saw and heard President Truman warning the Japanese. We saw Oppenheimer give his tearful comments on what he and we had wrought. The number of lives involved on all sides is staggering. The film was a very good reminder, lest we forget, about war and its destruction. The members of the group discussed the terror that the use of these bombs produced as most of us were children and growing up in America. Naturally since we used such a weapon, the populace could have nothing but fear for such weapons being used on us. The old "Duck and Cover" technique that was taught in school from kindergarten on and the drills during classwork are only surface remembrances of the deeper concern we all shared and still share.
     Members of our group commented on a World War II Museum located in New Orleans, developed by Stephen Ambrose, who wrote a wonderful book about it, among others. I commented about the controversial nature of the Japanese people -- how the soldiers behaved in war: the unprovoked attack at Pearl Harbor, the refusal to abide by international rules of warfare during WWII, their brutality in Korea and China. I remarked how when we visited China at one tourist site, an elderly Chinese man who was there selling postcards recognized me as American and said "Thank You" to me in English. I asked him what he was thanking me for. He answered, "For what you Americans did for us in World War II, in defeating the Japanese." The Japanese military was particularly brutal in China. But then as one of our members recently circulated by email, the Japanese people during their recent earthquake and tsunami disaster demonstrated a fortitude and a caring for each other that I think few nations would demonstrate today. They did not complain; they waited patiently in line for food relief and medical help; they did not hoard but only purchased or took small amounts of free relief supplies when offered in order to save for other people; they aided each other; gave up things that they possessed to help others; some 50+ workers at the nuclear plant remained voluntarily to try to stop the disaster there,etc. They in short showed remarkable fortitude and caring consideration for their brethren. How do we reconcile these two pictures of the Japanese people? This is a question that is difficult to answer. Japan has two faces, just as the justification for using the atomic bomb in Japan has two faces.
     I asked Nik if his grandfather had talked to him about World War II. He said that when he was in first through 5th grade, his grandfather used to walk him to school and they would talk about World War II. Also Nik's father is a history buff. These both have probably influenced Nik to have such an interest in these historical facts. Indeed, it is probably only through such interest that we as a society will learn and hopefully in the future avoid such mass destruction that WWII wrought.
     Thank you, Nikolas, for sharing your film with us. Your grandfather would be very proud!