Compassionate Human Nature: Antidote to Infant Mortality

1
Compassionate Human Nature Antidote to Infant
Mortality

• Ronald David, MD, MDiv
• February 3, 2009
• Spiritual Care Collaborative

2
Bad News and Good News . . .

• Infants are being born and dying at an inordinate
  and intolerable rate.
• Human beings are compassionate by nature and
  compassion is a necessary (and potentially
  sufficient) response to infant mortality.

3
Understanding the Link . . .

• A thumb-nail sketch of infant mortality
• Theological and neuro-biological reflections on
  compassion
• Implications for pastoral care, counseling, and
  education

4
Thumbnail Sketch of Infant Mortality

• IMR number of live-born infants who die before
  their first birthday 1000
• In 1900 the rate was 100/1000 in 2000 it was
  6.89/1000
• Between 2000 and 2005 there has been no
  significant decline in the U.S. IMR

5
Interpreting IMR through the Ages

• Cities as abattoirs (1850-1880)
• Inadequate and unsafe feeding practices--infant
  diarrhea (1880-1910)
• Ignorant, incompetent, immoral, irresponsible
  maternal behavior (1910-present)

6
Misogyny Infant Mortality

• Women as Jezebels, Aunt Jemimas, Welfare Queens,
  Madonna/Whores and other tropes
• Mothers as incubators and baby bottles
• Pregnancy parturition as pathologic conditions

7
Biography Becomes Biology

• Meaning is the bridge between psyche and soma.
  Larry Dossey, Meaning Medicine
• Unspoken conflicts are pantomimed in the body.
  James Melissa Griffith, The Body Speaks

8
Thumb-Nail Sketch contd

• Paradox of Mexican-American women who are poor
• Paradox of African-American women who are well
  off
• Plight of Arab-American women who are vilified

9
Relationships are primary. All else is
derivative.

• We are relational creatures by nature.
• Isolation alienation are anathema to being
  human generally, and during periods of
  vulnerability especially.

10
CompassionA Theology

• Compassion in Scripture
• We are made in the image and likeness of God . .
  .
• Compassion vs. Empathy
• Deep Feeling
• Vivid Imagination

11
Defining Compassion

• From the Latincom (with) pati (suffer) . . .
  to suffer with
• Compassion in Jewish and Christian Scripture
  (Hebrew Greek)

12
Defining Empathy

• Identification with and understanding of
  anothers situation, feelings, and motives,
• The attribution of ones own feelings to an
  object. The American Heritage Dictionary of the
  English Language, 4th Edition 2000.

13
Compassion vs. Empathy

• Compassion is visceralintuitive, emotive,
  bottom up, immediate
• Empathy is ideationalcognitive, imaginative,
  top down, mediating

14
Compassion as Resonance
15
The Limbic Brain

• ACorpus callosum
• BOlfactory tract
• CMammillary bodies
• DFornix
• E--Anterior thalamic nuclei
• FAmygdala
• GHippocampus
• HParahippocampal gyrus
• ICingulate gyrus
• JHypothalamic nuclei

16
Compassion as Emotional Resonance

• Limbic/Affect Resonance
• Affect Synchrony in Mother-Infant Dyad
• The en face gaze . . .
• Left-handed cradling
• Making facesimitate or resonate?
• Temperature Cardio-Respiratory Rhythm

17
Whats in a Smile?Lane Strathearn, Jian Li,
Peter Fonagy and P. Read MontaguePediatrics
200812240-51
18
Witnessing Pain (The Compassionate Brain Humans
Detect Intensity of Pain from Anothers Face/
Miiamaaria V. Saarela et al, Cerebral Cortex
January 200717230237.)
19
Pain on the Brain (The Compassionate Brain
Humans Detect Intensity of Pain from Anothers
Face/ Miiamaaria V. Saarela et al, Cerebral
Cortex January 200717230237.)
20
Synesthesias . . .

• Mirror neurons for touch, pain, motor-behavior,
  and emotions
• Mirror-Touch Synesthesia associated with
  empathy

21
Compassion Fatigue by any Name . . .

• Compassion Fatigue,
• Vicarious Traumatization,
• Secondary Traumatic Stress Reactions,
• empathic strain,
• Burn Out
• Countertransference
• Borrowed Stress

22
Compassion Fatigue . . .

• Affect Dissonance
• Emotional Discordance

23
Rejuvenating Compassion

• Attention
• mindfulness
• Attunement
• limbic resonance
• Atonement
• at-one with God

24
Rejuvenating Compassion

• Narrative Medicine
• Centering Relationships
• Meditation
• Music
• Hobbies
• Body Work
• Psychotherapy

25
Compassion as Antidote to Infant Mortality

• Philogyny
• Infant Vitality
• love of the feminine

• Misogyny
• Infant Mortality