Doctorshealthsystems

Chickpeas are more floury than other beans, with a less ‘beany’ taste, and fewer unpleasant after-effects. So they make a good filler if you cannot eat wheat or potatoes. Soak them overnight, pick out any discoloured ones, and cook in a pressure cooker at 15 lb pressure for 20-25 minutes, or in the ordinary way for 1-1 1\2 hours. If you do find that they give you wind, try removing the skins – they rub off very easily. Tinned chickpeas are not expensive if you buy supermarket ‘own-brands’ [eg Sainsbury’s). Add to soups and casseroles. You can also mash them to make hoummous. Other beans and lentils are also useful fillers for those who cannot eat wheat or potatoes.

Pearl barley is sold in most large supermarkets, and in healthfood stores. Add it to stews, casseroles and soups to make them more filling. The barley needs about 1 – ? hours cooking time.

Plantains are obtainable from West Indian groceries and look like very large green bananas. They are starchy and less banana-like in flavour than one might expect. Peel them (quite difficult – needs a sharp knife) and then fry in oil, or boil and mash. They can also be baked in their skins.

Gram-flour pappadams are obtainable in some Indian groceries and can be eaten as an accompaniment to a meal. Check that they do not contain wheat flour. This is a traditional Indian recipe for gram-flour bread: mix two cups of gram flour with a small finely chopped onion, ? teaspoon cumin seeds, ? teaspoon salt and a pinch of chilli powder. Rub in 1 tablespoon of clarified butter. Add a little water – enough to make a stiff doughy mixture. Take small balls of this and press down lightly with your hand on a floured surface. Fry on a griddle or hot plate, turning once.

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If you are sensitive to milk, you may be able to substitute goat or sheep milk for it once you have completed the diet. But at this stage, it is better to avoid these as well, as there can be cross-reactions. Soya milk is not advisable either at this early stage, as soya is found quite widely in processed foods and meat products, and some people are sensitive to it even though they are unaware of eating it.

You should be avoiding packaged and processed foods anyway, but if you do eat any, be aware that milk may be called by various synonyms on the ingredients label – see p292.

Most margarines contain some milk solids, and should be avoided anyway as they are highly processed.

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Is food intolerance becoming more common? It is impossible to answer this question because there is little agreement on how common food intolerance is today (see p81) and no way of find out how common it was in the past. But the general impression, among doctors who treat food intolerance, is that it has become increasingly widespread. There is little hard evidence to support this, apart from 3 few epidemiological studies. One of these concerns Crohn’s disease in Africa. It shows that Crohn’s disease – which has been linked with food intolerance (see pll3) – is virtually unknown in rural areas, but becomes more common when people move into towns. In Britain, there has been a dramatic rise in the incidence of Crohn’s disease since World War II. Rheumatoid arthritis is also steadily increasing, although this is a rise that began in the early nineteenth century.

Crohn’s disease is a serious and debilitating illness – most of those with food intolerance have much milder symptoms. Indeed, many people in the early stages of food intolerance may scarcely be aware of being ill: headaches, indigestion, persistent tiredness and occasional diarrhoea are all reported as the early, symptoms, by those who later become more seriously ill and then discover they are sensitive to food. Symptoms of this sort are everyday problems that most people tend to accept as part of life.

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In theory, the way to treat a disturbed gut flora is to repopulate the gut with the ‘good’ bacteria, and so exclude the more damaging bacteria and yeasts. Unfortunately, a reliable treatment of this sort will be impossible to devise until more is known about the gut flora. At present, the best treatment is to eat live yoghurt, which includes one-of the important bacteria in the gut, Lactobacillus. There are also commercial preparations of bacteria which are intended to restore the normal flora of the gut. Some of these have been tested by Dr John Hunter of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, who found very few live bacteria in them, making them less useful than live yoghurt.

To ensure that the brand of yoghurt you are buying really is live, add a spoonful to some warm milk that has been heated to boiling point and then allowed to cool. Keep the mixture in a vacuum flask for 6-8 hours. If it has not turned to yoghurt, then the original yoghurt was not live. The best way of ensuring your yoghurt is live is to make your own – starter cultures are available from some health-food stores, or by post.

If you cannot eat yoghurt, because of a sensitivity to milk, then commercial preparations of bacteria might be worth considering, but ask to see a bacteriological analysis showing how many live bacteria there are per gram (there should be several million) before buying.

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Food aversion –the only non-controversial term in this list – means dislike and avoidance of a particular food for purely psychological reasons.

These definitions are ones that the majority of mainstream doctors practising in this field would feel reasonably happy with. But bear in mind, if comparing this book with other books or articles, that the same words may be used in an entirely different way. It is also important to remember that they are theoretical definitions, and there is a sizeable gap between theory and practice when it comes to diagnosing individual patients. In practice the designation of an illness as ‘food allergy’ or ‘food intolerance’ would not depend so much on skin-prick tests or other tests as on the type of symptoms that the patient shows. If the symptoms are among those traditionally associated with allergy, such as asthma or urticaria, and if foods are shown to be responsible, then the condition will probably be labelled as food allergy, even if skin-prick tests are negative, as they sometimes are in such cases. If, on the other hand, the symptoms are not of the allergic kind – as in Susan’s case – then the label ‘food intolerance’ will be used. Skin-prick tests will not normally be carried out because they are most unlikely to give a positive result, so they will not contribute much to the diagnosis.

In theory, then, the distinction between allergy and intolerance is based on causes. In the doctor’s surgery, however, the distinction is likely to be based on symptoms, because it is known that asthma or urticaria are probably true allergic reactions, while migraine or depression are not. With a symptom such as diarrhoea, the cause might be an allergic reaction, an intolerant one, or something else entirely. In such cases, special tests would be needed to make a diagnosis of ‘food allergy’.

Where patients show a collection of symptoms that include, say, asthma and migraine, the diagnosis is more difficult. If all these symptoms clear up at once when certain foods are avoided, is it allergy or is it intolerance? This is not a question that can be easily answered at present, and for the purposes of this book we will use the umbrella term ‘food sensitivity’ to cover such situations.

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Players: Husband and wife.

Activists: Both.

Setting: Home or hotel.

Aim: Use paradoxical approach to get at couple’s inferiority/superiority feelings.

Game Plan: The couple may take turns being master and slave. If they have a twinship transference, either can go first.

If it is an idealizing transference, the idealizing partner should be the slave first, since that order is closest to their present relationship. The taking of turns at being the slave leads to interesting results.

It may begin after a dinner at a fine restaurant, or in the restaurant of the hotel where they are staying. Upon coming back home, the master sits down on an easy chair and looks at the slave sternly. (In this example I will have the man play master.)

“Come over here.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Kneel down before me.” “Yes, sir!”

“Do you realize that you are nothing and I am everything? Do you realize that you are just a slave and I am your master? Do you?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Do you realize that I know everything and you know nothing? Do you?” “Yes, sir!”

“Without me you would be nothing. Nothing! Do you hear?”

“I hear, sir!”

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For the husband it is a transforming experience, lifting him out of his own defensive posture—which might range from whining about lack of sex, to passive but begrudging resignation to little or unresponsive sex, to seeking extramarital situations and satisfactions. By dropping his defensive posture and allowing his own playful self to come out, he learns a more successful mode of relating.

Nude indoor volleyball can be played for fun and enlightenment by most of the couples described in this book.

On occasion, hysterics marry active spouses, hoping that such men will sweep them off their feet and take them away from it all. But the actives are more than likely to be of the narcissistic variety, interested in satisfying their own needs, not their spouse’s. For this reason, many such relationships swing from fantasy to disillusionment.

The games in this section have been designed as a five-part antidote to hysteria.

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If he demurs and does not launch into a recitation of his woes from childhood on, then she might try the playful approach:

“So, here I am!” She tickles him in a place she knows he’s vulnerable. “What do you think? Do you want to play with me? Listen, I have a riddle for you. What’s a zebra?” She sticks out her breasts. “Give up? A zebra is twenty-five times bigger than an A-bra!”

If he doesn’t start laughing and cheering up (he may, for example, become grouchier), the sexy approach may work:

“Hi there, handsome. What can I do for you?” She slides her hand up his leg. “I’m here to relieve you of all your worldly and sexual tension, and I’m ready to fulfill your innermost fantasies. Your wish is my compulsion!”

If the husband is in on this game, he will now find some way to play along. If the game is a surprise, the fairy godmother must keep trying until she finds the key to unlocking his resistance. That key usually turns on an understanding of his particular rescue fantasy (all of us have one). Once it has been found, the husband can be lured out of his depressive posture and into an enjoyable sexual experience—which may also lead to an unburdening of himself in a way he has not experienced before. And this could in turn lead to increased intimacy.

As with other games, this one must be played with conviction and zest. If there is any hesitancy, self-consciousness, or inhibition, that will sabotage the proceedings. Therefore, the active partner must be ready to truly throw herself into her role and enjoy it. This will have a therapeutic benefit on her too, channeling into a constructive groove her resentment about her husband’s depression.

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The interrogator starts fondling the confessor again. “Tell me.”

“I feel afraid of you.”

“That’s better. When do you feel afraid of me?” “I feel afraid of you right now. You’ve got your hands on my genitals.” “That’s true.”

“And I also feel afraid of you at other times.” “What other times?” “I’m not sure.”

The interrogator stops fondling the confessor. “Don’t stop.” “Then talk.” “I will.”

“What other times?”

“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. Please don’t stop. I feel afraid when you’re drinking.”

“That’s better.” The interrogator continues fondling the confessor until the whole truth is told. Then the two switch roles.

This game can last (intermittently, at least) for an hour, a day, a week, or a month, and constantly lead to new truths. By being truthful in the context of erotic play, the couple is enabled to open up in an enjoyable way. This provides positive reinforcement to the difficult task of breaking through barriers. Husbands and wives will be surprised at the things both their partners and they come out with. Of course, there may be some pain to deal with—unexpected truths that are difficult to hear and cope with. Then the couple must stop the game and deal with that pain, perhaps even with the help of a therapist.

Eventually (as with the other games in this section), boredom will dissipate while intimacy and passion return.

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The games are designed to lead to the resolution of sexual and emotional blocks. In a sense, they are an elaboration of the kinds of exercises devised by William Masters and Virginia Johnson as an adjunct to the sex-therapy program they introduced in Human Sexual Response. However, their exercises are aimed at the resolutions of such sexual symptoms as premature or retarded ejaculation, partial or full impotency, partial or full frigidity, sexual phobias, and the like. The games offered here are intended to reach deeper into the unconscious recesses of character formation; the aim is not only to relieve symptoms but to resolve characterological attitudes.

The main difference between the games in this book and the sex games that people normally play is that these games are not compulsive rituals but rather conscious, deliberate enactments with a special purpose. They are similar to the games people normally play in that they address the same fixations that compulsive rituals address, but they do so in a way that is designed to resolve (rather than maintain) them.

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