What you see can change how you feel

By William J. Cromie

Gazette Staff

Limiting their view can change the emotions of people suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other psychological problems, a Harvard psychiatrist has found. By using glasses that completely mask one eye and most of the other, Fredric Schiffer has both decreased and increased the fears and mental distress of his patients.

"Wearing the glasses can help some individuals overcome extreme anxiety, and makes them feel more confident and rational," he says.

Looking at only the extreme left or right side of a visual field stimulates the opposite side of the brain. For example, those who suffer the effects of past trauma often feel more stress when looking at the extreme right side. When they switch to viewing the extreme left side, they feel more in control almost immediately.

Schiffer, a psychiatrist at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital in Belmont, has successfully used this sight-switching technique to aid 26 patients. "It complements ongoing psychotherapy and drug treatment, and it has helped about 25 percent of my patients cope with their anxieties about the world," he says.

The fact that stimulating two different sides of the brain can produce opposite results leads Schiffer to a controversial theory. "We may have two minds, or distinct parts of our personality," he maintains. "When they are similar, our personality is harmonious and we feel a sense of mental well-being. When the two sides are in conflict, we feel confused, stressed, anxious, depressed."

Two Minds In One Head

It has long been known that the two hemispheric halves of the human brain have different functions. In most right-handed people, language is processed by the left side of the brain. Spatial tasks, such as visualizing what a geometric figure would look like when rotated, are better handled by the right side.

This dichotomy is dramatically demonstrated in people whose brain-halves have been separated by surgery. In the 1960s, for example, surgeons cut the thick cables of nerves connecting hemispheres in order to relieve epileptic seizures. Objects in pictures shown only to the right eye of these people are quickly identified. But when viewing the same picture with the left visual field, they can't describe what they see.

This situation comes from the surprising fact that the right visual field connects with the left side of the brain and vice versa. The left brain easily describes what's in right sight, but a right brain with no connection to the language center can't verbalize about what's in the left visual field.

Schiffer describes the case of a split-brain woman who saw a picture of a nude in her left visual field (right brain). She giggled and showed embarrassment, but could not explain why. Her right brain registered an appropriate emotion, but her left brain could not understand it.

In other experiments, the left brain of split-brain people could not identify photos of Adolph Hitler and Johnny Carson shown to the right brain. However, with their left hands they signaled a vigorous "thumbs down" for the dictator and "thumbs up" for the comedian.

After studying right-left brain emotional differences for 10 years, Schiffer decided to investigate them in psychiatric patients with intact brains. He gave extreme-view glasses to 70 patients, and had them rate their feelings of anxiety and sadness when looking out the far-left or far-right sides of each eye.

They rated their feelings on a five-point scale from no anxiety or sadness through moderate to extreme feelings. Schiffer then compared these ratings when patients had only one eye covered.

The results were amazing. Forty-two of the 70 -- 60 percent -- reported significant changes in emotions. Among 21 people with major depression, 11 reported greater anxiety when looking at the world from the left side (right brain). Ten of 18 people with post-traumatic stress disorder felt worse looking out the right side.

During interviews, 40 of these patients said they felt an increase in the symptoms on one side and an alleviation on the other. "Follow-up examinations indicate that the positive and negative responses persist over time," Schiffer notes. "Obviously, for a patient who experiences positive alleviation of his or her symptoms, this is encouraging news."

Twenty-six people have used the glasses as part of their ongoing treatment for depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Schiffer is attempting to determine if the glasses can lessen the amount of drugs a patient takes, or shorten the length of talk therapy needed.

Not For Everyone

Though impressive, the numbers show that the glasses are not for everyone. "Roughly 25 percent of patients find the glasses very helpful, and these are usually the people with the worst symptoms," Schiffer says.

Schiffer said that his mood usually does not change when he wears the glasses. However, he admits putting on the glasses "on a couple of occasions when I felt upset, and this led to a positive response."

He suggested that this reporter try them on. When he did so, he felt no different when looking out the extreme right or left side.

In contrast, Schiffer played an audio tape of a young man with an anxiety disorder and a history of abuse who experienced wide, swift swings of emotion.

The man first tried on glasses that let him see only with 40 percent of his right eye.

"I feel sadness on this side," he said. "I wouldn't want to go to work wearing these. The longer I wear them, the more pain, fear, and anxiety comes out. I feel a lack of confidence and sadness about never achieving any goals."

The man sighed and his voice broke up. He talked about his father hitting him: "Kids get called names and beaten all the time. Why does it still hurt me so much?"

Schiffer shifted him to the left-sided, right-brain glasses and his voice began to sound more confident right away. "These block out certain wavelengths of pain," he said. "I definitely feel better now. I can think of my father and deal with it. I'm still a bundle of nerves, but I can go out and do a job. I think I've got a chance to reason and function constructively."

Schiffer's most remarkable case involves a 27-year-old graduate student with a history of severe childhood abuse. He was progressing with his treatment when a stressful incident suddenly pushed him toward paranoia.

Looking out his left side, he seemed to become more paranoid and hostile. When he switched sides, he immediately became more trusting and cheerful, more in touch with reality.

Schiffer gave him a pair of left-side glasses to take home.

"He's done extremely well subsequently," Schiffer says, "improving both socially and academically. I don't think he would have gotten that much better without the glasses."

But Schiffer admits such results "are unexpected and not found in all patients. I don't expect to cure people by handing out glasses. It will take more research to determine who can benefit from using the glasses as an adjunct to other treatments. Hopefully, the glasses could reduce medication and help people recover faster."

To spread the word about his research, Schiffer writes papers for scientific journals and lectures about his results at professional meetings. He also is writing a book called In Your Right Mind, which will be published next year by Free Press.

Making Up Your Minds

Schiffer doesn't know why the glasses work, but suspects the reason has something to do with the brain's divided functioning. Altering the way that people view the world somehow affects their encoded memories and perspectives. They see the two sides of themselves.

"My theory is that individuals have two distinct parts to their personality, each associated with one brain hemisphere," Schiffer explains. "One part tends to see the world through a distorted perspective and is often disturbed by past trauma. The other part of the personality is often mature and more grounded in reality. I see psychotherapy as the education of the troubled side, bringing it more in harmony with the realistic side. Using the glasses could provide greater insight into how to do this."