Listening for the Light: A New Perspective on Integration Disorder in Dyslexic Syndrome, Schizophrenia, Bipolarity, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Substance Abuse

This book details the author's discovery of the neurological connection between accurate hearing and mental health, a paradigm of right-ear-driven left-cerebral dominance that is poised to draw the neuroscience of behavior out of its speculative infancy to become a rigorous science. Tallman's paradigm has implications not only for medicine and psychiatry but for most of the disciplines in the humanities.In chapters 1 and 2 the author shares her initial belief in the origins of behavior; in the next three chapters she describes how her son's dyslexic syndrome was cured within 10 days in 1997 by the Tomatis Method. Daniel's dramatic changes in behavior called into question social and psychological factors as sufficient explanations for aberrant behavior. However, at 16 Daniel already was addicted to alcohol and drugs. Soon after his dyslexia cure, he had a sustained psychotic break. The author had been cured of chronic fatigue syndrome while her son was being treated for dyslexic syndrome. Her odyssey of discovery about the relationship between the ears, music, and behavior had begun.Chapters 6 and 7 describe her son's treatment: he was heavily medicated in hospital, subjected to questionable procedures, and released several weeks later with a diagnosis of hopeless schizophrenia. Treatment had not helped Daniel's addictions. Their family doctor reduced her son s medication; she noticed symptoms of fluctuating cognitive function no one could explain. She further reduced his medication. His cognition improved.In chapters 8, 9, and 10 she recounts her son's addictive behaviors and ways they were addressed with only modest success. Over the years, she tested his cognition several times with different activities obtaining the same results: his abilities fluctuated at two-minute intervals. In 2005, Daniel used his mother's headphones to listen to a Mozart CD. Recognizing the kinds of changes in facial expression, posture, and eye-hand co-ordination he displayed during his treatment for dyslexia, she encouraged daily 2-hour listening that forced right-ear stimulation. After six weeks of focused listening enhanced by simple art activities with minuscule and then no psychotropic medication he suddenly regained normal brain function over the course of a single day. Two years later, when his addictions had again driven him into acute psychosis, he transitioned with focused listening and simple art activities over 10 months through incremental stages of mental illness (severe schizophrenia, bipolar I, bipolar II, depression, OCD, and dyslexia) to normal ear and brain function and learning ability. Tallman analyzes her son's grammatical structures according to the delineation of the differing functions of the two halves of the brain by the American neurologist V.S. Ramachandran as an inter-hemispheric duet that became more rational when his right ear became able to process more high-frequency sound because his hemispheres integrated at increasing speeds. As soon as Daniel was taught that his brain was not broken but that he could learn to control his behavior by protecting and exercising his ears, he began to do so.Drawing on research in neurology, anatomy, audiology, and sociology, in chapters 11-15 Tallman's paradigm of right-ear-driven left-cerebral dominance extends and refines the pioneering work of French otolaryngologist Alfred Tomatis, explains cerebral integration disorders and normal behavior, disputes a leading theory of schizophrenia, and opens avenues for further research.Appendices include the results of testing done at different times during Daniel's illness. The book includes illustrations, diagrams, tables, notes, appendices, bibliography, and index. Read more