Because psychiatry does not understand what causes any mental illness, psychiatry spends a great deal of time and energy on labels. Psychiatrists succeed in fastening labels on behavior only because mental illness forms a continuous spectrum, which they have not yet recognized. 

Learning forms a continuous spectrum, too. We call that combination of schoolwork and social learning from infancy to the late teens or early 20s “maturation.”

When a person is labeled as “mentally ill” it’s because that maturation process cannot proceed — as in autism or childhood depression or childhood bipolarity — or because something has happened to erode the person’s maturation, such as schizophrenia or bipolarity. Diagnosis in childhood is tricky because even a normal child is not fully secure in left-brain dominance for coping with everything life can dish out. Many kids with normal ears and brain function are traumatized by horrible events that overwhelm them and they form a special category of problem behavior parallel to ear-driven mental illness with similar symptoms, even to the point of schizophrenia. Tomatis thought all behavior problems were a matter of a child “shutting off listening.” Of course, social “events” like war can do the same thing to an adult. I learned that Tomatis was not “opening” the non-listening ear in that sense when he treated autism, dyslexia, and other conditions. He was strengthening an ear that for some reason has a weak stapedius muscle.

What psychiatry does not realize is that mental stability and maturation are controlled by the same mechanism that increases left-brain dominance, which is the normal condition for the integrative activities of the brain.

 Left-brain dominance is driven by two aspects of ear function: (1) the ability of the right ear to maintain left-brain dominance over the right-brain in their integrative processes and (2) the ability of the left ear to maintain a similar supply of energy to the right-brain for its sensory data storage and for its emotional work. Both ears normally process high-frequency sound in the environment through the middle ear (a) into inner ear and brain and (b) into the vagus network. Not just the brain but the functioning of the whole body depends on the ears having a good supply of high-frequency sound in the environment and on the ears having strong middle ear muscles, especially the stapedius, to convey that sound energy into the brain and body.

If you look at a chart of the tendencies of the left-brain and of the right-brain as V.S. Ramachandran mapped them (based on people who integrate normally), you can see abilities that become character traits or character deficits, depending on how fast a person’s cerebral hemispheres integrate. “Normal” behavior includes a range of behavior when a person is awake that is determined, to a large extent, by the standards of the culture in which the child has been raised to learn how to think and behave. Why are some children unable to learn those standards of behavior? Why do some children have trouble learning to read regardless of the language? Why are some children very shy and form friendships with difficulty? Worldwide standards recognize severely aberrant learning (autism) and severely aberrant adult self-control (schizophrenia). I find it fascinating that the severely aberrant behavior of bipolarity is often highly valued, especially for the entertainment of everyone else who admires extreme behavior in artists and performers, but also when it creates phenomenal memory that fuels the careers of technologists and academics and business tycoons. All of those aberrant conditions, whether or not they are socially approved, usually are caused by audio-processing deficits in one or both ears.

Sound deprivation and/or distortion by the left ear to the right-brain cause depression: mild, moderate, or suicidal. The French otolaryngologist Guy Bérard identified the audio deficits in the left ear that cause the range of depression (although I have identified another more severe in that range). The range of audio deficits in the right ear that cause the range of left-brain losses of dominance has not been defined yet. (I’m working on it!) There is no doubt that left-brain losses are caused by the right ear because my innovative therapy that cures them is directed only to the right ear. This sequence of mental illnesses, from most severe to least severe, that Focused Listening music therapy has healed is: schizophrenia, bipolar I, bipolar II, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and dyslexic syndrome.

Psychiatry merely drugs most of these conditions. However, for anyone with enough left-brain dominance to speak coherently, psychiatrists historically tried to talk such people out of their illness or they questioned them in an effort to find personal or cultural “reasons” for their aberrant behavior. They use those “reasons” (none of which have been established scientifically) to describe the behavior. Thus, “Depersonalization-derealization disorder is thought to be caused largely by interpersonal trauma such as childhood abuse. . . . Triggers may include significant stress, panic attacks, and drug use.” Actually, that loss of sense of self is caused by a slowing of the integration of the cerebral hemispheres and anyone can feel that way while falling asleep, which is when integration slows in everyone. I have known perfectly sane people who described “feeling disconnected or detached from one’s self. Individuals experiencing depersonalization may report feeling as if they are an outside observer of their own thoughts or body, and often report feeling a loss of control over their thoughts or actions.” (Wikipedia) The same thing can happen to a person in physical pain or with an infection. In fact, people who have trouble maintaining their left-brain dominance at any time also may have a lower pain threshold. Furthermore, “stress” means a situation that causes greater emotion, a right-brain phenomenon that heightens the demands on the left-brain to regain or to maintain dominance. A “panic attack” is not a “trigger” but a description of a further loss of left-brain dominance for some reason. A person who is stuck continually in that state of consciousness does not have the tonus (strength and flexibility) in the middle ear stapedius muscle to adjust greater tension on the muscle, which would bring more high-frequency sound into the brain, especially the left-brain, to offset the turbulence in the right-brain.

Can this level of poor integration turn into something worse? Yes, if the ear is subjected to some kind of assault that affects the stapedius muscle, the symptoms can worsen so that the person becomes more isolating, more out-of-touch with others, and more dys-integrated. So-called “split personality” (dissociative identity disorder) is one such possibility. Antisocial personality disorder is another:
“Antisocial personality disorder is defined by a pervasive and persistent disregard for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others. ” Again, if you look at Ramachandran’s categories (to which I have made some additions) you will see that more tendencies of the right-brain are involved in that condition. Drugs, including psychiatric drugs, harm the ears (as well as other body parts), which worsens these conditions.