the history of port huron michigan. we'll talk with tj. gaffney and learn the role railroads played. >> the connection of shipping containers, moving over from china, and elsewhere, you know, railroads are very much a part of that route. so, when you go to long beach, california, where there's large shipping facilities the railroads are right there. and they're the ones that help get it. >> and then mike, former executive editor for the herald talks about the rich history, to the economy and the current state of the economy. >> in the 1990s, not just in the statewide but also locally. we have done well. i think, things collapsed in 2000. if you go by household income

michigan is one of the 15 wealthiest states by 2008, we're one of the 15 poorest states. >> we'll visit the train depot where he had today son worked. he printed a newspaper on a moving train. he had access to the latest news, through the telegraph agents, and, you know, get this that news hot off the presses. >> we'll then tour the lighthouse, the first lighthouse in the state of michigan. watch c-span's city's tour, saturday, on book t.v. and sunday afternoon, on c-span 3. the cities tour, working with

our cable affiliates, and, visiting cities. >> all this month while the u.s. senate is in recess we're showing you book t.v., knit the focus is global health issues. in 50 minutes, vincent discussions his book the death of cancer, and, karen and sonia take part in a pandemic panel. and, the next pandemic on the front lines. but right now we talk about david, capture, unraveling the mystery of mental suffering. >> we are honored to welcome, doctor kesler and his new book capture. why do we think, feel and act in

ways we wish we did not? in his new book our author explores this question, over the course of his investigation identifies a factor, behind the suffering. it's the first new theory on mental illness in 50 years. it is an explore raising of the most enduring mystery of all, the mind. please give a warm welcome to doctor david kesler. [applause] >> thank you, and, thanks to book passage. one of our favorite bookstores and thank you all for coming out this evening. this journey, the journey that led to capture, began about 25 years ago for me at f.d.a. we

began the investigation into th tobacco industry and i had to learn everything i could, about nicotine. i became very interested, why somebody would pick up a cigarette, smoke one and then 780,000 more over a lifetime. so i had to learn everything i could about nicotine. about addiction. and then i became very interested in year -- overeating and why that cookie has such power over me. the mechanism in both seemed to be somewhat similar. a stimulus highjacks our attention, based on past learning, there's this arousal, increased attention. these thoughts of wanting, i eah the cook kicks i have this

momentary bliss. nothing else is getting through, two minutes later i go why did i do that? and the next time i'm exposed to some cue. i do it again. i strengthen those circuits.ts so i had to learn everything i could about those conditions anb driven behaviors. and there was something that seemed to me to be evident. that we are all wired, all of us, are wired to focus on the most salient sim my lie in our environment. if a bear walked in here, you would stop listening to me. if you start smelling smoke that becomes the most important thing. if i took out a gun that would capture most of your attention. so, i was very interested, i

wanted to understand whether that mechanism, that was in play, in nicotine and overeating. the question was, does it also involve an array of effective conditions. depression. very few families are not touched by someone who has experienced this imness. so where do you go look? really understand what the cause of depression is?es if i ask you, what causes depression, in 2016? i what are you going to say? what's the answer? someone. >> life. drugs. drama. genetics. >> chemical imbalance.

>> it sounds like, from all thosans, we probably don't knowk when you think about it, 2016 and we're not sure. there's no real hard scientific evidence that there's a chemical im balance at play. >> david foster wallace had committed suicide and i became very interested. we went to the same college, but i wanted to understand what drove david to suicide. let me read the opening paragraph, of the book, wherehe the book starts. he left more than a dozen lamp burning in his work room, they shown upon the desk, neatly

stacked on top of it. next to the manuscript was a two-page letter. he hangs he had himself. he was at the time the bold defendant most innovative writer of his generation. his novel was lauded by critics, and redefine fiction. the man new script would be published. the novel, many would later argue contained some of his best work. despite his frustration, with his inability to complete the book his life had never been better.n he had married four years earlier and was settled in california with the teaching job he loved.

why then did he take his own life? what was the underlying cause of the depression that governorred david's deep unhappiness. >> all i heard was the word depression, with a capital d. from an early age he wanted to be exempt from the ordinary. he wanted to excel. first as a student and later as a writer and he wanted others to recognize his genius. he wanted to be read in 100 years. if he earned an a-plus he grew uneasy and then disparaging. and he wanted to be a good person and suspected something crooked in the way achieved success. he was haunted, by the fraud do you less than paradox. of a

>> he scribbled. grant de os aty, the constant need to be and seen as a superstar. i felt bad whenever he ends countterd something that threatened him and any number could threaten it.f critical praise, success, romantic attention. someone laughing at his jokes. in such moments his life became a lonely performance. >> he depression, i would, say,d

sproafs a continual focus on negative thoughts, experiences, and memories, and feelings to the exclusion of all else.ls the process of being captured by the negative seemed to be particularly true for david. it would be impossible to know in how many ways he was gripped, but it seems fair to say he was seized by his self destructive refrain.n. he knew it and he felt powerless to change it. this is what he wrote, what goes on inside is just too fast and huge, all interconnected for words to do more than sketch the outlines of one tiny part of it, at any given instant.tooker

took in everything that could be construed bad limit this can only lead to pain. in this heartbreaking life, self perpetrating spiral led to suicide. self harm, can lead to self harm of different kinds. his focus rarely shifted from histormeanting thoughts. he felt as though he existed, within as he wrote a dark world, inside ashamed, locked in. what some might view aswhat s narcissistic behavior, is more understood in his case as a debilitating sense of anxiety and unhappiness.ble to

i could never shift his attention from what made him feel bad.l he could not as he once wrote, perceive anything. everything is part of the problem. what becomes salient, in depression is the negative perception of the self. the self-doubts, the failures, the sense of being a fraud. having such focus, how does it make him feel that self-doubt? s sadness. it and then what cap insurance? that sadness, that output.l the

is it possible to unravel it, and mental distress? we talk about depression or addiction and anxiety as if they are different. yes, they are different symptomp but, they are really, i would argue, they're responses to a neural process that happens in all of us. let me suggest, and i understand, this is a bold assertion, but i think there is a common mechanism underlying many of the struggles and mentae illnesses. a stimulus, a place a thought a memory, a person takes hold of our attention. it shifts our attention. it becomes focused, on it, the way we think and feel and what t we do may not be what we want to

happen. a narrowing of attention, this perceived lack of control, the person is in control. but there's a sense that something is pulling and a change in affect or emotional state. when something commands our attention, that feels uncontrollable, and we experience capture. it seizes our attention quietly. we may sense a mental shift but we don't understand where it comes from. the experience occures outside of conscious control and we surrender to it, before we perceive it. it is the way our brains process information. when we are drawn to a particular stimulus we act to a feeling or need. every time we respond we

strengthen it, that prompts us to repeat t. there are grooves, you can just, think about it as certain grooves being laid down. but, you are strengthening the circuits. there's there's a -- those circuits. there's a basis to why certain stimuli, why our attention shifts to certain stimuli. based on past learning and past memory. past experiences, shape what my attention will focus. as we continue to react in the same ways to the same stimulus over time we are sensitizing the learning memory, and it's very important. these are not special circuits. who has these memory habit in them?

we all do. what's happened when we sensitize it. and it is true of all of us, it can arise. william james i went back to read his papers. one of the last great doctors to talk about attention. he wrote, in one of his lectures, i saw it, the question he asked why a certain idea so strong as to coerce attention? how does a stimuwill you say become stale yent for you and me. it can be a novelty. but there is also powerful desires, immediate or distantsi goals.res, i attitudes towards adversity, and major life event.

anything that is meaningful toyt us, can capture our attention. the things, it can be salient to one person but, again, rate noo response at all in another.no let's go through, i don't have time to go through all the affective conditions.. and let's go through some of them and ask the question, what captures us? >> anxiety. what becomes salient for thewhac person? rather than that cookie, creating thoughts of wanting,ou what captures my attention can make me fearful? going over. going over the golden gate bridge but it may not arouse or trigger anyone of you.

stand pog a ledge. fear of being a fraud. eating disordersers. anner rex see a, food becomes salient. sometimes there are multiple captures going on. if i can take an apple and slice it in 80 pieces and i can, over a day, just eat that, a slice every hour or so, how do you think that's going to make me feel in control. that could make me feel good. so it is the fear for food or is

it that love of control? in trauma, we can be captured by a harm that was done to us years ago, in ptsd. we're captured by an event that was life changing. being abandoned, and the chapter, that fear of being abandoned, certainly captured h. her.ndrey a, w >> hypercondrey a .in the manice void. anything that will make me feel better. the reward, the constant striving, is what captures me. virginia wolf, became very

focused, on the fear that she was going to be institution nalllized. she was afraid that others would label her as going mad hemmingway, he was in cuba, he told him to get out of cuba. and he says, they're using a word about you. in washington, and the word was traitor.itor. he said i am not political. this is where i where i. this is where i love to be. but, that focus, that use of the word, and then it became, he became concerned about his finances and vision and he would never where i again. >> addiction, the power lies in

the grip, to be able to hold the same circuiters. whenever we encounter a salient stimulus, it has us behave in the same way. true for alcohol. her attention to the cue. i loved the sound of drink, the slide of the cork as it eased out of the wine bottle. the distant booze pouring into a glass. the clatter of ice-cubes. it wasn't the drink, it was -- it was all the cues. in fact, capture is the result, its cue, the cues take over.

cues have no significance in the absence of association with past experience. if you have never been a smoker, the sell pain and the curl of smoke. the image of the camel or cowboy will have no resonance. they won't prompt you. for john belluci, he died of cocaine and heroin, what were the triggers. if he didn't get into a scene on saturday "saturday night live," if he had, a scene and was in a scene and was great success, he would use. but the one thing he said, was, i don't understand why i can't stop. i talked about how capture can lead to behavior and it is harmful.l. when you're dealing with, when you're captured by things about

the self, it is one of the most devastating forms of capture. why? i could eliminate tobacco, out and take all the food cues out. but if it is the self, that is the focus of my attention, what can't i get away from? you can't escape the self. but what happens when someone is captured, not by the self but when the object is external. when a person becomes captured by an awiding sense of rage.ior >> psychopathic behavior, it has been understood as what? they lack a conscience. a failure of empathy. but these focus on what is absent in the mind. what then one might and is thenn present?

along with dylan, and harris murdered 13 people, in columbinc high school. throughout his journals, very interested, in focusing, on people's own words. not somebody who interpreted and trying to understand what was going on, in the minds of the time of people. you read, in these journals that harris add grudge against his peer group who recent the social injustices of a high school culture. he gets his year book. this is what he where is. if i could new york the world, i would. and then he goes on. i will get you all back. ultimate revenge here. you people could have shown more

respect, treated me better, and more like a senior. maybe i wouldn't have been as ready to tear your heads off. there's where my hate grows from. you see, and in this child, the slightest, the slightest, you know, in high school. he could not shake. i know what all of you are thinking, and what do you do to piss you off and make you feel bad. because it wasn't just about him feeling bad, but what was het going to do to feel better? i feel like god, and i wish i was having everyone beingas havn officially lower than me. i already know that i am higherr than most anyone in the world.l. ed, the unibomber.

hard time adjusting to other people. no question, awkward. very smart. decides to become a survivalist in montana. before he started sending those bombs in the mail, this is what he wrote in his diary, i asked you when you listen to this, tell me what became salient. yesterday was quite good. heard only 8 jets. today was good in the early morning but later in the morning there was an aircraft noise almost without intermission. i would estimate about an hour. and then there was a very loud sonic boom. this was the last straw and reduced me to tears of rage. which i have a plan for revenge. he wanted to be left alone. he wrote by silence i don't mean

all sound, only man-made sound. most natural sounds are soothing, the few exsensees like thunder, and raven cries, i enjoy but aircraft noise is a slap in the face. it's a symptom of the evil of modern society. invasion of technology. but he counted the number of jets that would fly over his cabin.. >> three days before he killed bobby kennedy, he was watching the t.v. broadcast where kenneds promises to sell 15 phantom jets to israel. the christian palestine knee ann took that as a affront. it created such rage in him. adam land za, newtown. sal

mass murder, in, of itself became sail yenlts. capture has more significance when the salient object is ideological. i mean after all, they have a powerful allure, the individual becomes dedicated to a higher cause which promises to give some meaning to his or her life to connect him or her with something greater than the self. it is more than a need to destroy. i am not, i am not giving excuses. but we need to understand that what drives a terrorist attacker, are -- they are captureed by an idea. at some point in the developmenm terrorists become enthralled,

that they are fighting for a cause greater than themselves. but here's the important part. here's the real key, not only are we captured by something b that's meaningful, and, can be captured by positive stimuli. they are neutral. it can be positive or negative. the positive influteseses. and, what is spiritual experience? it has been explid as the feeling of absolute dependence of being grasped by an ultimate concern. they may involve moments of release from ordinary perception. the catalyst may be spiritual, a people, a landscape, a moment of quiet meditation.

the feeling have it at times, comes in like a gentile tide. pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of >> cap >> he understands the neural circuits. but he understood the relationship between the human and he came to believe that there is no such thing as not to for shipping. everybody worships hero's our only choice is what to worship in the compelling reason to choose some form of god or something toor worship for the noble truth

or subset of ethical principles in is pretty much anything else that you were shipped will eat you alive. strengthening those circuits is possible because captured applies that positive as well as negative experiences. those charitable acts as an athletic pursuits and spiritual transcendence. it is a way to look at mental suffering. my goal is to try to pull back the curtain of what we gave to a group of symptomsed to with that label of the name of depression and what we need to do is to pull back the curtain but if you feel

there is of a loss of control if you feel terrible and don't know why those are pathways to psychic pain. we know the real question is how you release yourself from captured? the most important in secret of capture is of the most effective ways to be release is to have something else that is more meaningful no doubt will cab buddhism where the anti-depressants they tried to quiet the reactivity but the answer one of the most effective ways is space get rid of the circuits it limits them from

operating the answer is - - captured with a positive one. if there is any hero it is exemplified by the great graphic novelist somewhere s in this book store is the book building stories that there is a big circle that says i want to go to sleep and never wake up. chris suffered from the enormous heartbreaking depression but then something changed. of this is what chris told me all of a sudden you're no longer the protagonist. what happened? he had a child and that changed everything for him.

the movie has a new cast now you are a supporting actor and you suddenly realize that is what you have beenen all along. in the way every human being should be at the way you should be living your life. in light of new priorities this social anxiety hyper sensitivity this is the way he shifted his own perception all that anxiety is the self indulgent that is the way he changed it he changed it the way he perceives himself of what he was feeling capture allows the focus to be moved to act with purpose that mechanism

does not give meanings but allows us to search for and experience meaning over the course of a lifetime and has a coherent account query we are bombarded with any of those that become meaningful over time for all of us to giderience those that prove tangential to summon up in a few words storytellers allcaptud stories in order to live we become captured by certain things and we need to make sense out of our world is their freedom from captured? can we throw the switch to

see all for what it is said to the most basic sentence the answer is no by its very nature selective and self reenforcing each of our own personal experiences our economic situations that we find ourselves dictates whatus become salient that determine how we experience and ultimately to we have become we may not be over the -- be able to will what captures us but what captures us can change. thank you very much. [applause]

>> of those there peas would not be helpful in light of being captured. so i would like to hear what you think about those modalities as a possible therapy?t >> there has many different schools of psychotherapy many different tools the when you look at the core ofof all of it, it changes how i respond to a certain stimulus and gives me tools.

i think i can put myself in position to have the chance certainly changing diapers see that world with the ability to do change how i react emotionally and we tend to think about them is really about they try to find one of the psychotherapists that i talk to in the book that sums it up and for meet when we were talking about freedom she was very uncomfortableh on

because it'll save these have freedom for captured but to focus on release and no doubt it is hard work but one of the most essential tools that we have. >> thanks for your service to our country. [applause] and it has to do thega children of a particular organization of those children that were incarcerated for juvenile crime.

end of all those that can get the mouth and i am particularly interested in your thoughts of the developmental stage of adolescence i am not because i of the altruistic and then with this pandemic and where thoughts about that? give absolutely.is a sec the enormously insightful there is a section of the i did not expect to go there. presd anxiety and ocd and disorders. as you said they have it all but i ended up looking at a number of cases in the book of violence because i was drawn to that. you will remember, i was struck, i watched the entire trial of

james holmes. that was the aurora, neuroscientist ph.d. student dressed up as that man and killed dozens of people in aurora, colorado. what struck me, he's 22, 23 by the time he commits the act. you go back and try to understand how these circuits build over the 22 years of his life and at the age of 13 he says i start having these very bad bots. he started inking about hurting himself, started thinking about hurting someone else. and he is asked, why didn't he seek help? he says i couldn't. because if i did come if i told

i was having bad thoughts, i was in essence captured by these thoughts that we all have, my parents would view me as a bad and you just sit there and listen to that and listen to that. and you just think, you just wish you could have interceded and gotten him the appropriate mental health but to explain to him, and this is what i think is absolutely key. if there is any thing that i could emphasize, for me after spending the last several years writing the book, it is people who suffer, they are not broke in. some do her rent is in terrible things and we can't excuse them. but there is a continuum. if i told you, if i just said to

you on this planet there is an organism, there's a species in that species has the ability to think and it has the ability to act rationally but the species also has the ability to be captured by certain stimuli and to focus on the stimuli and those stimuli affect how the species feels that that's the way people are design. and i said to you, if you just knew that i logically what would you expect the world to look like? what would you expect people to be captured by? and the answer is, there's a whole range of things. some are going to be captured by spiritual experiences and some are going to be captured by hatred of others and some will be captured by hatred of self and some will be captured by drugs. if you want to test sure, if you

want to test the hypothesis you have to go further than just looking at the world around us that certainly the goal to me is to be able to explain to people what is going on because that is at least a first step. >> you talk about the neurological basis. what kind of hard evidence do you have to go along with some of these phenomena or any special cases? >> so, there are about 120 pages of footnotes in the book. i'm happy to go through that the what is important is, i mean they are our scientific methodologies. there are fmr i's and we can look and increasingly when you look at the eighth neurological literature, you see the

importance of salience in a range of disorders and you can measure attentional capture and affect, affective response. just go back to your basic neurobiology. any theory has to be able to explain in terms of how neurons work. so what can neurons due? neurons can fire up preferentially and that preferential firing cannon in fact be strengthened, so in fact narrow circuits can respond to certain stimuli over other stimuli. so when you realize that attentional capture, correlates with havner on his work and then you look at the specific evidence in the range of disorders, increasingly, again no one has really looked across-the-board. you have to look at the literature in each and every

disease condition but i think you are finding increasing evidence for an attentional bias whether it's in depression or mania or anxiety or possession. >> are there any more questions? >> hi pair. i was wondering, i guess with the release of the latest dsm and it seems like diagnosable disorders are becoming more and more granular and disorder of affliction is considered pathology and i was wondering how i guess you're underlying theory would then kind of guide the development of treatment of disorders today? what direction do you see that?

>> i think dsm has been very helpful in categorizing certain conditions and giving people some sense of, based on which categories you could apply, what it has failed at is the underlying etiology and i think most people understand. i mean there is value in it, but are really asking what's going on? i think the more we learn, the more we will come to understand that it's not specific narrowed narrowed -- yes it can play a role in this disorder or that disorder but to really understand how neuro-circuits really become intensified, how those neuro-circuits get laid down, i think that's what

speaks. the reality is, the reason why this has been, once those neuro-circuits get strengthened, how long do they last and they respond so they can last a lifetime. but the good news is we can lay down new neuro-circuits and i think increasingly those who provide care understand that the goal is to try to lay down those neuro-circuits. thank you very much. [applause] >> we have the after kessler spoke at our cash register. if you want them to sign a book or you have questions for him you are