Research & Trials

Research & the psychologists who form the cornerstone of modern psychology and The Linden Method ethos

In the early 1900s two men pioneered research into the true nature of emotion and its relationship to the physical body, symptoms and illness and came up with a number of definitive conclusions. Those men were Carl Lange and William James. These two men's work forms the foundation of modern emotional psychology.

Carl Lange


William James

The most important conclusion they came to forms the foundation for our understanding of how emotions are created, and what incredible physical impact thoughts can have on our bodies and health.

Their research concluded that an external catalyst, say a wild bear, is detected by your sensory organs and the body reacts with physical changes (anxiety symptoms) WITHOUT any conscious thoughts or emotions; in other words, the emotion of fear we experience during the anxiety response is physical and not emotional.

To demonstrate what I mean by this, next time you feel anxious, strip away all of the physical sensations you experience and you will find that nothing is left… the physical sensations ARE your experience of emotion!

John Broadus Watson

John Broadus Watson was a noted American Psychologist who established the Psychological School of Behaviourism. Watson believed showed how he could take twelve healthy children and by creating behavioral changes, could 'design' people to be however he wanted them to become.

Watson showed that even deep seated emotions such as fear could be conditioned using his behavioral techniques. He used a small child of 11 months called 'Little Albert' and conditioned him to be frightened of random objects such as a rabbit, a dog and (incredibly) some wool! Watson showed these objects to little Albert and at the same time, made a very loud noise.

The experiment was an enormous success as Little Albert became conditioned to respond with fear when presented with the chosen objects alone. Watson had conditioned anxiety and this caused shockwaves amongst the psychological fraternity which believed that the fear response was something pre-programmed into humans and couldn't be changed. The pioneer of this belief was world famous psychologist Sigmund Freud.

As unethical as this experiment was using a small child as an experiment (which is incredible), it showed, without doubt, that fear responses could be increased by fear conditioning and that anxiety disorders can be created and eliminated given the correct treatment.

This theory is the foundation to The Linden Method which proves 100% that Watson's theory and his conclusive experiment with Little Albert are correct and that in the same way as anxiety can become programed into someone, it can also be de-programed.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in the small Pennsylvania town of Susquehanna. In 1945, he became the chairman of the psychology department at Indiana University.

Skinner's theory of Operant Conditioning stated:

"A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future."

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

In other words, by practicing the same behavior, negative or positive, that behavior eventually becomes instinctual! Just like practicing being anxious!

His theory became the basis for much of modern psychology's theories on behavior and habit.

August 18, 1990, B. F. Skinner died after becoming perhaps the most celebrated psychologist since Sigmund Freud.

This extract (below) is taken from Nature, the international but UK based journal of science. These research findings confirm all of our research and theories into the way the amygdala works and confirms clearly that anxiety is caused 100% by ‘memories of fear'. It then goes on to say that they would like to find a genetic or drug solution which would STOP the amygdala from signaling to the frontal cortex! No need folks, we have found a way to stop it!

Extract from the British journal 'Nature', points the way toward possible treatments for anxiety disorders.

"The amygdala, a large structure deep within each cerebral hemisphere, is the place where the brain stores memories of fear," said University of Southern California neuroscientist Richard F. Thompson, co-author of the Nature article.

"In the presence of threatening stimuli, the amygdala signals to the prefrontal cortex, triggering the expression of fearful behavior."

Researchers at USC and the Université de Bordeaux (France) trained laboratory mice by sounding a tone and then administering a small electric shock. The mice soon learned to associate the tone with the impending shock and froze in fear as soon as they heard it. Simultaneously, the researchers detected changes in the electrical impulses measured by electrodes implanted in the subjects' prefrontal cortex. When the amygdala was then surgically removed, both the freezing behavior and the altered neuronal activity disappeared.

Lead author René Garcia, of Bordeaux's Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives, designed and completed the experiment in Thompson's USC laboratory during the summer of 1999. "While a mouse's brain is far smaller than a human's, it has essentially the same structures and operates in analogous ways," Thompson explained.

"The prefrontal cortex acts as a kind of 'executive office,' controlling other parts of the brain. It makes decisions that determine how you will react. Memories of fear are stored in the amygdala, which codes them into signals and transmits those signals to the frontal cortex for action.”

"Why are you afraid when you're walking alone in the dark and hear footsteps behind you? You have learned to be afraid. Nearly all of our fears are learned fears." Anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks and phobias, are expressions of your memories of fear”, said Thompson.

"If we could find a drug or genetic treatment that would stop the amygdala from signaling to the frontal cortex, then we could effectively treat anxiety disorders," he suggested.

Thompson, director of the USC Program in Neural, Informational and Behavioral Sciences, holds the William M. Keck Chair in Biological Sciences and Psychology in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

In addition to Garcia and Thompson, USC neurobiologist Michel Baudry and Université de Bordeaux neuroscientist Rose Marie Vouimba were co-authors of the Nature article.

The study was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NATO and Fondation Fyssen.