TRIATHLON AND RESEARCH II

In Part 1 of triathlon and research we spoke about the one subject research and mentioned as a matter of conclusion: “That is the reason why we have ONE SUBJECT EXPERIMENTATION; we can point out the kind of educational handicap.”

How we go about it?  How we do it?  There is an interesting research done by George Vaillant for decades.  Vaillant has followed patients for decades to find out about the NATURAL HISTORY OF LIFE.  One needs a lot of support to do this kind of research; fortunately he has done this for us.

George Eman Vaillant, M.D. (born 1934) is an American psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder. He has spent the last 30 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service. The study has prospectively charted the lives of 824 men and women for over 60 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eman_Vaillant

Valliant’s most interesting research is related to defense mechanisms which were based on his research of the NATURAL HISTORY of a cohort of Harvard students studied by him for decades:

In George Eman Vaillant's (1977) categorization, defences form a continuum related to their psychoanalytical developmental level.^[14] Vaillant's levels are:

• Level I - pathological defences (i.e. psychotic denial, delusional projection)
• Level II - immature defences (i.e. fantasy, projection, passive aggression, acting out)
• Level III - neurotic defences (i.e. intellectualization, reaction formation, dissociation, displacement, repression)
• Level IV - mature defences (i.e. humour, sublimation, suppression, altruism, anticipation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms

He divided the mechanism according to “the level of success in life,” achieved by subjects he studied.  We based most of my judgments on the findings done by Vaillant.  Certain defense mechanisms are needed for success and Vaillant considered them mature. 

His 1977 book, Adaptation to Life, depicted the men at midlife and analyzed their personalities in terms of a hierarchy of defense mechanisms—characteristic ways of handling emotional conflict and stress—that ranged from low-level, immature defenses like blatant denial and passive aggression to mature adaptations such as altruism, humor, and the sublimation of energies into art. Now, in Aging Well, he writes that “…it is social aptitude, not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.” Furthermore, the habitual use of these mature coping styles—ways of “making a lemon into lemonade,” in his words—is, in psychological and social terms, the most powerful predictor of successful aging.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2001/03/the-talent-for-aging-wel-html

We studied our athletes according to the defense mechanisms they use to predict success.  When struggling for high performance goals, the mature mechanisms are needed to get there.  Success is related to these mechanisms and less so on physical atributes.