Page 23 - Biblical Counseling II-Textbook

“In September 1848, (in the state of Vermont in the United States) Phineas P. Gage, a twenty-five-year-
old railroad foreman, was using explosives to clear the way for a new track. In preparation for blasting
he was packing an explosive charge into a drill hole with a thirteen-pound, three-and-a-half-foot-long
tamping rod. An accidental spark ignited
the chare prematurely, sending the rod
through his left cheek and out the vault
of his skull. It landed more than thirty
yards away. Gage survived the
experience but faced several weeks of
infection, fever, and semi consciousness.
His condition became so poor that a
coffin was prepared for him. But in the
fifth week his condition improved. Gage
regained consciousness but was blind in
the left eye. What made this case
noteworthy was not Gage’s survival, however; it was the change in Gage’s behavior due to the brain
damage that occurred. (photo from doctorsimpossible.com)

Before the incident, Gage was well liked by friends and was considered to be honest, trustworthy,
hardworking, and dependable. When that tamping rod plowed through Gage’s skull, it took a part of his
brain tissue with it and, in the process, something of Gage’s former self. After the accident Gage’s
doctor described him as ‘fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not
previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient. . . A child in his
intellectual capacity and manifestations. His mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends
and acquaintances said he was ‘no longer Gage’” (p. 158-159).

Think about people you know in your community or those you knew when you were a child. Do you
remember people who had brain damage, maybe after an accident? Or elderly people who had diseases
impacting their brains? “Brain damage changes people by changing their abilities and their personalities.
There is an intimate connection between the health of our brains and the health of our personalities.
We often take it for granted that personality is indelible and unchanging, but that is incorrect. Although
personality is stable, it is affected by the state and health of those two handfuls of grayish matter called
the brain. Neurochemical transmitters, synapse connections, dendrites, and axons are all terms that
now are used to describe the growing understanding of the brain-mind-personality relationship” (p.
159).

A second piece of evidence for the biological paradigm is the “inheritance of temperamental traits.
There is clear and strong evidence that temperament traits are transmitted genetically. Studies of
personality traits of adults and their children and studies of identical and fraternal
twins raised together and raised apart consistently point to the significant role of biology, especially
genetics, in forming our personality. In studies in Sweden and the United States, researchers have found
that identical twins raised apart have more similar personality types than fraternal twins raised
together. Even preferences in clothing style, personal interests, body posture, body language, speed and
tempo of talking, sense of humor, and recreational habits were discovered to be more common among
the identical twins studied. Such research lends support to the biological paradigm of human personality
(p. 160).”

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