In addition to the factors mentioned in Part 1, support for DOLIF theory comes from its nearly 50-year history and longitudinal design. It is a lifelong project that occupied the author’s personal time, effort and resources for almost half a century. Its origin is at once serendipity, empirical and independently researched, a course of discovery that mimics the way many theories and inventions come to fruition and ultimately make changes to science and society in fields such as engineering, mathematics, medicine and technology. More than this, because of the generational observations that contributed to its creation, DOLIF Theory is a project that is as much as one could expect a lone individual to accomplish in a lifetime. In short, the time it took to make the observations, construct the concepts, formulate a new theory, test it informally, document the findings and bring it to publication is immense.
The discovery of DOLIF is comparable to that of Mme. Curie, the famous French scientist whose independent research and empirical observations led to the discovery of a new chemical element. Mme. Curie became convinced that there must be something missing from the pool of knowledge about chemistry in her time. Relying partly on deductive reasoning, but mostly following her own gut instincts, she painstakingly pursued a new line of experimentation, and ultimately reached the conclusion that the mysterious element must be both invisible and intangible. Surely like myself, she had to overcome her personal disbelief first! After that, also like myself, she was faced with the burden of proving to others that it existed. Once she overcame this hurdle however, she named the new element “Radium”, and went on to win a Nobel prize. In DOLIF theory the concepts of FAVORITISM, SIBLING RIVALRY and the MIND OF A CHILD are likewise invisible and intangible. Because they are hardly perceptible to our usual sources of sensitivity, skeptics must be convinced of their existence. To add to these hurdles, discussion of all the topics, especially Favoritism, is objectionable to many and socially all but prohibited. For example, in the book titled Siblings Without Rivalry, (Faber & Mazlish, 2012), when an example of favoritism arises, the authors promptly shut down the discussion and forbid the participants from ever mentioning favoritism again, calling it something that is unacceptable for any parent to feel or express at any time. In the case of DOLIF, the elusive nature alone of the concepts, such as a Circle Of Love, suggests that it would have been extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible, for formal research to have ever uncovered them.
A fifth source of proof of DOLIF Theory relates to the author’s methodology. In charge of her own line of experimentation, she made sure she knew in depth the situation of every family with whom she came into intimate contact throughout her lifetime and theirs. Rather than the random candidates that would have been recruited for a formal research project, the author specifically examined families with children whom she knew deeply and very well, The first test populations therefore consisted of families that were closest to her including her own children, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, the families and children of her siblings, and more. She also looked into the families of friends, more distant relatives, close acquaintances and neighbors. The author took great care to ensure that she had in-depth knowledge about the internal psycho-social workings of those families, and was personally familiar with all the players, as well as the nature of the conflicts they lived through for the over 40 years of her observations. After a decade of soul-searching and study she concluded that her observations were entirely valid, predictable and suitable for application to treatment. Only then was she confident enough in her findings to use them with her patients in her public and private psychological practice. It was from this point onward that she was finally able to formulate DOLIF as a complete theory. Then. like the discovery of new territories on the world map, she made her best attempt to share and disseminate these new and uncharted territories with others. She readily acknowledges that the DOLIF concepts, because they are invisible and intangible, require some stretch of the imagination, and has no doubt that they will generate controversy and may take time before they can be incorporated into accepted scientific knowledge.
We can show this statistically by simply flipping a coin 100 times. Of course, in terms of probability our best guess is that there will be 50 heads and 50 tails. Now if we take two coins and flip them each 100 times, our best prediction is that we will see heads-heads 25 times, tails-tails 25 times, heads-tails 25 times and tails-heads 25 times. This means that for 50 throws out of 100 the coins will match, and for the other 50 throws the coins will land on opposite sides and be mismatched.
This exercise shows that the likelihood of flipping two coins and having them land on opposite sides ALL the time is so small as to be negligible, or impossible. In other words, there would be little chance if any that the coins would be mismatched 100% of the time. So we can ask ourselves again: How is it possible that every time we closely examine the behavior and personalities of the first two adjacent siblings WE ALWAYS FIND THEY HAVE CONTRASTING OR OPPOSITE PERSONALITIES? By standard statistical rules, and even by common sense, opposites or a mismatch 100% of the time is NOT possible.
Naturally, there are objections to this kind of reasoning. The first argument is that sibling relations are far more complex than just flipping coins, whether once or even hundreds of times. A second argument might be that while siblings may be very different, they cannot be considered exactly opposite. Although significant differences in their personalities might send their behavior in wildly varying directions and make them distinct, they would not necessarily be considered “opposites”. Thirdly, we might say that the DOLIF formula is just too simple to be true, and if it were so obviously true, why wasn’t this discovery made earlier, either throughout history or in modern times by our advanced state of science? And this author would have to agree with ALL these criticisms. There is no doubt that human relationships are far more complex than flipping coins, or that DOLIF theory sounds far too simple and obvious to have stayed hidden for so long.
Fortunately or unfortunately, and regardless of the reasons why it has never been unveiled, the rules of DOLIF theory are fixed and unchanging. Its prescription is so entirely predictable that it points us to a standard formula that in itself is shockingly mathematical and rigid. It leads us to conclude that humanity, like all other earthly creatures, is governed by immutable INSTINCTS. However in the case of humans these INSTINCTS are exclusively human and are NOT the same as those of any other animal. Our best clue to how the human mind operates is to understand the Mind of a Child, because it is the embodiment of human instincts and EMOTIONS that have been a mystery to us until now. and the way in which these must slowly amalgamate with the special endowment of human INTELLIGENCE. It is this unique combination of these two factors, EMOTIONS and INTELLIGENCE that brings about adult human cognition, personality and maturity. It is a pattern that has never changed throughout history, and will never change, but is routinely acted out every day by every woman, man and child who was ever born on this earth, and who ever will be born. So, represented in mathematical terms we can say that:
EMOTIONS + INTELLIGENCE = PERSONALITY and BEHAVIOR
In the equation above, the reason why Emotions are first and Intelligence is second is because of the way that life evolves. The structure of the equation takes into account the fact that at first, when a baby is born s/he does not have the knowledge, general information about the world, or Intellectual faculties that are required to conduct her/his life. Those skills must be built over time. On the other hand from birth, every human being is endowed with ALL the appropriate and necessary Emotions they need to function from the time of their placement on earth. In other words at birth, while the Intellectual potential is fully available, it needs time to be developed. However the Emotional faculties are fully present, ready and in immediate use! In terms of the double helix image we spoke of earlier, through the process of growth and development, Emotions come first, and Intelligence is gradually added in as we progress through our lifespan.
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A Final Note About The Need For Proof
The reader is again reminded, as in other blogs, that the rules of DOLIF were NOT created by Dr. Vera Rabie, but were merely discovered by her. She intuitively felt that something in our pool of knowledge about psychology was missing, and upon setting her mind to exploring the mystery, she dared to diverge from what is believed to be known and accepted in the field. Almost serendipitously, she came upon a silent, invisible factor that is unaccounted for in our understanding of human psychology. As best she could, she followed her suspicions using all her educational and personal knowledge to present it formally to the lay and scientific communities. She readily admits that it is a strange phenomenon that seems to defy the laws of the universe we know and all intuitively rely on.
A possible explanation for why the DOLIF phenomenon was not discovered earlier by conventional research methods is that the exposure of Favoritism on our part sounds offensive. Its mere mention and possible repercussion of blame conjures up our Anger, Anxiety and spontaneous resistance. Are parents to blame entirely for our children’s foibles, problems and mishaps in life? The theory challenges our morality by including Anger as a basic human Emotion. Are we all to be labelled as harboring Anger and in need of Anger Management? In addition to the positive social feelings we like to harp on, like love, loyalty and friendship, is the behavior and personality of every human also driven by the negative social feelings of competition, envy and jealousy? Are we condemned to live with eternal conflict and strife among ourselves and is it indelibly written into human nature?
These assertions lead us to question our everyday decisions, choices and judgments. At the very least they generate controversy over whether we are right or wrong in the way we treat our most precious commodity – our children. Are we being fair to them, or are we falling prey to our biases by Favoring some who appeal to us by conforming to our moral, religious and social standards and behavior, but Disfavoring others because they challenge us, resist our bidding and refuse to conform? Have we been so duped into loving some more than others without realizing it? We must question how our ignorance could have gone unnoted and uncorrected for so long. Is there really an underground world of Instinct, Emotion and conflict over human LOVE that we are all complicit in hiding? We must ask: Even if this author was educated to a high level, are we to believe the case she builds purely from her experiential and observational studies. What should we make of our reliance on hard science? And if the poor sap did spend so much time and energy pursuing a farce, should we praise her for good effort or torment her for opening a new can of worms? It remains for the reader to be judge and jury. However for many a sad soul, the time we take to decide whether we are for or against DOLIF Theory will only mean we will deprive them of possible solutions for as long as we stall.
