Reality Check #5:All behavior is seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. To this end
we have been gifted with
#5 senses: Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste.
BUT we don’t all trust our senses the same! Listen to people talk:
“I SEE what you are saying.” “That RINGS true for me.” “That FEELS right.”
They are telling you which sense they prefer and trust the most.
We don’t all experience the world the same.
We are never exactly in another’s shoes when something happens.
From one point of view a person swings a bat and hits another on the head.
Viewed from a different angle the bat clearly misses by two feet. Which “reality” is true?
Stimulus - Response. To survive, every stimulus requires a response, but which response?
There are only
#5 possible responses to any stimulus:
Move toward, move away, move with, move against, or do nothing.Whether you live or die depends on MEMORY. Have you ever experienced anything like this before? What was the outcome?
Stimulus, memory, judgment, response. Repeated often enough it becomes a habit.
Stimulus-Response! If powerful emotions are present, a single instance can force a habit.
Our daily lives are repeats of strings of habits, but different parts of our minds can have different beliefs and habits, and when they are in conflict there is big trouble in River City!
Unfortunately Pavlov proved that
ANY MEANING can be attached to ANY STIMULUS.With an improper interpretation our lives can really go off the rails.
To most of us a gold coin means wealth. Something that can easily be traded for whatever we desire.
To some it is danger. The possession of it invites attack, perhaps even death.
For most, the female breast is love, nourishment, warmth, happiness. Paradise.
For a few it is hate, rejection, cold, abandonment. Paradise lost.
As we grow we go through a series of ever more complex
Belief Systems. Mom and Dad are everything; the Easter bunny, tooth fairy and Santa Clause; The world is basically a safe place; medical doctors have all the answers.
Our subconscious minds are continually re-processing data and altering and replacing beliefs -decisions previously made in our critical faculties.
Only the first is true. Do you still want to look older?
When a belief system fails, we tend to fall back on a previous one until we can construct a new “correct” one.
This does not occur in the Conscious Mind. Bit by bit they are stored in the Critical Faculty, the judgmental segment buried deep in the subconscious. Decisions are energized by the mid mind.
The primary purpose of the
mammalian, limbic, chemical or emotional mind is to
protect, and the tools it uses to protect us are called
emotions. The word emotion is derived from the Latin e (away)-motere (to move), or, “to move away.” Protective Action (defense mechanisms in psychological lingo) is the purpose for each and every emotion.
To deal with the
#5 responses with the proper amount of energy, There appear to be
#5 Primary Emotions:
#1. Hurt is the awareness of discomfort, distress, and pain. Babies wail to alert us of their hurt. A baby’s cry causes the listener’s diastolic blood pressure and skin conductance to shoot up, creating an internal demand to help the child. Manifestations of hurt in adults are feelings of loneliness, isolation, rejection, and sadness (persistent hurt).
#2. Happiness is the awareness of comfort, pleasure, and joy. Babies can radiate happiness, and that is when we delight in them. The same is true for adults.
#3. Fear is the feeling beyond hurt, when the source of discomfort is perceived as life threatening. Babies cries become more shrill, and attempts at escape are made. Fear derives its strength from the memory of hurt (associations placed in the category of danger) and may be experienced as guilt (fear of rejection), anxiety (uncertainty of the source of fear), panic (unreasoning desperation), horror (unthinkable), or terror (total helplessness in the face of mortal danger).
#4. Anger is the attempt to repel or destroy the source of hurt or fear. Anger may be experienced3 as resentment, hostility, or aggression.
#5. Eros, in the original sense, is the attempt to attract or keep protectors, by being kind, helpful, flirting, and otherwise enhancing your good qualities.
Each emotion is vitally necessary for the individual to survive in a hazardous world.
When these emotions fulfill their rightful expression, there is no emotional disorder!But when you don’t know what to do or are powerless in a situation, when these emotions are denied their rightful expression, they persist unrelieved, along with the physiological changes necessary for their functioning, often initiating serious emotional and physical consequences known as Psychosomatic Illnesses:
Suppressed Hurt may result in: depression, fatigue, general ill health, asthma, skin diseases.
Suppressed Fear may result in: Phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders, anxiety, sweating, hyperventilation, irregular heart beat, high blood pressure, cold extremities, ulcerative colitis, or many different skin diseases.
Suppressed Anger may result in prolonged grief, depression, suicide attempts, inexplicable pains such as: Migraine headaches, neck pains, back pains, arthritis, persistant pains following accidents or illness.
Compulsive under and over eaters; alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abusers may be found
in any of the above groups, perhaps all three.
Information gathered by the senses are routed through the thalamus, where a sample is extracted and sent to the amygdala to be compared with symbols of previous experiences. The instant it perceives the possibility of danger in any form, an “alert” message is sent to all information gathering systems, particularly focusing on the one bringing in the initial signal. If the original stimulus is not instantly identified, a “full alert” signal is sent out bringing the body to the neutral but heightened external awareness state of “Surprise.”
#1. If the stimulus is identified as benign, we return to our previous state.
#2. If the stimulus is identified as dangerous, the Sympathetic Nervous System is activated, filling our bodies with chemicals that produce what is called the negative emotions of Hurt, Fear, and Anger (disgust, contempt, guilt, hostility, hatred, jealousy, anxiety, resentment, etc.).
#3. If the stimulus is identified as desirable, the Sympathetic Nervous System is activated, producing the positive emotions of Happiness, Love, and Kindness (friendship, forgiveness, generosity, sympathy, empathy, tolerance, charity).
#4. If the stimulus is not identified, the “yellow alert” signal of Anxiety is maintained until resolved.
#5. If the stimulus is beyond our power to solve, the hopelessness of Sadness, Apathy, or Depression sets in.
The powers of emotions and intellect are inversely proportional. The more we think, the less we feel. The more we feel, the less we think because
emotions easily dominate the intellect at times of crisis.
Each emotion has its unique body language - heart beat, breathing pattern, mask for the face, stance for the body, and group of associated memories.
Memories are sorted and stored primarily by emotion. The more powerful the emotion, the more accessible the memory.
If the memories are “unthinkable,” ever increasing energy and rituals are required in attempts to keep them buried until finally they become unmanageable and burst out anyway.
The first obstacle in attempting to isolate an emotion is that emotions seem to always come in bunches like bananas.
A second obstacle is the confusion between causes and results. Does sickness cause anger, or does anger cause sickness? There is some genetic contribution to the fuel of emotion, the amount of energy the subject summons during an emotional response. We know that adults differ markedly in their normal (resting) levels of adrenaline, in their adrenaline output in response to stimulation, and in the time it takes for their adrenaline levels to return to baseline after stress. The healthiest individuals, like the best made cars, are well tuned: neither sluggish nor overcharged, but able to pour out quantities of energy when called upon. How that energy is channeled, however, and whether it creates a consistent personality style depends on what the child learns and whether that child grows up in China, Arizona, Australia, or New York. A child with a rapid tempo may be hostile and angry, or eager and happy. It is the world, not the genes that determine which way it will go. The human ability to think by mentally manipulating symbols and select among possibilities and interpretations shapes our emotional experiences. In the early 1950's, Dr. Albert F. Ax injected artificial adrenalin and the side effects seemed to resemble FEAR. When adrenalin and noradrenalin were injected together, symptoms of ANGER appeared.
FEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANGER
1. Pupils expand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Pupils contract
2. Respiration becomes fast and shallow . . . . 2. Respiration remains normal
3. The face blanches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. The face reddens
4. Increase in galvanic skin resistance . . . . . 4. Increase in galvanic skin resistance
5. Muscle tension peaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Muscle tension peaks
6. Increase in diastolic blood pressure . . . . . . 6. Increase in diastolic blood pressure
7. Lowers heart beat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7. Lowers heart beat
If you were to scrutinize only the EEG printouts of a man who was angry with his wife with those of a man frightened by a mugger, you would not know which was which!
As it turns out, Heart rate is a sensitive indicator of your attention to an event! Your heart rate decreases when you pay attention to something you want to accept. But when you need to concentrate on a problem, and block out irrelevant distractions, your heart rate increases! The proper understanding of Ax’es study is that each of our bodies react differently at different times with different scenarios!
We now know that
adrenaline is an all purpose fuel. Any event that is unfamiliar, intrusive, and compelling will stimulate the production of adrenaline, and noradrenaline as well.
Adrenaline levels rise on over stimulation and on under stimulation! The production of adrenaline is lowest not when you are feeling bored, but when you are doing something mildly engaging. Adrenaline and noradrenaline are what provide the feeling of a feeling. The adrenal hormones act on all the organs of the body reached by the sympathetic nervous system, stimulating the heart, dilating coronary vessels, constricting blood vessels in the intestines, and shutting off digestion. That is why, when you are excited, scared, furious, or wildly in love, you don’t want to eat. As these hormone levels rise, memory, concentration and performance are sharpened and improved up to a point. Beyond that point they all worsen. Some people learn to equate great emotional excitement with the positive sensations of risk, fun, vibrancy, and power. Others equate it with fear, danger, and powerlessness. The difference is a matter of attitude and experience, not of surging hormones!
In spite of our “pill” oriented society beliefs, the arousal generated by Adrenaline & Noradrenaline is not enough to “cause” an emotion. It needs a mental component before heat is transformed into hostility, uncertainty into fear, distress into rage. Adrenaline does not become the “anger hormone” until it is attached to some interpretation of events. Imagine you have accomplished something you have been trying to do for years. How do you feel? The answer depends on how you interpret the series of events leading to “success.” If you feel that you succeeded on your own you will most likely feel proud, competent, and satisfied. If you feel that it was chance, luck, or something beyond your control, your mood will be subdued. And If you fail? If you take full responsibility, you will feel guilt and regret. If you blame someone else you will feel ... ANGER! Anger and the expression of anger are a result of biology and culture, mind and body.
Clinical Psychoanalytic Assumption: Depression is Anger turned Inward. Why not argue that anger is depression turned outward? Depression may be the sequel to anger. Anger and depression may be just different learned responses to various stimuli. Anger and depression may occur simultaneously. You may believe that a person should be angry rather than depressed, because focused anger has a better chance at success than apathy does, but the moment should comes into the argument, we are into politics rather than science. “Depression is always about something that has gone wrong in your life, but people now regard it as a diagnostic category instead of an understandable response to troubled times.” -Leslie Farber
The Stress connection:
The clinical assumption is that anger and stress are related. Anger -in suppressed hostility, thereby causing psychosomatic illness. The research shows no such correlation. The direction of anger was not related to the ability to master stress. That is, there was no correlation between the ability to master stress and being an anger - in, or an anger out! Also, by focusing on anger-in-out theory, the researchers were unable to see other valid interpretations of what was happening. Also, no matter where anger started, it seldom remained that way. The person who was angry often later decided that it was their fault instead of the other persons, or decided it must have been a joke, etc. The context of anger is also very important. People who reveal their anger in virtually any arena have the highest blood pressure levels, much higher than those who would try to reason with them, or just ignore it and walk away. Confrontation is an anxiety producing activity with it’s own risks. We feel pretty good about righteous anger. Suppressed anger could be “bad” if the stressful situation continues. Expressed anger can also be “bad” if by revealing our anger we make the stressful situation worse!
A second emotion often tags along with anger ...
anxiety! In fact, anxiety is more strongly related to high blood pressure than anger is. For some people who are hyper tense, anger and anxiety paired off like happy couples, with one rarely showing up without the other. For others, the reverse was true. Unlike Mary and the lamb, where there was one emotion, the other was sure to be absent.
And for yet others, to be or not to be was totally arbitrary. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t together. How can this be? If the emotions cause hypertension, then the pairing should always be the same. If on the other hand, they are the results of hypertension, trying everything to gain relief makes sense. Anger is specific. We are angry about something. Anxiety and hypertension are non- specific. Hypertensives are quick to respond emotionally, and slow to calm down, because their arousal level is above normal. Interestingly, hypertensives have higher blood pressure and are less aware of pain.
Type “A” personalities persistently try to control their world. This presumably causes them to have far higher level of heart disease than other personalities. BUT, other studies reveal that those who try to keep it in (suppressed hostility) was implicated in heart disease. So you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t! Consider this:
After reaching a peak in the 1960's, deaths from heart disease has declined steadily for both sexes. No one knows why. Although older women have higher blood pressure and serum cholesterol levels than men their age, they are still less likely to have heart disease. Japanese Americans who do not differ in diet, fat, smoking, or blood pressure; but keep the old cultural traditions are far less likely to develop heart disease than their Americanized relatives. The highest rate of heart disease in the Israelis is in the first generation sons, the lowest is in the second generation grand sons. Heart disease is a disease of industrialized urban societies! Some think the answer is in the close ties to a group, family, religion, gender, or generation. We need to belong somewhere. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
There is no such thing as a “rage circuit” independent of environment and learning. When previously violent patients had their amygdalae electrically stimulated, they became violent. Previously non-violent patients do not. As Leonore Tiefer, a physiological psychologist summarized the research, “different amygdalae respond differently to the outside world, in different people, in different societies. The brain does not operate in an all-or-none, on-off, yes-no fashion. That’s not natures way. Social experience can affect our basic physiology.” People vary from low to high in their range of emotional responsiveness, with some being placid, and others being volatile. We acquire virtually all our habits by learning! We “see” what we look for. It is hard to get away from subjective judgments about what other people are doing.
When “full time licensed professionals” try to diagnose a problem, there is a lot of “biological politics” mixed in with their “science.” Some people refuse to believe in genetic or organic causes of emotional disorder. Others hold childhood trauma responsible for everything from ache to xenophobia. What ever diagnosis the “experts” make, the truth is there is no such thing as “pure biology untouched by culture and perception. Efforts to locate anger in the gut, various brain centers, muscles, various organs or glands, have all failed.
The failure to find unique physiological patterns to anger has a great message for us:
It means that anger is not an inevitable response to specific stimulation.
It means that anger is regulated by how we interpret the events occurring around us.
It means that we are responsible for our emotions, and our reactions to them.
We need to know we have a right to our emotions when properly applied.
Our survival depends on their proper application instead of the random explosions many suffer.