When a shrink doesn't work....what does?

Some of my friends and acquaintances have inspired me to take up the topic of ‘people’ and study the human mind. When everything seems to be out of control, when your emotions seem to be controlling your actions and thoughts, what really could be the reason! When a shrink doesn’t work…..what does? No case is hopeless, we just need to know where exactly the problem lies. I did a bit of medico research on the structure of the human brain to understand the workings better. I would like to thank Dr. Kriti. Neuropsychologist (and a dear friend) who spoke to me for over two hours in this regard, explained to me about the functioning’s of the amygdala, the hippocampus, the neocortex, the prefrontal lobes etc which are basically responsible for our emotional surges and dampening, and would not want to name my subjects for privacy reasons.

In every real sense, we have two minds, one that thinks and the other that feels. The Rational mind is a mode of comprehension we are typically conscious of: more prominent in awareness, thoughtful, able to ponder and reflect. But alongside that there is another system of knowing: impulsive and powerful, if sometimes illogical – the Emotional mind. Emotional explosions are nothing but neural hijackings.

The Amygdala is an almond shaped cluster of interconnected structures perched over the brainstem, near the bottom of the limbic ring. This is a storehouse of emotional memory. When the amygdala gets active, people get emotionally hyperactive. If the amygdala is severed from the rest of the brain, the result is a striking inability to gauge the emotional significance of events, leading to ‘affective blindness’. The hippocampus and the neocortex are limbic structures that do most of the brain’s learning and remembering.

In the first few milliseconds of our perceiving something, we not only unconsciously comprehend what it is, but decide whether we like it or not. This impulse or cognitive unconsciousness, not only gives the identity but also an opinion about what we see or hear. Our emotions have a mind of their own, one which can hold views quite independently of our rational mind.

I remember from my electronics class in college about open and closed circuits. Similarly in the human brain, if the amygdala ‘proposes’ acting as an emergency emotional trigger, the left prefrontal lobe ‘disposes’ by switching off or atleast damping down all but the strongest negative surges of emotions.
The connections between the amygdala and the neocortex are the hub of co-operative treaties struck between head and heart, thought and feeling. This circuitry explains why emotion is so crucial in making wise decision. Working memory can only hold in mind the facts essential for completing a task, but strong emotions like anxiety and anger can create neural static, sabotaging the working memory. Feelings are typically indispensable for rational decisions; they point us in the proper direction, where dry logic can be of best use. The emotional brain is as involved in reasoning as is the thinking brain. The emotions then matter for rationality. Intellect cannot work at its best without emotional intelligence.

Emotional aptitude is a meta-ability determining how well we can use whatever other skills we have, including raw intellect. People who know how to manage their own feelings well, and who read and deal effectively with other people’s feelings are at an advantage in any domain of life, whether romance and intimate relationships or picking up the unspoken rules that govern success in organizational politics. People who cannot marshal control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought. Delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness underlies accomplishment of every sort. Empathy is the fundamental ‘people skill’ which kindles altruism.

Self-awareness means being ‘aware of both, our mood and our thoughts about that mood’. Confusion about feelings often leads to vague medical problems. In times of confusions, some people like to rely on their ‘gut feelings’. Gut feelings are nothing intuitive signals that guide us in the form of limbic-driven surges. It is a kind of an automatic alarm, typically calling attention to a potential danger from a given course of action, or an alert to an opportunity.

Chronic worry has all attributes of a low-grade emotional hijacking.
For the phobic, anxieties rivet on the feared situation;
For the obsessive, they fixate on preventing some feared calamity;
In panic attacks, the worries can focus on a fear of dying or on the prospect of having the attack itself.
Anxiety comes in two forms: cognitive or worrisome thoughts; somatic, the physiological symptoms of anxiety like sweating, racing heart or muscle tension. Insomniacs are troubled not because of somatic arousal but because of intrusive thoughts., and hence chronic worry becomes unbidden.

Healthy skepticism could act as a brake on the neural activation that underlies low-grade anxiety.
Bereavement is useful; full-blown depression is not. Melancholy- a subclinical depression is a range of despondency that people can handle if they have internal resources.
Powerful negative emotions twist attention toward their own preoccupations, interfering with the attempt to focus elsewhere. When emotions overwhelm concentration, what is being swamped is the ‘working memory’. Working memory is an executive function par excellence in mental life, making possible all other intellectual efforts. The prefrontal cortex is where feelings and emotions meet. When the limbic circuitry that converges on the prefrontal cortex is in the thrall of emotional distress, one cost is in the effectiveness of working memory: we can’t think straight. Psychopathy is one of the most perplexing emotional defects, where the victim is charming and completely without remorse for the most cruel acts.

The immune system is the ‘body’s brain’ defining the body’s own sense of self- of what belongs within and what does not. Immune cells travel in the blood stream throughout the entire body, contacting with virtually every other cell. Those cells they recognize, they leave alone; those they don’t, they attack. The attack either defends us against virus, bacteria and cancer or if immune cells misidentify some of the body’s own cells, creates an autoimmune disease such as allergy or lupus. The central nervous system and the immune system communicate. Cortisol, prolactin and the sorts are released during stress arousal, hampering the function of the immune cells, leading us to various diseases. If a depressed person is habitually depressed, he dies with a thousand complains with his life, little realizing that he created it all, and could have chosen to work against it.

Stress, anxiety, anger and melancholy can speed up the metasis of cancer; increase vulnerability to viral infections, plaque and blood clotting; can accelerate the onset of type1 and type2 diabetes; worsen or trigger asthma attack; can lead to ulceration of the gastrointestinal tract also causing inflammatory bowel disease. Stress also causes wear and tear to the memory. Depression also complicates recovery from bone fractures.

It is hence important to develop emotional skills for perfect functioning. This includes self-awareness, identifying expressing and managing feelings, impulse control and delaying gratification; and handling stress and anxiety.

The logic of the emotional mind is associative; it takes elements that symbolize a reality, or trigger a memory of it, to be the same as that reality. That is why similes, metaphors, and images speak directly to the emotional mind.
This logic of the heart-of the emotional mind, is like the logic of religion and poetry, psychosis and children, dream and myth. Dreams are private myths; myths are shared dreams.