April 14, 2006
A medical student offers a summary of some of what we know about brain function, and how little what we know yet impacts ordinary psychotherapeutic practice, or the organization of modern life.
The conception of ‘Attention’ is one of the most lucid examples of the differences between psychological schools and evolutionary schools. Attention in animals is goal-directed. Perceive a stimulus, identify the stimulus, categorize the stimulus, act in response to the stimulus. If the stimulus is a blade of grass, it’s irrelevant. If it’s a banana, make screeching noises and run up the tree to grab it before everyone else. If it’s a leopard, make screeching noises and band together to ‘mob’ it by throwing sticks and stones until it leaves for less annoying prey. Compare this to children, who are told they are ’sick’ and then given meth in pill form if they can’t hold their attention on a non-goal-oriented stimulus. Sitting in lecture in med school, it’s hard to find anyone who can sit still or pay attention for an entire hour; and yet we expect that from our children?
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In most mammals, the ‘attention areas’ of the brain are connected to the emotional centers of the brain. Furthermore, in all ‘higher’ primates (humans included), the attention areas are also hardwired into the visual centers. The result is that attention is inextricably linked with emotion, in addition to which one’s attention will automatically and without conscious will be redirected to new visual stimuli. The human brain is not an attention maintaining machine, but an emotional-context-dependent goal-oriented attention switching machine.
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The basic neurobiological principle that the more you think sad thoughts the harder it is not to think sad thoughts (Hebbian synapse).
His conclusion suggests lifecoaching, without that label, will eventually be the norm, in many circumstances, for effective therapy, with pragmatic outcomes as markers.
I will be happy man on the day when as few of my patients as possible are on long-term psychoactive medication, none are in my office because of mismatch between man and environment, and most come in eager to work through their injuries, aware that with a little hard work we’ll end our relationship with them free of trouble and stronger people besides.
Dr. Sanity's sidebar sent us to OK so I'm not really a cowboy. We'll be back. It might not be much fun to be in medical school, but we sure enjoy his company. As well as his commenter Intellect Impure, who articulates the human condition ruling so many transactions:
A few moments ago, I realized that my entire existence is comprised of only three states:
1) Worrying that something may happen.
2) Having something happen.
3) Trying to figure out what the hell happened.
and
I would reply but I am feeling anxious and am running away.
It happens around here as well.
Update:
The not-so-cowboy also leads us to Cognitive Daily.
Thanks for the mention. I'm glad at least one person enjoyed it. I'll be sure to visit again.
Posted by: IndianCowboy | April 14, 2006 at 12:06 PM