Way Individuals Face Traumatic Need Answer And 3

Listen to Invisobilia (NPR) Podcast from June 1, 2017 titled “Emotions: Part 1”: http://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/530928414/emotions-p…

~ it is sometimes easier to listen while driving, doing chores like folding laundry or doing dishes!

1. What struck you about the contents of this podcast?
2. Some of the ideas about emotions and the way trauma impacts the brain might be controversial. How did you react to these ideas?
3. How would you challenge them or how might you be intrigued to explore more?

Respond to at least 3 other classmates.

NOTE: Please be respectful of different viewpoints, experiences, and reflections. Be open-minded in order to learn from each other’s points of view.

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response1

1- What struck you about the contents of this podcast?

The thing that struck me the most was the inability for Amanda and Tommy to express their feelings outwardly, instead they were forced to deal with them inwardly by their patents. That was shocking to me because I thought not like us middle eastern people, all the western world are allowed by their parents and by the whole community to express their feelings and they know how to handle them, and that thought was due to a lot of factors differences such as; environment, culture and education. But after listening to the story of the Amanda and Tommy I will hold on that thought. I also learned how expressing your feelings is a valuable thing, and how it affects your life positively if you did express what you fell without any pressure of being judged. The other striking thing was the supreme court and how did Tommy win a case for psychological injury, I am not familiar with the legal stuff, but that was shocking to me.

2- Some of the ideas about emotions and the way trauma impacts the brain might be controversial. How did you react to these ideas?

I would start by saying that these controversial ideas are different from each other, therefore I think my reactions were mix. But to generalize my reactions to these controversial ideas such as, Tommy’s case, I was looking to all the factors involved in the case, putting In my mind that people do have a verity of perspectives and that we do not see things from the same angel all the time. Therefore I was in position where I saw myself happy that Tommy got compensated for the injury that the accident cause to him. I considered that people reactions are also affected by their experiences and what they went through throughout their entire life. The part where the professor talked about how our brains working made me realize that no matter what I read and learn about our bodies/minds and how do they react to a different emotions I will not get the full picture about the complicity of their function.

3 – How would you challenge them or how might you be intrigued to explore more?

I think the best way to challenge them is at first accepting that they are exist, and then by trying hard to educate myself more about these controversial ideas through psychology books, podcast like this one and studies/scientific articles. However, educating myself will not be the only way that I am planning to challenge these ideas, I think being a paramedic who deals with a lot of victims and a lot of emotional breakdowns would give me a great opportunity to gain more experience in order to challenge these ideas. Seeing people reaction/emotions to different life challenges would let me explore more about this emotions and ideas.

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responses 2

The speakers throughout the podcast adequately describe the general culture towards the approach to managing emotions and overall mental health. The segment of dialogue that most hit home was when they were discussing how individuals emotionally react to traumatizing events. Tommy’s story was a great example for the way individuals face traumatic events today.

Over the last several months, I’ve began to realize that my approach towards managing my emotional health hasn’t been a strong point in my life. I’ve began to self-actualize with my emotional disposition for a variety of troubling things. I have the tendency to ignore unsettling emotions and choose to bottle-up the thoughts and the way I feel about certain things that have mentally impacted me in the past. I’ve always felt the need to stand firm and not show any weaknesses. It definitely has built my resilience towards the way unfortunate events impact me, but then again, all this suppression of emotion continued to add up over time and take a toll on my mental health. I realized that the way I’ve been managing my emotions was definitely not the healthiest way to go about it. It’s important to discuss and vent for the sole purpose of preserving your own mental sanity. Yes, venting is a great thing to do when managing emotional trauma, because it allows you to share your story with someone. Then again, venting wasn’t what I felt to be the most therapeutic. I found that having a discussion with a trustworthy, supportive companion was the most helpful for my health.

Letting negative thoughts constantly fill your mind can eventually consume your day to day life. Holding everything in can produce feelings of guilt, shame, disappointment, which can eventually lead to something more serious, such as depression. I found that it’s extremely important to have someone place reason on these consuming thoughts. Having someone try to understand how you feel by listening and supporting you will eventually be rehabilitating.

Reference:

National Public Radio, Inc. [US]. Invisibilia. (June 1, 2017). Emotions. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/530928414/emotions-…

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responses3

The podcast was intriguing because it explored the way that cultures and upbringing can affect how we will react emotionally to an event. I was surprised to hear one of the experts say her theory that certain cultures in the world do not have certain emotions that others have. These cultural differences don’t have to be in different parts of the world. In the same city, two different families can culturally be worlds apart. These differences can include race, religion, politics, economic status, and education level just to start… the list is long. One family can live next door to another family and be the same in every way except one on the list, and their children will be raised to be emotionally different. The interoception concept was interesting and complicated. Our brain is in control of everything but tries to simplify incoming sensory input down to the pleasant, unpleasant, arousal, and calm. This makes sense because otherwise, we would have a daily sensory overload.

An interesting topic related to this that could be explored is on emotional expression learned by social norms. “According to appraisal theories of emotion, emotions are elicited and differentiated through a series of appraisals of (internal or external) stimulus events based on the perceived nature of the event” (Hareli, S, Kafetsios, K, & Hess, U,2015). How a person learns their emotional response is theorized as being based on watching the reaction of others in their culture to learn the appropriate reaction to have. Anger is particularly interesting in the study cited as it was discovered that a differences showed up due to “underlying social values and motives” (Hareli, S, Kafetsios, K, & Hess, U,2015).

Reference

Hareli, S., Kafetsios, K., & Hess, U. (2015). A cross-cultural study on emotion expression and the learning of social norms.Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1501. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01501