Expos 101
Final Draft #2
Soredn Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher once said “Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.” A traumatic experience can be a very overwhelming and unending experience that can affect a person’s day-to-day life. Ultimately, a trauma is like the brain allowing for a movie to be played over and over again, once it can make any sort of association with the trauma causing for an individual to be completely dissociated with reality for minutes, days, hours and even days. In “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday,” author and clinical psychologist, Martha Stout gives her input on sanity and dissociation through giving examples of what her patients have told her during their therapy sessions with her. Stout gives explicit details on her patient’s traumatic events along with their upbringing and an overall background of their lives. She goes on to argue that dissociation can be a torturous experience for many people because it has the power of severely weakening a person’s ability to be present psychologically thus, giving them a limited perception of reality, to the extent that it becomes chronic and consequently feels unbearable. While Stout uses more of a biological approach when looking at individuals who have suffered trauma, Malcolm Gladwell, in “The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime,” uses an environmental argument to describe the influential power that environment can have on an individual’s behavior especially when fear overcomes in a stressful situation.
The Essay on One Day From Jean Baptist Molieres Life part 1
One Day from Jean Baptist Molieres Life Imagine you could travel in time. Which epoch would you choose? Where would you go? Perhaps most of historians have such dreams. However, until the machine for traveling in time is not built, we have to use our imagination and those fractions of facts left to us by time. The 17-th century has some more interest for me than all other epochs. It was the ...
He explains that being put in an unfamiliar context creates a time of possibilities in which the choices that one makes, the outcomes one expects automatically can shape who we are at the moment and who we will become. Understanding the context of the trauma is a healing process because it enables an individual to set predictions for the future in familiar contexts and situations, and this can help them to use memories of the past to help predict what may end up going wrong in the future. Ones predictions of what may happen in the future can help one plan for the obstacles that may confront them because it is about getting to a place where one can understand and in essence relive the situation to get back to some kind of normalcy with their life and future.
Understanding the context of trauma helps an individual begin the process of healing because the past helps to shape ones future. Studying the past helps one understand the difficulties that currently obstruct their normal way of life. Something as simple as being taught to be a well-mannered child can go on to have a tremendous positive impact for the individual and for those around him or her. In the same manner, a traumatic experience can help to alter and perhaps even shape ones personality and habits. Martha Stout uses the case of one of her patients, Julia, a woman who is accomplished and well- recognized in the professional world, who has attempted to end her life several times. She expounds on her therapy sessions with Julia and details how Julia’s past traumatic experiences has led to many disparities in her adulthood. She formulates how Julia’s past way of dealing with her abusive parents has carried on to how she deals with situations in the present. “Agony that is psychological can be dissociated, too. While she was being abused, Julia developed the reaction of standing apart from herself and her situation. She stopped being there…She could watch her parents, even predict their moods. She could run and hide… But the part of her consciousness that she thinks of as her self was not there; it was split off, put aside, and therefore in some sense protected. And because her self had not been there, her self could not remember what had happened to her during much of her childhood” (Stout, 389).
The Essay on Robots Past And Future
ROBOTS: THEIR PAST AND FUTURE Past: It was approximately 3, 000 years ago when the first signs of a robot appeared. The Iliad mentions a "mobile tripod" and in the myth Jason and the Argonauts a giant sentinel by the name of Talos is talked about. These weren't real life robots, so when did the first robot appear. From what people think robots are today really is a far cry from the actual first ...
Julia suffered anguish and the ways in which she learned to cope with this agony was through running and hiding psychologically from her situation. Julia’s method of coping with her situation as a child became second nature to her. So much so that at the hint of a familiar emotion she would unknowingly revert to her childhood tactics, this would result in her “blacking out”. Stout seems to imply that if she could somehow get Julia to understand her traumatic experience by bringing it to remembrance she can adjust the way Julia “copes.” This healing process is all dependent, however, on Julia understanding the context of her trauma. Julia can take control of her dissociative states by seeing life in a different way, acting in a different and consequently changing the vent and situations in her life that are the result of her past. The past has a great power on everyone, and is responsible for the present situations in one’s life. By being conscious of your present thoughts and feelings, you shape your future. By being more aware of your thoughts, and aware of the feelings associated with them, you can start rejecting the thoughts and feelings that have been shaping your life in a negative way.
By choosing your thoughts and feelings, and by thinking and feeling in a more positive and constructive way, even if your past and present are unhappy or unsuccessful, you start creating a better future. Malcolm Gladwell proves how the past can help shape the future through the example of a caucasian man name Bernie Goetz, who is known for shooting four youth black men on the train after they demanded for him to give them his money. Malcolm Gladwell recounts how Goetz was raised by a father who had a harsh temper. He confirms the idea that the past helps shape the future through using an excerpt an autobiographer, Lilian Ruin, ““For Bernie,” she writes, “there seems to be something seductive about the setting. Precisely because of its deficits and discomforts, it provided him with a comprehensible target for the rage the lives inside him”” (159).
Based on Goetz disciplined childhood, his fathers actions on him are brought to light under a stressful situation where he feels threatened. The pressures that were raised at the moment of this tragedy seduced his inner rage to take action on his behavior. This rage that lives inside of him is from the past. It is important to recognize that the only way you can plan for the future is by drawing on your memories of the past. Envisioning your future in a specific location gives you the best chance of helping yourself succeed.
The Essay on The Most Difficult Situation in Your Life
How Values Affect Decisions In Personal And Professional Life How Values Affect Decisions in Personal and Professional Life Shaundrea Sager University of Phoenix Abstract Many people have a set of core… Premium Looks Vs Academic Qualification In Professional Life definition of success varies from person to person and field to field in professional life. One could take economic success in ...
Understanding the context of traumatic situations can help identify triggers. The triggers is what sets off ones memory and causes the person to have flashbacks of a trauma. These triggers can have a minimal effect on the five senses: smell, sound, sight, a touch, or taste even something as simple as a word. Triggers are very personal; different things trigger different people. The individual may be very accustomed to avoiding situations and stimuli that she/he thinks triggered the flashback. She/he will react to this flashback, trigger with an emotional intensity similar to that at the time of the trauma. By identifying the trigger a person can be well prepared for the normal reaction to the trigger. Martha Stout demonstrates, in recounting her sessions with Julia, that something as simple as hearing a location where you once lived can cause dissociation from reality “I think it’s possible that something during the dinner scared you enough to make you lose yourself for a while, although we will never know for sure. Obviously, talking about L.A. Doesn’t always do that, but maybe there was something in that particular conversation that reminded you of something else that triggered something in your mind, something that might seem innocuous to another person, or even to you at another time” (393).
Life could be so easy for Julia if she had already gone through the motion with a psychiatrist. So when she went to the dinner and L.A. was automatically mentioned she would have been better prepared to know that she will be having a hard time dealing with the concept of back home; in other words she will be conscious that in her conversation there was something mentioned that may cause her to black out for three days. But, because she had never encountered her past she was unable to defend herself. Essentially, one would react by blacking out for days but if she would have been able to identify and make the connection she could have stopped her mental state from dissociation because the association has already been recognized. As one begins to understand the context of a trauma they are able to remind themselves that the worst is over, they are able to get grounded in their actions and feelings, and most importantly they are able to reorient with the present. Malcolm Gladwell confirms this idea by explaining that context can also lead to self-helplessness. People tend to interpret one’s behavior and mental state based on one’s past. But they underestimate the role of context. Gladwell expands on the experiment held by scientist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University: they created a fake prison in the basement of one of the buildings, and put 21 volunteers in it. Half of them were randomly assigned to be guards and the other half to be prisoners. As tests showed in the beginning everybody was mentally stable, what we call “normal” people. In couple days though everything changed. Guards became violent, prisoners – stressed and intimidated.
The Research paper on Cross Cultural Understanding
The first culture that would be considered as a client for this paper is a minority culture of Asian Americans in the United States. Statistically, Asian-Americans compose the fourth largest cultural group in America. However, their cultural group is significantly far from the third one which are the Latin American residents of the country. Also, an important point to understand for the Asian- ...
” There were times when we were pretty abusive, getting right in their faces and yelling at them,” one guard remembers. “It was part of the whole atmosphere of terror. “It was completely the opposite from the way I conduct myself now,” another guard remembers. “I realize now,” one prisoner said after the experiment was over, “that no matter how together I thought I was inside my head, my prisoner behavior was often less under my control than I realized.” Another said: ” I began to feel that I was loosing my identity, that the person I call ____, the person who volunteered to get me into this prison (because it was a prison to me, it still is a prison to me, I don’t regard it as an experiment or a stimulation…) was distant from me, was remote, until finally I wasn’t that person. I was really my number and 416 was really going to have to decide what to do” ” (161).
The experiment was suppose to last up to two weeks it was cancelled early because it got out of control. Once the team discussed the events that transpired the guards they expressed why they acted in ways they wouldn’t normally act in. They seemingly associated prison with cruelty. The prison experiment proves that one can be healed, if they understand the context, evidenced by the admission of one of the guards used in the experiment that the environment made him act the way he did. He understood his character had been altered by the situation and environment. Upon coming to this realization he was very remorseful. The realization that arises from understanding the triggers that come from a traumatic experience can help one cope with stressful situations. Again, identifying the triggers is key.
The Term Paper on Understanding Slavery
A poignantly moving tale of a woman’s courage and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl undoubtedly serves as an inspiration for those who endeavor to rise beyond their initial station in life on the way to achieving one’s dreams. Though the author claims it to be a historical account, it could easily pass off for a work of fiction in the ...
Understanding the context can help bring closure, close a chapter, and bring an end to what could be a seemingly on-going traumatic experience. An understanding of the context of the trauma can help a person cope with the effects of a stressful, painful environment. Understanding the context of a traumatic experience may result in having to relive the event. Reliving the event may be something as simple as not running away from the situation, people and places that bring back vivid memories of the traumatic experience. This is necessary for a person who is or has suffered from dissociation because without receiving help one misses out on the big and little things in life. In the case of Julia, the psychiatrist herself acknowledges that an understanding of her past could potentially lead to behavior modification of healing. Julia had been hospitalized due to health issues, and she asked Stout about the significance of living if she loses out on the big parts of her life. Stout answers ““Well, you know, you could try to remember. We could try hypnosis, for one thing.” She goes one to say “I believe that Julia might be ready to bring up the lights in the cold, dark house of her past”” (398).
And Julia replies yes that she would be a part of hypnosis “Because I want to know. Because I want to live.” (398).
The idea or concept of closure symbolizes a kind of “end” to a certain chapter of your life. This is significant in helping a patient begin to heal by helping them get to a place where they feel like their traumatic experience is over. With regards to Julia, once she talks about her past all of the trauma will be out in the open and the lights in the cold house dark of her past are turned on. Once they get to that dark place again, one is allowed to figuratively open the doors to this house, to talk about whats going on, what she feels at the moment and why etc. In short, Stout states “On account of our neurological wiring, confronting past traumas requires one to re-endure all of their terrors mentally, in their original intensity, to feel as if the worst nightmare had come true and the horrors had returned. All of the brains authoritative warnings against staying present for the memories and the painful emotions, all the faulty fuses, have to be deliberately ignored, and in cases of extreme or chronic past trauma, this process is nothing short of heroic” (page, 384.) For example, for one who witnesses their sibling being molested along with witnessing his/her mom almost being beaten to death by his/ her biological father.
The Essay on Understanding and Genetic Engineering
For each team, use the following items to note your observations and to offer an analysis and evaluation of how well the team succeeded in its study of the technology and its impact upon society. Please respond using full sentences unless otherwise indicated. (Each numbered item is worth 6 points for a total of 30 points. ) . Areas discussed in relationship to the technology (6 points) 1 Place a ...
Once one enters a state of detachment from reality one can forget who they are for many days. One can become a zombie and attempt to take their life in many ways, such as overdosing on medication. Situations like this lead to professional help with a psychiatrist. As one opens up in his/her therapy sessions with the physiatrist they are called to answer questions that would require facing the fear of his/her father, questions about the exact moments of her trauma, questions about how he/ she felt at the moment and questions about how he/she felt after. Through these sessions one is able to relive the trauma and let go of a lot of the rage and emotional effects that have been suppressed for so long. The ability to sit back and attempt to understand the context of a traumatic event is alone a big step to coping with a trauma. It allows for one to be ready to deal with the effects that come with the event. As one sits back and relives it they have to face find ways to relax and control their emotions before during and after the trauma. Most importantly, this allows them to take the time to resolve day-to-day conflicts so they do not add to your stress to be capable of a usual routine. One cannot fight an enemy that they cannot see. Therefore, one must learn what memories they are hiding from. Coming face to face with your past allows one to shed light on their future.
Understanding the context of trauma is the beginning of a better future. It helps an individual begin the process of healing from the effects of trauma. Studying the past helps one understand the difficulties that are constantly interfering with their normal way of life. Understanding the context of traumatic situations can help identify triggers allowing a person to take control when a trigger may lead to a dissociative state. Understanding the context can help bring closure, close a chapter; bring an end to what could be a seemingly replaying movie of a traumatic experience. The benefits of having a clear comprehension of the context of the trauma can help a person cope with the effects of a stressful environment. Once a person learns what memories they are hiding from they can appropriate ways of taking care of themselves, of handling their feelings, and developing effective ways of coping in the here and now.
