The Psychological Immune System By Leslie Bell And Daniel Gilbert

Eric G. Wilson was born in 1967, and attended Appalachian State University, Wake Forest University, and the City University of New York where he gained a Ph.D. Wilson is currently a professor at Wake Forest University who teaches courses on British and American Romanticism. He has written many books, and “The Miracle of Melancholia” was published in the Los Angeles Times. I have never really thought too much about the effects that sadness can have on people, especially the positive effects. After reading the first paragraph of this piece, I was a little skeptical but as I continued to read, the author’s argument further developed and I now agree that sadness can have positive effects.

Stress And The Immune System The immune system is a very important part of our bodily functions as its main function is to protect the body against millions of antigens, which attack our cells and try to reproduce viruses and diseases. The immune system can protect the body in three different ways, in which are: 1. It creates a barrier that prevents the antigens from initially entering the body. 2.

In reading "Mistakes were Made but Not by me," multiple accounts are given of traits exhibited by humans that are displayed subconsciously. The authors, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, begin by defining these traits and give readers the actual terminology to these characteristics. With various examples being provided to the reading audience they are then able to make a clear correlation between the behaviors displayed and how they may impact not only themselves but others around them. "Mistakes were Made but Not by me" has a theme which is centralized around the two key facets which are cognitive dissonance and self- justification.

Freud established the term defense mechanism, which helps cope with anxiety produced by the ego. People frequently have desires and urges that are deemed unacceptable within society. Cersei Lannister exhibits the use of defense mechanisms such as denial, displacement, and regression.

One of the most primal emotions that humans experience is desperation, an intoxicating and overwhelming motivator of self-preservation measures. When a person experiences enough fear of and aversion to a situation, his or her brain will frantically search for any possible action that may postpone or avert the dreaded situation. Once the mind discovers an option that possibly can rescue the body from its situation, it will nigh automatically seek to realize it; therefore, most choices made while experiencing desperation are not logically processed before they are enacted. However, choices made in these tense settings often alter a person and his or her life drastically. Winston Smith, a character in the novel 1984, encompasses an epitome of

Processing a human mind is a two-edged sword. With their overbearing nature and never-ending stream of thoughts, feeling, and impulses, these worry machines frequently help us achieve precisely the opposite of what we desire. (Qtd. In Smith

This information is sent to the amygdala, which gets fired up and starts sending out "fight or flight" responses to other parts of the brain. However, the vmPFC, being involved in "higher thinking", has a quiet word with the amygdala, saying "look, the tiger is in a cage, you know what a cage is, tigers can't escape from cages, it's OK, calm down". Another part of the brain, the hippocampus, helps out, providing information about the context of the event (we're at a zoo, we know what zoo's look like, we've seen them before). In summary, the vmPFC inhibits the amygdala to keep fearful responses in check.What these studies don't tell us tho', is how this imbalance comes about; does having reduced vmPFC function lead to PTSD, or does having PTSD shut down the vmPFC? To address these issues would require shutting down or damaging the vmPFC and looking for the development of PTSD, obviously not an experiment that can or should be performed with people. However, Michael Koenigs, Jordan Grafman and colleagues at the NIH came up with a very elegant way of answering these questions.Grafman is one of

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a mental health condition brought upon by a traumatic event occurring either to oneself or a loved one, is a result of a change or damage to a person’s natural fight-or-flight response. When a trauma victim comes across a trigger, they have a neurological response that forces their body to react as if they were still experiencing their original traumatic event. In an attempt to help trauma victims cope with PTSD, trigger warnings are commonly put into place to warn them of any content in the media they are about to consume that may be triggering. Over time the meaning of the phrase “trigger warning” has shifted from the actual neurological response to having a painful memory or a reminder of a traumatic

Humanity’s grief comes from a severe lack of control. The intense pangs of suffering is accompanied by a storm of anger, ripping through the ocean of calm and triggering waves of raw human emotions. There are circumstances in life that cause the fragile boat of logistical thinking to sink, forever at the mercy of the tumultuous waves. In author Patrick DeWitt’s novel, The Sisters Brothers, the transformation of protagonist Eli Sisters from a sane man to a murderous monster portrays how defenseless logistical thinking is in the face of distress. Contrary to Eli and his downfall, deuteragonist Charlie Sisters experiences the opposite as he transitions from a man who acts impulsively on his thoughts, to someone who is more tentative and reluctant.

In “On Immunity”, Biss discusses the importance and effects of trigger words in metaphors through the example of herd immunity versus hive immunity. Defined, as a word that initiates a process or course of action, trigger words depending on its use will produce a particular response. Herd and hive immunity have identical definition and function, which is immunity developed by “vaccinating only part of the population for a disease to stop a full-blown epidemic.” (Biss 20) However, the use of trigger words herd and hive tampers with our whole outlook on the vaccination.

For petty issues and difficulties human do not build a defense system. People are incapable of predicting their emotional response, because they are unaware of how their brains work; therefore they choose to be self-deceptive. We humans have the tendency ignore the facts in front of us, because we are afraid of what the facts have in store for us. Gilbert displays examples of how denial can be beneficial to one’s happiness as he states, “The deception was elaborate and effective, but it was perpetrated unconsciously, and in this Osten was not unique (Gilbert

Emotional thinking is the systematic response in the brain that may influence false alarms when it comes to specific scenarios. These alarms trigger one’s emotional state into feelings such as excitement, misery, and stress. Emotional people are stereotypically known to overanalyze situations and create conflict with the reality of the situation. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, one can witness that the two central characters have difficulty when it comes to their thought processes of one another. Victor Frankenstein, an aspired inventor of the famous Creature, must come to terms with the responsibility of his creation. In an similar manner, the Creature uses his emotions to cause misery, and pain to his enemy, Victor. Comparatively, in

In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday”, she discusses how a person who has suffered a traumatic experience is most likely to dissociate their individual self from that situation and block it from their mind completely. This form of a solution allows the person to forget the experience and not feel the pain. In “Immune to Reality” Daniel Gilbert describes how every human being contains a psychological immune system, which works to shield us from horrible experiences that threaten our happiness. When experiencing a traumatic event, the psychological immune system responds by “cooking up the facts”, meaning taking the facts of the situation and turning the negative aspects of it into positive views. At first

The defenses can also give us insight into our own mental processes--sometimes mental gymnastics or contortions. All defenses involve distortions of reality; they are ways of feeling better by fooling ourselves. If we realized these defenses in our lives, we might handle reality better. Almost all adjustment books mention these defense mechanisms, even the writers who are arrogantly critical of Freud. An excellent text about Sigmund and Anna Freud and the ego defenses is by Christopher Monte (1980).

According to Freud, there are three kinds of anxiety – reality, moral and neurotic. Reality anxiety is experienced when there is an actual danger coming from the external world. Moral anxiety arises when there is a conflict between one’s behavior and what the superego is demanding one to do. Finally, neurotic anxiety is felt when the ego feels incapable of controlling the id and the urges hiding in it. The tools people use to get rid of anxiety is what psychoanalysts call “Defense Mechanisms” (Schultz and Schultz, 2009). Defense mechanisms are different behavioral patterns, some of them are considered mature (for example humor) and some immature but what is important for this paper is that in psychoanalytic therapy, defense mechanisms are identified and the goal of the therapy is to overcome them and access the unconscious conflicts which are according to the Freudians the root of any mental problem. Moreover, all problems’ origin can be found in childhood - most often in a faulty relationship with one of the primary caregivers (Hough,