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Re: Really weird theory inspired by Reason to live

Posted by Noa on October 23, 2000, at 17:39:03

In reply to Re: Really weird theory inspired by Reason to live, posted by coral on October 23, 2000, at 7:02:34

I wonder how many of us grew up in homes where we had to become "meteorologists", in the sense of having to constantly assess the climate from non-verbal cues, to know how safe/dangerous it was.

This can make us more vigilant and aware of environmental cues, but can also lead to over-magnifying when we interpret the cues. In the book Mapping the Mind, there is a nice explanation of the role of the amygdala in this kind of hypersensitivity to environmental cues. Apparently, either from innate constitution, or with early difficult experiences, some people have quick-reacting amygdalas. So, when environmental cues are taken in, the signals go to the thalamus, and then are routed both to the cortex (thinking, logic, language) and to the amygdala (fear, survival, etc.), but the pathway to the amygdala is a lot shorter than it is to the cortex, so we can react first, and think later, and if our reactions are strong enough, the thinking gets distorted or weakened. I guess cognitive type therapies aim to strengthen the thinking part to sort of override the reactive part (amygdala). Also, the amygdala apparently is developed early, whereas the parts of the brain that store long term memory and the cortical thinking brain, develop later. So, we can have emotional reactivity that dates back to before we could think word-thoughts to try to interpret the feelings.

There is an issue of Newsweek out now that focuses on birth-three years of age. There was one piece in it about innate temperament, but how early expereinces and parenting could shape just how strongly the temperament affects the rest of life, and also how certain temperaments in babies lead to certain parental reactions, causing an escalating pattern. Apparently there are programs to help parents understand their infants' temperaments and teach skills to deal with the babies in a way that doesn't get them stuck in bad patterns.

Which brings me back to the hypersensitivity to environmental cues thing that Racer introduced (Thank you, Racer): perhaps a lot of us have such sensitivity as our innate temperament, and then, because of a "lack of fit" between us and our parents, or because of just plain hard lives early on, this sensitivity, or reactivity, became even more pronounced (having to read the "weather", etc.)


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