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The Human being is a multilevel person

Our nervous system (NS) consists of mutually supporting elements which were developed at the different stages of the evolution. There are basic levels which unite us with much more ancient forms of life; there are also superstructural elements which are relatively newer from the evolutionary point of view: they are the unique patrimony of a human being.

Fig. 4. Neocortex is a “human brain”; limbic system is our “animal brain”, and our “reptile, or lizard brain” is located in the brain stem. In this figure you can see several elements of the limbic system: thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, and a basal gland, all of which take part in the way our body reacts to any incoming message.

“Reptile level” is our brainstem: this is what unites us with dinosaurs, turtles, and crocodiles. “Animal level” is our limbic system, which we share with cats and dogs. Finally, there is the human brain, per se; it is called the neocortex, and it is what makes us unique. All of these elements coexist within our nervous system. Of course, such a division is only relative since dinosaurs also had a cortex. However, the cortex plays a far more important role in the life of a human being. To a large extent evolution can be viewed as “embraination”, or cephalization, as it was noted by a famous philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955).

Nevertheless, there is a more primeval nervous system; it is autonomous, and it is also referred to as “autonomic” which is represented throughout the body with ganglia, which look like “beads” along the spinal column (for instance, in the solar plexus) and even in some organs like our heart. One could observe the following principle: the lower we move down our body, the older the structures we encounter there.

There are several elements of our body which we share with annelid worms and even with hydras.

Our tender cortex

The cerebral cortex requires very delicate conditions to do its work. It is a well-known fact that it has little resistance to various injurious effects such as oxygen deficiency or the poisoning influence of ethanol. If the brain remains without oxygen for 5—7 minutes, its cells begin to die. In case of alcohol intoxication, the cortex starts deteriorating. However, the subcortex is much more resistant to harmful influence. The spinal medulla can remain up to 24 minutes without oxygen, while ganglia of the autonomous nervous system continue functioning without nutrition for many hours.

Emergency situations disturb the fine-tuning of the mind and take it to the realm of ancient survival instincts. When our intellect finds itself in a critical situation and it cannot find any optimal way of reacting to it, it “forwards” this task to the older structures of our mind. It is the place where our mind stores survival experience gathered from millions of years of evolution and this is what may lead to the altered state of mind.

Fright and primitive instincts

It also happens in the cases when the control of the situation is lost due to intoxication. A typical example in such case would be alcoholic intoxication: functioning of the cortex is temporarily slowed down, and a person is overwhelmed with primitive emotions, with aggressive, sexual or other desires which he or she can hardly control. There’s a reason why people say “Wine is in, truth is out”. There’s a similar reaction when a person is under anaesthetic. As you can see, if our cortex analyser fails to complete the task, the amygdala (the brain’s alarm dispatcher) redirects the task to the more stress-resistant structures. Our “subcortex” and autonomous nervous system step in. In these cases, the following behaviours are activated:

a) Bursting with energy and fighting for life;

b) Running away;

c) Preserving energy, “going into the sleep mode”, hiding.

There are not many options to choose from. Something happens that we are not ready for. The signal is sent to the higher divisions of the brain. Our intellect cannot find the solution. A person feels confused.

There’s a shift towards the primitive survival strategies; the autonomic nervous system is activated: reactions like “shock affection” or “apparent death” take place.

Fig. 5. Signal routing when an emergency situation takes place.

Like a bee against the window

It is a good moment to remind you about the observation of Ernst Kretschmer (1888—1964), an outstanding German clinical therapist. In his work “Hysteria, Reflex, and Instinct” first published in 1923 Kretschmer describes the way a bird or a bee behaves when it accidentally flies into a room. In its striving towards light it becomes hectic: “The creature is flapping and fluttering, moving chaotically from side to side; these movements repeat as convulsions until it finds its way through the window to freedom. Then normal flying movements are immediately restored” (Kretschmer, 1996, p.15)

Kretschmer saw the analogy between the above-mentioned behaviour and the way people behave in extreme situations. Thus, during an earthquake the crowd typically behaves irrationally and chaotically. But even these chaotic movements can be life-saving.

Two soldiers in the command unit

Kretschmer also gives another very bright example: “Two soldiers are incapable of dealing with the horrors of war. The first would think about his neat handwriting, his technical skills, and connections at home; he would consider the pros and cons, make several clever steps and would finally find himself working in a quiet office. The other is found in the trenches after heavy artillery shelling; his eyes are shifty. He is taken away, he begins to shiver, then he is taken to the psych ward and after that he is sent to work the garrison service where he meets the other soldier in the quiet office busy writing.

There are two ways: one is exclusively typical for human beings only, while the other is an exemplary biological reaction which the whole animal sequence goes through: from unicellular creatures to a human being. (Ibid., 14—15). Then Kretschmer draws the following conclusion:

“A movement storm is a typical reaction of living bodies to life-endangering situations. A movement storm is self-help of relative biological use”

(Ibid.)

It is quite interesting when this reaction is compared to the behaviour of children; he notes that as a reaction to unpleasant situations there’s screaming, pushing and lashing out instead of adults” balanced words and movements (Ibid., p.17). More than that, he also points out the fact that adult people manifest the tendency to approach a new situation with a calculated action, and only in some extreme situations an adult would react with a “movement storm” (Ibid., p.16).

Freezing

Kretschmer reminds us about another widespread response to danger which is typical for many living beings, which is: “apparent death”. Some kinds of fish are capable of “freezing” up to 15 minutes and sometimes even longer while lying on one side. This is a defence mechanism which helps the animal hide from and look unattractive to the predator.

According to Kretschmer, such responses are “something frozen, as a formula, squeezed into the fixed template without any flexibility in each particular case” (Ibid.)

Psychological emergency mechanisms

A driver uses the steering wheel, brake and gas in order to adapt to the motion of his or her car to the situation on the road and get to the destination successfully. This is how our rational mind helps us adapt to new situations and overcomes challenges in the course of our lives. This is an adaptation of repeated use, which is activated in normal conditions.

However, there’s also an airbag installed in the car. It is activated in case of an accident and does not require a driver’s specific actions. This is how our bodily mind or our autonomic nervous system reacts to the situations which our body identifies as “an emergency”. When our latest “instrument” doesn’t respond, the primitive one steps in, and in this case we are talking about a single-use escape plan with a limited number of strategies (attack, escape or hide), as we have already noted earlier.

Once having been put into use, an airbag will require a replacement because it just won’t return back to where it was before. The psychological emergency mechanisms work similarly: once activated, they have a tendency to repeat non-stop. Time doesn’t really heal anything in this case. Such conditions become chronic or, as psychiatrists say, “processual”. Thus one would need to take conscious action in order to turn these mechanisms off and bring the body back to normal functioning.

And now let’s have a look at what a person feels when he or she is going through this. This is very important because the key to cure phobias and other psychotraumas is all about addressing one’s feelings.