Warning tec stuff. An attempt by V to understand what is happening physiologically, extracted from studies in physiology. V has a degree in physiology but it's 40 years old!
CERs are learned emotional reactions like anxiety or happiness that occur as a response to cues. They can be positive and pleasurable or negative and painful. Either can be destructive or constructive for example a glass of champagne can be celebratory and fun but can lead to excess and ill health. In the process of acquiring a CER our bodies make a neural connection. For example, we play music and learn a dance step result happiness. After one or two pairings, the sound of the music will send a wave of pleasure through amygdala circuits and the ideal interval is 2-10 seconds, very quickly.
Emotional responses are typically regulated by the autonomic nervous system and consist of two subdivisions, the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. They have largely opposite functions. The sympathetic nervous system is activated in the so-called "fight or flight" reaction, which produces a raised heartbeat, sweating, and other symptoms of arousal.
Many psychologists believe CERs involving the sympathetic nervous system are responsible for panic attacks, stage fright, test anxiety, and similar unpleasant emotions. These responses tend to be unconsciously learned and therefore difficult to control, so they drive people to seek help. British psychologist Hans Eysenck once asserted, "...all neuroses are essentially conditioned emotional responses" (Cunningham, 1984).
All it takes to create a CER is an experience that causes strong emotion. In the case of CERs that send people to therapy, the strong emotion is a negative emotion such as pain, fear, or anxiety. A rant by a loved one, for example, will normally be preceded by certain stimuli such as cooking a meal thereafter the dread would be a CER.
CERs can involved any stimulus, including smell. The emotions involved can be pleasant, or highly complex. After breaking up a close relationship, many people respond to the smell of perfume or cologne that their ex-lover wore; it creates a wave of nostalgia, regret, or perhaps relief in some cases. --------------------------------------------------------- Stress, Abuse and PTSD
Stress is the response of an organism to novel or threatening situations that are unpleasant in character. The hormones involved are adrenaline or epinephrine which when released into the bloodstream and nervous system provokes a general activation of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, the fight or flight reaction. With adrenaline the heart beats faster, a person may perspire more, fatigue and tiredness vanishes, muscular activity becomes easier, and reactions become quicker. Over the short term, this is an adaptive response that may help an organism survive. However, if the reaction continues too long, it can take a toll on the organism.
Both stress and stimulant drugs produce heavy releases of corticosterone, the stress hormones which increase heart rate and other signs of activity in the sympathetic nervous system. They cause animals to engage in repetitive, stereotyped activity. Eventually this high level of activation leads to "burn-out" and paranoid psychosis: delusions of persecution, agitation, and hallucinations. In the case of abuse this is PTSD.
--------------------------------------------------------- Abuse and CERs We so often act without even thinking because we have been conditioned to respond by the abuse. Habituation, sensitisation, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning are all learning processes that associate a specific behaviour with a particular stimulus and cause us to act before we can think. These responses account for a substantial portion of our behaviour. They are often learned quickly, sometimes unknowingly, and can only be changed by carefully and systematically extinguishing them. Abuse reactions are easy to acquire and hard to loose. Abusers use this knowledge to condition targets to abuse and to sensitise them.
Habituation is learning not to respond to the repeated presentation of a stimulus. As an example, people generally get used to rants or criticism. Familiarity breeds indifference. Habituation may play a role in developing tolerance to abuse.
Sensitisation is an increase in responsiveness to a stimulus. In other words to satisfy abusers, targets increase their giving or receptiveness. To become conditioned, target must discern the contingency between the stimulus and the response. This usually requires a consistent presentation of the stimulus rapidly paired with the response. However, in some important examples, learning still takes place even when the response is significantly delayed.
Skinner's Box - Operant conditioning The general concept of modifying voluntary behaviour through the use of consequences is known as operant conditioning, and is sometimes also called instrumental conditioning or instrumental learning. What this means is that Abusers reward or punish the behaviour in the target that they want to see.
Learned Helplessness Prolonged exposure to uncontrollable events can cause people to become inappropriately passive while they believe they can no longer control the outcome of similar future events. This is called learned helplessness. The theory describes what happens when a person comes to believe they have no control over their situation and that whatever they do is futile. As a result, the person will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful, or damaging situation, even when they actually do have the ability to improve the circumstances.
V
Last edited by Vanilla; 07/06/1511:01 PM.
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
