Mind Hidden and Divided 14. Discovering Psychology Video

Under hypnosis, patients gave an almost verbatim account of the anesthesiologist’s negative comment while other patients showed extreme anxiety. Patients exposed to positive comments by an anesthesiologist while under anesthesia required smaller amounts of pain killers after surgery and were discharged earlier. Note, thought, that subconscious processes are complex and difficult to show reliably. This phenomena of subconscious awareness raises some profound questions about the functioning of the human mind.

It has been the traditionally held in western civilization that reason, free choice, and carefully weighed decisions guide our actions. We assume we have ready access to our most significant thoughts, feelings, and memories. At the same time the brain has been seen as a monolithic command center that can know everything because it is master of all it surveys. But recent experiments in neuroscience suggest an alternative conception. It seems that our brain is are organized into many separate mini-brains or cognitive modules. Each of these is designed to do a separate job, such as speaking or reading or drawing. Moreover our minds are designed to conceal some truths we would rather not face. Either unpleasant memories or even current experiences. And so to know thyself one needs to explore the murky realm of unconscious and subconscious.

The video then explored altered states of consciousness and some of the effects of psychoactive drugs, meditation, and fasting, and the cultures that used them. The video then discussed the controversial topic of recovered and discovered memories investigated by Jonathan Schooler. One of the most important aspects of this research is to obtain collabarative evidence. It is very difficult to understand how one can forget something as traumatic as being molested or raped. The mind is very mysterious process still. Although controversial confirmed cases of discovered memory shows us how powerful the conscious and unconscious domains of the human psychic can be.

It is in the subconscious, according to Sigmund Freud, that primal sexual desires, aggressive urges, and painful memories are exiled. These painful memories threaten to overwhelm the individual if let loose. According to Freud these painful memories are forcibly removed from conscious awareness by the defense mechanisms of repression. But over time the binds that keep them imprisoned loosen until an alarm goes off. The alarm signals that an escape to conscious awareness is imminent. The alarm is acute anxiety. The more heavy handed the defenses are the greater the pressure for escape and the less energy the person has for to deal with reality until the entire system cracks and mental illness results.

But contemporary researchers are telling us that the unconscious is much more than a storehouse of the unpleasant and forbidden. The unconscious operates whenever we feel or act without being aware of what is influencing us. Hypnosis is one of the windows on the unconscious illustrated in the video. Psychologists generally believe that hypnosis is a special form of disassociated consciousness. Mike’s expectation that he would be smelling two colognes blocked his sensory response to the ammonia. The effects of hypnosis in pain control was demonstrated via the cold pressor test.

It is still difficult for us to believe that the human mind can act in ways that are contrary to an individuals best interest. Or that so much can be ideas and feelings can be kept out of awareness. But suppose we could demonstrate that parts of the mind can actually be separated and function independently from each other. The video illustrated this point by those cases in which individuals with epilepsy have had the two hemispheres separated—the split brain phenomenon. The research of Michael Gazzaniga was demonstrated. The brain is organized in terms of many modules. There is something in the left hemisphere that his research team has called the interpreter that pulls all these modules together and integrates these functions and gives us our unique sense of our self. The video showed how the theory of “confederacy of modules” might work and how dysfunctions might occur.