Read Online When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté - Free Book Online
Authors: Gabor Maté
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or even abusive relationship, in a stressful job or in a lifestyle that robs him or her of true freedom.
Emotion I comprises the physiological changes triggered by emotional stimuli, such as the nervous system discharges, hormonal output and immune changes that make up the flight-or-fight reaction in response to threat. These responses are not under conscious control, and they cannot be directly observed from the outside. They just happen. They may occur in the absence of subjective awareness or of emotional expression. Adaptive in the acute threat situation, these same stress responses are harmful whenthey are triggered chronically without the individual’s being able to act in any way to defeat the perceived threat or to avoid it.
Self-regulation, writes Ross Buck, “involves in part the attainment of
emotional competence
, which is defined as the ability to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one’s own feelings and desires.” 12 Emotional competence presupposes capacities often lacking in our society, where “cool”—the absence of emotion—is the prevailing ethic, where “don’t be so emotional” and “don’t be so sensitive” are what children often hear, and where rationality is generally considered to be the preferred antithesis of emotionality. The idealized cultural symbol of rationality is Mr. Spock, the emotionally crippled Vulcan character on
Star Trek
.
Emotional competence requires
the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress;
the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries;
the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past. What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and
the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others.
Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health. In each of the individual histories of illness in this book, one or more aspect of emotional competence was significantly compromised, usually in ways entirely unknown to the person involved.
Emotional competence is what we need to develop if we are to protect ourselves from the hidden stresses that create a risk to health, and it is what we need to regain if we are to heal. We need to foster emotional competence in our children, as the best preventive medicine.
4
Buried Alive
A LEXA AND HER HUSBAND, PETER , wanted a second opinion. A death sentence had been pronounced on her, and they hoped I would be able to repeal it. Alexa was an elementary teacher in her early forties. In the year preceding our meeting, the small muscles in her hands had begun to shrivel up and she had increasing difficulty grasping objects. She also suffered inexplicable falls. She sought advice from Dr. Gordon Neufeld, a noted developmental psychologist in British Columbia whom she had come to know through his consulting work in the school system. Believing it was “only stress,” she avoided considering a medical explanation.
Alexa forced herself to carry on with her professional duties; she struggled to maintain her routine beyond any reasonable point, well past the line most people would draw in taking care of themselves. “She worked incredibly long hours and was overextended,” Dr. Neufeld recalls. “I’ve never seen anybody push herself to the extent that she did.” Because she could barely hold pen or pencil, Alexa often stayed up long after midnight to complete her daily marking of student assignments.
Emotion I comprises the physiological changes triggered by emotional stimuli, such as the nervous system discharges, hormonal output and immune changes that make up the flight-or-fight reaction in response to threat. These responses are not under conscious control, and they cannot be directly observed from the outside. They just happen. They may occur in the absence of subjective awareness or of emotional expression. Adaptive in the acute threat situation, these same stress responses are harmful whenthey are triggered chronically without the individual’s being able to act in any way to defeat the perceived threat or to avoid it.
Self-regulation, writes Ross Buck, “involves in part the attainment of
emotional competence
, which is defined as the ability to deal in an appropriate and satisfactory way with one’s own feelings and desires.” 12 Emotional competence presupposes capacities often lacking in our society, where “cool”—the absence of emotion—is the prevailing ethic, where “don’t be so emotional” and “don’t be so sensitive” are what children often hear, and where rationality is generally considered to be the preferred antithesis of emotionality. The idealized cultural symbol of rationality is Mr. Spock, the emotionally crippled Vulcan character on
Star Trek
.
Emotional competence requires
the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress;
the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries;
the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past. What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and
the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others.
Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis. Chronic disruption results in ill health. In each of the individual histories of illness in this book, one or more aspect of emotional competence was significantly compromised, usually in ways entirely unknown to the person involved.
Emotional competence is what we need to develop if we are to protect ourselves from the hidden stresses that create a risk to health, and it is what we need to regain if we are to heal. We need to foster emotional competence in our children, as the best preventive medicine.
4
Buried Alive
A LEXA AND HER HUSBAND, PETER , wanted a second opinion. A death sentence had been pronounced on her, and they hoped I would be able to repeal it. Alexa was an elementary teacher in her early forties. In the year preceding our meeting, the small muscles in her hands had begun to shrivel up and she had increasing difficulty grasping objects. She also suffered inexplicable falls. She sought advice from Dr. Gordon Neufeld, a noted developmental psychologist in British Columbia whom she had come to know through his consulting work in the school system. Believing it was “only stress,” she avoided considering a medical explanation.
Alexa forced herself to carry on with her professional duties; she struggled to maintain her routine beyond any reasonable point, well past the line most people would draw in taking care of themselves. “She worked incredibly long hours and was overextended,” Dr. Neufeld recalls. “I’ve never seen anybody push herself to the extent that she did.” Because she could barely hold pen or pencil, Alexa often stayed up long after midnight to complete her daily marking of student assignments.
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