`Awareness of anxiety responses enables control over them' this is
something Im going to struggle with today at work.
I would have though that the more aware of anxiety the worse it gets? Its
a sort of feedback loop. In treating panic attack clients we try to
distract them so that they are not monitoring their physiological responses.
Have a lovely day
from Kerry Douglas (on the great Barrier Reef where I can see the cats
taking the tourists out for the day to swim and snorkeland Ive got to work)
At 17:14 21/01/98 +0000, you wrote:
>
>Keith, Dick, others
>
>Thanks for the prompt, Keith, but I'll let Damasio speak for himself.
>The book in question ('Descarte's Error, etc') is available on
>amazon.com, and there's enough in the synopsis there to show why I
>said what I did. I guess I was so amazed by his conclusion as to want
>to see if that reaction would be shared.
>
>My own research in the area is kind of informal. The sun is so fierce
>in these parts that skin cancer and dehydration are ever-present
>dangers. You have to hide in cool, dark, places, taking plenty of
>liquid. So most of my basic work is done in bars. But that's OK, as
>that's your best chance to run across the local pilot population. The
>risk you do take is the occasional emotional bias in your results.
>
>Actually, my real interest lies in how emotional response interferes
>with decision-making by diminishing available cognitive power, to the
>point of either total reality-avoidance or incapacity - mental
>collapse. But there's enough in my book and other writings on that.
>However, I do take it further, and, like Dick, I actually conduct
>training for pilots on how to assay their emotional responses, thus
>seeking to, through familiarity with them, to get people to be able to
>control or suppress the emotional reflexes that will accompany that
>rare event, the emergency, or a really tough decision, such as to
>admit situational confusion or other form of near- or impending
>incapacity. Strenthening defences diminish risk.
>
>Curiously, Keith, I do use comparison between physiology and
>psychology as a 'training aid'. Physiological cues can be made,
>through familiarity, to become reliable indicators of 'present mental
>state'. Awareness of, for example, ones own 'anxiety responses',
>enables control over them, at least in the training environment. It
>transforms reflex into reaction. I do believe it transfers into the
>cockpit, but I'm not advanced enough to state that with certainty.
>
>Dick, I really look forward to your coming contribution.
>
>Cheers
>
>Doug
>
>