Sunday, September 1, 2019

The Knot Theory of Mind by Domina Petric, MD

INTRODUCTION Human thoughts can be imagined as a spectrum. On the one side of the spectrum are organized thoughts in healthy individuals and on the other side is severe thought disorder characteristic for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Between two opposite sides of human thoughts spectrum are milder impairments of thought quality that may sometimes occur even in healthy individuals, and more often in neurotic individuals. Negative emotions have their function, but these emotions should be always balanced with positive emotions. Five main categories of negative emotions are sadness (depression, despair, hopelessness), anxiety (fear, worry, concern, nervous, panic), anger (irritation, frustration, annoyance, rage), guilt and shame/embarrassment (1). Negative emotions give birth to negative thoughts. The same, positive emotions give birth to positive thoughts. Negative situation (for example, dangerous situation) provokes negative emotion (for example, healthy anxiety) and negative thought (˝I have to escape from this dangerous situation. I am so afraid˝). After the negative situation is terminated, there should be a positive emotion (for example, gratitude that the dangerous situation is over) and a positive thought (˝I am so grateful for not being in danger anymore˝).

When there is no positive emotion following the negative one, the new negative emotion goes after and, thus, making the knot of negative emotions that result with knots of negative thoughts. These negative knots will deform healthy anxiety into the pathological anxiety, healthy sadness into the depression, healthy anger into the pathological rage, healthy guilt into the pathological shame. People that score high on neuroticism are susceptible for creating negative knots. People who suffered psychological, emotional and/or physical injury and trauma are also prone for having these knots. Every trauma is a possible negative knot around which many negative 2 emotions and thoughts are accumulated in a cluster of knots. These knots usually disable traumatized patients to recover from the trauma. Negative emotions and thoughts seem to have a tendency to accumulate more than the positive ones. That is why it is so important to try hard and find the positive emotion and thought to create a balance. The balance between positive and negative thoughts helps a person to achieve healthy emotional and cognitive life.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327603374_The_Knot_Theory_of_Mind

No comments:

Post a Comment

Clinical Utility of the Rorschach Inkblot Method: Reframing the Debate

  Phase   Period     1 1921- 1950s The unbridled optimism period ...