The Brain: Torture And The Brain

Torture and the Brain

Torture is commonly practiced all over the world, but most notably in the Guantánamo bay detention center in Cuba. It is most commonly used on prisoners of war to obtain useful enemy information, but it is not limited to that as it is practiced in normal prisons and jails. After experiencing torture, people don’t possess the same mindset. These sessions of torment can give victims mental scarring, which often leads to damaging psychological disorders. It can also disable people’s ability to act and think on their own.

Learned Compliance. Studies have shown that the brain can become conditioned like a dog’s after repeated sessions. The goal of the CIA’s brutal interrogation program was to make the prisoners docile and

The basic purpose of the fight or flight response in older times was to give people instinctive power that enabled them to escape or fight through a threatening situation. The people who survived in those olden times--our ancestors--were the ones who understood the fear and that they had to make quick decisions in order to survive. They evolved into having the fight or flight response, which took away the need for prolonged thinking. This is important, and John Grohol, an expert in mental health, agrees saying, “If the person had spent a lot of time thinking about it, they may have become dinner for a lion or other animal” (Grohol). His point is that people could make their split decisions and act accordingly. This answer to fear has been passed down to us through our ancestors and we now live with it; however, it’s not always used for fighting or fleeing now. As the times have changed, so have the threats that trigger this response. They’ve become less obvious, and can be as simple as being upset while stuck in a traffic jam. The threats don’t even have to be real because our minds today can react to perceived or imagined threats as well as actual

The two feelings, fear and anxiety, are often used in a way that makes them sound the same, yet there are discerning differences between these two feelings.

What fear is. Fear is the reply to when someone is intimidated by something that 's immediately going to harm their well-being. For example, a dog barking at a person and chasing them down the street. That person would feel dread, which would then give them the desire to protect themselves. In a fear situation, that desire turns into the fight or flight response. We either fight off the danger or we run and hide from it (Lamia). This response is considered a fear response because of the quickness of the reaction time; it happens immediately after the danger is sensed.

What anxiety is. Like fear, anxiety causes nervousness and happens in reaction to danger; however, anxiety is a state of distress that can be drawn out for a long time and puts the body on alert for impending danger. It comes from the visions of possible dangers in the brain. Authors Kaplan and Sadock explained it as being “a diffuse, unpleasant, vague sense of apprehension…” (Ankrom). They are saying that it is a sense of nervousness, and that it makes people be on alert. It can also be described as butterflies in the stomach or a sense of