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I enjoy the notion of the “story teller”, and would certainly be interested in better understanding how one can control their storyteller so that information is not always rationalized. Is this possible? Or is our storyteller much of what makes us human? What I mean by this is that in my experience human beings tend to attempt rationalizing every thing, what happens then when our “story teller” breaks down? Does the answer to ‘mental health’ involve the fusion of one’s conscious and unconscious? Clearly this is less of a comment and more a series of questions. How can we use our “story teller” to our emotional and physical benefit?

I also spent a lot of the break trying to figure out whether I agree with Dr. Grobstein’s assertion that human beings when compared to other organisms in the world are not superior. I have always believed that we are not necessarily superior in the sense that we are more important than other organisms, or that we have the right to take what we want, regardless the consequences. However, I do feel that the human brain as an organ is far more advanced any other currently known organism. This is not the spiritual side of me speaking but the scientific one. A part of me wants to say that many of the mental health issues that we have addressed thus far stem from our mental superiority. The stresses of everyday life, the notion of worry (unique to human beings), the need to support ones self and ones family, our social constraints (monogamy, children, cultural beliefs) are all concepts of organisms with superior brain activity and in addition more complex social constructs.

I am not arguing that animals do not feel stressed, but from what I have read and observed most of animal induced stress is triggered by human intervention. These are just rambling thoughts, but I wanted to get them out so if nothing else I can understand what is going on inside my own head.

I found Riki’s post very interesting, especially the following comment: “With depression, one doesn't always know what's happening or why one feels the way they do, which implies a disconnect between conscious and unconscious.” In tenth grade I suffered from severe bouts of depression and through a combination of different therapeutic approaches was able to understand and control it. I used to experience intense feelings of sadness and disillusion for absolutely no reason. My feelings did not correspond to really anything that was going on around me. Through therapy I taught to recognize the onset of such feelings and learn not only to ignore them but also to combat them with either intense exercise or other endorphin boosting activities. There must have been a disconnect between my conscious and unconscious, but which was I teaching myself to override?