AAMT: Lesson 3 - THE ANATOMY OF EMOTION, part 2

The relationship between thinking and the resulting emotion or feeling is lawful and orderly.  Let me describe the thinking and feeling process by using the following diagram:

A.  Perception or Activating Event
      1. Sight
      2. Sound
      3. Touch
      4. Taste
      5. Smell
B. Thinking, Evaluating, Storing
      Neocortix
      Limbic System
      Lungs and Chest
      Heart
C. Feeling
      Stomach and Intestines
      Other Glands and Organs

This process is referred to as the ABC of emotion:  A is the activating event or situation; B is the belief or evaluative thinking related to A; C is the consequence or feeling that results from the thinking done (B) related to A.  We will talk more about this model in Lesson 4 when we discuss how you go about doing a rational self-analysis (RSA).

Perceptions about facts, events, or situations are made available to us through some form of sensation (A) entering through one or more of the five senses or being created within.  The perception is processed by thinking and evaluating (B) in the neocortex (part of the brain).  It is also stored in the form of a memory.  This stored information can be used immediately or retrieved and used later.  (This, very likely, is a key part of the process by which we create and maintain attitudes.)  The kind of thinking one does about a given perception activates the limbic system (another part of the brain), which controls the autonomic nervous system that in turn controls and activates the vital organs directly or indirectly, resulting in a feeling (C).

The vital organs themselves have no reasoning power to decide how to react in a given situation.  The depend on the thinking or "self talk" that goes on in the neocortex for their activating cues.

Even if the kind of thinking that goes on in the neocortex results in a negative, undesirable feeling, there is a way for us to change that feeling.  Stated plainly, the best way for one to feel better is to think better.  Negative feelings are the direct result of negative thoughts.  Positive feelings are the result of positive thoughts.  It is a relatively simple law of cause and effect.  American philosopher and psychologist William James said,  "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind."

The process outlined and illustrated above is not only lawful and orderly, but also medically and scientifically verifiable.

All information received through the five senses is processed, evaluated, and compared in the neocortex.  The brain is a blindly functioning organ.  Like a camera, it records everything that comes into it.  We call the recording process memory.  Actually, every normal person has perfect memory.  When you say you have a b ad memory, you actually mean that you have a faulty recall.  The brain records everything you experience, even if you are not consciously aware of having had the experience.  It stores not only raw data, but also all the information that has undergone evaluative processing.  Then this information is stored away as memories, attitudes, and beliefs.  Truth and error, and fact and fiction, are all stored in the same way you processed them.  They are retrieved or recalled in the same for also, one reason we each have such vastly different attitudes or opinion about the same fact, situation, or event.

Located within the neocortex is the portion of the brain known as the limbic system.  Its function is the control or regulation of the autonomic nervous system.  The autonomic nervous system in turn regulates and controls the functioning of the internal organs and glands.

In simple form, here is how you produce an emotion.  First, you become aware of the fact, situation, or event through one of the senses.  Once registered in the neocortex, it is processed according to your way or habit of processing.  Next, the limbic system is activated and sends its messages through the autonomic nervous system to the internal organs and glands.  The automatic-like functioning of the the organs and glands are thus altered.  You call the resulting physiologic sensation "feeling" or "emotion."

I realize that this is a gross oversimplification of what happens; however, it is sufficient for the purposes of this lesson.