What’s seen and beyond
There is a body seen
There is a soul felt
Meaning,
Is it about the seen
or what is felt?
Human is basically a whole system. Some of functions of these systems are under our conscious control, and some of them operate completely autonomously without any awareness. While some are mostly developed at birth, a significant portion is not fully developed at birth and develops and differentiates over time. The external environment and the stimuli that are exposed are particularly decisive in this development process. In other words, human beings consist of the systems that process the potentials existing in the hardware with the software added over time.
The first and most important mission of the human baby equipped with respiratory, circulatory, digestive and excretory systems - essentials to live - is to survive. He needs another powerful and intelligent person to be able to survive. His mother is the person most likely to be right next to him. Thus, the attachment system, which is first activated by the mother and will last for life, comes to the stage. The person with the attachment figure is a safe haven when needed and a safe base to open to the outside world when necessary.
After the initiation of the attachment system for survival and meeting the basic needs and providing safety and care, the next step comes. To discover the outside world to be more independent, to develop and grow up. The child is now slowly leaving the safe arms of his mother whom he can turn to when necessary and starting to recognize the world. In these early childhood years; the systems that provide touch, seeing and hearing are more prominent and more open to development. Also, in the brain, the regions receiving, evaluating and recognizing these stimuli are more active, more developed in that time. For this reason, especially in the first years of childhood, touching, communicating with the auditory and visual stimuli, to feel and make feel, is essential for a healthy and safe development.
On the other hand, exploring the outside world brings with it the risk of encountering danger even if it contributes to autonomy and development. To remain alive and to survive is again the primary task, so at this point it is necessary to be ready for the dangers. Although it is possible to return to the
safe haven when required, it is obvious that survival cannot be left up to chance. That’s why, while discovering the outside world starts, a threat-alarm system allowing instant responding in case of a danger situation in during early childhood. This alarm system is activated as soon as there is the slightest signal of possible threats. This system works without consulting conscious control centers, since there is no time to think and there must be immediate reaction. For this reason, there are more sudden reactions in situations where threats are perceived, and in these reactions, defense and protection reactions are in the foreground. What has happened and the results are only noticed at the end of the event. Especially in early childhood and in danger situations, this fear-alarm system protects the body from many dangers. However, when the threatening signals feel intense emotional pain such as humiliation, abasement, and worthlessness, they stimulate the fear-threat-alarm system in the brain, and the sudden reaction of the person can sometimes lead to situations that later will upset him. This system develops faster than the logic systems that begin to develop in older ages and thus causes more frequent problems in youth, especially when there is intense emotional turbulence.
The next stage in the process of recognizing the external world as a self-reliant and independent individual is need to relate to other people. In this direction, the individual tends to close relationships and learns to be able to help others in addition to meeting their own needs in this process. This tendency also serves to the continuation of the species - one of the most important tasks - and in parallel, the body develops the reproduction systems.
Being a more autonomous individual and tending to close associations brings with it the choices and the appropriate actions. And the system which is activated to make these selections and actions more suitable for the individual and his surroundings, is the control and decision system located at the prefrontal section of the brain. This system is less developed during childhood and develops faster after adolescence; it is a central control system that continues its development up to the age of 24-25. This system normally provides the control and coordination of all systems outside the autonomous systems that provide vital functions. In emergency situations, the fear-alarm system is on the foreground for a short period of time, and once the danger is over, the main control system directs our emotions, thoughts and volitional behavior. This system serves as a management center that directs the search for meaning in life, provides appropriate choices and plans, organizes and motivates appropriate actions in this direction. When doing these functions, they also use the software that is available in the hardware and most heavily formatted especially in childhood. Thus, a personality specific to the individual emerges.
While the top decision-making center is consciously trying to make sense of what is going to happen and what to do by evaluating information from other systems in front of the community, at a job application, at the exam gate, at hospital corridors, at moments of separation, at moments of reconciliation, autonomous systems are trying to adapt to these. Every organ is almost a state, and the autonomous ganglia just inside these organs act like state presidents. These provincial presidents do the necessary operations at the organ level and do not notify the main control system of everything to provide an environment for their essential functions. For example, if all the actions of a person while collecting roses in the garden were conducted consciously, a whole day would only be reserved to follow-up the processes of this action. Namely; the light clusters that come out of the rose to the eye, the voices coming into the ear, the smell of rose, the feeling of touch and all these together activate the systems. For example, the smell of the rose first stimulate the extensions belonging to the olfactory nerve at the brain junction and brain root and hanging down from the brain towards the nose like onion roots. With this stimulation, a communication starts among the cells gathering at the smelling paths. With this communication, the substances entering the cell change the electrical charge of the cell so that the chemically initiating effect transforms into an electrical effect that stimulates the relevant nerves, which also inform the brain regions involved in the area they are affecting. The smell works like a wireless communication system that drives and controls the most spectacular and necessary information flow between outer space and our own space. This network can even influence food choice, spouse selection and job choice, and even the choice of area to be settled. After all, a deep communication is established with each object that is heard, tasted, touched, or smelled, with either an answer or rejection. Those who are not particularly responded to these are either those who are now used to it, or those who are no longer cared for by the top control-decision center, and often these inputs and outputs are not consciously recognized.
Sometimes these systems do not work in their own way either as expected between the systems, and as a result they can cause diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer or mental diseases such as depression or schizophrenia.
In summary, everything that leaves traces in the development process is stored in these systems at micro and macro level and forms the codes of the software. The smell, the sounds, the images or the feelings that are happening while with someone loved, the ones who are there, the ones who make the person feel good, the ones who make feel bad, the smells, the colors, the appearances and the
tastes are all gathered and transformed into wisdom. Thus, what has happened is used to provide guidance to what will happen next. The goal is to find the front signs for the good and the bad as possible, and prepare a safe and sheltered ground for the continuation of the vital and to reach the subsequent goals. The foundations of this ground are first laid with the attachment figure and shaped through future relations and experiences. Of course, each individual's equipment is affected by heredity and the process of formation in the womb. This potential equipment differs according to each individual. It includes sensitivities and resistance. What makes these strong or more sensitive is the experiences, traces left behind by the experiences, in short, the software added later. This software is shaped by more feelings, especially in the first childhood years, then later by learning and later by the meanings. It affects behaviors, emotions and thoughts. Positive childhood experiences on a more safe attachment base and the positive stimuli that are experienced afterwards provide more harmony and peacefulness; neglect or painful experiences may be based on a more difficult adjustment process on a more insecure attachment basis. These effects sometimes make it easier to develop diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and sometimes it makes it easier for diseases with depression, anxiety and thought disorders. The good news is that they can be repaired for a more coherent life.
All in all, all these interactions require us to address the network of systems, not just a single system, in the process of knowing, understanding and repairing the mechanisms that uncover the disease. In this direction, in order to help our patients and their relatives more; we try to evaluate and understand all the systems that can be affected by the occurrence, emergence, and exacerbation of diseases, without distinguishing them as body and soul, with hardware potentials and software codes, both visible and beyond.