Research Paper Intro

No matter how much one wishes, life is not a piece of cake. Trauma and difficulty hit from every angle and cause necessity for individuals to navigate their way through with the use of one powerful system: a conglomeration of ridges and nerve clusters encased in a thick frame of bones. The brain is a complicated system—it provides the basis for our feelings and thoughts, incites us to act and react, and most importantly, molds itself and our consciousness to deal with the problems and stimuli presented to us by our environment. This concept falls under the study of cognition, which denotes the mental processes involved with gaining and applying information in response to stimuli. The current discussion on this topic is extremely widespread and includes the broad topic of coping mechanisms, which are ways in which internal and external stress is managed, adapted to, or acted upon. The prevalence of this discussion area is clear—individuals have always had to respond to things that were emotionally painful or difficult to handle. In many instances, this mechanism is innate and occurs without conscious thought and awareness; interestingly enough, although this essentially is “normal” it seems to incite uneasiness in people. In other cases, individuals cope through deliberate means, such as through meditation and writing. Essays such as Martha Stout’s “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning It Was Friday,” Daniel Gilbert’s “Immune to Reality,” and Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” probe the complications and impact surrounding the brain’s capacity to cope. However, most of the current discussion is marked by a positive tone; therefore this paper will argue a slightly different approach. This paper will probe how individuals cope with trauma both consciously and unconsciously and the extent to which this mechanism/psychological immune system causes us to misreact to the current realities of life.