Fear, anxiety, low mood are physiological states shaped by evolution for their usefulness, as drivers of the motivational system that pushes us to action. This very efficient mechanism sometimes gets stuck and presents us with the bill, in cases where these states persist when they are no longer needed or appear exaggerated and amplified. The father of evolutionary psychiatry, Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan, approached this approach because he was dissatisfied with the results obtained by traditional psychiatry, “still today incapable of having reliable and homogeneous diagnostic criteria”. If the search for reliable disease biomarkers and various solutions has not led to the promised answers, perhaps we need to change questions and understand that many of our emotional reactions are nothing more than operating methods to survive the surrounding environment. In other words, look at their adaptive significance. Vita Magazine dealt with mental distress in March (“Basaglia, where are you?”) which, starting from the centenary of Franco Basaglia’s birth, offers an authentic overview of the state of health of mental illness treatment in our country. Evolutionary psychiatry, like all evolutionary medicine, considers the organism for what it is: it is not a perfect contraption to be fixed if it breaks, but the result of a process of natural selection at the basis of evolution. And there we must look at the evolutionary origins to find answers.
Dynamics functional to survival
To give a simple example of these mechanisms, in his essay «Good reasons to feel bad» (Bollati Boringhieri), Nesse resorts to picking raspberries, but the reasoning applies to any activity, from passing a university exam to completing a competition that requires weeks of effort and training. “We start a task with momentum, continue for a while, lose interest and move on to something else,” he writes. Initially, we go from bush to bush with energy and motivation, as time passes the basket fills up and, often in conjunction with the rarefaction of the fruit on the branches, our interest also diminishes.
Maria Grazia Strepparava, clinical psychologist
Evolutionary psychology
The decline in motivation and activation, technically of arousal, follows the achievement of a certain result and then allows you to start again with new momentum. The problem arises when our mood remains jammed up or down, in the up or down phase, and no longer changes depending on the context. Especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships. «A poorly regulated system generates dysfunctional behaviors that do not allow the individual to adapt to his environment and thus generate suffering” explains Maria Grazia Strepparava, clinical psychologist and coordinator of the medical degree course in English at the University of Milan Bicocca. Evolutionary psychology looks at the human being as social animals, teaches that «emotions arise when archaic and powerful relationship patterns are activated that have allowed us to survive in our environment, made up of physical and above all social stimuli. Emotion activates behavioral responses aimed at a goal, pushing us to action.” The psychologist explains that this interpretative model of psychological and psychiatric disorders, which she also teaches to medical staff who are victims of attacks by patients and their families, provides effective answers.
A poorly regulated system generates dysfunctional behaviors that do not allow the individual to adapt to his environment and generate suffering
Maria Grazia Strepparava
Recognize relational patterns
The fear can be due to a sudden fall into a crevasse, but also to the perception of one’s own loneliness or physical or psychological vulnerability. This usually activates the attachment pattern: «A child who experiences physical or emotional pain is activated to trigger a response in the adult caregiver. As he obtains the reassurance he seeks, the attachment pattern will weaken and this will allow him to dedicate himself to another primary need, that of exploration »explains the psychologist. «If his relational environment, such as the family, emphasizes the dangerousness of the environment, his drive to explore will be inhibited and, in adulthood, his resourcefulness. In the event that he does not receive the answers he is looking for, but is systematically ignored, he will end up feeling fear, anger and finally the so-called freezingfrom English freezingwhich will make an authentic emotional life difficult. In both cases, his ability to adapt to the external, physical and social environment and to interact functionally with it will be affected.». A second example derives from the other relationship scheme, complementary to attachment, which is that of care: «This relational scheme that pushes a human being to respond to signs of physical and mental suffering by trying to alleviate the suffering of the vulnerable person. But if, despite trying in every way, he doesn’t succeed, he will end up feeling bad himself. This happens, for example, in burn out of doctors.”
Never stop adapting to the environment
In this case, «whether the individual is blocked in his drive to explore due to a trauma he has experienced, such as a war, or because of a parent who has transmitted insecurity with his overlying protective presence against a fearful world, phenomena may arise anxiety or panic attacks” explains Strepparava. The advantage of this evolutionary approach is clear: «Adaptation generates emotional and cognitive fatigue, but it is what allows us to live in a changing and uncertain world and we are on average very good at it. But the subject can remain trapped in patterns which, despite having also been functional states in the past, over time have become rigid and limiting responses, therefore a source of pain and maladjustment. Knowing them, in light of their evolutionary meaning, allows you to implement adjustment interventions to restore their physiological regulation». To all this, we must add the underlying biological processes, linked to our being primarily mammals with a complex social structure and which constantly dialogue with this behavioral level in a dynamic of action and reaction. The future? For Strepparava it is “creating a bridge between behavior and biology, intervening simultaneously or sequentially on these two levels, framing disorders as alterations of adaptation to the environment”.
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