Question

“Do you believe our unconscious reactions come out of a locked room that we can’t ever truly see inside? Can we ever know ourselves wholly and understand the motivations and reasons behind our every move? If an individual claims to completely know how her mind works, is she incredibly self-aware or is she delusional? And if we can’t ever get behind that door and fully know why we react the way we do, is psychiatry an overpriced and limited exercise?” (Gladwell, 2005, p. 13)

Answer 1

Unconscious Reactions are intersting subject to study. These reactions are interesting because we remain unaware about the situations and still we respond to changing circumstances. These responses come from our past learings and experiances which we have gained without any efforts and without any intention.

We learned them because such responses help in our survival. They assist us in making our life free from restrictions. It is just an evolutionary process. It has been developed due to continuous grasping of information from our surroundings. So, I don't think that these reactions come from a locked room. Room was always opened but we were unaware.

It is very difficult to understand the human brain. We have utilised only a minor part of it. Scientist like Einstein utilized his mind more than anyone else but even his brain usage was not so significant in terms of percentage of brain used. We keep on storing information throughout our life and process them accoding to need. Its very hard to understand the whole mechanism.

Its very difficult to understand the mechanisms behind motivations. This mechanism works differently for every person. That is why different persons have different motivations. Some want to become politicians, some want to become engineers, some want to become doctors and so on.

Why there are so much of differences? Why there are different different motivational goals? These basically depend on surrounding environments and circumstances in which we have lived. People surrounding us also affect our motivation.

Sometimes this theory also becomes fail and people do entirely different jobs. They follow their heart and choose entirely different path. So, true mechanism of understanding ourselves and our motivations is still a mystery and I think that this must remain in mystery because this is the beauty of life.

Beauty lives in diversity. Through modern day science and psychology; we can understand the mechanism of hormones and neutransmitters. We know how signals are being transferred from one neuron to another. We know the roles of various hormones behind every emotions and expressions.

We have advanced psychological research in present. These can answer many questions but these can't answer the the main reason and driving force behind these mechanisms. Spiritualism and science contradict on certain points. Conflicts always remain in their existence.

Scientific researches keep on modifying each and everyday. All these shows that no knowledge is permanent and scope of betterment always exists. So, in my views it will be right to say that psychiatry is not an overpriced experiance because it helps in understanding of emotions and life, but it is hard to believe someone who claims that he/she knows each and every thingh about self and surroundings.