ABSTRACT
Museum of hurt Having been deeply hurt, it is all too easy for people to harden their hearts and/or cut off from their distress and pain. There is neuroscientific backing for this. When we avoid feeling emotional pain, brain scans show that the left prefrontal cortex (the more logical, rational, verbal part of our brain with weaker connections with the body and limbic system) is often more active than the right prefrontal cortex. The latter registers painful feelings far more intensely than the left, as it has far stronger connections with limbic system and the deeply feeling body and gut (Siegel, 1999). Other brain scans have shown even more dramatic ways of cutting off from emotional pain. This is known as dissociation. In brain scans of dissociation, the pain centres and parts of the brain that register emotional meaning and threat are simply not activated. The visual centres are still activated. In other words: ‘I see something painful but I don’t feel it’ (Lanius et al, 2003). There is, however, a price for simply cutting off from emotional pain:
Cutting off from your own pain means cutting off from that of others and hence a major compromise of compassion and concern.
