when the research goes the other way

suffering is the result of the event coupled with the person experiencing the event inside a culture

A related line of enquiry is to determine not only whether the hippocampus is active during future simulation but whether it makes a critical and necessary contribution. While it has been long established that a functioning hippocampus is necessary for the retrieval of detailed autobiographical memories (for a review, see Moscovitch et al., 2005),... See more

when an army of trauma counsellors descended upon the nation after the tsunami of 2004, the University of Colombo pleaded with them to cease seeing suffering as traumatisation as it was undermining people’s resilience. Sri Lanka happens to top the charts for wellbeing in the ‘The Mental State of the World in 2023’ report despite such denial of the... See more

This suggests that the linear relationship between plausibility and hippocampal activity observed in the Weiler et al. study may not hold for the entire spectrum of plausibility. Instead, extremely implausible events may be associated with decreased hippocampal activity (relative to less implausible events), as observed in the current study where... See more

Thus, it remains an open question as to whether the hippocampus is necessary for future simulation.

If you’re told that you must listen to your momentary and subjective feelings of annoyance and hurt, and view them as your truth, minor interpersonal discomforts are much harder to let go of gracefully. If you’re then told that your troubles with relationships stem from your parents’ failure to be fully present and meet your needs in childhood, the... See more