Xavier Rodriguez, the other
Expos 101
Assignment # 2 F.D. When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday
Professor: Debra Keates
10/7/12

Gone With the Wind

There are a number of systems that are identified by science. The ecosystem is complex, involving all living things and highlighting their interdependence. The human system, while smaller in scale is equally intricate. There is a mind and body connection that each person has, however, numerous people lack the ability to make simple connections. In Caroline Fraser’s “Rewilding North America,” she describes how animals are becoming extinct and their struggle to survive. Similarly, in Martha Stout’s “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday,” she writes about encounters she has as a psychiatrist and the way her clients struggle to cope with their past experiences; they too are struggling to survive. Fraser describes the ecosystem while Stout discusses people, but both are aiming to promote stability, one for well-being and survival, to increase their population, and the other, for the ability to gain control and for their well-being in order to survive. There is a process and usually specific techniques that are necessary in order to regain what is being lost when it comes to the ecosystem and the human system. In 1930 a British botanist “coined the term ecosystem” in order “to define the complex interrelationships between plants, animals, and microorganisms and the physical elements they interact with—rocks, soil, water, air” (Fraser, 113). This idea of an interdependent ecosystem caused scientists to rethink previous attempts at preservation. As Fraser notes, “To seal off is to interrupt processes that make life possible: natural selection, predation, competition… Wrenched by larger environmental events—climate change, storms, fires, floods—they are capable of shifting, changing, evolving and disappearing” (p. 113). While the idea of the ecosystem arose in 1930, Fraser argues that it is “only within the past century have we begun to understand the laws that govern the evolution and transformation of ecosystems” (p113). Having the knowledge of the benefits and results from the studies are contributing into the change that has proven beneficial for the development of life.
In order to define anything there has to be a beginning, a start to understanding the problem. In ecosystems as defined by Fraser’s British botanist, things cannot be preserved by being sealed off and contained. What was once a debate over single large or several small (SLOSS) protected areas has shifted to a general acknowledgement that bigger protected areas are better. Currently, scientists are concerned about the fragmentation, or “sealing off”, of protected areas. In Rewilding, as promoted by groups such as the Wilderness Project, pathways would be created to protect wildlife travel from protected area to protected area. This idea was inspired by a wolf named Pluie and her journey, as tracked by Paul Paquet. Because of Pluie biologists where able to use the information that the wolf provided in “umbrella species,” which was a title for “wide-ranging animals,” “ the course the wolf had taken, the data collected, inspired a major Rewilding project designed around cores, corridors, and shown not just necessary but vital to the lives of the animals. Having "Corridors linking core areas would allow not only seasonal migration but also dispersal. As animals mature they leave their home range, looking for their own territory... Dispersal maintains the genetic health of a population, as individuals find mates from distant groups. Confined populations, by contrast, become inbred, susceptible to reduced fertility, genetic disorders, and immune system problems. But so much territory has been altered or destroyed that there is less and less opportunity for dispersal. Corridors would help..."(Fraser 118). Which states that without the availability for the animals to venture they will not be strong and healthy which is a necessity for survival, rather the result will be weak and vulnerable animals which will then die at both ends of the spectrum. Meaning from the animal suffering themselves then from becoming easy prey to others.
However, because of the corridors in various places around the world this is something that is assisting in the restoration of wild life. This also seems promising for wild life as a whole. As rewilding involves the reconnection of various land reservations for the purpose of promoting ecosystem stability, it may serve as a potential framework for conceptualizing Stout’s therapeutic process.
Restoration requires investigation into animal patterns to determine pathways and corridors to promote survival and ecosystem preservation. Where are animals getting stuck, or killed along necessary paths? Likewise, the first step for the patients in Stout’s passage is to define what it is that is not allowing one to connect. Essentially, her patients have experienced a “sealing off” of sorts. They engage in a separation of conscious awareness from bodily functioning, termed dissociation, as a means of coping with traumatic events and/or stressful triggers brought on by associations with suppressed memories of such events. Stout’s therapeutic process involves creating connections between memories and the currently seemingly random reactions to everyday experiences. Stout refers to such random events as triggers and provides the following examples: “A long shadow from a city streetlight can remind someone of the tall cacti on the Arizona desert where his father used to threaten to “feed” him to the rattlesnakes. An innocent song about the wind in the willow trees can remind someone else of the rice fields that were a part of her childhood’s landscape in Cambodia. A car backfiring… can remind yet another person of that spot on the trail where his eighteen-year-old platoon mate exploded six feet in front of him” (p. 391). There are many things that take place which are taken for granted that are beautiful, like nature, the plants animals, the smells and the way it all exists. However, for some those beautiful things can lead to triggering a memory they rather forget.
By restoring a person’s memory of previous trauma, therapy may be able to help one to understand their reactions through these connections. When someone disassociates, there are obvious pitfalls such as loss of time, dissociation may sometimes cause one to forget important things that have transpired such as conversations and memories. As dissociation may be brought on by triggers as seemingly harmless as a common scent, image, sound, etc. one may find themselves to be less than fully present at important events such as birthdays and weddings. Dissociation may once have been essential for survival, as Stout describes with her patient Julia: “When the abuse began, she would “go somewhere else”…she felt she was watching the life of a little girl named Julia from a great distance. A sad little girl named Julia was helpless and could not escape; but psychologically, Julia’s self could go “somewhere else”, could be psychologically absent” (p. 387). However, as an adult who is no longer experiencing abuse from her parents, Julia’s tendency to disassociate is no longer essential, and in fact has become problematic.
As far as both animal and human systems are concerned as long as science continues to develop and make the connections that link the two there shall always be an ongoing increase in animals and humans. For the animals, the way they live, and survive due to the promising efforts by animal activists. And for humans, there will always be a growing effort that shall continue to gain knowledge and understanding and help close gaps that contribute into restoring and allowing people to cope with issues that may arise and face, bypassing mechanisms of avoidance and deal with situations head on. This will allow people to use and enforce realistic and proper life skills that will assist them when triggers occur. In both cases, increasing stability, well being and survival is promising with the help and encouragement of information and data gathered from study from studies on humans and animals.