Essay Example on Resolving Conflict: A Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

Resolving a conflict is not all about defining the wrong side or embracing the right side. What matters a lot in making a neutral position which best suits both parties. In the book, "A Brain on fire: My Month of Madness" by Susannah Cahalan, the author narrates how she developed mental health concern that landed her on the hands of specialist doctors. The young journalist reflects on how she recovered from the mental disease, which was allegedly described as psychosis. The book develops a different idea that worth a debate with resultant decision making. According to this research, the Rogerian argument is, to what extent does mental strength outweighs physical pain. Ideally, this statement involves a patient with a mental disorder and not physical pain. Similarly, the doctors handling or managing the disease might physically strain day and night to come out with outstanding results concerning diagnosis or even the research. Below are the general arguments with judgment after analyzing the two sides.

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On the first side of this argument, mental health does outweigh the physical pain. When one has a sober mind, he or she can do normal activities and even bear the physical pain that can be easily controlled. Cahalan could not continue with the normal operations of reporting news immediately; she developed worrying symptoms. If it could be just physical pain, the young journalist could balance her daily activities and seek treatment concerning the same. Immediately the left hand got numb; she was left paranoid, which then obsessed her mind.

Cahalan did not have mental strength, and her situation could worsen at an alarming rate leading to dysfunction of her brain, making her seek serious medical attention. In the New York hospital, Cahalan got herself in the hands of doctors with a sound mind and mental strength that were capable of carrying out the differential diagnosis. Recognition of the mental disorder to have been identified two years ago also portrays the importance of mental strength (Ramirez & Arbuckle, 2017). While the journalist was in the hospital, she could not recognize what was going on since she did not have that ability; as a result of inadequate mental strength. In the book, Cahalan now has the mental power and can define what the doctors did, and how neuro-oncologist discovered the disorder.

Moreover, Cahalan continues narrating different instances which points out how much mental health outweighs the physical strength. The human body is meaningless when it does not have a working memory (Ramirez & Arbuckle, 2017). All that Cahalan writes in the book is due to the effort of the mental strength. The journalist can still do the same even if she undergoes the physical pain. In the comparison between mental strength and physical pain, the disorders of the mind are always constant; when one has a psychological problem, he or she will exist out of senses and cannot do a useful thing.

Similarly, the physical pain is not that constant; in some instances, it can vary depending on the hemostasis function of the human body. Having physical pain could not make Cahalan seek strict medical attention until she came across a neurologist to handle her case. However, the young news reporter could engage in some clinicians in a small hospital as she carries on with her duties. The inability of mental strength, according to Cahalan, leads to internal complications mostly in the whole body. The same implies that when one had got that mental strength, he or she can fight out the physical abnormalities that result from pain.

The author narrates that the four women who were diagnosed by mental disorder earlier 2005 developed some problems like an illusion, confusion, and even the growth of tumors in the ovaries. Additionally, they had a common antibody reacting against different parts of the brain. The physical pain is external in the human body and can rarely manifest into internal organs (Archer et al., 2016). In conjunction with the same, the development of the internal complication could further increase to other problems that, when not handled critically, can interfere with one's life.

Nevertheless, an outstanding mental strength has the possibility of controlling the physical pain (Macdougall et al., 2016). When one is psychologically stable, he or she can assume some minor physical pain and proceed with the duties, however when one is mentally compromised, he or she can't bear any situation, and the challenges multiply. The mental strength applies to all organism, as Cahalan writes, the research done by Dalmau's group indicates that the reactivity of the tests was quite intense in the brain. The same symbolizes the power of mental health and how it relates to the different living organisms. The positive result could not get affirmed while using the physical part of the body.

The mental strength still outshines the physical pain in that memory, learning as well as behavior get controlled by mental capacity. The physical pain will not do away with the action of patients; neither will it leads to loss of memory but will concentrate on the physical part of the body. When the above discussed are disabled, the mind together with the body will not function normally. According to the journalist, the neurotransmitters are connected to the mental strength and perform a critical role in the human body, that is to say, they can either excite or inhibit a cell.

On the other hand, physical pain does not outweigh the mental strength. Remember, the human body needs every part to exhibit a function. The external part of the human body, which, when compromised, results in physical pain gets its activities coordinated from the brain (Hu & Hughes, 2019). All signals get transmitted to the brain when injuries occur; this is what results in physical pain. In most instances, when one has sharp damage, which will lead to severe physical pain, the mind can never function as expected, on the same note, Cahalan could not concentrate on her daily duty of news reporting because of the pain.

Similarly, the doctors who were performing several diagnoses were straining both day and night to come up with a recommended result. All these could not yield fruit if at all, they had a physical injury leading to pain. They were never spending the rest of the day as well as a night in a comfort zone. However, they were in the laboratory, hospitals engaging in scientific research. Achieving these successes with physical pain even when mental health is robust could hardly work. Doing the actual test requires the body parts, which coincides with the mind to do the right thing and even analyze the correct readings from the medical apparatus (Easton & Chapman, 2017).

Nevertheless, the mental strength cannot outweigh the physical pain more so those which lead to chronic disorders. Physical pain can manifest and even interfere with the mental stability of the most patient. The same will interferes with learning, concentration as well as coordination of different parts of the body. The location where the injury exists in the human body is essential as much as emotional responses are concerned. When there is an injury in sensitive parts, for example, private locations, the mind will always concentrate there, resulting in the patient being uncomfortable (Archer et al., 2016). On the support of the criticality of the physical pain, its intensity gets enhanced by emotional or mental responses.

Conclusion

As far as the conclusion of this study is concerned, it is vital to acknowledge the fact that both mental strength and physical pain coordinate together. All two have a mutual relationship, but mental strength always acts as an engine of the human body. Everything that takes place in the body gets coordinated by the mind. It is for this reason that the stand of this paper is in favor of the mental strength, saying that it does outweigh the physical pain. The whole document does not dispel either side because for the mental strength to exist, the body should be stable without injury, and for the pain to get recognized, it all starts from the mental setup through various signals caused by different receptors of neurons. Finally, in all the activities or duties, be it the one done physically or mentally thinking, the body needs to be in a good health condition so as to accomplish both (Fominykh et al., 2018). It is depicted in the book written by Cahalan that she could not continue being a journalist when she had a mental health problem, and she had to seek medical attention from a group of neurologists.

References

Archer, K. R., Devin, C. J., Vanston, S. W., Koyama, T., Phillips, S. E., George, S. Z., ... & Wegener, S. T. (2016). Cognitive-behavioral-based physical therapy for patients with chronic pain undergoing lumbar spine surgery: a randomized controlled trial. The Journal of Pain, 17(1), 76-89. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4709178

Easton, A., & Chapman, P. (2017). Neurology or psychiatry-it's all in your head!. The Lancet Neurology, 16(2), 111. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(16)30388-X/fulltext

Fominykh, V. V., Frei, E. A., Brylev, L. V., & Gulyaeva, N. V. (2018). Autoimmune Encephalitis: A Disease of the 21st Century at the Crossroads of Neurology and Psychiatry. Neurochemical Journal, 12(4), 311-323. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329696712_Autoimmune_Encephalitis_A_Disease_of_the_21st_Century_at_the_Crossroads_of_Neurology_and_Psychiatry

Hu, M., & Hughes, T. A. (2019). Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan. Practical neurology, 19(2), 180-180. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388

Macdougall, H., O'Halloran, P., Sherry, E., & Shields, N. (2016). Needs and strengths of Australian para-athletes: identifying their subjective psychological, social, and physical health and well-being. The Sport Psychologist, 30(1), 1-12. https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/30/1/article-p1.xml

Ramirez, A., & Arbuckle, M. R. (2017). The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor: memory, madness, and more. Biological psychiatry, 82(1), e1-e3. https://www.nncionline.org/.../the-n-methyl-d-aspartate-receptor-memory-madness-and-more