Ataraxia: When There Is Nothing That Affects Us Emotionally
The term ataraxia It has its roots in ancient Greek, and means lack of disturbance.
It makes sense that a word was used to designate something so specific, since in Greece at the time of Plato, Aristotle and Alexander the Great there were philosophical schools that claimed our ability to not let anything affect us. The Stoics and Epicureans, for example, practiced a renunciation of great desires and impulses linked to easy sources of pleasure, something that compared them to monks of Eastern religions.
Ataraxia is, therefore, the absence of anxiety, anger or confusion. In other words, it usually materializes in the form of a tendency towards calm and imperturbability.
However, the concept of ataraxia goes beyond philosophy and religions, and has gained a place in the domains of mental health.
Sometimes, the appearance of ataraxia is not due to a voluntary effort to follow the precepts of a religion or philosophical doctrine, having gone through a phase of reflection on the subject. Many times, in fact, ataraxia makes an appearance in a totally unwanted and unexpected way, as a result of an accident that has caused damage to the brain.
And, although apparently the idea of not getting angry or sad may be attractive, ataraxia caused by injuries has serious consequences for the quality of life of those who experience it. Both their way of relating to others and their self-image radically change due to the fact that they involuntarily remain in a state of eternal imperturbability.
This may seem strange, but it is totally logical: our brain is not only the set of organs that makes consciousness, the ability to plan and think logically or the use of language possible, but it is also the basis of all the processes in which we live. that our emotional states are based on. That means that If certain parts of the human brain begin to fail, some aspects of our emotional life may be altered.while the rest of the functions of our way of being remain more or less unchanged.
Just as brain injuries cause only part of the brain to die and not all of it, what is altered after an accident of this type is only a (more or less important) part of our mental life. In the case of ataraxia, this may be due to failures in the way the limbic system interacts with the frontal lobe, responsible among other things for “buffering” the impact that our emotions have on our behavior in the short and medium term. .
In this way, it is very difficult for a stimulus to radically change the emotional state of a person who has this type of ataraxia; not because he has trained in certain meditation techniques, but because his brain circuits have begun to function abnormally.
What are people with medical ataraxia like?
Pathological ataraxia manifests itself through these main characteristics:
1. Tendency towards passivity
People with medical ataraxia They hardly take the initiative, and limit themselves to reacting to what happens around them..
2. Absence of the appearance of intense emotional states
Regardless of what the person wants, no anger or anxiety is experiencedbut there are no peak moments of joy either.
3. Unusual emotional stability
Because of the above, the person’s emotional state does not seem to depend on the environment: it always remains more or less the same.
4. Impossibility of frustration
The fact that events do not lead to the positive consequences that we were expecting does not produce frustration in the person.
5. Disappearance of the feeling of guilt
It is one of the most notable consequences of ataraxia due to injuries, at least from a moral and social point of view. The person with medical ataraxia she does not feel affected by the bad things that happen to herbut he also does not react when seeing how his actions can harm others.
By way of conclusion
Medical ataraxia is the mirror image of what philosophical ataraxia would be like taken to the extreme.. Not only does it worsen the quality of life of those who experience it, but it also makes it difficult to establish correct communication and emotional ties with others.
