psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

, transmarginal inhibition, or TMI, is an organism's response to overwhelming stimuli.

Research

Ivan Pavlov Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( rus, Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов, , p=ɪˈvan pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈpavləf, a=Ru-Ivan_Petrovich_Pavlov.ogg; 27 February 1936), was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist, psychologist and physiol ...

enumerated details of TMI on his work of

conditioning Conditioning may refer to: Science, computing, and technology * Air conditioning, the removal of heat from indoor air for thermal comfort ** Automobile air conditioning, air conditioning in a vehicle ** Ice storage air conditioning, air condition ...

animals to pain. He found that organisms had different levels of tolerance. He commented "that the most basic inherited difference among people was how soon they reached this shutdown point and that the quick-to-shut-down have a fundamentally different type of nervous system." Patients who have reached this shutdown point often become socially dysfunctional or develop one of several

personality disorder Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's culture ...

s. Often patients who dissociate during and after the experience, will more easily dissociate or shut down during stressful or painful experiences, and may experience

post traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a ...

for the remainder of their lives.

Stages

There are three stages passed through for state of TMI to be reached. #''equivalent phase'': when the response matches the stimuli, which is considered the normal baseline behavior. #''paradoxical phase'': associated with ''quantity reversal'', occurs when small stimuli receive major responses and major stimuli elicit small responses. #''ultra-paradoxical'': the final stage, associated with ''quality reversal'' in which negative stimulation results in positive responses and vice versa.Transmarginal Inhibition
/ref> Additional research on these phases was done by

William Sargant William Walters Sargant (24 April 1907 – 27 August 1988) was a British psychiatrist who is remembered for the evangelical zeal with which he promoted treatments such as psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment, electroconvulsive therapy and insu ...

in his work on

shell-shock Shell shock is a term coined in World War I by the British psychologist Charles Samuel Myers to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) many soldiers were afflicted with during the war (before PTSD was termed). It is a react ...

ed servicemen. An organism can progress through these stages by increased stimulation, random negative stimulation, reversing positive and negative stimulation, or physically debilitating the organism. As observed by Pavlov, tolerance of stimulation varies greatly between individuals. Highly sensitive persons may be overstimulated by the loud volumes in a movie theater or the background confusion of a large social gathering. Other individuals will find those same stimulations as ideal stimulation levels, or even understimulating.

Use in mental conditioning

The ''sudden conversion'' methods of mental conditioning rely heavily on TMI. Of the ten elements of control (environment control, physical fatigue, mental fatigue, tension or uncertainty, confession, superstimulation, crisis, euphoria, proselytization, and restimulation), six can be seen as stimulation toward TMI.

References

{{reflist Psychological stress Pain Perception