[socially inept]

The child, named Maya, escaped with only superficial wounds after the attack near the town of Brackendale, 40 miles north of the western city of Vancouver.

But the cougar, an adult male, was tracked down and killed by conservation officers on Wednesday, reports said.

The girl's father Pablo Espinosa told public broadcaster CBC that his daughter thought the wild cat wanted to play.

Maya asked: "Why didn't the kitty play nice?" Mr Espinosa said.

The girl and her mother Maureen Lee were walking on a wooded trail with their dog when the cougar pounced.

"All of a sudden it just flew on her, rolled her a couple of times and grabbed her," Ms Lee told CBC.

"She was on her back and (the cougar) had his paws on her head, and I just knew I had to react quick.

"So I just jumped in there and wedged myself between the cougar and her on the ground."

Maureen said she then threw the big cat off her back, grabbed her daughter and ran.

Maya suffered puncture wounds to her left arm and head, but was reportedly recovering well.

Conservation officers used dogs to track down several cougars in the area after more than 30 encounters with the big cats were reported in the past 10 days, CBC said.

*WHAT HAS THIS COUGAR ATTACK GOT TO DO WITH SOCIAL ANXIETY I HEAR YOU ALL SAY

well what that article about the cougar attack tells me is that social anxiety can 100% be cured.

why i hear you say. well read it again and see if you can spot why

did you notice the bit were the father sed that his daughter thought that the wild cat wanted to play?

why did the kid think that the cat wanted to play ? because see didnt have an INTERNAL REPRESENTATION for a cougar before that experience.

what is an internal representation ? let me explain

*there is no fixed meaning to reality only the meaning that you bring to it. reality is what you make it and reality can be completely different for one person than it is for another

10 people can experience the exact same event and they can all react cmpletely differently to it. if there ws a fixed meaning to reality then every single person would react the same as each other just like robots
an example is a social event. a normal person can experience the exact same event s a social phobic but he normal person will be the life and soul of th party whilst the phobic may sit tense in the corner or even flee the sitaution. the normal person will feel great, have a head full of positive thoughts were as a phobic will be anxious and focusing on the worst case scenario

an internal representation is a represenation of reality. its your own version of reality inside your head (hence internal). its the internal meaning that you have given to the external event/reality

to do anything in life, to produce any kind of behaviour yuo first need an internal represention to create that behaviour

when we are born we do not hae internal representations for anything. a kid does not know the meaning of an event which involves a cougar. (steve irwin is calm around crocs were as most people would freak out . why ? cos steve has a different internal representation for crocs than most people do)

becasue the kid does not have a represention of this event it doesnt realize their is a threat. now though after being attacked the id has created an inernal representation for this event and will certaintly be wary around cugars int he future

here is how an internal representation works :

*the mind is split into 2 parts - subconious and concious. the subconcious is extremly powerful were as the concious is extremely limited. the subconcious stores memories, runs internal organs etc... . the concious mind can only handle about 7 bits of info at once. the subconcious can process millins of bits of info every second

we percieve reality through the 5 senses. now their is millions of info coming in through the 5 sense evry second therefore ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO PERCIEVE REALITY cos the concious mind can only handle 7 bits of info. becaus of this we have to FILTER REALITY. we do this with the subconcious mind. the subconcious mind filters reality by deleting, distorting and generalizing the th info ,coming in through the 5 senses, through our beleifs, values and memories.

once the filtering process is done (which takes a milissecond) the concious mind is left with the result of the filtering - the internl representation of reality

the internal representation consists of :

*automatic thoughts (including pictures, words)
*perception (were our focus and attention is - what we notice)

the internal representation will create a physiology (e.g body posture) which will then create a state e.g anxious, happy , sad etc...

and the state produces the behaviour

*now the kid did not have an I.R for the cougar cos he had no memories or beleifs about cougars. when the cougar appraoched the kids mind probably produces the i.r for cats or dogs (cos it would have generalized ) so she though it wanted to play

when we were born we did not have any i.r's for socilizing. we created our i.r's throughout our life.

from age 0-7 is called the imprit period. this is were a childs mind is subconciously focused. their mind is like a sponge. they learn to speak without being taughtcs their mind is like a sponge.

meanings of reality get installed in a childs mind extremly easily by :

*experience. a child can experience an event and give meaing to it by creating a beleif
*modelling - a child can create an i.r by simply modelling people around them
*beng taught by others. the childs parents could have created an i.r in the childs mind before the event by simply showing the child a picture of a cougar and saying ''oo be careful around these . they are dangeous

*SO TO SUM UP SOCIAL ANXIETY IS CREATED BY US FILTERING REALITY. WE DID NOT HAVE THESE I.R'S WHEN WE WERE BORN THEREFRE THEY ARE NOT PART OF US. THEY ARE UNLEARNT AND WE CAN LEARN THE SAME I.R'S FOR SOCIALIZING THAT NORMAL PEOPLE HAVE

 

[bobthebuilder]

well what that article about the cougar attack tells me is that social anxiety can 100% be cured.

At best you proved why we have SA. In fact, that story could suggest that SA, or really any mental issue, cannot be solved because the girl still wasnt scared of the cougar after the attack, suggesting she did not learn from her experience.

 

[hiimnotcool]

At best you proved why we have SA. In fact, that story could suggest that SA, or really any mental issue, cannot be solved because the girl still wasnt scared of the cougar after the attack, suggesting she did not learn from her experience.

Really good point. Though I did really enjoy reading what the OP said. It was great food for thought, but there's always two sides to the story. When I heard this story my first thought was what I would have done in a situation like this. The example came to mind of my niece getting attacked by a cougar--I decided I would let it eat her.

LOL jk. I felt my muscles tensing up because I know I would fight until death. Though the image of a bat being bashed over the cougars spine was vividly painted in my mind.

 

[Conquistador]

You mean they killed the poor cougar? It barely scratched that girl! It probably WAS just playing! How sad.

 

[UKPhobe]

At best you proved why we have SA. In fact, that story could suggest that SA, or really any mental issue, cannot be solved because the girl still wasnt scared of the cougar after the attack, suggesting she did not learn from her experience.

I think what David's trying to get at is that this girl perceived the attack as the animal just wanting to play, another person might perceive it as a life threatening situation and be horribly traumatised by it.

Mental illness for all intense and purposes is largely about perception, an SA sufferer perceives socialising as a possible threat and the danger that he/she will be criticised or have his/her negative belief confirmed. In this sort of situation we'd more likely be talking about PTSD rather then SA if the girl had been badly affected but it does highlight why some people develop these problems!

 

[socially inept]

At best you proved why we have SA. In fact, that story could suggest that SA, or really any mental issue, cannot be solved because the girl still wasnt scared of the cougar after the attack, suggesting she did not learn from her experience.

what are you talking about ?

who sed the girl wasnt scared after the attack

 

[socially inept]

ky point is tha there is no fixed meaning to a social event. a social evnt can be anything you want it to be , it can be scary, fun, entertaining, threatening , anything you want it to be .

you have SA cos you have gave a faulty meaning to social situations. you was not born with those meaning (at least not everyone was) thereforethey are just things that you have learnt.

if someone else has a different internal representation for socializing thn you have then that means that you can change your faulty one and adoptthe same one as them. if somebody else does not suffer with SA then that means its possible for you not to sufferfrom it if you want

 

[socially inept]

personally i love cougars though. not the wild animals but the 40 year old woman who go after younger guys