each of us creates a coherent account of the jumble often fragmentary chaos. we are bombarded with positive stimuli from any one of which can become meaningful at any given stents. over time, for all of us, searching characters and experiences emotions sensual. others who are tangential, soon to be forgotten. stone didion summed it up well in a few words. we tell ourselves stories in order to live. we've become captured and we need to make sense out of our world. is there freedom from cap share questionnaire can literally switch and see the entire stage,

every trapdoor and spike and rafter for what it is? in the most basic sense, the answer is no. attention is by its very nature selective and self reinforcing. our environment, each of our environments, each of our own personal experience or history. the acting nations we find ourselves and find ourselves in, the physical dictates what becomes salient forums, patterns that determine how we experience the world and ultimately who we become. the important part, we may not be able to will that captures us, but we captures us can change. changing the very match. [applause]

[inaudible] [inaudible] -- therapies like ddp and cpt would not be therapeutic or helpful in light of being captured. so, i would like to hear what you think about those modalities as a possible therapy. >> there's been many different schools of psychotherapy, many different tools. when you look at what is the core of all time anything is to change how i respond to a certain stimulus. and it gives me tools. again, i can't will it.

i think i can put myself in position to be able to have at least a chance at becoming captured by something else. cognitive behavioral therapy you think certainly. changing how i perceive my world. dvt, the ability to change how i react emotionally. we tend to think about them for certain disorders. this one works, that one works. they really about critical perception of chefs. they are trying to find some relief. one of the psychotherapist i talked to him about, a young psychotherapist, really summed it up for me when we were talking about freedom. she was feeling comfortable with freedom from captures.

i don't think any of the escape freedom from cap share. but i think she focused very much on release. and again, no doubt it is hard work. but it's one of the most essential tools that we have. >> at evening, dr. kessler. first of upcoming thank you for your service to your country. >> thank you. [applause] i have a particular question for you that has to do with the children that are particular organization stairs, which are the 1.5 million very young children, six to 17 who are incarcerated for juvenile crime. and we've investigated what

leads them to the site to the days and what can get them out. i'm particularly interested in your thoughts on the developmental stage of adolescence. i don't do the work because that culture mistake. i do it because the kids are fascinating and because of their altruism and loyalty that can connect to that stage. and i wonder if you have comments about that. >> absolutely. they are enormously insightful point about that stage. there's a section and i didn't expect to go there. i really wanted to focus on mental distress and mental suffering and oppression in a society and ocd and eating disorders. they have it all. but i ended up looking at a number of pieces in the book. i was straw man.

you will remember i was struck. i watched the entire trial of james holmes. i was the aurora theatre nurse scientist phd student dressed up as batman and killed dozens of people and overwrought, colorado. and what struck me, you know, tony know, 22, 23 by the time he commits that act. you go back and try to understand how these are built over the 22 years of his life. ph of the 13, he says they start having these theory that ties. i started thinking about hurting myself. i started thinking about hurting someone else. and he asks, why didn't you seek

help? he says they couldn't. if a date, if i told people i was having these that i do know is in essence captured by these thoughts, we all have, my parents would view me as bad. and you just sit there and listen to that end you listen to that as a therapist and hsa, you just wish you could've interceded unaffected this young man had gotten him the appropriate mental health care. but to explain to him and this is what i think is anything that i could emphasize in the last number of years is that people who suffer? they are not wrote in.

send your tremendous and things that make it to excuse it. but there is a continuum. if i told you, if i say to you on this planet they smirk and his son and that species have the ability to think and act rationally, but the ability to be cap captured by stimuli and to focus and those stimuli are going to affect how the species field. that's the way the people are deciding. i say to you, she just did that biologically. what would you expect the world to look like? what would you expect people to be captured by? there's a whole range of thing and captured by spiritual experiences. some are going to be captured by a shot of others, buy drugs.

if you want to capture, you don't have to go very much further than just looking at the world around us. but certainly, the goal, if they need is to be able to explain to people what's going on because that family is the first step. >> you talk about the narrow logical basis. what kind of hard evidence do you have two go along with these phenomena ran a special cases? >> said this about 120 pages of the notes. i'm happy to go through that because what is important is, i mean, very scientific methodologies. this mris. increasingly when you look at

the narrow logical literature coming out biological literature come you see the importance of salient range of disorders and you can attentional capture and effect of response. just go back to your basic narrow biology because they may theory has to be able to be explained in terms of how there are's work. so what can the runs do? ignorance fire and they couldn't fire preferentially. the preferential fire he can in fact be strengthened so that in fact narrow staircase respond to certain stimuli over other stimuli. so when you realize that is intentional capture the menu look for specific evidence of a range of disorders.

the words looked across the board. look at the literature in each and every disease condition. i think if i'm increasing evidence whether it's a depression or mania or anxiety or accession with -- obsession. >> type air. so i was wondering i guess this sort of the release of the latest and it seems like diagnosable disorders are becoming sorted more and more granular and the sort of afflictions that are considered pathology. i was wondering how your underlying theory with bad kindness, i don't know, guide the development of treatment of disorders today i guess for what

direction you see that changing research. >> i think that dsm has been very helpful in categorizing certain conditions. in giving people some sense of which categories, which treatments could apply. what it's failed that is the underlying ideology. i think most people understand that there's value in that, but they're really asking what's going on. the more we learn, the more we will come to understand that it's not specific or transmitters. yes, they can play a role in this disorder, panic disorder. but to unta