Yes, learning does result in brain changes and even increasing brain abilities, all we have to do is study children with pasts that are both good and bad. But we cannot discount the fact that it can cause disabilities as well, very important.

If someone is having trouble in college and doesn't make the grade, oh no, my parents will be so angry, what has been learned? What has been learned is that for that person to feel good or bad, it is up to the parents, not the child. And that can lend itself to a person having trouble because they feel that in order for them to feel good they must wait for approval by others, friends, co-workers, teachers, bosses, and still the parent.

Venus, what you are describing about your travels and cheezy hotels and all the other things you mention. What if that was taught to be the "IN, ACCEPTED, COOL WAY TO TRAVEL AND LEARN?" The way you have describe it was more of a tramatic or even loathsome way to travel and learn and see the world around you. What is your own PERCEPTION of this experience?
I think that a better way of looking at it is that you were incredibly resourseful and you did do it, dam girl, good for you. Those others that have depression as a fad, I don't think they could do that do you? You are the better, but for some reason, you do not see that. So in effect you feel deprived in your learning, that should not be the case. What you did was venture and learn, you did not deprive yourself, your only percieving that, unknowingly, learned behavior. You have an anger for this, should not be there, you should be rewarding yourself, not with anger but with the fact that you did it, you were resourseful.

And I think that as Paulos addresses his own life and experiences he doesn't quite address this, however it is addressed, just not exactly pointed out by him. His focus was more on how he proceeded in life and was kept from using the Mental institution for an escape. But what pre-empted that escape, what was the psychie there?

In the end he talked about his father appologizing to him and feeling true regret. He was lucky to be validated not only by finally pursueing his own dream, but by his fathers recognition of error. A lifetime for this to occur, but he was lucky, others live out their lives and do not have that happen.

I understood what Paulos was saying about not using the Mental institutions for and excuse to avoid life. But as the brain changes with knowlege, hello, it starts very young.

When Venus mentions that group that felt depression was something that was cool, a fad, acceptable excuse to refrain from actively persuing life. Perhaps that was learned too. Maybe by parents, maybe by others, society. If one is so rich, life is just a vacation and viewing pain in others is the depression of having to see it. Or obviously the depression is addressing the fact that these people have enough comforts that there is no need to work at growth, so instead of feeling guilty, lets just say we are too depressed to be productive, we never really learned how to do that anyway.

I cannot discount the fact that a young man who engages in war goes through and extreme change of heightened awareness and experiencing the real consequences of actually participating in battle. No longer is it in a movie or just a book with pictures, it is real and it is about being pursued, someone is going to take your life, you have to take another life in order to either survive or win a battle. The brain learns something in that process and it has proven to be a life long struggle to adjust to that experience.

And patchyderm is right, this can happen in a domestic situation as well.
And there too, it can lend to a life long struggle to adjust to that as well.

Open Eyes