Know Your Self E-Book

Staffan Garpebring

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 120

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

In the book, Staffan describes the process which led to his conception of an inter-subjective model within psychotherapy. He suggests how the model can be used as a psychological base of reference and psycho-education to be integrated in the clinical setting with teens and young adults with the goal of increasing awareness and understanding of their psychological health. Additionally, the process can be generally adopted in psychotherapeutical interventions and rehabilitation within the wider field of primary healthcare.

Leseprobe

Table of content

Preface

Introduction

Know yourself

Human interactions.

Therapeutic relationship.

Anxiety

Impact analysis.

FRAMES analysis

Adjustment of mental reflections

You and me.

Epilogue.

References.

Preface

Writing this book gave me the opportunity to process the experiences I gained working in a host of different settings including schools, within child psychiatry, habilitation, mental care of teens and young adults and primary health care facilities.

Three overarching themes are interwoven in the book:

1. Understanding personal feelings and actions.

2. Reviewing the history of psychology and psychotherapy.

3. Presentation of the modus operandi I use as a psychologist.

The aim of the book is to integrate certain aspects of object relation therapy and gestalt therapy in a behavioral science context. In other words, to describe a dynamic, systematic inter-subjective theory.

I will not address personality disorders in depth. The book is about connecting with oneself and understanding personal feelings in order to ensure an authentic interaction with others. In this book, I want to look at two new concepts: FRAMES-analysis and FRAMES-dissonance.

The ability to relate to others is a challenge and can vary in difficulty depending on how smooth or rocky our relationships in early life were.

The psychosomatic FRAMES-model:

The concept of FRAMES, which I outline in this book is intended to describe the dynamic interaction between body and soul within the cultural setting.

If Freud were alive today, he would surely concur that the “super-ego” is the instantiation within us of a moral code that is developed through our experience of ourselves within our own social environment. The super-ego has evolved through the interaction between our genetic make-up and how we perceive and react to the experiences we have within the particular cultural environment in which we live.

I imagine that Freud and I would have been in agreement that the “id” incorporates what we understand to be the body.

Furthermore, I suspect that we would have agreed that the “ego” is formed, to greater or lesser extent, of conscious mental reflections upon that which we concentrate our attention (selectively targeted attention). Conversely, this process banishes thoughts that we don’t focus on to the realms of the subconscious or may even render them totally unconscious.

After writing the original edition of this book with the Swedish title “Vetande om sig själv”, I listened to Yuval Harari’s Homo Deus (Swedish Audio Book).

Harari’s reasoning in his book, gave me solace in my conviction that humans, throughout their history, have created different concepts about morality, divinity and immortality, in order to find meaning and purpose in life.

Fictional concepts, that have been established and won a universal and incontrovertible measure of value in contemporary life, such as the suggested morals of the gods or the importance assigned to money as the embodiment of material value even though they are only pieces of paper or the binary code of cyber currency, have a great impact on human interaction, and in society at large, but only as long as the individuals that make up society believe in these ideas.

When people collectively adopt a belief system, those beliefs become a part of their inter-subjective reality.

Accordingly, the subjective reality must then be squared off with the objective reality that people truly experience.

These realities interact in a mutual dynamic process whereby people’s conceptual world must be brought to terms with their own perception of the extrinsic and intrinsic sensory impressions that they actually experience in everyday life.

Yuval Harari’s and my own book theoretecize about the concepts of consciousness and soul.

Special thanks to Joe Sinnott whose co-operation in translating this text from Swedish to English, has allowed me to find the right words to illustrate the functioning of the psyche as a dynamic system, involving both intra and inter-individual dimensions.

Introduction

While I was studying to become a psychologist, I never once remember my tutors relating to the word “soul”.

The soul is a central concept within theology and philosophy. Freud chose the Greek word psyche as a central tenet in his conception of a scientific doctrine about the soul and a constituent part of his framework for therapeutic discussion.

The concept of FRAMES, which I outline in this book is intended to describe the dynamic interaction between body, soul and culture.

Professor Yuval Harari’s reasoning in his book gave me solace in my conviction that humans have created abstract concepts about divinity and morality in order to find meaning and purpose in life.

The cognitive advances made by homo sapiens during their evolution made it possible for them to come to agreement on and communicate ever more abstract concepts about earlier generations and divinities.

This provided an ideal environment for the proliferation of inter-subjective networks, i.e.,means of socializing within particular cultural circumstances.

Towns and kingdoms, social classes, religious celebrations and ceremonies, sub-cultures and widespread cultural systems developed.

People could discuss, in subjectively recognizable and relatable terms, the abstract concepts of the morals and divine powers of the gods.

Trade and commerce necessitated the development of pictorial and written symbols capable of relating abstract thoughts in a manner that could be understood by all.

Fictitious concepts allowing us to assign value to implicitly worthless materials such as coins and notes or to the binary code of computers to represent value as digital currency, show us how contemporary man believes in and accepts as irrefutable, these inter-subjective realities in their dealings with each other.

Inter-subjective realities (sub-cultures and generally pervasive cultures) within the societal institutions, religion, politics, economy, social media and so on, influence people’s inter-subjective interactions. They influence people’s interactions irrespective of how aware, or not, these individuals are of those abstract beliefs that prevail in the culture to which they belong.

Inter-subjective realities (opinions and moral values), that are predominantly confirmed and consolidated in spoken language, choice of words, mimicry and tone of voice, have a great influence, not only on our inter-personal relationships but even on our constitutional make-up (intra-personally).

People’s inter-subjective realities can present in a wide variety of individual forms.

Both Yuval Harari’s book and this book, philosophize about the abstract concept of the soul from various vantage points.

As a psychologist, I have found it to be a considerable challenge to reconcile the difference between the introverted perspective of the soul prevalent within object relations theory and the more observational, extroverted perspective within psychotherapy.

The soul, the essence of being, is itself an abstraction of the wholeness of what we are as human-beings; our thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions in given circumstances. That wholeness includes both our own experience from within ourselves as well as the external perspective of others.

The body and soul are inseparable. They are mutually inter-dependent and experienced in unison.

The body including the brain is the concrete, basic requirement for the soul to exist in our earthly lives.

In this book, my ambition has been to problematize the fact that the soul, in many contexts, ever since René Descartes time, has been seen as a separate entity from the body and that it goes on after our corporal demise.

The body´s importance for the soul and our wellbeing is, alas, something that we are, more or less, oblivious to.

Similarly, we are inclined to be unaware of how our inter-subjective realities affect us.

To summarize regarding body and soul:

On one hand, our bodily functions can be subconscious.

On the other hand, the institutions of society, entertainment and advertisement branches, social groups, social media and political propaganda affect our psyche in varying degrees and we are, more or less, conscious of its effect on us.

A lack of consciousness about how our society works and of how our bodies work can be detrimental to our psychological well-being.

Our psyche is built to especially focus our attention on things that elicit strong feelings with us. In the context of social media, this increases the probability that we readily share content that pleases us or that evokes fear or feelings of hate within us. Psychological pain related to the body can be derived from all of the dynamics of FRAME-factors.

The brain can reflect on and process sensory input momentarily in a reflexive action but also in a slower more deliberate manner. The uniquely characteristic reaction that each individual manifests is formed by the emotional charge that is reflexively activated in the body in combination with intentional moral considerations that are imposed by enhanced activity within the frontal lobes.

Alluding to Freud, one might say that the “ego” acts as an intermediary between the “superego” which is predominantly situated in the frontal lobes and the more primitive “id” which resides in the basal ganglia.

We are constantly faced with the challenge of reconciling what we subjectively feel and believe (subjective reality), with what is objectively, factually true (objective reality).

There is a risk that we ”pull the wool over our own eyes” in an act of self-deception, despite it being obvious to any observing, objective third party that we are being contradictory and hypocritical.

Depending on the situation, due to the relative imbalance in strength between the component elements of the psyche; (using Freud’s terminology; the super-ego, the ego and the id), the interaction within the psyche and by extention our behavior may become irrational and inconsistent.

Brunswik ’s lense-model can be used as a tool to assess how we transform objective cues into subjective reality.

Using FRAME ’S terminology: Formation of external and internal sensory impressions; reactions within the body; reflections of mind; emotions and action, we can analyze the psyche in a different mode and contemplate on whether we achieve our goals or not.

I’m of the opinion that emotional experiences and self-consciousness are objectively dependent on the ability of the brain to form connections between outer and inner phenomena, reflect them and react to resultant hormone levels given the existent corporal neuronal hierarchies that are present in the body.

Psychological pain, in the context of the specific cultural environment we live in, such as feelings of guilt and/or experiences of physical or emotional offence may be due to our having insufficient empathy towards ourselves or others.

Know yourself

History professor, Yuval Harari, notes in his book, ”Homo Deus”, that the growing number of individuals in the burgeoning towns and kingdoms of the ancient farming communities, led to a relative anonymization of individuals when people could no longer know everyone in their communities.

The introduction of the taxation system in ancient Egypt around 2,500 BC, prompted the development of writing numbers and hieroglyphics as a precursor to the use of the written word.

This was gradually extrapolated into a system of written language which was harnessed to describe and retain the intergenerational narratives that emerged and were passed on, thus consolidating commonly held beliefs and ideas (inter-subjective realities). Accordingly, the prerequisite conditions for hierarchical co-operation on a grand scale with the formation of great armies and religious movements, were guaranteed.

On a personal level, intersubjective realities can vary immensely.

In my work at mental health clinics, I have always found it a rewarding experience to solve the psychological quandaries faced by youths, through creative therapeutic discussion.

A new pedagogical model, FRAMES-model, began to take shape in my mind during therapy sessions.

Given that every client is unique in their own right, I eventually realized, that I could count on the dependability of this model as a solid and reliable psychotherapeutic base (frame of reference).

I found it ideal in the application of the aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) along with elements from object relation theory.

In my practice, I used a combination of CBT, gestalt therapy and a theory of relations that I call systemic subject relation theory.

The frame of reference, FRAMES that I outline here has been invaluable for me in my work and I hope that more psychotherapists will discover the advantages it provides.

Allow me to start from the beginning.

Our sensory apparatus i.e. our five extracorporeal senses plus our intracorporeal senses: balance, proprioception and nerve impulses, all send impressions to our brains from the very beginning of life.

Ideally, the dynamic systems of nerve cell activation corresponding to the sensory impressions experienced in the brain of the new-born baby are consolidated in a calm and safe environment.

For example, the child may experience excitement when food is on its way or calm and contentment when it begins to satisfy its hunger.

The infant’s sensory apparatus is innately interconnected with the autonomous nervous system allowing sympathetic reflexes (higher pulse due to excitement) and parasympathetic reflexes (lower pulse due to peace and contentment).

Cerebral neuronal activity may be present as a response to the infant’s experience of its own and its mother´s body, feelings of longing for its mother, stomach ache or other sensory impressions.

The new-born will show its discontent regardless of whether it is due to intracorporeal conditions (hunger, ache etc.) or extracorporeal disturbances (loud noises, cold etc.).

Patterns of recognition of perceived stimuli develop in the brain of the infant and, through repetition, are consolidated as “experience”.

The repeated activation of specific neuronal pathways in response to diverse stimuli eventually establish an extensive network of neuronal associations between different visual, linguistic, emotional, memory and executive functions in the brain.

During youth, association pathways that are not reactivated recede. Accordingly, the initial associations that were established in infancy are likely to make the greatest impression on how we interact with others later on in life.

The infant gradually learns to be aware of repetitive patterns that it perceives and subsequent feelings it has when it interacts with its carer, its relation object. (Mother and child are mutually forming an inter-subject reality).

The mother’s state of mind is inclined to be mirrored in the child.

Primitive mental reflections gradually start to develop in the sensorimotor activity of the child.

If you shake a little tinker-bell behind a child’s ear and the child turns its head to see and hear it, the child shows that it has heard the bell and reacted physically to the sensory stimulus.

Evolutionary requirements have necessitated that infants are born with a grasp reflex in order to hold on to their mother.

However, the child has to learn to inhibit the grasp reflex in order to refine the motor co-ordination in its hand so that it can learn to examine, grasp and let go of objects.

Gradually, voluntary motor function and focused attention develop.