Systems Models Provide a View of Psychological Self-Organization
Edward J. Reese, MSW, ACSW, DCSW, LCSW Dr. Miriam R. Tausner
Maryann Reese,
MA, LMFT
Southern
Summary
Chaos
theory has given us a way of looking at psychological patterns and
understanding their variations. If we
view a persistent psychological state as an attractor state on the
psychological landscape, we see that creating and stabilizing new attractor
states and destabilizing old attractor states can lead to new (and hopefully
healthier) psychological self-organization.
In
this paper we discuss the therapeutic approaches of Edward J. Reese and Maryann
Reese in this light. We look at
attractor states as experiential states with possible visual, auditory,
kinesthetic, gustatory, and olfactory components. We discuss energy in the form of triggers
which repel humans from old attractor states and propel them into new attractor
states. Since these are attractor states
on the psychological landscape, we can usefully model them as having depth and
width. Reinforcing or weakening a state can
be modeled as changing its depth and/or width.
The
power of these general systems models are continually being validated as we
apply them in this way. In this paper,
we discuss the approach taken by the Reeses using these models and provide some
examples.
Keywords : Brief therapy paradigms, self-organization, Basins of Attraction
1. How We Developed the Model
Sigmund
Freud, the father of psychotherapy, based his theory on searching the patient’s
past until they gained the necessary insight to make changes in their present
day situations. This usually meant
seeing a therapist 3 to 5 times a week for 3 to 7 years. In the 60s, 70s, 80s new fields of
psychotherapy, offering brief therapy approaches, began to emerge. Among these therapies were Solution Oriented
Therapy, Ericksonian Hypnotherapy, Transactional Analysis, Rational Emotive
Therapy, Reality Therapy, Gestalt and Neuro Linguistic Programming, Eye
Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and Thought Field Therapy.
Most of these therapies concentrated on solving past problems or sought to develop solutions that would work in the future. In almost every occasion each of these therapies provided an “either/or” or an illusion of alternatives approach to the therapeutic problems. Either you worked on changing the past that in turn would change the future, or, you worked towards developing new ways to handle the past problem in the future.
In the model of change that will be presented in this paper we will base our hypothesis on the premise that you need to destabilize past negative events while creating a stable positive future psychological state. It is further hypothesized that many of the past failures in psychotherapy have occurred because the therapist’s attention was directed either at the past or the future without the realization that change needed to occur in working with both together.
Edward J, and Maryann Reese first became aware of this phenomenon when they were asked to participate in a research project at Florida State University in 1995 which was conducted to identify the active ingredient in brief therapy approaches to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients (Wylie, July/August 1996, pp.21-37). The Reeses were invited because they were recognized as experts using the Neuro Linguistic Programming model to treat this type of patient. Four different models were used to treat patients who were solicited from the greater university community. The patients were given pre and post behavior and psychological tests to measure the amount of change that took place in two to four sessions each lasting one or two hours. The four models of therapy were Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Thought Field Therapy (TFT), and Traumatic Incidence Reduction (TIR). The results of the study were that all four models had a significant positive effect on the patient. Many of the clients reported that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms had gone completely or had significantly changed, both immediately after the therapy and at a sixth month follow-up study.
In the rest of this section of the paper we describe how the Reeses came to form their own model of human psychological change starting from their participation in the research project just described. Therefore when the term “we” is used throughout this section, it refers to the experiences of Ed and Maryann Reese.
Following the study much academic dialogue was exchanged over the internet as to what the active ingredient was in these four models. We found that much of what was discussed was too theoretical and would not provide a model which could be used in an applied way for effecting change. One of the reasons we agreed to become involved in the study was because of our long-standing interest in trauma and phobia work. We were already curing phobias in one hour or less and treating many victims of trauma in short periods of time and relieving the victims of many of their symptoms. What surprised us and humbled us was that the other three disciplines also got many of the same results. Therefore, we felt it was imperative to see if we could find the active ingredient in all four models.
At
this period of time we met Mark Furman who was a participant in one of our
training groups. He introduced us to the
fields of Neuro Synaptic Remodelling ™, Chaos, and Self-Organization
theory. After much dialogue and
discussion with Robert Orchard, Ph.D., and Miriam Tausner, Ph.D., and others in
the therapeutic fields, we developed the hypothesis that all of the above
models (and probably every therapeutic intervention that works) provide a
pattern interruption in the auditory, visual, kinesthetic (ie. tactual or
visceral), olfactory, and/or gustatory systems.
This was just the tip of the iceberg in developing our model of what is
happening in the human psychological system.
We noted that, in the NLP model, having the individual see the original traumatic event on an imaginary screen in front of them disrupts the visual system, which creates a visual disassociation of the event creating a different perceptual representation of the event. The EMDR model has the individual hold a visual representation of their negative state and then follow the therapist’s rapid hand movements with their eyes, again creating a pattern interruption of the original visual memory. TFT created by Roger Callahan utilizes physical tapping of acupuncture points by the patient, eye movement changes such as rolling the eyes to the left and right, looking up and down, internal and external dialog – all to perturb the original negative event. Unfortunately we are not familiar enough with TIR to explain what is occurring when that model is used.
Each of the above therapies has many more components to their model than just pattern interruption but for the purposes of this paper we are concentrating on the component that we see as similar. We now hypothesize that pattern interruption perturbs the old neural net which has been storing the traumatic and phobic material.
In referencing research on learning done by Edelman (Edelman, 1992), Jensen explains:
There are “ ’maps’ all over
the brain . . . [which] talk to each other.
They are referred to as neural networks.
The more connected they are to each other the greater the ‘meaning’ you
derive from the learning. Each of these may have from 50-100,000 neurons in
them.”(Jensen, 1996, p.11)
Coincidental with developing this new insight about pattern interruption, one of the authors was reading Chaos, Making a New Science, by James Gleick (Gleick, 1987), which allowed us to look at the phenomenon of pattern interruption in a new light. This led us to The Essence of Chaos by Edward Lorenz, the meteorologist who first noticed sensitive dependence on initial conditions in the early 1960’s and named it “the butterfly effect,” because it implies that a butterfly fluttering in the Amazon can eventually alter the path of a tornado in Texas. (Lorenz, 1963). Sensitive dependence on initial conditions began to explain to us how a very small perturbation or pattern interruption is capable of destabilizing a traumatic or phobic neural net. This opened the door to understanding how change itself occurs in psychological states which has never been explained to the authors’ satisfaction by traditional psychological methodologies. This doorway also led us to look at self-organization of non-linear dynamic systems.
Our investigation has led us to search for a broader picture. How did these perturbations fit into a larger model? This led us to the broader model of self-organization theory, which would help us understand what is happening in the human psychological system.
We now see that self-organization provides a rich source for generative and ecological applications of system thinking by placing the source for the change within the individual. Order in interconnected systems of elements arises around psychological states which are called attractors and create an attractor landscape containing basins of attraction. We see that creating and stabilizing new attractor states and destabilizing old attractor states can lead to new (and hopefully healthier) psychological self-organization.
2. Basins of Attraction
Our model of self-organization is based on the concept of basins of attraction. We believe this is a useful metaphor to visually represent experiential states. Thelen and Smith refer to these as “wells” (Thelen, 1994, p.60). Our understanding is that a powerful emotional psychological experience forms an attractor around which a basin is formed. Another way to look at this is to think of the development of a neural net that forms when a person repeatedly experiences a traumatic situation. The attractor is the internal representation of the original experience. When somebody is propelled into a basin, it puts them back into that original emotional experience. We hypothesize that a basin might be formed by one or more interacting neural nets. Since neural nets are capable of adapting and changing we therefore suggest that basins of attraction have the same capability.
When we consider basins of attraction, we must consider their depth and width. The depth is determined by the intensity of the emotional experience and the width by the number of reference points. A reference point is an event that reinforces the attractor or original experience. For example, in a trauma such a Hurricane Andrew which occurred in Miami, Florida in the 1990’s, people who were exposed to the storm developed a very strong attractor state. Many, many people had tornadoes rip off their roofs, walls collapsed, no electricity, trees falling down, leaves stripped from the branches, windows shattered etc, to form a basin of attraction. This emotional psychological trauma formed an attractor state with a very deep wide basin of attraction.
Figure 1: Attractor State for Hurricane Andrew
As many of these individuals walked through their daily lives long after the event occurred, they re-experienced the traumatic situation. In our model we suggest that these individuals are propelled into a Hurricane Andrew basin of attraction. The smell of burning candles at a dinner, the sound of wind in a musical composition, the breaking of glass in the kitchen or any other phenomenon that was experienced in the original event propels them back into the basin. They will experience all of the emotional and physical sensations that they experienced during the actual hurricane.
Figure 2: Reference Points in Hurricane Andrew Basin
Let us give another example of basin size. One of the authors was visiting Monet’s garden in Giverny, France and had a powerful emotional experience while walking through his home and gardens. This formed a deep positive basin of attraction. Since then if the author is in a garden and comes across a similar flower as in Monet’s Garden she gets pushed back into this basin and re-experiences this joy.
If it were the case that only seeing one particular type of flower would put her back in this basin, then it would be a narrow basin. On the other hand it is actually the case that there are many different reference points that put her back into the basin. When she sees any one of many different flowers, Monet’s paintings, interior decorating designs or even the same colors of blue and yellow, she is propelled into a wide basin.
Recently while doing a seminar in Argentina a young women was brought into a seminar that the Reeses were conducting. It was obvious that she was experiencing a good deal of physical discomfort since she was supported by two people and was hyperventilating. When we inquired as to why she was in the seminar her friend who was a translator explained that the woman had gone to a store which was closed and that she had been attacked by a man who stabbed her with a pocket knife multiple times in the breast while trying to remove a gold chain from around her neck. A passerby drove the attacker off and called an ambulance. She was treated and released that night. The event was extremely threatening and traumatic to the woman as represented in first basin in Figure 3.
A few days later the woman went out to go shopping. As she got to the store she encountered a man of approximately the same size as her attacker, and she fell back into the basin and immediately began to re-experience the emotional attractor state. The following day she again went out and got half way down the block and noticed a woman who was approximately the same size as the attacker and again experienced her traumatic feelings and returned home.
The following day as she opened the door and looked outside the panic returned and she fell back into her basin and she stayed inside. At that point she refused to go out and had all of her groceries and purchases delivered for approximately six months.
The
following diagrams of the basin represents the dramatic increase in depth and
width with each reference point. It
should be noted during the course of work with this woman it was discovered
that the attacker had had on a green jacket and where she lived in Buenos Aires
she overlooked a large park that had green vegetation. Therefore opening the door and looking
outside had propelled her back into the basin. The trauma generalized to many
reference points and widened the basin to the point that she was completely
incapacitated.
Original
Attack Basin Seeing
people resembling original attacker Seeing
color green
Figure 3:
Trauma Experience
3. Movement in
Attractor Landscapes
In
the Structure of Scientific Paradigms,
Thomas Kuhn argues that we have to either go into chaos and confusion first or
“nibble” at the idea over time until we have built up a new paradigm (Jensen,
1996, p.167). Prigogine says that the
brain is designed for chaos. He says, “Instability creates purposeful activity
and direction.”(Jensen, 1996, p. 166)
The
above points of view provide a very high level model of how paradigm shifts and
new learning occur. We will be
developing a more refined model of change that we have found practical and easy
to apply. We envision a landscape of basins of attraction connected by intermediate
unstable states (Figure 4)
Figure
4 Landscape of Basins of Attraction
People
move in and out of the attractor state basins as they experience and are
effected by their internal and external environments. Therefore we picture this
activity as human psychological systems moving through the landscape. In order to make these movements people have
to be propelled into and repelled out of these basins.
Thelen
refers to force used to move people in and out of basins as repellor forces as
shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5:
Thelen’s Wells
In
describing this Figure, Thelen writes:
“Stable and
unstable attractors. The stability of the attractor depicted as potential
wells. A, The ball on the top of the
hill has a lot of potential energy, and even a very small push will send it
down; it is a repellor. B, The ball
in the bottom of the steep hill requires a
large energy boost to send it over the top. If perturbed, it will quickly return to the
bottom. It is a stable attractor, C, This is a less stable situation.
Relatively small perturbations will push the ball around, although it will
prefer the deeper, left well. D, A
common behavioral system may have multi stability--several quasi-stable options
with the attractor basin.” (Thelen, 1995, p.60)
For
example, if an individual sees a car on fire, this is a stimulus which serves
as an input into the system. This visual external image is directed by
interacting neural nets leading towards a specific basin of attraction. This
visual external stimulus becomes a trigger to a pathway into a specific
basin. The notion of an external visual
trigger as well as other classes of triggers are described in Introducing NLP (O’Connor and Seymour,
1990).
Words
Visual Internal
Visual
External
Auditory
External
Figure
6: Triggers Leading Towards a Basin
In
traditional psychotherapy we consider change as the process of either
destabilizing a negative basin or establishing a positive basin. In our model
change occurs when we interrupt the triggers and destabilize the negative
basin, making the triggers lead to the new basin.
Destablized Stable
Basin Basin
Figure 7:
Destabilized and Stable Basin
As
we found in the Active Ingredient study at Florida State University, any number
of techniques can be utilized to destabilize the negative basin. Tapping, eye
movements, visual disassociation all act to do two things: one, they disrupt
the triggers, and two, they produce high levels of confusion and chaos. One example of a very brief interaction was a
story related to the Reeses by Milton H. Erickson, M.D. He was walking down a
street in Chicago on a very cold windy day at approximately 10 AM when he
bumped into a man walking towards him. Usually when someone bumps into you they
say “excuse me”. However, Erickson looked at his watch and said, ”It is 4 o
clock.” He reported that after walking a few blocks he turned to see the man standing perfectly still as if
frozen in time. Erickson had perturbed the normal state of walking and caused a
high level of chaos and confusion with his comment. Undoubtedly when the person came out of his
state of chaos, he either went back to basin of experience of walking or went
to a new basin and tried to figure out what just happened to him ( a problem
solving state).
The
Reeses often work with phobias and specifically the fear of flying (Reese,
1996). We have found that the basin for the fear of flying has a significant
number of reference points such as: loss of control, fear of turbulence, fear
of heights, fear not being able to breath, fear of take off or landing.
The
classes of triggers and specific examples of triggers that activate a basin are
shown in Table 1.
Table
1: Classes of Triggers
|
Class of triggers |
Examples of specific triggers |
|
Words |
Being
told you are going to take an airplane trip |
|
Visual
external |
Seeing
the airplane |
|
Visual
internal |
Internally
visualizing your airplane crashing |
|
Auditory
external |
Hearing
the news that a plane had crashed |
|
Auditory
internal |
Telling
yourself that you have to be careful |
|
Tonality |
Hearing
internal or external voices that are frightening |
|
Kinesthetic
external |
Feeling
the plane rising and falling in the turbulence |
|
Kinesthetic
internal |
Feeling
your stomach fall as the plane bounces in the turbulence |
|
Facial
expression |
Seeing
the flight attendant buckled in her seat with a look of concern on her face. |
|
Physiology |
As
the plane rises and falls holding on to the arm rest keeping yourself in the
seat |
|
Olfactory |
Smell
of the stale air |
|
Gustatory |
Taste
of airline food |
In
treating these phobias we verbally reframe each of these reference points and
their triggers. For example, most people with flying phobias have issues around
loss of control. We will ask them how many flights will they have to fly before
their statistical number is up. (Statistically the number is one in one million
five hundred thousand.) This statement
creates some chaos. To further create confusion we usually ask them to imagine
walking onto the plane (visual internal), look toward the pilot in the cockpit
(visual external), and say to themselves (auditory internal) “I am giving you,
who have over 3000 hours of training, control so that I can be in
control.” These techniques create
confusion as well as reframe the context of the triggers to push the person
into the new basin. We do this with each reference point in their negative
basin.
In
the new basin reference points are then reframed as shown in Table 2.
Table 2:
Reframing Some Reference Points for Flying Phobia
|
Old basin
reference point |
Reframe to
new basin |
|
Loss of control |
“ I am giving you control so that I can be in
control” |
|
Fear of taking off and landing |
Excitement |
|
Fear of heights |
Reframed to comfort of looking out the window |
|
Fear of not being able to breathe |
Reframed to breathing freely |
Another
way of viewing change is to imagine that as we are decreasing the depth and
width of the old basin while increasing the depth and width of the new basin.
Old Deep Negative New Shallow Old Shallow New Deep
Basin Basin
Negative Basin Basin
Figure
8: Decreasing Old Negative Basin While
Increasing New Positive Basin
Metaphorically
we can think about walking in a very dense jungle where the vegetation is
extremely thick and covers the ground.
As many adventurers walk down one path and chop through the branches,
break the twigs, and walk over the path, it is easy to walk through this path,
the human neural pathway. If we decide that we want to go in a different
direction in the jungle, once again it takes time to chop the branches, break
the twigs, and build a new pathway, our new neural pathway. As we go in the
different direction and turn to look back at the old path, it has grown back to
its original denseness. The old neural
pathway is harder to follow because the triggers send the individual into the
new basin.
In
conclusion, change in psychological states takes place by destabilizing
negative basins which involves reframing reference points and creating a new
positive basin, perturbing the pathway with confusion and chaos, and building
new pathways using the triggers to propel someone into the new positive basin.
This has to be done thoroughly so that the new basin can self-organize to
create a new wide and deep stable basin.
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