L3: Embodied sense making (SV nog niet af)

Question 1

the psychological self klein modelletje

Answer 1

messages from the others, constructions, narratives (Me) <-> first person experiental basis (I)

Question 2

the self as a dancer

Answer 2

• before the I starts to have a Me, there are already bodily movements and sensations.
• Affective experiences are always taking place within this context of a body that moves and is being moved.
• Therefore movement and affect seem a beautiful place to start when trying to grasp something of the development of the experiential basis of self.

Question 3

enactivism=

Answer 3

Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment.

Cognition is a fundemntally embodied and embedded form of action.

bv: dancing in a group can be regarded as a form of actively thinking by moving together.

Question 4

hoe staat enactivism tegenover dualism

Answer 4

In dualism: thinking on the one side (in the mind) and then moving on the other (in the world).
In enactivism: thinking and moving are integrated, can be regarded as the same thing

Question 5

➢ We evolved from common ancestors and share a huge amount of genes with them.
➢ They may provide models for what human bodies share with other animals that do not have the kind of symbolic structures we live in.
➢ This might give glimpses of non-cultural aspects of humans, although we have to be carefull.
➢ Many more types of experiments can be done with animals than with humans. Even if we are – as we should - strict on ethical boundaries of such experiments

Answer 5

oke

Question 6

de plek van embodied sense making in the natural environment

Answer 6

“Sense-making is a fundamental part of being alive: in order to stay alive, an organism must make sense of its environment-even if only in the very basic sense of distinguishing food from non-food, danger from safety, mates from non-mates, etc. Living beings are dependent on their environment for their survival and this dependence implies the need for some (basic) form of sense-making activity of the organism.

Question 7

“However, as soon as organisms are capable of relating to themselves and their environment, like human beings, the functionality principle [of embodied sense making] is loosened or altered. For it is no longer just survival that counts, but also living a good life. If valences result from being a needy creature in relation to an environment, we can say that values emerge for those organisms that on top of that can relate to this relation. We do not only have the will to survive, we also have the “will to meaning” as Frankl (1946/1955, 1963) calls it.”

Answer 7

oke

Question 8

why art?

Answer 8

art offers symbolic and artistic means that offer us the possibility to experientially understand in a typically human way.

theather - the self as actor
literature - the self as author
music - the experience of forms of vitality
dance - the non-verbal experiences of self with other

Question 9

the 7 primary emotional systems

Answer 9

seeking
fear
rage
lust
care
panic/grief
play

Question 10

seeking =

Answer 10

provides animals with energy (enthusiasm) to explore the environment. this is necessary to find mating partners and food.

Question 11

affective experience of seeking

Answer 11

• high: interest -> euphoria
• low: disinterest/lack of motivation -> apathy and anhedonia

Question 12

possible clinical problems of seeking

Answer 12

high seeking: manic states, drugs of abuse
low seeking: anhedonic, depressed, detached states

Question 13

seeking is not the same as liking!!! seeking has to be complemented by something else, otherwise it cant get no satisfaction

Answer 13

oke

Question 14

fear =

Answer 14

fear system + learning that it promotes, which promotes the avoidance of dangerous situations and to carefully monitor the safety of environments.

Question 15

fear affective experience

Answer 15

high: flight (high seeking) or freeze (low seeking) -> terror
low: safe (to explore) -> recklessness?

Question 16

fear possible clinical experiences

Answer 16

high: anxiety disorders, cluster C, PTSS
low: psychopathy?, risk taking

Question 17

rage =

Answer 17

• observed when animals are in need to defend themseves,
• in situations of frustration, when an expected reward is absent or being enclosed in small spaces
• in territorial conflicts.

Question 18

rage affective experience=

Answer 18

high: irritation -> exploding
low: trusting -> naivety?

Question 19

rage possible clinical problems

Answer 19

high: intermittend explosive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, narcissistic rage
low: lack of assertion (depression, dependent, avoidant PD)

Question 20

lust=

Answer 20

importance for procreation, in mammals also to serve social functions (eg. bonobos). lust in many animals not only to opposite sex.

Question 21

lust affective experience=

Answer 21

high: feeling some attraction -> orgasm
low: low interest -> asexuality

Question 22

lust possible clinical problems =

Answer 22

high lust -> problematic sexual behaviours
low lust -> impotence, lack of pleasure etc

Question 23

care =

Answer 23

taking care of offspring to help assure that the young children can grow into adults and start their own families. in social groups care feelings extend to non-family members. in a community they may extend widely (bro/sis)

Question 24

care affective experience

Answer 24

high: tenderness -> parental love
low: carelessness -> detachment

Question 25

care possible clinical problems

Answer 25

high care -> self-sacrifice
low care -> antisocial features, parental features, postnatal depression?

Question 26

panic/grief=

Answer 26

reflects separation distress, and signals a situation of having lost contact with an important person or being lost in the environment. for mammals and avians (birds) separation from caregivers/imporant people this triggers a distress reaction leading to distress vocalization (crying) to reunite with a partner or parent. if reunion does not happen: feelings of deactivation and grief

Question 27

panic/grief affective experience

Answer 27

high: longing/loneliness -> panic (high seeking) or grief (low seeking)
low: safety (exploring) -> detachment

Question 28

possible clinical problems of panic/grief

Answer 28

high panic/grief -> separation anxiety, trauma, borderline
low panic/grief -> schizoid, detached, psychopathy

Question 29

play =

Answer 29

in mammals and avians social play is inherent, especially in young animals. these behaviours are important for learning social competencies and motoric skills. this also helps with getting better along in complex social groups as an adult. via play friendships emerge. humans play a lot with symbols (humor)

Question 30

play affective experience=

Answer 30

high: friendly joy, comradery, tickling -> laughing, playfighting
low: satiety or quietness -> boredom, loneliness

Question 31

possible clinical problems play

Answer 31

high play -> difficulty concentrating on routine tasks or overly structured situations, adhd?
low play -> obsessive patterns, joylessness, depressed personality

Question 32

properties of emotional systems

Answer 32

• once activated they tend to remain active for some time
• they color the world as experienced
• they shape the movements in the world (toward, away etc)
• they present strong motivating forces
• therefore they activate certain modes of being in the world

Question 33

neural definition of these primary emotional systems

Answer 33

1. Intrinsic inputs (US)
2. Coordinate physiological and behavioral outputs (UR)
3. Gating of inputs (CS and CR)
4. Positive feedback (including ‘auto-activation’)
5. Cognitions instigate emotions (top-down influence)
6. Emotions control cognitions (bottom-up influence)
7. Affect reflects the full operation of such processes

kijken naar model, misschien printen voor in schrift???

Question 34

affective neuroscience personality scales

Answer 34

FEAR -fear - emotional stability
RAGE - anger - emotional stability & openness
PANIC/GRIEF - sadness - emotional stability
SEEKING - interest? curiosity? - openness
CARE - care - agreeableness
PLAY - social play - extraversion

Question 35

overeenkomst affective neuroscience, temperament and big three

Answer 35

FEAR & RAGE & PANIC/GRIEF - negative affectivity - negative emotionality
SEEKING & PLAY & CARE - surgency - positive emotionality
effortfull control - constraint

Question 36

maar waar moet je wel aan denken

Answer 36

there is a gap between basic affective physiological systems and humans collaborating within culture

Question 37

forms of vitality =

Answer 37

patterns of arousal that are associated with certain sensory experiences and movement

• generally cross-modal (experience them in multiple sensory areas)
• translate between them (music/poetry/dance/being touched are related)

Question 38

how are vitality forms experienced

Answer 38

Vitality forms are perceived as wholes. They are Gestalten originating from five components: movement, force, temporal contour, space, and directionality/intentionality

Vitality forms are not primary emotions; rather, they are structures of dynamic behavior, which can contain emotions as well as fantasies, streams of thoughts, desires, and so on.

Thus, a content (a desire or an emotion) can have an exploding form, or a fantasy can
have a surging form. It seems plausible, therefore, to suggest that infants precociously represent other people’s emotional manifestations mainly as forms of vitality.

Question 39

how do we move each other?

Answer 39

1. Direct touch
2. Via the air by using our voice
3. Via they eyes by the reflection of light
4. Via that also mirror-neurons are affected; so we literally mirror the movement of the other.
5. And finally, later, via symbols

Question 40

the regulation of forms of vitality and affect

Answer 40

➢ Because of the possibility to share forms of vitality, we can ‘move’ each other.
➢ Thus, the parents can use there gestures, voices and movements to down-regulate and up-regulate the forms of vitality and state-of-mind their child is in
➢ This gives rise to all kinds of vital experiences of embodied being-with-an-other
➢ In their repetition and memorization these represent persisting‘internal modes of being with an othe

Question 41

mirroring

Answer 41

➢ Mirroring generally refers to aspects of sameness in the reaction of the parent to the child. This is also called attunement (i.e. being ‘in tune’)
➢ For example, the rythm of a sound can be mirrored; the sudden movement of an arm, the slow emergence of a smile, a decelaration of breathing
➢ In complete mirroring there would be almost no difference between what the movement and sound of the child and that of the parent. The child then would have a difficult time distinguishing self and other.

Question 42

marking

Answer 42

➢ Marking generally refers to the aspect of differentiation in response to the child.
➢ For example, the child may utter a voice that goes upward and the parent a voice that goes downward.
➢ Or there may be variations on the pattern of the child, or responses in a different modality like making a sound that mirrors the movement of the child.
➢ In development the amount of variantion and differentiation tends to increase.
➢ If the difference is too large the connection may be lost; this is called a misattuned response.

Question 43

misattunement=

Answer 43

dysregulation of the self experience and self-with-other experience. can lead to despair, detachment, hate, traumatic moments

Question 44

repair is belangrijk!!! je gaat sowieso misattunement krijgen in therapeutische relatie. maar als de repair goed is, maakt dat niet uit

Answer 44

oke

Question 45

wat was er mis met die studie van correlaties tussen affective-neuroscience personality scales

Answer 45

correlational + lust niet meegenomen

Question 46

bottom up influence of individual differences on big five traits

Answer 46

global ancestral neuro-biological effect: correlations are consistent in different ethnicities and samples with different gender ratios and ages

Question 47

hoeveel % van persoonlijkheid is heritable

Answer 47

50%

Question 48

existential sensemaking / stance taking

Answer 48

However, as soon as organisms are capable of relating to themselves and their environment, like human beings, the functionality principle [of embodied sense making] is loosened or altered. For it is no longer just survival that counts, but also living a good life. If valences result from being a needy creature in relation to an environment, we can say that values emerge for those organisms that on top of that can relate to this relation. We do not only have the will to survive, we also have the “will to meaning” as Frankl (1946/1955, 1963) calls it.

Dus zo ontstaan values vanuit embodied sense making door existential sense making, functionality principle is altered,

Question 49

neurally defined emotional systems: intrinsic inputs

Answer 49

the system can be activated by inborn signals (e.g. a loud noise -> FEAR)

Question 50

neurally defined emotional systems: coordinate physiological and behavioural outputs

Answer 50

activation of the system results in inborn reactions (e.g. FEAR -> startle response).

Question 51

neurally defined emotional systems: gating of inputs

Answer 51

this means that the system elarns on the basis of classical & operant conditioning, by which learned stimuli can activate the systems (CS) and learned responses can become activated (CR)

Question 52

neurally defined emotional systems: positive feedback (including auto-activation)

Answer 52

the systems are NOT only affected by external stimuli (as in classic behaviourism), but
1. have patterns of internal auto-activation, like sleep-wake rythms for the seeking system.
2. once activated the system tends to remain activated for quite some time influencing our perspectives aof the world (for longer than the duration of the stimulus)

Question 53

neurally defined emotional systems: cognitions instigate emotions (top-down influence)

Answer 53

this indicates that ‘higher-level’ cognitive processes are involved in activating the systems.

Question 54

neurally defined emotional systems: Emotions control cognitions (bottom-up influence)

Answer 54

this bottom-up influence is strong – as you all know from experience. The activation of a strong emotion colors our thoughts, attention, memory, self-feeling, and so on.

Question 55

neurally defined emotional systems: Affect reflects the full operation of such processes

Answer 55

A full and complete affective state is not simply a single basic emotional system, but the full activation of multiple systems together with behavior and cognition. The affective state is in this sense like tasting a complex wine: it is not just sour or sweet, but much more than that.

Question 56

forms of vitality concept breed

Answer 56

This concept is offered by Daniel Stern in an attempt at thinking the earliest experiential world of infants. That world lacks many of the verbalizations and conceptualizations of adults. But it does contain a lot of arousal, energy, moving body-parts and being moved by others. Also looking and hearing and other senses are forms in which energy and arousal-patterns are transferred to the infant and by which the infant is affected. Mirror-neurons are also doing that from very early on. Milk entering a mouth has a particular feeling to it, a dynamic of sensing that it moves through the body.

Question 57

detachment =

Answer 57

If repair is absent repeatedly and for longer periods, then despair, detachment, hate and traumatic moments set in and are stored in embodied memory

Question 58

forms of vitality kan je ook zien als een antwoord op de vraag:

Answer 58

whwat is shared between infant and parents before words?

When the infant is totally out of control crying for lack of food its muscles get moved in all kinds of ways. It doesn’t understand a bit of what’s going on. It is totally overwhelmed. That experience of being overwhelmed is an example of a form of vitality and can be more adequately described in terms of ‘movement’, ‘rhythm’. ‘dynamics’, ‘patterns of energy’ than in terms of discrete emotions.
Now, the parent picks up the child and gently moves it and speaks to it in a soft voice. The picking, gently moving, speaking all have certain dynamics to them which are called forms of vitality. The speaking could also be very sudden and loud and then the child would get even more overwhelmed. Not because it indirectly interprets the other as angry (as in mentalization), but because it is internally directly moved by these overwhelming forms of vitality. If the form of vitality has a calming and soothing tone to it, if it resonates first with the overwhelmedness but does not get overwhelmed itself, that is – if the parent can regulate his forms of vitality, interpret the infant and find an answer at the level of vitality, then the infant may calm down.

So, the infant has to be mentalized – interpreted – by the parent. At that moment it also experiences how calming down works and the body remembers that. Just as the body remembers trauma as well, which is a terrible form of vitality in which mentalization completely fails (read ‘the body keeps the score’).
Is a form of vitality a ‘behavior’, ‘a cognition’ or ‘an emotion’? I would say, it is the material from which all three of these concepts emerge and hence the key to understanding how the three get related. This means that for patients who are totally overwhelmed, it sometimes doesn’t make much sense to ask them to explain what is behavior, cognition and emotion in that. By regulation and mentalizing we may help them to reach that point, but we cannot assume it because in the experience they are melted and blurred all together.
So, “who is the person and how did (s)he become that way?” That person started life as a dancer. It started in a dance between parent and child in which both moved and were moved by the other. And it was heavily influenced by the dancing of those first partners. And it is still involved in all kinds of dances with others, among whom the therapist is one. I ask myself as a therapist ‘who were the first dancing partners? How is the dance going in relations? How do we dance in therapy?’. I also happen to think that the vague term ‘stress’ is best translated in terms of repetitive problematic forms of vitality, which points towards the reason why it is so strongly (an bidirectionally) related to physical health.

Question 59

mentalization en agency

Answer 59

From the model of McAdams the actor part is mostly discussed in terms of traits. The author-part in terms of narratives. Now, the agency part starts with the concept of ‘mentalization’. Mentalization is the assumption of agency in oneself and in someone else.
The mentalization approach assumes that the ability to attribute agency and think about agency in complex ways is not given at birth but learned over time. The propensity to learn it is given, but environmental input is needed to develop it and this environmental input strongly shapes its course.
As Luyten points out in the article your read in week 2, mentalization is an umbrella concept including multiple elements. In other terms it might be called a complex system of multiple elements. Some people are very adequate in the cognitive part, some in the affective part, some can really effectively connect the two, etc. I guess the best therapists are those that develop all these skills together and become real experts in mentalizing.