Contributions of Other Theories to Developmental Systems
Theory
Since DST is a metatheory, in this chapter we present the contributions of other theories to the theoretical foundation of DST, which is anchored in new research from the fields of psychobiology, brain research, bioenergetics, psychodynamic and developmental theories, transpersonal psychology, humanistic psychology, and cognitive–behavioral psychology. We particularly draw on Bruce Lipton’s model of fractal evolution and his innovative concepts of cellular consciousness, conscious parenting, and electromagnetic medicine; Porges & Carter’s Polyvagal Theory; and Allen Schore’s Theory of Affect Regulation. We also acknowledge the many pioneers who have created and are continuing to expand the field of pre- and perinatal psychology. We combine specific contributions from these individuals and groups in a unique way in this chapter to anchor our research on the LOVEvolution and Developmental Trauma Tracks within a body of scientific knowledge.
Contributions From Family Systems Theory
Systems theorists have typically found family structures a rich research resource. As family therapist Virginia Satir once said, “It is now clear to me that the family is a microcosm of the world. To understand the world, we can study the family . . . to change the world is to change the family” (Satir, 1988, p. 15).
Family systems theorists and therapists typically look at a family’s structure as a system to determine what is contributing to the dysfunction of its members. Looking at the impact of unrecognized and unhealed shock, trauma, and stress on a family system provides an even broader perspective for identifying the confluence of forces contributing to a family problem. An approach that looks at the effects of unrecognized and unhealed shock, trauma, and stress on a family system reduces even further any tendencies to label or assign blame to individuals in the family.
Systems theorists believe that dysfunction sometimes serves as a stabilizing force in families that have a lot of emotional drama and persistent conflict. The person who expresses repressed feelings, in this theory, acts a force toward equilibrium to keep the system from breaking apart.
Systems theorists also believe that it is more effective to identify what is driving the behavior the members in a system, rather than, for example, an acting-out teenager, who appears to be the cause of the problems. Then they use whole system interventions to change the behavior of all of the members in the system. Simply using individual interventions will not only feed the family’s dysfunction but actually can sustain it. DST draws on many of the principles of general systems theory discussed in chapter 1 of our Healing Developmental Trauma book plus some of the leading family systems theories.
Bateson, Bowen, Framo, Jackson, and Sager's Family Systems Theories helped us better understand the complexities of the way that unrecognized and unhealed shock, trauma, and stress are processed in family systems. As early as the late 1950s, the Palo Alto group, led by Gregory Bateson (Bateson, Jackson, Haley, & Weakland, 1956, pp. 251–264) began applying cybernetics to the study of family therapy. Their work eventually led to a major paradigm shift in the field of family therapy.
Therapists slowly began viewing the individual and each
successively more complex social group as interacting systems. With this new
perspective, family therapists began to treat the family as a system containing
various subsystems. DST utilizes both the systems language and the concept of
development as a dynamic system that is constantly changing and evolving in
somewhat nonlinear, but often predictable, ways.
In
developing DST, we also borrowed from the work of several of the established
family systems theorists. The work of Bowen (1978) and Framo (1982), for
example, formed a useful model for helping individuals and families sort out
family-of-origin issues recycling in their current family dynamics. Bowen was
also the first to emphasize the importance of family therapists doing their
personal family-of-origin work during their professional training as a family
therapist. This practice supports our belief about the ethical need for
therapists to recognize and heal the effects of their own developmental shock,
trauma, and stress in order to avoid creating countertransference issues with
their clients.
Structural
family therapists contributed useful definitions about the boundaries and rules
present in each subsystem of a family. Their work helped us to better
understand and define the interrelated human systems we use in our approach:
the individual, the couple, the family, groups and organizations,
nation–states, and the human race.
The
work of Don Jackson (1965) and Sager and his associates (Sager & Kaplin,
1971) helped us better understand how to integrate the concepts of intrapsychic
systems and family systems. The basic assumption of their models is that
unconscious and conscious aspects of family members' inner conflicts form an
important part of the systemic feedback loop that can be observed in the
interaction, communication, and behavior patterns of family members.
The
use of dialogue as an evolutionary tool is ancient, tracing its beginnings back
to ancient Greece as well as to native and indigenous peoples. We saw Bohm and
Krishnamurti dialogues (Krishnamurti, 1986) and their Dialogue Process as an
important communication tool that helps people attune with each other and build
stronger and deeper relationships. Our search for contemporary applications of
their work led us to dialogue master Peter Senge. He and his book, The Fifth
Discipline, taught us how to use dialogue as a healing intervention in larger
systems.
Gleick's, Wheatley's, and Briggs and Peat's interpretations
of Chaos Theory, a branch of quantum physics, made important contributions to
our approach. Gleick's Chaos: Making a New Science (1987) and Briggs and Peat's
The Turbulent Mirror (1989) provided us with both a language and a conceptual
model for understanding chaos theory. We found Margaret Wheatley’s book Leadership
and the New Science (1992) one of the most practical and readable books in
applying chaos theory to living systems. We spent over a year studying chaos
theory with a group of other professionals and applying its principles to the
helping professions. After working our way through the strange language of
chaos theory, we could see how it supported the use of quantum sciences and
languages as foundational concepts in DST.
Chaos theorists believe that all human systems contain an
inherent order even though they appear chaotic. This order, however, is often
visible only over an extended period of time. Looking at family systems over
several generations, for example, often reveals identical patterns of loss,
trauma, and separation that are most amazing.
While studying this concept in the abstract, I (Janae) had a
personal epiphany that illustrated the point very clearly. This epiphany came
during a conversation I had with my second son. I shared with him about how I
(the second child) was separated from my mother at the age of 11 months when
she went to the hospital for my sister’s birth, and how this pattern of
separation happened again when my son (also the second child) was 11 months old
and was hospitalized for 19 days with two different kinds of pneumonia. He
ruminated on this piece of information for a moment and then looked at me with
a look on his face that was both surprised and pained. Then he shared with me
that his second son was 11 months old when he left and eventually divorced his
son’s mother.
Most
clinicians do not look at their clients’ development from a temporal
perspective; seldom do they review a person's lifetime history looking for the
timing of the transmission of traumatic intergenerational events. We began to
look at singular and clustered developmental markers involving loss, trauma,
separation, and dramatic change in our own lives and then in the lives of our
students and clients. We gradually learned how to identify the fractal patterns
of unrecognized and unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress that
followed these temporal markers.
Then
we looked for the fractal story lines or themes that appear in each problem
presented to us, as we searched for the earliest experience, or source, of this
patterned behavior. We were pretty amazed to discover that the most common
strange attractor, or organizing experience for people's life scripts, was
anchored primarily in the circumstances of their birth and then was reinforced
in subsequent developmental shock, trauma, and stress that occurred during the
following 3 years.
We
also found that our most successful interventions for changing these life
scripts occurred with systems (individuals, couples, and families) that were
open to change. According to chaos theory, the more open a system is to change,
the more likely it will transform itself into levels of higher and higher order
in a search for expanded levels of autonomy and identity.
So we began looking at the age when our clients most often sought therapy. What we found was that they were clustered around the ages of 29–31, 39–42, 49–53 and 60–62. Janae’s long-term interest in astrology, another systems approach for understanding individual evolution, helped us make sense of these particular age groupings. She had read Barbara Hand Clow’s astrology book, The Liquid Light of Sex: Understanding Your Life Transitions (1991), in which she identified exactly these time periods as key points in personal transformation. Clow describes the specific psychological, spiritual, mental, and karmic lessons and challenges that must be mastered during these transit periods, which helped us understand more deeply both our clients’ underlying issues and how best to support them.
Contributions from the Field of Psychobiology[1] [2]
The field of psychobiology, also known as behavioral
neuroscience and biological psychology, applies the principles of biology to
the study of mental processes and behaviors in humans. It provides a scientific
bridge between fields of study and academic disciplines that helps to integrate
disciplines in ways that provide a more comprehensive understanding of both
psychology and biology. We found that psychobiology helped us correlate
psychological and behavioral phenomena with biological events in ways that
contribute to our evidence-based model of human development.
Lipton’s Fractal Evolution
Bruce Lipton’s model of fractal evolution uses language from
the quantum sciences to describe the most subtle and intricate aspects of human
relational experiences at the cellular level. We first heard him speak in 1995
when he presented his then radically new quantum biology approach to midwives,
physicians, nurses, psychologists, therapists, and parents at the Pre- and
Perinatal Psychology Conference in San Francisco. Here he got a standing
ovation, as many people in the “soft” sciences heard their personal and
professional experiences validated for the first time by someone from the
“hard” sciences.
We think Lipton’s most significant discovery is that cellular
behavior parallels that of an individual. Lipton says that if you want to
understand the most basic and minute human experience, study the behavior of
cells.
Humans as Biocomputers. Lipton believes humans are
biocomputers and that we serve as the model for how computers operate. In other
words, computer technologies are an external reflection or projection of
human’s internal biological processes. Lipton says that humans are not “like”
computers, they are computers, and their cells function as biocomputer chips
that help humans function according to the “software programs” that have been
installed through our life experiences (2005, p. 62).
Lipton’s research showed that the membrane surface of each
cell is an organic, or carbon-based, liquid crystal semiconductor or
information-processing transistor. The antennae on the surface of the cell can
sense or “read” the energy in the cell’s environment and convert the
information into a biological BIT that is sent to the brain and nervous system.
Here it is routed to the appropriate organ systems, which then produce the
hormones and other chemicals needed to help the human act. The nucleus of the
cell helps us create not only our physical body, but also our thoughts,
beliefs, and feelings (1986).
According to Lipton, the nucleus of the cell functions as a
"hard drive" containing DNA-coded software that provides data storage.
The human biocomputers have use-dependent “software programs” that direct the
genes and the mind–body towards either growth or protection. Because humans
operate as a binary system, they cannot do both at the same time.
Cellular Perception. In his binary model, the antennae on
the surface of cell membranes are the true “gatekeepers” for the body, as they
scan the energy in the cell’s environment to determine whether it is safe or
unsafe. When they perceive that the environment is safe, friendly, and
emotionally supportive, they signal the cell receptors to open and receive the
information, sustenance, and energy from the environment to promote growth. So
as our cells open up, so do we. As we engage with each other in intimate ways,
focus our attention and resources on growth and expansion, we generate
experiences of LOVEvolution.
In situations where the cell antennae perceive the
environment as unsafe, they signal the cell receptors to close and shift into a
defensive mode, directing the cell to produce survival hormones and chemicals
and focus the body’s energy resources into protection and survival. Again,
because humans are binary computers, we have no middle ground. Cells and
organisms can be in only one mode at a time: either switched on and open or
switched off and closed. His model has huge implications for human development,
as we will discuss a bit later.
Lipton also discovered that it is cellular perception, or the cells’ interpretation of the environment, that controls and directs all body activity. As a result, the nervous system can get locked into a continuing state of “false alarm” which then can become a source of chronic stress. This cellular perception causes the cells to generalize ordinary situations as dangerous (as in a shock, trauma, or stress state) and direct the genes to route all energy into protection and safety. This chronic alarm state activates a cellular protection reaction that eventually shifts the physical body into degeneration and causes the appearance of chronic health conditions such as cancer, heart problems and diabetes. We explain how this process works in chapter 8 of our Healing Developmental Trauma book.
Chronic Alarm States. Chronic alarm states keep us on the
Developmental Trauma track of evolution. They cause us to withdraw from others,
to mobilize our energy for protection, and “head for the bunkers,” so to speak,
even when we do not need to. When we operate from a protection mode, it
disconnects us from what we call LOVEvolution and the unconditional love that
is available to us. When the cell receptors are open, our nervous system is
calm, relaxed, and open; our cells direct energy towards growth and expansion;
we open up to unconditional love; we engage with others; and we move us on the
path of LOVEvolution.
Survival of the Most Loving. Lipton also believes that our DNA communicates energetically
with our soul, heart, and brain through a process of resonance and synchronization. Our whole Being, he says, is wired to
attune with the source energy surrounding us that some describe as God. Peter
Gariaev and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences support Lipton’s
premise. They say that the Source Field contains all the DNA codes—that “the
wave is the DNA and the DNA is the wave” (1997, p. 107). From this perspective,
unconditional love energy is always available to us, even though we may not be
able to receive it.
In the epilogue of his book, The
Biology of Belief, Lipton writes about the “survival of the most loving.” Here
he emphasizes that the human race can only go to the next stage in its
evolution by consciously emulating the behavior of our cells. Humans must join
together to create larger and more efficient organisms—communities of
like-minded people who are working towards the advancement of human evolution.
He says that the Survival of the Most Loving is the only ethic that will ensure
not only a healthy personal life but also a healthy planet (2005, p. 201–202).
Porges and Carter’s Polyvagal Theory of Social Engagement
Drs. Steve Porges and Sue Carter’s Polyvagal Theory of
Social Engagement also validates Lipton’s binary biological model (Porges,
2003). Their research on the relationship between human biochemical reactions
and social development indicates the presence in the nervous system of a Social
Engagement System (SES). This part of their binary model operates through five
cranial (vagus) nerves that emerge from the brain stem—the most primitive part
of the brain. This system coordinates and integrates head turning, looking,
listening, and vocal communication, with output from the heart.
These five nerves also regulate sucking, swallowing,
salivating, breathing, and vocalizing—the first and most primal of all human
experiences. They allow breastfeeding without suffocation, are involved in
flexing the muscles of the middle ear, in discerning and discriminating tones
and frequencies of the human voice from background noise, in controlling the
expressive muscles of the face and eyelids, and are central to eye contact and
nonverbal communication.
Porges and Carter particularly looked at a mechanism known
as the vagal brake, a nerve that calms and relaxes the heart. A central component
of the SES, the vagal brake helps us interact deeply with the larger world.
When operating under optimal conditions, the SES allows humans to engage in
heartful and creative social interactions that support optimal development and
evolution. The function of the SES parallels Lipton’s “growth and expansion”
model of cell function and our concept of LOVEvolution.
Although Porges and Carter do not name it as such, they also
describe something that might be called the social disengagement system (SDS).
This part of their binary model, which is the equivalent of our Developmental
Trauma track of evolution, activates when humans feel unsafe and disengage from
social and emotional interactions, close their hearts, and mobilize their
energetic resources to protect themselves so that they will survive.
For example, it is difficult for the SES to function when
the deep muscles of people’s necks are chronically tense from stress or
unprocessed umbilical cord shock, trauma, and stress at birth. Chronic stress
and the nervous system’s constant false alarm state create anxiety and
depression that foster dualistic thinking and mood disorders. Schore’s Theory of Affect Regulation
Allan Schore’s Theory of Affect Regulation also contains a binary model of early human development. His model of affect regulation is based on the binary concepts of emotional regulation and emotional dysregulation. Schore is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California at Los Angeles. His model uses language from quantum science to describe emotional interactions between infants and parents, using terms such as emotional synchronization, energetic attunement, and resonance to describe times when parents and infants are “in synch” with each other. [3] [4] We describe his model in more detail in chapter 3 of our Healing Developmental Trauma book.
All four of these concepts—Porges’ SES/SDS, Lipton’s “safety
and protection mode,” Schore’s concepts of emotional regulation and
dysregulation, and our LOVEvolution/Developmental Trauma—are binary models.
They confirm the impact of chronic posttraumatic stress reactions on human
evolution at a cellular level.
MacLean’s
Triune Brain Theory
Another
source of support for DST comes from Paul MacLean’s Triune Brain Theory (1974).
He describes the brain as having three main parts: the reptilian, the
mammalian, and the neomammalian or neocortex.
The
Reptilian Brain. The
reptilian brain or brainstem evolved from lizards and snakes. Because reptiles have
no instinctive repertoire of protective behaviors, they are not concerned with
their offspring and often abandon or even eat their own eggs as soon as they
emerge from the female. A remnant of our prehistoric past, the reptilian brain
operates on stimulus and response. It is useful for making quick decisions
without thinking and is responsible for managing basic physiological functions
such as circulation, respiration, digestion, and elimination. During a shocking
experience, this part of the brain is responsible for freeze and dissociated
responses (Porges, 2001).
The reptilian brain is also involved in mating and in
territorial behaviors such as defense, aggression, pecking orders, and the
emotions of anger and fear. Because the reptilian brain is fear-driven, it
focuses on survival and takes over brain functioning when it perceives danger.
Behaviorally, it operates automatically and ritualistically
and is highly resistant to change. It is also concerned with getting food and
protecting us from danger by constantly scanning the environment and looking
for signs of danger. This hypervigilant reptilian behavior keeps us in a
chronic state of tension and cuts us off from our mammalian potential and
self-reflective consciousness. Anxiety can immobilize our limbic and
neomammalian brains, which regulate our creative, optimistic, and relational
behaviors. Hypervigilant people who struggle with Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder, for example, live in a prison where their higher brains are “locked
down.”
The Mammalian Brain. The mammalian brain includes the amygdala, which associates events with emotion. It also contains the hippocampus, which is active in converting information into long-term memory and into memory recall. Also known as the limbic brain, the mammalian brain began to evolve with the appearance of the first mammals and is practically nonexistent in reptiles, amphibians, and all other preceding species.
This horseshoe-shaped
organ also analyzes sensory information for emotional content, tagging anything
that contains shock-, trauma-, and stress-related cues or signals. Non-charged
data is relayed to the hippocampus, which operates as an internal “secretary”
that organizes it and integrates the emotional, cognitive, behavior, and
relational data into narrative form. This data is used to explain and make
meaning of a person’s life experiences and then is stored as memories that can
be consciously recalled at will.
The limbic system houses the primary centers of emotion and affects moods and bodily functions and is connected to the sense of smell, to relational needs, and to activities involving the expression and mediation of emotions and feelings, particularly those linked to bonding. The emotions of love, sadness, jealousy, and hope have their source in the limbic brain and can be observed in higher warm blooded animals such as cats, dogs, horses, and primates, including humans.
Mammals display protective, nurturing behavior towards their offspring because they have an instinctive hunger for tactile contact and energetic connection. These protective, loving feelings become increasingly complex as the limbic system and the neocortex link up. This mammalian hunger for emotional contact maintains the bond between mother and offspring and generates closely knit family groupings that maximize the survival of the young. The limbic system is also tightly connected to the prefrontal cortex.
The Neocortex. The neocortex is associated with abstract
thought, imagination, consciousness, and language and governs our ability to
speak, think, and solve problems. From an evolutionary perspective, it is the newest part of the brain and is found in the brains of all mammals
but not in any other animals. It makes up about 80% of the brain and affects
our creativity and our ability to learn and self-reflect. It is responsible for
many higher-order functions such as intuition, synthesis, and social
engagement.
How Our Three Brains Work Together. When the antennae on the
cell membranes perceive danger, the signal first registers in the reptilian
brain. Then it is routed on to the autonomic nervous system, which notifies the
adrenal glands to mobilize the body for protection. They flood the limbic brain
with cortisol and other adrenal hormones, causing a rapid and dramatic change
in the brain’s operation. The danger stimulus often fires a visual image in the
right brain and triggers a flashback memory containing disturbing auditory,
visual, relational, and behavioral information, and catapults the person into a
dissociated state.
At this point, the limbic brain, which operates as an
internal “secretary” that sorts the sensory information coming in from the
nervous system according to valence, simply cannot keep up. In order to keep
functioning, the “secretary” throws the incoming sensory information into
“piles,” storing it in compartments of dissociated memory for processing into
logical memories at a later date. These compartmentalized and dissociated
memories, which cannot be consciously recalled at will, create a dissociative shock state that we call the Blackhole, also known as the unconscious mind.[5] .
In most cases, the split-off or dissociated material stored in the compartments of the Black Hole never gets processed. It remains dissociated from awareness until some visual, auditory, olfactory, proprioceptive, or kinesthetic cue activates a memory filed in the “pile.” This trigger can activate everything stored in the memory module and create a full reenactment of the original trauma. The feelings associated with the regressed experience seem so real that it is difficult to distinguish the present from past.
Only
when a person is asked when they have felt this way before can they begin to
see a connection to similar experiences in their the past. This is the heart of
regression, the traumatic reenactment process, and also of post-traumatic
stress syndrome (PTSD), which we describe in more detail later in the book.
The neocortex or neomammalian brain found only in humans is
divided into right and left sides or hemispheres. Each side has specialized
functions that are connected by a neural bridge known as the corpus callosum.
The left hemisphere is responsible for language and analyzes and processes
information in a linear, logical, or sequential manner, much like a personal
computer. The right hemisphere matures before the left and is directly impacted
by early social experiences. It is particularly active during intense states of
elation during play and contributes to the development of reciprocal
interactions between the mother and infant.
Perhaps the most important role of the right hemisphere is in the attunement process between the mother and infant (Schore, 2003b, p. 13). This interactive right brain attunement process also forms the foundation for empathy (p. 44). Individuals with traumatic attachment histories are unable to perceive the emotional states of others and, therefore, often are not able to feel empathy for others (p. 47).
The right brain also plays a dominant role in
emotional processing during infancy and the first 3 years of life (p. 229). The
process of specializing emotions begins in the right hemisphere at the end of
the 1st year and, therefore, plays a critical role in the attachment and
bonding process. From Schore’s perspective, “attachment is . . . the
right-brain regulation of biological synchrony between organisms” (p. 41). It
is through experiences of brain-to-brain synchronization with the mother that
the child eventually learns self-regulation.
Using Lipton’s computer metaphor, we might say that a child’s right hemisphere gets programmed through the experiences with his or her mother. From the perspective of quantum biology, we might say that the nervous system becomes energetically imprinted. Whatever the metaphor, the right brain plays a major role in reading facial expressions and guiding the young child’s response to adult caregivers.
The left hemisphere growth spurt
does not begin until around age 2 (2005, p. 185). It is involved in the
development of verbal language and the development of both guilt and the
conscience, as the young child begins internalizing the parents’ verbal, moral,
and parental values and standards.
A great deal of research is being conducted on the prefrontal cortex part of the brain, which does not develop until after the age of 3. Psychologically, MacLean considers it the neurobiological Seat of the Self—the conscious, reflective personality of an individual (cited in Mines, 2003, p. 42).
Self-psychology includes concepts such as self-actualization, self-awareness,
self-development, self-control, self-esteem, and self-disclosure. From a
developmental perspective, the Self is associated with the emergence of an ego
that is eventually surrendered to a higher purpose or spiritual mission. This
phenomenon, which usually does not happen until full psychological maturity,
often marks a spiritual transition from self-service to the service of others.
Paul MacLean refers to the left pre-frontal cortex as the "vault of heaven," "angel lobes,” or “holy tissue.” He believes that this area has a special purpose, that which makes us human. “Angelic” means that it may be responsible for the kind of direct experiences of “knowing” described by early Christian Gnostics and others able to communicate directly with the world of Spirit. This part of the brain may be where people experience feelings of unconditional love that is part of the LOVEvolution Track of our binary theory.
Contributions from the Field of Pre- and Perinatal Psychology.
This field focuses on what is now almost universally recognized as the most critical period of human development. At this stage, children are extraordinarily sensitive to their environment and their biological systems are the most plastic, pliable, and receptive to learning. This makes them exceedingly vulnerable to the irreversible or partially reversible impact on development of early experiences of shock, trauma and stress.
At the same time, they are highly resilient. The right brain is highly use-dependent and its development is absolutely embedded in the bonding relationship between the parents and the child. Early interventions designed to repair the effects of shock, trauma, and stress that occurred during the birth process can make a life-long difference in a child’s development (Schore, 2003a, p. 202).
The degree to which children are emotionally and
energetically supported during gestation, birth, and the first year of life
largely determines how they will develop. Will the flexible, dynamic, and
use-dependent structures of the infant’s brain and nervous system get
hard-wired for growth and expansion or for safety and protection? Early
neurobiological interventions during this critical period of development can
help mediate the impact of shock, trauma, or stress (Schore 2003a, p. 264),
particularly to highly imprinting stressors such as birth. The use of
therapeutic interventions early in life, particularly those developed by
practitioners of the pre- and perinatal psychology community, can have a
lifelong impact on children.
Dr. Thomas Verny, a pioneer in this field and author of The
Secret Life of the Unborn Child (1988), conducted in-depth research into an
infant’s psychological, emotional, and social development, from preparation for
pregnancy through the postpartum period and lactation. The focus of pre- and
perinatal psychology has gradually expanded to include the study and treatment
of prenatal and birth shock, trauma, and stress and the creation of a model for
healthy, mammalian-based parent–child bonding practices.
Frederic Leboyer (2002), Marshall and Phyllis Klaus (2000), Michael Odent (1994) and David Chamberlin (1998) are all among the early pioneers in this field of study. William Emerson, Stanislav Grof, and Barbara Findeisen have created an extensive body of knowledge in the field through the www.birthpsychology.com website. This new wave of research in developmental psychology has anchored this field in the quantum sciences, which has given us new understandings about how humans develop and relate.
Contributions from Cultural Research in Bioenergetics.
Dr. James Prescott served as a health scientist administrator at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the Institute of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1966 to 1980. He created and directed the Developmental Behavioral Biology Program at the NICHD. Prescott founded of the Developmental Behavioral Biology Program at NICHD and conducted research on the effects of sensory deprivation on human sexual pleasure and affection, particularly during adolescence.
Prescott’s
research draws heavily on the work of Wilhelm Reich and Alexander Lowen, who
use the principles of bioenergetics to track the flow of energy in the human
body. Bioenergetics uses a binary system based on pain and pleasure to look at
how the expression or repression of energy shapes people’s physiology and
psychology. For example, repressed grief often creates an over-inflated,
high-held chest, mechanical breathing, a contracted pelvis, and a general state
of rigidity in the body.
Maternal–Social Deprivation. One of
Prescott’s most significant contributions to the field of developmental
psychology is his redefinition of maternal–social deprivation. Drawing on
principles from bioenergetics, he identified this deprivation as a complex
sensory problem caused by the lack of body touch and body sensation. Prescott
believes that the deprivation of body touch and body sensation causes
Somatosensory Affectional Deprivation (SAD) and disrupts development in the
parts of the brain that are responsible for maternal–infant bonding. Allan
Schore’s more recent research validates Prescott’s earlier work.
In an article on the Pre- and Perinatal Psychology website (1997), Prescott claims that the orbito-frontal cortex is responsible for building the primary neuropsychological foundation necessary for basic trust. He adds that the somesthetic (touch) sensory system provides the primary neuropsychological foundation for affection and the olfactory (smell) sensory system provides the primary neuropsychological foundation for intimacy.
In normal development these
emotional–sensory systems are combined in rich patterns of complex sensory
stimulation in which basic trust, affection, and intimacy are integrated with
one another to form an emotional brain capable of love. This neurointegrative
brain develops, according to Prescott, long before the infant can understand
the spoken or written word.
Pleasure
and Bonding. All three of these emotional sensory systems are involved in the
experience of pleasure and bonding. It is through the emotional senses that the
infant knows when he or she is being loved or rejected. According to Prescott,
the failure to encode the infant's developing brain with the smell of its
mother's body through breastfeeding can have long-term adverse consequences for
bonding and for the male–female sexual relationship.
Prescott’s research revealed that repressed emotions caused
by mother–infant separations cause abnormal brain changes that result in
depression, impulse dyscontrol, and violence. He confirmed these findings by
studying the effects of the deprivation of human sexual pleasure and affection
during adolescence in primitive cultures. He found that peaceful cultures
valued the importance of mothering and encouraged loving and affectionate [6] sexual
relationships among young adults.
Cultures that deprived children of pleasurable sensory
experiences and play produced irreversible mental retardation in the children
and intellectual deficits in adults. Prescott’s cross-cultural research
concluded that cultures that inflict pain on infants and repress sexuality
become violent and that secure maternal–infant bonding is essential for peace
in the world (Prescott 2002).
Unfortunately, Prescott’s research findings got him caught
in a political crossfire. The existence of and results from his NICHD supported
research programs were ignored in a 2004 NIH publication [7] because
they did not support prevailing religious and cultural values of this country which
deny the importance of secure mother–infant bonding and forbid youth to engage
in affectional sexual relationships.
Prescott also organized his research findings into a model
based on two paradigms: a patrilineal, theistic religion and a matrilineal,
Earth religion. One of his most important research findings concerns the impact
of each of these paradigms on the development of the brain. The Table below summarizes Prescott’s
binary research (2002) and Riane Eisler’s (1987)
[8] binary
cultural models.
Contrasting Patrifocal and Matrifocal Cultures
Patrifocal Cultures Matrifocal Cultures
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Contributions from Psychodynamic and Developmental
Theories
These theories emphasize identifying the early antecedents of present intrapersonal or interpersonal conflicts or problems. The core concept is that unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress from childhood tend to recur until they are healed. Psychodynamic methods, consequently, help people identify the unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress from their childhood and then find ways in the here and now to heal their lingering effects. This process of self-discovery first involves teaching people to understand the conditions of optimal development.
This includes understanding the essential developmental
processes that an individual needs to complete successfully and correlating the
presence of developmental shock, trauma, and stress in their early development
with the cause of their current conflicts and psychological problems.
Erik
Erikson, Robert Havighurst, and Jean Piaget's developmental theories and
research helped us identify the stages of physical development and the
cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial processes to be mastered at each stage.
The work of Erikson (1959), Havighurst (1972), and Piaget (1951) provided us
with foundational material for identifying these stages and the essential developmental
processes that need to be completed in each stage to support full development
in the next stage. We discuss this material in depth in chapters 3 & 4of
our Healing Development Trauma book
Transactional Analysis
Jacqui Schiff, Eric Berne, Dorothy Babcock, Terry Keepers,
John Bradshaw, Pam Levin, and Jean Illsley Clark's Transactional Analysis (TA)
approaches provided many ideas and methods of working with adults who were
severely affected by early childhood shock, trauma, and stress. In 1970, Schiff
published a book titled, All My Children, in which she described a
revolutionary therapy approach called reparenting, which grew out of Eric
Berne's work on transactional analysis. Schiff reported a great deal of success
with the reparenting therapy she and her husband had used, often with chronic
schizophrenic clients. Their residential treatment program required
24-hour-a-day care. Most of the people who went through their program went on
to become highly functioning adults, many becoming therapists themselves.
Schiff's methods, considered highly controversial at the
time, encouraged clients to regress to an infant stage. The interventions were
designed to heal clients' developmental shock, trauma, and stress that occurred
in early childhood and infancy and included diapering them, holding them, and
feeding them from bottles, as well as providing them with effective anger- and
rage-reduction tools. Their methods were designed to reconnect their clients
with their original developmental shock, trauma, and stress, and to allow them
to express their repressed feelings related to the shock, trauma, and stress in
a safe, supportive environment. Then they provided them with the support,
nurturing, and new information they needed to heal their early developmental shock,
trauma, and stress.
Schiff
wrote a sequel, The Cathexis Reader (1976), which described a set of passive or
discounting behaviors that kept people stuck in symbiotic or codependent
relationships along with reenactments of early developmental shock, trauma, and
stress. The book outlined effective methods for gentle and loving
confrontations of these dysfunctional behaviors. Passive people who feel weak
and helpless, for example, often discount their own needs and focus on the
needs of others, hoping to win some attention or approval from them. In
addition, they discount their ability to ask directly for what they want. Being
forced to ask directly to get their needs met has been found to be an effective
means for helping them heal the effects of their early unrecognized and
unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress.
As Schiff and her colleagues [9] studied
passivity and discounting, they discovered that these behaviors were not just
part of the pathology of schizophrenics. They were also very much a part of the
everyday life of most people. The Schiffs indicated that these behaviors were
the major causes of intractable conflicts. This understanding helped us see how
undiscovered and unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress can have
adverse effects on everybody in unknown ways and are at the source of most
intractable conflicts between people at all levels of human systems.
TA practitioners Dorothy Babcock and Terry Keepers (1976)
combined the passivity/discounting concept with script analysis in a book for
parents called Raising Kids OK. Robert and Mary Goulding (1978) were among
those who adapted the concept into other types of TA therapy such as Redecision
Therapy.
During
this period, Schiff became embroiled in political battles over her methods
within the International Association of Transactional Analysis, and eventually
she was censured by the organization. The censuring effectively stopped the
progress of Schiff's treatment modality, although a few of her former students
did continue to develop the theory. We have harvested the best of her work and
include it as part of DST and DPW, the application of the theory.
Object Relations Theories
Bowlby, Winnicott, Kernberg, Kohut, Mahler, and Cashdan's object relations theory and therapy approaches posit that events during the first year of life dictate the course of all subsequent human development. Bowlby (1969), Kernberg (1976), Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, (1968, 1975, 1980), and Winnicott (1965) were pioneers in this specialized field of psychodynamic psychology.
Of these theorists, we drew heavily from the research of Margaret
Mahler and her colleague, Louise Kaplan, who charted the course of development
from the bonding stage of the infant (birth to 9 months) through the separation
stage (9 to 36 months). Kaplan's book, Oneness and Separateness (1978), based
on Mahler's research, provided us with a clear narrative description of these
two stages, including what might prevent the successful completion of the
essential developmental processes in each stage. Cashdan's book, Object
Relations Therapy (1988), helped us identify the specific distortions that
emerge as a result of developmental shock, trauma, and stress in early
parent–child relationships.
With the onset of the addictions and recovery movement in
the late 1980s, object relations theory and therapy began to appear in
literature containing a broader developmental perspective. John Bradshaw
utilized many reparenting concepts in his series of books on recovery and inner
child therapy, including Healing the Shame that Binds You (1988) and Homecoming:
Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child (1990). Jon and Laurie Weiss
described corrective parenting techniques for treating codependency in Recovery
From Co-dependency (1989). Jean Illsley Clarke wrote two important books
applying this evolving theory to parenting practices: Self-esteem: A Family
Affair (1978) and Growing Up
Again: Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children (1989) with Connie Dawson.
Pamela Levin also wrote several books that further developed reparenting
theory, including Becoming the Way We Are (1988a) and Cycles of Power (1988b).
Our own books, Breaking
Free of the Co-dependency Trap (2008a), The Flight From Intimacy (2008b), and Breaking
Free of Family Patterns (2006), utilize some reparenting techniques and a
developmental approach. The Family Patterns book describes the process of
breaking addictive relationship dynamics using many concepts from object
relations theory. We eventually integrated many reparenting and developmental
concepts into DST as tools to help people recover their True Self by healing
their developmental shock, trauma, and stress.
Clarke
and Levin's books contributed positive affirmations designed to assist in the
healing of early cognitive distortions due to shock, trauma, and stress. These
practioners also created lists of the developmental needs of early childhood to
help people locate the sources of their adult dysfunctions. We found these
lists useful in helping clients in their recovery process and incorporated them
into our lists of essential developmental processes to be completed in each
stage of development.
We also incorporated Steven Karpman's Drama Triangle (1968) into DST to illustrate the lingering effects of unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress on communications patterns in relationships. From Karpman's description of persecutor, rescuer, and victim roles and how the roles rotate around a triangle, we identified an equivalent set of incomplete developmental processes operating in the parent–child separation process.
We extended his model into an
optimal family dynamic by identifying the essential developmental processes
needed to create the Functional Family Triangle, the opposite of the Drama
Triangle. DST correlates the interpersonal dynamics of the Drama Triangle with
drama resulting from unrecognized and unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and
stress that contain symptoms of post-traumatic stress. We describe the specific
dynamics more completely in chapter 7 of our Healing Developmental Trauma book.
Alice
Miller and Philip Ney's intergenerational theories taught us a great deal about
the psychodynamics of developmental trauma. Much of the reparenting component
of our paradigm grew out of the pioneering work of the Swiss analyst Alice
Miller (1981, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1991). Her books helped us examine the role of
early narcissistic wounds on later development. Miller's work clearly explained
many of the adverse effects of "standard parenting practices" and
documented that the same dysfunctional patterns of behavior repeat themselves
from one generation to the next. Her latest book (2005) also helped us better
understand the process of the intergenerational transmission of the effects of
unrecognized and unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress.
Philip
Ney (1988) also helped increase our understanding of the intergenerational
transmission of the effects of unrecognized and unhealed developmental shock,
trauma, and stress. Ney based his model of family dramas on three rotating
roles: the perpetrator, the victim, and the observer. He proposed that family
members repeat the maladaptive parenting practices that were used on them as a
means of better understanding their parents' behavior. Ney also noticed that
people who were in an observer role as children remained in that role as
adults. Similar to the dynamics of the Drama Triangle, in Ney's theory the
roles rotate among family members.
Ney applied his theory to professionals in the workplace to
demonstrate how easy it is to get caught up in countertransference behaviors
involving roles therapists played in their own family of origin. Professionals
can easily slip into the roles of victim, perpetrator, or observer, preventing
them from being effective. DST draws heavily on Ney's theory, using it to
demonstrate the recycling of the effects of unrecognized and unhealed
developmental shock, trauma, and stress through intergenerational structures.
Ney's theory reinforced our belief that it is critical for helping professionals
to identify the nature and source of their own unrecognized and unhealed
developmental shock, trauma, and stress
Beverly
James's Attachment-Trauma approach was the first book we found that correlated
attachment and trauma. In Handbook for Treatment of Attachment-Trauma Problems
in Children (1994), James provided an integrated blueprint for assessing and
working with trauma-related attachment disturbances. She also identified a
disturbance in the parent–child relationship that she calls trauma bonds. Her
research and clinical protocols were useful resources for refining the
developmental trauma component of DST.
Global Process Work
Our extensive study in 1985 and 1986 with Arnold Mindell and
his Global Process Work theory provided a significant contribution to our
approach. Mindell, a former Jungian analyst, developed an adaptation of Jungian
theory he calls Global Process Work (1983, 1985a, 1985b, 1987). Mindell adapted
much of Carl Jung's work, including his ideas about dreams. Mindell began to realize
that people are dreaming all the time. Their waking dreams, according to
Mindell, are often means of avoiding unpleasant realities or unpleasant
memories of early trauma, while their sleeping dreams provide an outlet for
unconscious material to emerge.
The real genius of Mindell's work, however, was his
expansion of information theories such as Neurolinguist programming (NLP) into six information channels. [10] [11] and his use of Taoist principles in therapy. The six
information channels that Mindell identified are the visual, auditory,
proprioceptive, kinesthetic, relationship, and world channel. His form of information theory provides
a mechanism the therapist can use to track the source of a problem by noticing
which of these six communication channels the client uses when presenting
his/her problems and symptoms.
Mindell's use of Taoist principles provided a context of
"rightness" of all symptoms and problems, as well as the use of
client-centered techniques for "following" the client.
In
addition, Mindell uses the principles of unified field theory from quantum
physics to show how problems move from one field, or system, to another.
According to his theory, for example, an unhealed shock, trauma, or stress that
is not identified and healed at the individual field will move out into the
relationship field and emerge there as a problem. If not identified and healed
at that level of system, it would move out into the next level of the system—the
family. Using this theory to examine national and international conflicts, he
began to hypothesize about how intractable global conflicts could be the
collective manifestation of many unhealed individual, relationship, group, and
organizational shocks, traumas, and stresses.
Stages of Consciousness
Robert Kegan’s work, summarized in his book, In Over Our
Heads (1994), also contributed to our theory. He identifies five distinct
stages of cognitive development in the evolution of consciousness that grew out
of Piaget’s theories of cognitive development. They include the following:
Stage One: Magical Thinking. People exhibit poor cause and effect thinking.
Stage Two: Concrete Thinking. People base their reality on
what is visible, tangible, and concrete and are unable to grasp the meaning of
abstract concepts such as human rights or justice.
Stage Three: Cross-Relational Thinking. Individuals in this
stage of consciousness are able to think abstractly and are able to see the
relationships between experiences and events, but they perceive the world as
acting upon them.
Stage Four: Systemic Thinking. Individuals in this stage of
consciousness can think holistically and systemically and are able to perceive
the underlying patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that recycle and
control their lives. They still may lack ways to change this condition.
Stage Five: Trans-Systemic Thinking. Individuals in this
stage of consciousness can not only see the relationships between their current
behaviors and past family of origin issues, they are able to choose new behaviors
that allow them to change their life-restricting patterns.
Based on his and other research findings, Kegan estimates
that about 70% of the adults in the United States are at Stage Three or below.
He calls these people the Traditionalists. Those in stage four he calls the Moderns
and those in stage five he labels the Post-Moderns. According to his research,
approximately 30% of the adult population is approaching or at Stage Four and
less than 1% is approaching or at Stage Five. Kegan claims that the most people
are "in over their heads" because their consciousness has not
sufficiently evolved to cope with the mental demands generated by the
complexity of modern life.
This research has been valuable in understanding why so many
people remain unaware of the effects of their early childhood experiences on
their current behavior. It helped us see that until people have reached
systemic thinking or trans-systemic thinking, it is difficult for them to break
out of the cognitive trap they find themselves caught in.
We concluded from our research cited earlier in this chapter
that it is necessary for individuals to understand how their own
family-of-origin system has impacted their life. If they do not understand this principle, they are not going
to be able to understand other larger, more complex and seemingly abstract
systems and the impact they can have on their lives. This led to the research
that validated our hypothesis that when people understand the impact of their
family-of-origin system on their current life circumstances, they can better
understand the impact that other complex social/political systems have on them.
Transpersonal Theories of Development
The term transpersonal means “through the mask or the ego” to the deeper realms of the human psyche. Transpersonal theories of development emphasize the need to move around, under, over, or through one's ego defenses in order to evolve. The basic idea in transpersonal theory is that each person has an essential or True Self that is beyond the ego. Ego defenses cause people to become attached to certain false ideas, feelings, beliefs, and activities that can get them stuck in their development.
Without a larger or transpersonal
perspective, it may be difficult to see the way through certain intrapersonal
and interpersonal conflicts. The transpersonal therapist may include spiritual
practices and concepts such as meditation, yoga, breathwork, forgiveness,
karma, past lives, reincarnation, non-attachment, and the Higher Self.
As
we synthesized various theories, we realized that our approach needed a solid
spiritual foundation. A spiritual component seems to help people move directly
into and through their core issues in a permanent manner. All of the following
transpersonal theorists contributed to our understanding and growth of our
approach.
Ken
Wilber's Transpersonal Theory of Human Development helped us expand our
knowledge of development into the spiritual and transpersonal realms. His books
The Atman Project (1980) and A Brief History of Everything (1996) were very
helpful in describing the transcendent and spiritual aspects of developmental
psychology. Wilber uses the concepts of the [12] stages of human development that are “beyond the ego” and
the superconscious levels of awareness [13] to chart the transpersonal realms of development [14].
In addition, Wilber’s work motivated us to study other
transpersonal and spiritual approaches, including Christian Gnosticism; the
teachings of spiritual masters from Eastern philosophies such as Integral Yoga,
Taoism, Hinduism, Agni Yoga, and other teachings of the so-called ageless
wisdom traditions. This foundation of ancient wisdom helped guide us as we
integrated the spiritual and transformative elements of human development into
DST.
Leonard
Orr and Sondra Ray's Rebirthing and Breathwork Theory and Practice also
expanded our knowledge of nonverbal and body-oriented methods for processing
unhealed shock, trauma, and stress. Their book (Orr & Ray, 1977) on
rebirthing taught us about the power of the breath in helping people reconnect
with and heal early childhood shock, trauma, and stress, including that
connected to their birth. After reading this book, we trained as rebirthers, an
experience that helped us understand the importance of natural childbirth
techniques that respect the sanctity of the birth process and the need of the
child to be in charge of his or her own birth.
Frederick
LeBoyer and Igor Charkovsky's nonviolent birthing methods proved to be very
useful in understanding how certain patterns can be set in place at birth. The
work of LeBoyer (1975), a French obstetrician; Charkovsky (cited in Verny,
1984), a Russian physician; and the work of the American midwifery movement
helped us develop therapeutic methods for assisting people in recreating an
ideal birth. Further, our study of pre- and perinatal psychology and primal
therapy helped us develop a variety of correlations between adult problems and
unrecognized and unhealed pre-natal shock, trauma, and stress and the effects
of these events on the birth process.
Humanistic Theories
Humanistic theories emphasize relationship dynamics and the
communication patterns of the individuals who have relationship problems.
Interventions, which typically involve helping individuals better understand
each other by using clear, straight communication in problem situations, may
involve teaching communication skills as a way to prevent relationship
problems. The main premise is that people who communicate effectively with each
other are likely to have fewer relationship problems and that the problems they
do have are more readily solved because they have a foundation of skills to
work with them. The humanistic theories emphasize communications models, which
we found useful to integrate into our meta-model.
Late
in his career, Carl Rogers became very interested in applying his
Person-Centered Theory to the resolution of international conflicts. He
hypothesized that the negative stereotypes people project on others cause
intractable conflicts and might be replaced by caring and empathic relatedness.
He successfully demonstrated this in numerous international settings (Rogers
& Ryback, 1984).
In
the early 1980s, Rogers began to meet with very diverse large international
groups (sometimes as large as several thousand people) who had long-standing
intractable conflicts. For example, he met with a large group of Irish
Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. He also led cross-cultural
workshops in Brazil, Dublin, South Africa, and Hungary. One meeting in Austria
included a significant number of diplomats and other government officials. At
this meeting, he modeled how diplomats could increase their capacity for
empathic understanding and genuineness (1986).
As we integrated reflective listening into our approach for
helping people repair the damage of lost resonance, or as we reenacted early
developmental shock, trauma, and stress, we found Rogers' hypothesis to be
accurate. When people with dysregulated feelings or behaviors treated each
other with respect and could express some empathy toward each other, they were
able to better understand their differences. As a result they can better
regulate their feelings and behaviors. Reflective listening is now an essential
component of DPW, the application of DST.
Rational–Emotive Behavior Theories
Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (1995) helped us understand the role of irrational or mistaken beliefs as the source of a conflict or problem. He says that irrational beliefs affect the way people approach others in conflict or problem situations. To help people solve their personal problems and resolve their conflicts, Ellis first looks for the underlying irrational belief, such as "I must be liked by everyone I meet. If I am not, there is something wrong with me."
According to Ellis's
theory, people trying to resolve a conflict need to first look for their own
beliefs rather than attacking the other person’s beliefs. Ellis believes that
people need to develop more situational values that avoid imposing rigid
standards on themselves and others. His theory particularly impacted our search
for more effective ways to help people reframe their conflicts and traumas and
to resolve conflicts of values and beliefs.
Traumatology Theories
A whole new field of cognitive–behavioral research known as
traumatology began emerging after the end of the Vietnam War. A number of
individuals involved in this research provided critical theoretical
contributions to our approach.
Charles
Figley (1978, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1986, 2006, 2007), a pioneer in the field of
traumatology and author of 19 books, helped create Traumatology, the first
independent, peer-reviewed, scientific/medical journal in the field. After many
years of distinguished service at Florida State University as professor and
co-director of the Traumatology Institute, he now chairs the Disaster Mental
Health program at Tulane University in New Orleans. His early work with
veterans helped legitimize the field and created a body of knowledge on which
other researchers such as ourselves could build their work.
Donald
Meichenbaum's research on PTSD was extremely useful in understanding the role
that PTSD plays in causing intractable conflicts. Meichenbaum, one of the chief
contributors to cognitive–behavioral theory, has devoted 30 years of clinical
research and study to PTSD (1994) and is recognized as one of the leading
authorities in the world on this subject. It was his research on PTSD that
helped us link intractable conflicts with developmental trauma. Meichenbaum's
book presents a thorough analysis of the elements of trauma and discusses how
developmental trauma is stored in the mind–body and later activated as symptoms
of post-traumatic stress.
Bessel van der Kolk's posttraumatic stress approach is summarized in Traumatic Stress: The Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society (van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996). His approach also contributed significantly to our understanding of the developmental and biological aspects of human adaptation to trauma, including the nature of traumatic memories. His research and clinical knowledge on the treatment of posttraumatic symptoms, particularly those related to brain function and the mechanisms and processes of traumatic memory, were critical in validating our own clinical experiences. His approach was particularly significant in correlating the effects of unrecognized and unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress and regression with experiences of intractable conflict.
An Evolutionary Crisis
At a species level, we are facing an evolutionary crisis. The fact that so many human systems are currently stuck in the counterdependency stage of evolution has taxed the resources of humans and of the planet. We desperately need to shift into the independent stage, where we have a higher level of consciousness available in order to address our problems through a systemic lens.
A critical mass of the population must be able to operate at
least at Level Four of Kegan’s Stages of Consciousness and be moving into Stage
Five where they can begin formulating systemic solutions to the problems of
inadequate natural resources. Many people in places of power, such as corporate
CEOs and government officials, still operate out of reptilian consciousness and
exploit others and work only or their own benefit.
People holding a nurturing humanitarian vision for the
planet must convince others that a massive collective shift in consciousness is
necessary for us to evolve and perhaps even survive as a species. Lipton sees
this evolutionary leap from a biological perspective, arguing that we must move
from the reptilian stage of evolution into the mammalian stage. This means we
need to collectively give up our oil-addicted lifestyle (oil is a reptilian-era
fuel). We must use our mammalian consciousness to protect future generations
and to shift to use of renewable energy sources.
There is strong evidence that we may be closer than we
realize to the critical mass needed to make an evolutionary shift to the
independent stage of human evolution and finally to the interdependent stage.
We believe that learning how to identify and heal our developmental shock,
trauma, and stress is an important step that will accelerate this evolutionary
shift. This shift will ensure that the decisions that are made to protect the
future of this planet will involve systemic thinking.
Native Americans were able to do this many centuries ago, so
it is not an entirely new way of decision-making. For example, the Iroquois
Nation, particularly the Oneida Tribe, even today require both the tribal
leaders and its members to consider the impact on the next seven generations
when making decisions (Oneida Indian Nation, February 18, 2007). This kind of
forward thinking is necessary on a global level to move into the independent
and interdependent stages of human evolution.
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[E1]AU: this section is very
densely packed with information. I have suggested subheadings to help the
reader divide up & organize others’ theories & your synthesis of them,
but I welcome your input on my suggestions. I agree,
this section is densely packed and I like your suggested subheadings. We ended
up bolding all the subheads you created in this section. It seemed to help the
subheads be more clear and distinctive. Perhaps you had some other way in mind
to help them stand out from the text.
[E2]AU: What I failed to consider when creating headings is the need for a transition sentence or three in between A & B-heads. Would you whip something up? Done!
[E3]AU: This information belongs in your 1st introduction of Schore. After looking at his first introduction, it seems to go better here.
[E4]AU: Agreed. Problem solved.
[E5]AU: I just have to stop & say this new organization of chapters is working beautifully. Thanks!! J
[E6]AU: affectionate? Okay.
[E7]AU: cite publication. Done
[E8]AU: 2003 or 1987 in refs. Or is it
another reference altogether? 1987 is correct for this
citation.
[CW9]AU: delete? Leave it in. Even though she wrote the books, she had a
team that worked with her on studying and developing these concepts. ok
[E10]AU: this requires additional explanation. Done.
[E11]Perfect. That is just what was needed.
[E12]AU: pls define. Done.
[E13]AU: pls define. Done.
[E14]AU: that definition is kind of circular. “Transegoic,’ ‘superconscious,’ & ‘transpersonal realms of development’ are all quite abstract. Could you put it into plainer, concrete terms? Hope this works
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