Fields of Value in Ecological Psychology

Fields of Value in Ecological Psychology

Values do not occur in isolation from the rest of your life. Instead, they emerge from the greater Self as you age. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, Gregrory Bateson and others developed a logical model of selfhood. Bateson offered this as an ecological approach to the mind, which he addressed in Steps to an Ecology of Mind. A central notion involved in this view of Self is that it is possible to distinguish a number of primary logical layers of integration. As mentioned previously, the logical layers can be viewed as fields of integration. The following topics explore these layers of fields of integration.

This was not the last word on such integration. Daniel Siegel presents a view of integration that develops themes arising from systems theory, ecology, and neuroscience. For him, nine paths of integration are involved. The approach presented by Siegel merits a separate discussion. But with respect to the vision of Bateson, consider that Siegel has pointed out that the paths of integration vary for each of us, numbering more or less. Bateson was fully in tune with this notion. An ecology sustains endless variability and diversity when it is healthy.

In this discussion, six fields of integration are discussed. Envision these as a component of a system that interacts with each other.  

A.   Mission / Spirituality

In therapy, one of the first questions to be addressed is whether you believe that doing therapy will bring changes you desire. This reflects your sense of mission or spiritual unity. It is a statement that you believe that your universe is unified, that it has an ultimate meaning. If you believe this, then you believe there is a path from your current state to another state that you want to reach. If this does not apply, then it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to change. Mission is a sense of the reality of unity of self, as is spirituality. We don't necessarily know how to get from one place to another, but we believe that it is possible to change.

Mission/Spirituality implies connection to something greater (the possibility of integration of Self). It’s about expressing our unique essence and contributing to the world. It is about the transitional potentials that relate the me-self as it grows to the Individuated Self.

If reference is made to Carl Jung, the layers or fields mission/spirituality include the unconscious since the unconscious mind/brain provides the source of our emergence of self-awareness. Jung saw somewhat dissociated entities known as archetypes as providing the energy underlying the emergence of self-states. Individuation gives symbolic expression to archetypal energy, and this leads to conscious awareness and integration of Self. The unconscious anticipates the greater whole of Self. There is a path between the two, which is the journey of the Self.

From a different perspective, the unconscious can be viewed as the dissociated states that arise with developmental trauma. The trauma prevents integration. We work through therapy to discover and mediate the trauma. The vast array of brain potentials that life events activate are then brought into a unified field of commination. We realize these potentials as we integrate the Self. The unconscious (dissociated) mind/brain anticipates what we can become integrated.

It remains essential to also consider that the brain/mind consists of constellations of safe self-states. Theise are neural subnetworks that are characterized by heightened feelings of trust. Following the metaphor of constellation, think of trust as gravity that draws self-states into a system of safety. Without such attractor properties, the mind would disintegrate into chaos. Therapy always involves building on safety to bring about the unity of self-states that form the greater Self.

B.   Identity / Integrity

The writings of Allan Schore provide a treasure of essential insights into the role of shame in developmental trauma. Identity/integrity relates to shame. We have evolved so that in the most essential aspects of our being is a powerful impulse to react to intrusions into what we experience as our selfhood. Shame is a violation of the identity or integrity we experience in selfhood. The violation comes about when we do not receive acknowledgement from our caretakers during developmental stages of life, but such violations occur throughout life when significant others or the environments we experience do not validate our personhood.

At the basis of this validation is the act of communication. A validating communication can be glimpsed in the communications between a parent and child. Let's consider what happens between a mother and her child. The child feels discomfort—hunger. The child cries, looking toward her mother for acknowledgement, the mother looks at the child and as she does so, her expression changes so that that child sees that her mother sees that she is hungry. Daniel Siegel has made famous the expression of "feeling felt" in relation to this. A dimension of empathy is at work. Communication allows the child to feel felt. And then a confirmation of the action follows, which is being nursed or fed—being taken in arms and given what is needed. This is the type of communication that allows a child to feel fully acknowledged. The child opens herself to her mother. She opens her being to another for validation. The openness is met with fullness of response by the loving mother.

But consider what happens if the mother turns away. In this grim scenario, it might be that the child cries out, opening herself to her mother, but the mother does not respond. Allan Schore describes a scenario in which he watches this happening in a public setting when an infant reaches out in this way to her mother, but her mother is preoccupied with an iPhone. When the baby at last turned her eyes away after repeated attempts to be acknowledged, the light had faded from her expression. This is a instance of attachment trauma. The relationship was not validated, and when the relationship is not validate, the child feels ashamed.

Identity and integrity relate to the trust that can be expected from relationships. You allow yourself to be open about what you feel safe with—what you feel can become part of you, what you can trust. If you do not identify with something, you push it away (sometimes angrily) or avoid it. On the other hand, if you do not identify with something or someone and yet are still imposed on by this person or thing, you feel invaded. Your sense or boundaries of self are not respected. The feeling that results is shame—one of the most painful experiences we can have.

For this reason, it is important to steadily extend, preserve, and defend identity/integrity from conception through death. And if shame occurs, resulting in trauma, then care must be taken to restore the ability to trust and to feel whole. This is so because Identify/integrity is at the heart of being able to relate to an interact with others and the world.

In the trinity of mind, body, and relationship, identity/integrity leads to questions such as these: How do I experience safety? How do I experience trust? How is it that I envision myself as a whole person? What belongs to me or within my life? What causes me to feel shame? What causes me to feel pride? What contributes to my health, intelligence, coherence, and fulfilment in relation to this person whom I view as myself?

C.   Values / Beliefs

We have examined values and beliefs in the context of ACT. One theme involves the role of the naming of feelings. The term often applied to the naming of feelings is mentalizing. If you lack the ability to recognize feelings, you lack the ability to interact with the world and yourself in a fulfilling way. The condition of lacking mentalizing abilities is referred to as alexithymia. "A" is "not," "lexi" is word, and "thymia" is feeling. To name feelings relates to values/beliefs because values and believes are developed as narratives of what we experience as we turn our experiences of life into the autobiographical account of our journey through life. When an experience is not associated with feelings, it is not fully assimilated. It is not part of the journey.

What you express or think in conscious, self-aware ways qualifies as values and beliefs. When you express values, you say why you want to do one thing rather than another. What you say is based on your sense of self, your feelings, and the memories you have of yourself that are fully assimilated through feelings. Any form of expression and feeling that you commonly use mediates values. You know what music you like, for instance, from listening to music. You know what foods you prefer based on how they taste and among other things how they affect you. Feelings, intuition, sense, and thought—all shape values and beliefs. Regardless of how they take form in your life, values and beliefs provide the criteria by which you choose what to include in your life.

D.  Capabilities

What we do shapes us. A capability designates a feed-back loop. Our strengths emerge as we interact with our environment. On the neurological level, when neurons discharge together (as when they relay chemical electrical charges), they form into a circuit that gains strength with each repetition. This is the basis of the formation of selfhood. It was the bedrock of the behaviorist schools of sociology and psychology that reached their peak in the twentieth century. This groundwork remains valid in the context of psychology as reshaped by neuroscience. What we do shapes us, and because of this, we can exert substantial influence over the shape of our lives. The health of such shaping is the choice of what to learn to do next. We are shaped both by being capable of doing certain things and by our orientation toward learning to do what comes next. As we go, we have our values and beliefs in mind, and we work under the umbrella of integrity and spirituality. We become ourselves through our capabilities. This makes a capability a statement about how we have chosen to channel our energies into giving shape to ourselves.

E.   Behaviors

The way you shape yourself determines how you can interact with the world. Your behavior is the way you engage with the world in everything you do, in which you interact with the physical and social worlds around you. There is an extra dimension to behavior, however. It is important to be self-aware. Consider someone who does not exercise correctly when using a gym machine. The behavior seems fine and is commendable in many ways. But then an expert trainer points out that using the machine in the wrong way leads to back problems! Being aware of the behavior makes it possible to make corrections and avoid such pitfalls.

Interaction is at the center of behavior. Certainly, behavior is how you sleep, eat, exercise, work, play, express love, learn, meet others, and maintain friendships…. But all these are interactions. To behave is to express who you are as you are and to relate to others through this expression. Your activities as behavior are bounded by values. Your behaviors show how you are consistent and aligned in the different dimensions of yourself as a self-sustaining system. If you behave consistently, with self-awareness, then you shape your being on ongoing basis in a consistent way.

F.   Environment / Dwelling

The environment is both within you and in the world around you. When you dwell in an environment, you learn to move within it in accordance with the pathways of your identity. You choose to go to the various locations in your environment to meet needs and desires engendered in all levels or fields of your being--inside and outside. This extends to where your language, thought, and feelings allow you to in your creative life. As the levels or fields of value emerge in your life, they become landmarks in your terrain of Self. You then create and discover pathways between them--geographically, logically, and emotionally.

As Bateson emphasized in Steps to an Ecology of mind, ecological health implies flexibility of interaction. When humans engaged in monoculture or pave over huge areas of the earth, when they reduce the diversity of life in the ocean by over-fishing, when they clear cut the jungles or old forests, they are reducing the flexibility of the ecology and imposing a narrow set of human constructs on nature as a substitute for nature. This is a form of environmental trauma.

The notion of trauma to an ecological system, as you can see from the discussion offered so far, parallels the notion of developmental or interactive trauma. Ecological health is the same as psychological health: it is related to integration, flexibility, openness, and growth. Nature is a complex system, as is the brain, and its health is emergent and can be assessed by the extent to which the whole of the system manifests ongoing state interactions that are conducive to unity and flow.

Further Reading

Jon G. Allen, Peter Fonagy, Anthony W. Bateman, Mentalizing in Clinical Practice. 

Philip M. Bromberg, The Shadow of the Tsunami and the Growth of the Relational Mind.

Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self.

Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision.

Antonio Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and The Human Brain.

Robert B. Dilts, A Brief History of Logical Levels.

Bruce Fuller, Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age.

John Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Goi There You Are.

Carl Jung, Modern man in Search of a Soul.

Jack Kornfield: No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are.

Frederick Lenoir, Jung: Un voyage vers soi.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace in Every Step: The Paths of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.

Allan N. Schore, The Development of the Unconscious Mind.

Daniel J. Siegel, The Mindful Brain: Reflections and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being.

Marta Zaraska, Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100.

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