Integrity and Values for Mental Health - Part 2

Gregory Bateson and Robert Dilts described a cognitive model for giving unity to our thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and perceptions. Thie usual illustration of the layers of the model involves a pyramid with six layers (see below).

Bateson Dilts Logical Layers (Google Images)

The levels of the model are explained in greater detail further on. But for starters, the model provides an excellent guide for assessing how we can relate to different actions, feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. In discussing this model, the orientation I offer here includes notions drawn from Carl Jung and the findings of neuroscience. The model is still basically what Bateson and Dilts introduced.

In the story of the older man the Galley World, a scenario was developed in which the older man became angry when he had information from a limited area of the park. In many respects, this corresponds to when we react to something by using only limited personal resources to respond to challenges.

The model proposes that humans obtain their self-awareness through several logical levels. Each level enables us to relate to the world in a different way. If you consider that we have six logical levels of response, each of which can be engaged in a greater or lesser way during each interaction with the world, you can see that the world "out there" is not a static entity that your brain records, as a camera might record a shot. Instead, what we experience of the world out there depends on the personal resources we call into action as we encounter the world.

In the story of the older man, when the older man first responds to his situation, he loses his temper and fails to back away from the situation to think over what he hears from the Galley World employee. He is angry because he is in the present alone and does not focus on what is happening in the larger world.

But then he leaves Galley World, and his personal resources allow him to notice that park employees wear different unforms. His impulses lead him to go to one such employee. When he asks this employee about what has happened, the outcome is that understanding of things changes significantly.

Another way to examine this situation is to note that when the older man failed to achieve the objectives set in Galley World (an isolated world), he became angry or, in terms of affect regulation therapy, dysregulated. To restore regulation, he needed to resist affect at the moment of its initial occurrence and go to a different logical level, which is represented by the park manager. As the park manager indicated, the practice of going to a different logical level can be thought of as going to the limit.

The limit provides a good cognitive framework for envisioning regulation in the world of the self. Every situation in life has a larger context of understanding--a different logical level. We can be bigger than the moment. Carl Jung's vision of this was that we all start with the personal ego--let's call this the me-self. The me-self repeatedly views the world from a small frame of mind--the world as experienced in the shallow space of immediate likes and dislikes.

This space is often characterized by dysregulation. In the little world of the me-self, it often happens that frustration occurs because there is no place to go psychologically when a momentary frustration arises. But if there is a larger world--someplace to go--then things change. For one thing, it becomes possible to see that every experience in life, win or lose, can be opportunity to go to a different level, a limit. At a limit, we learn more about life in a way that brings empowerment and increased potentials. This is the world of the larger Self.

The larger Self is something that continues to grow over the whole of our life. With the larger self, we learn that for everything in one direction, there is something going on in another direction. We learn not to become fixated in the moment. Instead, over our lifetime, we grow toward what Jung called the Individuated Self--the greater self that includes a vision of life that is beyond the personalized me-self.

Jung's notion of the Individuated Self has many dimensions. With the Bateson-Dilts logical layers, consider that logic can be viewed as a way of interacting, responding to, or understanding. Each layer provides resources for responding to different life situations. You can think of the logical layers as dimensions of self-awareness. A dimension of self can be something communicated with through feeling as well as words. Each dimension represents a different way of understanding. When you work with all six layers, you find that you have many paths you can follow when you respond to different life situations. The larger Self calls to you, allowing you to have different perspectives on anything that you encounter.

Explore the descriptions of the different dimensions of the self to gain a perspective on how this happens. As you go, think of how you can enhance your understanding of yourself using the different logical layers.

Mission / Spirituality

This encompasses our purpose, mission, and connection to something greater. It’s about expressing our unique essence and contributing to the world. It is also about the transitional potentials that relate the me-self as it grows to the Individuated Self.

The mission or dimension of spirituality includes the unconscious since the unconscious mind/brain provides the source of our emergence into consciousness. The unconscious anticipates the greater whole of Self. View the unconscious as a vast array of brain potentials that are activated by life events. We realize these potentials as we individuate the Self. The unconscious mind/brain anticipates what we can become.  

Identity / Integrity

This is what you allow in your life. You allow yourself to be what you identify with--what you feel can become part of you. If you do not identify with something, you push it away (sometimes angrily) or avoid it. Such steady defensive of integrity is important because you are continuously answering a central question: How do I envision myself as a whole person? What belongs to 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?

Values / Beliefs

What is expressed or can be thought of in conscious ways qualifies as values and beliefs. You are able to say why you want to do one thing rather than another. You use reasons. Or if you do not state reasons specifically, you have clear visions and feelings. Values and beliefs are not the constructs of language alone. They are mediated by any form of expression and feeling that you commonly use. You know what music you like, for instance, from listening to music. You know what foods you prefer on the basis of how they taste and among other things how they affect you. Feelings, intuition, sense, and thought--they all shape our 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. 

Capabilities

What abilities do I cultivate to achieve the values I maintain? What do I become involved in as my vocation? Do I learn about gardening, cooking, mathematics, chemistry... Or what about other things, as in arts, crafts, sciences, professions, and trades?

What we do shapes us. A capability designates what you know how to do, but it also involves choosing what to learn to do next. We are shaped both by being capable of doing certain things and by being oriented toward learning how to do new things. 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.

Behaviors

What you choose to do shapes you. But the way you have shaped yourself determines how you can express yourself in the world. More generally, your behavior is the manner in which 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 aware of your own behavior. Consider someone who does not exercise correctly when using a gym machine? The behavior seems just 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.

Behavior is how you sleep, eat, exercise, work, play, make love, learn, meet others, maintain friendships…. To behave is to express who you are as you are. 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.

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 different locations in your environment to meet needs and desires that are engendered in all levels of your being--inside and outside. They are brought into your life as landmarks and the pathways between them, geographically, logically, and emotionally.  

2024 © John P Flynt, PhD | Your Horizon Counseling