Center for Growth and Healing

Integral Psychotherapy

"Feel Different"　


　

Specific Integral Concepts:

　

We approach Integral more as a space we naturally can come from much more than a group of concepts we try to go to. Otherwise we risk creating "shoulds" and "overlays" on top what is actually there, and on top of who we actually are.

AQAL (all quadrants, levels, lines, types etc.) is a powerful "map/cookie cutter" that doesn't seem to cut against the grain.　 However, like any map, it should not be held on to too tightly . After careful study, it should be let go of from time to time to develop an innate sense of the lay of the land. By letting the map go it re-emerges to us in a more accurate form. By holding on to any map we risk creating "analytic overlays" and dogmas that cover what is actually there and unfolding and evolving.. For example, just the word and concept "all" does not and cannot capture what "all" actually is,　 and what "all" is actually evolving to be.

We will incorporate (and sometimes challenge) extended integral concepts of:

　

We will integrate (vs. eclectic "heaping") principles, ideas and techniques that take from many different sources (such an integration is entirely possible):

　

　For those of you who are hungry for more theoretical models and concepts on consciousness & psychotherapy:

(After all, part of the groups purpose is to promote emotional-cognitive literacy)

Theoretical Models and Useful Concepts:　 (STILL ROUGH DRAFT)

　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Awareness vs. consciousness　 The importance of "Vertical Connection" penetrating through all horizontal levels of defense.

　

　 Awareness is a "horizontal" slice of consciousness.:

  1. It is an "emulation of"
  2. 　a "resonation with"
  3. 　a "space for", another process (or meta-process and co-creation) that is experienced as a figure-ground "object" that arises.

　

Consciousness is the "vertical" connection of awarenesses which includes:

　

Shadow and the Arrest of Growth:

　

　 There are parts of everyone that:

　

　　

Repression includes the repression and disconnection of content, capabilities as well as conscious entities (subselves):

　

　 Repression more specifically includes:

  1. Repression of Cognitions
    • As well as abilities to cognize ("dots" can no longer be connected)
    • As well as abilities to even know you have repressed anything
  2. Repression of Knowledge and information
    • As well as abilities to even know you know
  3. Repression of Emotions and Needs (especially unmet early childhood needs)
    • as well as abilities to emote and experience need. (Also, the effect of repressed emotions on cognitions are vast and deep
  4. Repression of Perceptions and subtle senses
    • As well as abilities to perceive and sense
    • Later on in life, the past "pre packaged perceptions get triggered and "overlay" what's really going on, in ways the seems "given" and real.


    　There are four lines of defense or fronts against emotional pain. We live in a society that is very phobic toward pain (our own and others). Most pathology develops when our pain and woundedness are mishandled.

    　

    Pain from earlier times is stored alone with prototypical experiences and prototypical expectations that unconsciously color all subsequent experiences and expectations. The neocortex can do very little to actually change these prototypes laid down in deeper brains structures. (Although it has incredible power to convince itself it can, which is an amazing and powerful survival skill our species has evolved)

    　

    Each neurologic level has a different "front" where stored pain and cognition is "gated" away from direct conscious access. When the defenses at one level (line) don’t hold, the material leaks into the next level and so on up. Various pains become stacked on top of each other at the different levels.

    　

    The gated material then only reaches consciousness in an indirect disconnected symbolic way. Direct connection is no longer possible and a false self and world is seamlessly substituted. The deep indirect seamless material arises and is usually experience as "given" even when the cognitive line is highly developed.　 　

    　

    Our lives then act out the symbolic meeting of childhood needs under various socially acceptable guises such as (compulsively) striving for success. The symbolic meeting of need does not meet the real need and leads to constant repetition of the pattern. We end up constantly re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic or "decorate the prison walls" with some success, but the deep source of the need and pain is never fully accessed (even through meditation). In reality the basement, living room 2nd floor, and attic of our house must be directly visited and cleaned up.

    1. The body line of defense (the "basement") where archaic birth and infant pain is gated away at the level of the brainstem area. Also basic spiritual and non-local disconnects can occur here. Vast undifferentiated spiritual energy can exist here, as well as, a spiritual "overseeing" clarity.

      Here is where we experience tense, compulsive and painful somatic energies that keep over aroused, driven and exhausted or under aroused and lethargic. Our world is globally "wallpapered" with this energy and is experience as absolutely given. A child deprived of a caring mother would have wallpaper that felt empty and yet this feeling would be accepted and normal and not empty for lack of other prototypical experiences. In severe cases the formation of the "self" is damaged so the person does not have a "self".

      What happens in infancy and childhood always leaves significant reservoirs of pain that affect all subsequent experience. It’s a matter of degree. The average "normal" person has significant "disability" to overcome with few real exceptions
    2. The emotional line of defense (the "living room") where pre-rational affective pain is gated away at the level of the limbic system. Here is where projection, retroflection, deflection, introjection and common everyday "delusions". Current or recent past drama is "over embraced" with little sense of connections to deeper levels and past events. Current activity, however, acts out past pain. Many people unconsciously become "a past response in search of a present stimulus". Going into past feelings seems stupid. The world is further "wallpapered" with the denied past as we try to deal the current "straw men" representatives of the past. An adult who doing childhood was deprived of a caring mother would always seek to create uncaring situations in relationships and then try to achieve caring intimacy he or she was never able to get.
    3. The cognitive level (The "2nd floor") or rational level of defense where pain is gated away at the level of the Cortex.　 Here is where things get rationalized. There are often strong defenses against the non-local and spiritual. Rationality and thinking become "over embraced" with no sense of connection to underlying emotion. One becomes a "reasonable" person and develops "hardening of the categories". Often non-local and spiritual experiences are seen as only irrational and pre-rational even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rationality bypasses emotion. A child deprived of a caring mother would rationally justify their current or past situations and circumstances and continually dwell in the thought and beliefs created by their justification.
    4. The "Meta cognitive", (the "attic") spiritual, trans-rational or transpersonal line of defense where pain may be gaited away by more complex structures in the cortex as well as by possible non-local energetic structures. Spirituality is used as a way of avoiding going to the "basement" to directly feel through shadow by deep sobbing etc. Basement pain that filters through is seen as something that can be transmuted. Spirituality can be "over embraced" to "spiritually bypass" or mute pain on the other levels. "Transcend and exclude" can apply. Also self as "object" can be held on to for dear life. Also higher perspectives, spirituality and non-locality can be denied, or distorted by the unconscious pressure from below. A child deprived of a caring mother would "transcend" these painful feelings or transmute several layers of the pain that reached consciousness.

    Myths:

    　

    　　　 Out of these lines of defense come several "myths"

    • My world is given to me as it is. I experience the world as it is.
    • I am very aware of what is in my "basement" (actually some basement items can take 3 or more hours just　 to access).
    • Only a few trips to my basement are necessary
    • There is nothing significant deep down in my "basement".
    • I have worked through my stuff ( a classic)
    • All my problem are justified and appropriate to current circumstance
    • Deep past pain does not significantly influence my current life and current perceptions
    • Pain does not serve and important growth function.
    • I can successfully live in one or two rooms of my "house"
    • Unfelt feelings don’t lie in waiting to be felt.
    • I can　 transcend my shadow..
    • Higher levels of the brain can vanquish the pain stored on the lower levels (e.g. limbic system).
      　

    　　 Levels of functioning to be penetrated and accessed during sessions. We all currently have all levels of functioning going on inside us in different proportions; some at times not seen as "objects" and therefore act as subjects.

    1. Mindless "automaton" perfunctory level
    2. "What others tell me" level (includes role-playing)
    3. 　"What I tell myself" level (includes self-propaganda , one thinks and speaks in "read-in-ese"　 or "Rorschach mode")
    4. 　"What my senses and feelings tell me" level (the beginning of corrective feedback and creative discontent)
    5. 　"What my pain, numbness and deadness tell me" level (phobic, constriction, knotted, implosion or death layer)
    6. 　"Fully felt, released feelings, cognitions and subselves" level (explosion layer) (Bits of unfinished material 　move through "sold", "liquid" and "gaseous" to vibrant pleasurable "plasma" states.) new levels of feeling and new subselves are uncovered. This includes penetrations through all four line of defense.
    7. "The integrated, grounded self" where the new pieces are put together and grounded in feelings and senses.
    8. The emergence of "the maximally aware and maximally conscious" level. Awarenesses are connected on a layered vertical scale of brain structures from the involuntary to the voluntary to the "trans-voluntary", from primitive cognitions to meta-cognitions.

    　

    "Emulation", "resonation" and "space for" are producing clear figure-grounds "gestalts" that rest in the fertile void. The "everything-nothing" figure-ground and rhythm is embodied and danced by the whole multidimensional organism. Holonmic "thought-balls" that contain huge number of perspectives and a huge amount of information can be produced by the organism

    　

    In therapy these levels (and their resistances) are repeatedly penetrated to intimately 1) "detonate" and feel through past "emergencies" (experienced in the present as dread of repeat) 2) to reach a level of clarity to see there are no real current emergencies (the beginning of outgrowing protective ego identification function).

    　

    Every level of functioning and every level of defense has its own appropriate interventions during the therapeutic process. There are many possible creative and supportive interventions that are available at every level. Often sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can be coordinated in such a way that a　 "safe emergency" can be created where that which could not be seen, thought, felt or done before can now be done with success.

    　

    Keep in mind, Learning to deal creatively and practically with current problems, situations, relationships, support networks, communities, is as important as finishing our past business. Current problem solving is an important as the bringing the parts of ourselves further down on the developmental ladder up with "selves" further up on the ladder. Both must go and in had so that we can progress as well as regress. Reach out as well as reach in.

    　

    　

    Health

    　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

    　　 Smoothness of Flow: The harmony of flow in one’s life when all parts of the self are working with each other and with the environment.

    In this case, there are no dominator hierarchies interfering within the self. Every part of the self does what it does best. The heart is not doing the work of the head and the head is not doing the work of the heart etc. Homeostasis is reinstated. One lives one’s life according to what one notices. The organism interfaces with the environment in a rhythmic flow of contact and withdrawal. Clear Intentionality of mind influences the non-local field around the person to optimize the collapse of possibility of events into actuality.

    REGULAR "ARTICLES" ON GROWTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPY TO COME !!


    AS WELL AS　 A SIMPLE ONE PAGE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THE GROUP IS AND WHAT IT DOES AND A BIO OF DR. CARR

    　

    THIS IS　 A GROUP LIKE NO OTHER

    　

    　

    　

    Wayne Carr, Ph.D. Licensed Psychologist

    Executive Director:

    The Center for Growth and Healing
    Psychotherapy, Counseling, Workshops, Groups

    The Western Institute of Remote Viewing
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