Bilateral Course (7)

Basic Case Handling

Analysis of the case will be based on the Hemispheric Assessment and a full General Assessment (see Appendices). An appropriate procedure would then be directed, depending on two dimensions: the overall or chronic hemispheric dominance of the client, and his position on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

A left-brain dominant client would tend to have his attention on cognitive conflicts due to irrational decisions and beliefs, whereas the right brain dominant client would tend to be emotionally stuck because of traumatic incidents in reactivation. A person clear of aberration would be situated centrally (position 5 on the Bilateral) and have ready access to both left and right brain functions. The area of aberration that needs to be handled first would show itself from the General Assessment, and would be at the Maslow levels upon which the clients attention is most directed.

If there is a clear presenting problem in life, this would be handled first, with 'Handling Unwanted Conditions', 'Toxic Parents' , 'Toxic Relationships' or other appropriate procedures. If the problem is undefined but the client is nonetheless under stress because of it, the 'Life Stress List' or 'Upsets List' would be assessed and reading items handled.

The client would be educated in how and why the Meters are used in session, and at an appropriate stage in his therapy, he would be taught the '15 Types of Distorted Thinking', so that this aspect of his case may be addressed. This would be earlier for the left-brain client than for those stuck in inappropriate emotion. Up to this point, the therapist using a Bilateral Meter would be mainly taking up Right readings (that also read on the GSR Meter), and disregarding those to the Left, since as mentioned above, it is necessary at first to deal with only those issues which have a reality-based emotional or feeling content, rather than directly attempting to uncover the misconceptions from which such emotions derive. Gradually such misconceptions - beliefs based on distorted thinking - will emerge, and Left reads may be taken up to move deeper into the case. On the other hand, often a client who is left-brain dominant will, when misconceptions are handled, be able and willing to look at the more emotional issues in his life.

Beyond this, we are moving into areas such as life goals, belief systems and identity structures, for which the specific handlings are included in the The Insight Project materials. These can be self-administered by a student who has attained a high degree of stability from their personal development.

Basic L/R interventions

By notating an actual session with a female client (the names and facts of which have been altered - confidentiality is paramount in counselling), the method to be used should become clear.

In this example the therapist is going to ask questions from the Life Stress List in order to find out what the problem is, and is going to take-up only those questions that read to the Right on both Meters. The client is told that she does not need to answer, unless a read is indicated to her.

[GSR BP 3.8, Bilateral Balance 2.1 on the Left; client a little nervous and tense, but with no presenting - known to her - problem.]

Therapist (T): 'Since our last session, is there something which has upset you?' [only gave small cognitive reads on the Bilateral, so this is not taken-up.}

'Since our last session have you experienced a loss?' [this gave a latent Left read on the Bilateral, suggesting that something is being defended against. Despite being charged, these first two questions are not an appropriate entry-point for this client.]

'Is there something you are finding difficult to express?' [this moved Left then developed into a Right read, so:] 'Are you looking at something there?'

Client (C): 'In a general sense' [which is why the needle first moved to the Left.]

T: '.OK; is there a particular thing in your life at the moment, which you are having difficulty in expressing?' [Bilateral reads to the Right.]

C: 'Well, I can't find a way to make my husband realize that I love him.' [still reads]

T: 'Is there something more about that?' [no answer] 'Is something being suppressed?' [no read] 'Is something being invalidated?' [Right]

C: 'My husband has every right to be the way he is, he doesn't have to know I love him.' [Floats on the GSR, but Bilateral reads Left indicating a rationalization, so continue to direct the client towards the Right.]

T: 'Alright. Is there something you find hard to accept?' [long read to Right]

C: [cries] 'He just won't listen to me, I can't get through to him!' [continues to Right. GSR is now at 2.5, Bilateral at R 1.0.]

T: 'Alright. Now recall an earlier experience where somebody wouldn't listen to you.' [steers the client by indicating Right reads, saying: 'There...There']

C: 'Yes, I'm with my first boyfriend and he's saying that he thinks we should end the relationship because it's just not working. I'm telling him, "I love you, I really do" but he's just stone-faced.'

T: 'What sensations are you feeling?'

C: 'I'm starting to feel sick, I feel like strangling him. I'd like to really make him suffer for this. I'm going to act cold now' [Right and then Left reads, the latter corresponding to survival computations, which would be taken up with a more stable client]

T: 'What pictures are you seeing in your mind?' [no read] 'What are you hearing?' [long Right]

C: 'My Mummy says "Go away and play, dear, you're a damn pest". I feel she doesn't want me, no-one wants me, I'm all alone!' [cries, Left read, GSR rises. A traumatic incident has been reactivated which the client is withdrawing from because it is hard to confront]

T: 'Go to the beginning and run through this experience again. Tell me how it feels'

C: 'I'm feeling desperate...sick...angry... "Please, Mummy, please!" [cries for a while] I can see this is the same thing as happens with my husband. I suppose I was pestering my mother.' [starts to look relieved, GSR falls and starts to float] 'I can see what's happening, I'm causing these people to cut me off, I'm assuming they don't hear me, that they don't feel... [Bilateral floats, smiles.]

T: 'That's fine, both needles are floating. I'll repeat the first question: Is there something you are finding difficult to express?' [no read] 'OK, that's no longer reading. How are you feeling now?'

C: 'Much better. It's a relief, I can understand it now.' [GSR at 3.8, Bilateral at R 0.1]

T: 'OK, we'll have a session break!'

Some points to make: If the GSR floats whilst the Bilateral is reading Left, this is a pseudo rationalization, and the issue should continue to be run towards concrete right-brain experiences and feelings. The therapist needs to discriminate charged readings on the Bilateral over the top of small cognitive reads. Later in the person's case, Left readings are also taken up, but even earlier on, the therapist needs to be aware of their significance: when the needle goes left there is an implied withhold or defensive strategy. In this way, the client uses his left brain as an inhibitory filter to protect from painful right-brain feelings. This may include inauthentic emotions which are expressed but not really felt. In a later session the above client fell into floods of tears, but this read as a strong Left defense: she was using this technique as a ploy to avoid the real issue - one of her armory of defenses - and at this intermediate stage of case handling, this defense was something that could be addressed directly.

An exception to this approach occurs with a client who has moved far into the Right, and cannot articulate the emotions being felt. In this case it is necessary to steer to the Left, in order to find the words. You could ask for a description or give her some distance from the experience: 'How does this seem to you now?' or 'What part of this incident can you accept?' So one steers the client depending on the mental process that one needs to bring out - but always checking that the GSR is also reading.

The client should always be directed to ways that he is at cause in the situation being looked at, not the ways at which he is at effect. This is because he is cause of his own feelings and responses; not recognizing this is the lie that causes all of the problems. By going in this direction the succumb second postulates can be seen for the lies that they are and the original causative postulate or intention emerges. You can ask (while running the incident): 'What intention of your is being made nothing of (or stopped, invalidates, etc)?' Ultimately, you want to know what the person first did or wanted, not what was later done to him or was unwanted. This causative realization should always be the end-point of a case handling. The failure to recognize this is the biggest out-point of most psycho-therapeutic approaches, which may be good at bringing up negative feelings but tend to leave the client stranded in it, and effectively worse off - at effect, the victim.

Irrational behavior, Emotions & Beliefs

Having perceived a situation in a certain way, i.e. having picked on an aspect of it that he considers most significant, the individual will then make an evaluation, according to his beliefs, about how he relates to that aspect of the situation. He will (perhaps sub-consciously) say a sentence to himself, based on an underlying assumption or belief. This belief may be rational, i.e. based on reality and what exists and is logical, or it may be irrational, based on delusion, prejudice and ideas that are fixed and not open to inspection.

For example a person is nearly knocked over by a bus, and he infers that the driver was going too fast, and then believes rationally that the driver, like anyone else, is a fallible human being and he had better make more allowance for poor driving in future, when crossing the road. Alternatively, he may respond irrationally and say to himself that it is absolutely terrible that the driver should do such a thing, and if he could get hold of the driver he would shoot him. This is a greatly exaggerated evaluation based on an underlying irrational belief, that the driver's behavior was impossible to tolerate.

Having targeted the precise problem that the client wants to resolve, the next step is to assess the resulting emotions and behavior. The emotions to be looked for are inappropriate ones such as anxiety, damning anger, guilt, shame, depression and morbid jealousy. Each of these has an equivalent which is not so extreme and may well be appropriate to the circumstances, in which case there would be no point in looking for an irrational belief underpinning it. Alongside the inappropriate emotion there is likely to be self-defeating behavior as the negative emotion has a destructive effect.

Then assess the activating event, or inference about the situation, which triggers off the response - what specifically the client is disturbed about in the example of the problem which is being examined, both objectively (the key practical aspect of the situation) and subjectively (what was inferred about this aspect, how it was interpreted in his own mind).

Inferences

A difficult or traumatic situation may not be viewed as clearly by the person under stress, as it would be by somebody not in that situation, who can view it objectively. The person under stress is likely to be reminded, at least subconsciously, of previous, somewhat similar traumatic situations, and may therefore view the reality of the situation through a filter of prejudice or fear and make all sorts of inferences that would not bear scrutiny to the objective viewer.

For example, the person who was nearly knocked over by a bus may have made a rational inference that the driver was going too fast, since he would normally have had time to cross safely. Or he may have inferred that the driver was going too fast to excuse his own carelessness. Then again, he may infer that the bus was deliberately trying to run him down. The interpretation of a singular event may then differ for each individual observer according to their belief systems. A joke told at a party for instance, may provoke embarrassment to one person but send another into fits of laughter.

One inference may lead on to another. For example the rejection of an approach to a potential girlfriend may infer in the man's mind that he is not good looking enough. This may provoke further anxiety in that he may then feel that he will never get a girlfriend who is attractive. Furthermore this makes him anxious because he worries what his male colleagues will think of him, and he may be afraid that his career will suffer. A chain of such inferences may stem from the actual situation in reality. But only one of these will be the main provocation, from the person's point of view, which has triggered off a fixed belief and caused an irrational evaluation and the inevitable inappropriate emotion and self-defeating behavioral response.

A secondary emotional disturbance may become apparent when the primary one has been dealt with, as the client denigrates himself for the original response, or for responding again in the same way after he knows it is irrational. For example, he may feel deep shame about his occasional temper tantrums in which he strikes his wife. The secondary disturbance may even be senior to the primary emotional disturbance, and need to be handled first.

It is necessary to be able to recognize the irrational beliefs that the client is holding, to support the emotions that result. Maladjustment occurs when unrealistic and absolute rules are applied inappropriately and arbitrarily. Therapy attempts to substitute more realistic and adaptive rules.

Self-imposed rules seem to focus on danger versus safety and on pain versus pleasure. Dangers and risks involved in common situations are overestimated. Psycho-social dangers are the source of most problems - fears of humiliation, criticism, rejection and so on. Attitudes that predispose people to excessive sadness or depression include the following: 'In order to be happy, I must be successful, accepted, popular, famous, wealthy, and so on. If I make a mistake, I am incompetent. I cannot live without love. When people disagree with me, they do not like me.' These beliefs are framed as absolutes or extremes and cannot be satisfied.

Usually there will be a demand (should, must, ought) from which the belief is derived. The client is asked, 'What are you telling yourself to make you feel and behave (as resulted)?' Discussing the reasons for the belief, the therapist should spot any 'musts' and 'shoulds', and exaggerated views such as 'it's awful', signs of low frustration tolerance such as 'I can't stand it any more' and damning generalizations about self or others. These are reflected back to the client, so that he can see for himself whether they stand up to objective scrutiny. The client may be asked to demonstrate the belief is logical, realistic and helpful, so that he can see for himself that it is not. He may be asked what is the worst thing that could happen to him in the circumstances, and what good things may occur. It is necessary that the client comes to this conclusion by his own reasoning, examining alternatives, rather than being fed the insight on a plate, which is unlikely to get the client to really look at the practicalities for himself; besides, he is likely to reject such evaluation as an imposition.

The client needs to recognize the possibility of another point of view, and to test out the feasibility of his old belief against the evidence of logic, reality and what is best for him or her. This would not happen in most cases without a positive intervention by the therapist, such as an indication that the statement he has made reads to the Left on the Bilateral Meter. Experience of such logical analysis is however also an education, and this may be applied continually in life, to recognize existing false ideas as they emerge in the reactivation of everyday affairs, and to prevent the build up of further misconceptions.

Misconceptions

This is because when underlying traumatic experiences been avoided, repressed or denied, they are often kept inaccessible to inspection by still other misconceptions, which can be termed 'defensive', fulfilling needs for safety, security and self-esteem, and secondary beliefs based on these defensive misconceptions therefore have an accompanying emotional investment. The defensive misconceptions prevent the individual from recognizing the deeper, more threatening and uncomfortable misconceptions.

Misconceptions tend to be grouped in clusters, resulting in a complex of behavior. Those that result in depressive neurosis include:

* I am, have been, and always will be hopeless (or helpless, or worthless).
* I never will recover.
* Nothing is worthwhile.
* No one cares about me.
* I am unable to engage in normal activities.
* I am so guilty and hopeless that suicide is the only solution.

Obsessive neurosis may show many of the following misconceptions:

* I always must be punctual, orderly, conscientious and reliable.
* I cannot tolerate dirt and germs.
* I must control everything and everyone, including myself.
* Details are vitally important.
* I cannot really trust anyone.
* Being right is more important than anything else.

Hysterical behavior may manifest such misconceptions as the following, along with acute anxiety and depression:

* I am effective when I am flirtatious, seductive, vivacious, dramatic.
* I cannot tolerate frustration and disappointment.
* By acting helpless and dependent, I can achieve my goals.
* I am a victim and not responsible for my problems.
* I deserve more attention and help from others.

Individuals with phobic reactions frequently show three clustered misconceptions:

* The feared object is dangerous.
* I probably will collapse when the feared object is present.
* I cannot eliminate my fear reaction to the object.

Phrenophobia is the false belief, and associated fear, that there is something wrong with one's mind which may result in 'insanity'. This belief, although widespread, is often denied or concealed by misleading euphemisms such as 'nervous breakdown'. A cluster of five misconceptions is usually present. All are misinterpretation of anxiety symptoms resulting from sustained tension and stress.

* My feelings of anxiety point to approaching insanity.
* My memory failures or distortions are signs of mental breakdown.
* My difficulties in concentration indicate mental disorder.
* My irritability signals mental disturbance.
* If these symptoms do not lead to psychosis, my insomnia will.

Exaggerated self-importance has various names - superiority complex, arrogance, vanity, conceit, egotism, and many others - and is based on special-person misconceptions.. The individual is constantly engaged in attempts to have others acknowledge his or her superiority, which if threatened, is defended vigorously. If the defense is unsuccessful, anxiety and depression result. The following six false beliefs are manifested by most:

* I must control others.
* I am superior to others.
* I should not compromise.
* I suffer from more frustrations than do others.
* I must strive to be perfect.
* Others cannot be trusted.

The compulsively 'special' person's constant efforts to control, his attitudes of superiority, his refusal to compromise, his masked hostilities, and his empty perfectionism betray the highly competitive person who must have his own way and must be right at all costs. The failure to trust others is manifested by suspiciousness which may verge on the paranoid. Other characteristics of the 'special person' are a highly critical attitude towards others, little empathy with others, lack of insight about the self, and self-righteousness. Over-indulgence in childhood may be the cause, although other sources may include early identification with an illustrious or dominating parent or with fantasised heroes. Such people often become flawed leaders, who have problems with their families and intimates.

Defense Systems

I - The core or heart from which the feeling to love and be loved derives, at the center of which is the soul or spiritual identity. This is always present, even if defenses on further layers make it unconscious.

II - The emotional layer of feelings which include the suppressed feelings of rage, anxiety, panic or terror, despair, sadness and pain.

III - The muscular layer in which is found the chronic muscular tensions that support and justify the ego defenses and at the same time protect the person against expressing the underlying layer of suppressed feelings that he dare not express.

IV - The ego layer is the outermost layer of the basic sense of self or identity, and which contains the typical ego defenses of denial, distrust, blaming, projections (other-determined viewpoints), plus rationalizations (excuses) and intellectualisations.

The breakdown of defenses has necessarily to consider each of these layers. While we can help a person become conscious of his tendencies to deny, blame, project or rationalize, this awareness rarely affects the muscular tensions or releases the suppressed feelings. If these layers are not cleared, the conscious awareness can easily degenerate into a different type of rationalization with a concomitant but altered form of denial and projection. Assuming it is possible to eliminate every defensive position in the personality, how would such an 'open' person function?

The four layers still exist but now they are co-ordinating and expressive layers rather than defensive ones. Core impulses reach the real world. The person puts his heart into everything he does. He loves doing whatever he chooses, whether it is work, play or sex. He can be angry, sad, joyful or frightened depending on the situation. These feelings represent genuine responses since they are free from contamination by suppressed emotions stemming from childhood experiences. And since his muscular layer is free from chronic tensions, his movements reflect his feelings and are subject to the control of the ego - they are appropriate, meaningful and co-ordinated.

The use of the GSR meter in therapy helps reach through the outer defenses to detect emotional charge and this can then be fully contacted and re-experienced and so released, with cognitive insight (into the ego-defenses) naturally accompanying the process. Tensions in the muscular layer are no longer supported and can dissolve.

Beliefs

When we believe something we act as if it is true; we have then made an investment of effort. This makes it difficult to disprove; beliefs act as perceptual filters - events are interpreted in terms of the belief, and 'exceptions prove the rule' (an irrational fallacy since exceptions actually disprove general rules). Beliefs are not just maps of what has happened, but blueprints for future actions. Positive beliefs are permissions that turn on our capabilities; they are permissions to play and explore in the world of possibility. Limiting beliefs on the other hand, usually center around, 'I can't...' This may be a valid statement at the present moment, but believing it is a description of your capability now and in the future, will programme your mind to fail, as it will prevent you finding out your potential capability. It is far more sensible to say 'I won't...' rather than 'I can't...' Limiting beliefs have no valid basis in experience.

Beliefs come from many sources - upbringing, imitation of significant others, conclusions as a result of past traumas, and repetitive experiences. We build beliefs by generalizing from our experiences of the world and those of other people. Some beliefs come to us ready made from the culture and environment we are born into. When we are young, we believe what we are told about ourselves and the world, because we have no way of testing, and these beliefs may persist unmodified by our later achievements, because they had parental authority and became embedded as unconscious commands in the developing Super-ego.

When people are neurotic or have unreasonable outlooks on life, the basic difficulty is not usually that they do not know enough hard facts; it is rather that they are not aware of their own feelings and the feelings of other people, or that they lack the self-control and motivation to allow this awareness to operate effectively. There are of course simple cases where false beliefs lead to mistaken or unreasonable outlooks. For example, if a person genuinely believes that all Jews are plotting to overthrow the State, or that all Negroes behave like animals, then he could be asked to examine the evidence, which would show him that these beliefs were false, and he would change his attitude. This would not be a case of prejudice, but just a case of ignorance. But if there is some hidden reason why a person hates Jews or despises Negroes, or why he is unduly scared of his boss, or is disposed to think that people hate him, or is unable to face life without relying on a god, and so on, this must first be uncovered.

Much of the difficulty arises because it rarely happens that a person quite straightforwardly wants this, or decides to do that, or believes the other - the person is very often in a state of conflict. Not all their emotions and beliefs are on the surface, in their conscious minds; it often happens that they have a set of unconscious emotions and beliefs which work against their conscious ones. They may not admit these emotions and beliefs to themselves, or only in fleeting moments of extreme honesty and self-awareness. It is very common for a person to deny, even to himself, that he feels frightened, small, insecure or impotent; or to pretend to himself and to others that he is competent, powerful and brave.

A person's outlook on life is a product of his total personality: his inborn human drives and potentialities, his childhood fears and desires, his later learning and experiences, his ideals and moral values, and the emotions that he once felt but has perhaps now forgotten and repressed (but which continue to influence him). To unravel all these, to make him properly aware of what he feels, to free him from those compulsions and limiting beliefs which cause self-defeating behavior, is obviously a large task of Bilateral analysis, but an essential one.

Conflict or challenge?

When you want to change yourself or help others to change, you need to gather information, the noticeable parts of a problem, the symptoms one is uncomfortable with. This is the present state: the current reality. To be a realistic view, the subjective component of this reality should minimally distort or delete from the objective reality - it should be the truth, without rationalization or suppression.

There will also be a desired state: an outcome that is the goal of change. To be a genuine, self-determined goal, there should be no counter-intention: it should be one's own goal, not an obligation or safe solution. Plus there needs to be clarity: it should be objective and specific. One also needs to take account of the resources that will help to achieve this outcome, and also the side effects to reaching it, for oneself and others. There will of course be the barriers and difficulties. These may be considered as challenges or as problems.

Challenges deteriorate into problems when there are underlying causes that maintain the problem: what does the person keep having to do that maintains the problem, and why?

The element of conflict is intrinsic to problems and the trick of solving them is to be able to spot the counter-element to one's own intention, and thereby to recognize that one does indeed have a causative contribution to the situation, otherwise it would not be intention versus counter-intention - a problem! The 'solution' to the problem is simply a realization of the structure of the problem itself. The charge or confusion of the problem will then drop away, and appropriate actions may be taken.

Disturbances and trauma

There is the reactivation caused by the similarity of present circumstances to the original situation, particularly if that was traumatic. Current attitudes, emotions, sensations or pains may also connect with COEX content and bring that charge to life. This may be going on below the surface, or the person may be aware of a specific trauma or pattern being reactivated and be clearly 'out of present time' and 'in the incident'. For example a person who is still in mourning over the loss of a loved one, or a person still in shock from a brush with death, have this kind of disturbance. A person may suffer 'flashbacks' when trauma is suddenly reactivated.

The individual may not be able to recall the experiences of his life that relate to COEX material that is repressed. He may not be able to communicate about an incident or about areas of his life that relate to the COEX, or speak freely to people involved, or people who are similar in some way to people involved.

A negative COEX will inevitably have a problem structure: a must-do versus can't-do, an effort or intention that is matched by counter-effort or intention. characteristic of this kind of disturbance is being uncertain of what to do or how things are going to turn out, because the consequences on both sides seem unconfrontable. A resolution requires confronting the full facts, understanding all points of view, being willing to communicate to get something done. Fully viewed, a problem becomes a situation that something can be done about.

bad actions and the need to withhold knowledge of them from others, is another factor which may be part of COEX experience and affecting life now - the source of guilt and hostility. A person commits a bad action if he has been unable to resolve a problem satisfactorily - he will feel 'forced' to commit a bad action. We can become quite disturbed if we feel we have done something cruel or unfair to another, particularly if this is something we then have to hide, and even more so if someone nearly finds out about it. We are then likely to rationalize the bad action, to justify it and find reasons why the act was deserved and indeed not wrong after all.

A satisfying relationship with another person requires good communication, mutual understanding and empathy. If there is a significant drop in one of these factors, e.g. we disagree and have an argument, an upset ensues - we aren't speaking to one another anymore. An upset occurs when there is a sudden departure from what is wanted or expected - an unwanted change or break in the relationship. Such upsets inevitably have emotional consequences; a poorer relationship causes a drop in self tone. People can equally have upsets with objects or situations if there is a diminishment of control or understanding, e.g. I can get upset if my car breaks down or if I suddenly get ill. One may become upset with the frustrations and negative learning spiral of a contra-survival COEX, and be upset with the context and situation of the COEX.

Your volitional control over situations may be disturbed if someone evaluates the circumstances differently from you, and particularly if they enforce that upon you, saying what you should or must do or not do. An invalidation of what you have done or of your capability, may equally cause disturbance.

Accompanying these factors are the decisions that have been made in the face of stressful situations and anxiety, and which have become fixed ideas and serve as defense mechanisms. It is emotional pain, or the threat of such pain, which holds distorted ideas in place. Any person is of the opinion that he is right in what he believes - otherwise he wouldn't believe it. But he can be wrong; he can have all sort of misconceptions, misinterpretations, false data and delusions, and be holding fast onto them in order to be, naturally, right. The fundamental considerations of his belief system, the things that have made sense of past confusions for him, are not changeable by reasoning alone because they are held in place by force - by an unwillingness or inability to confront certain things.

All defense mechanisms are forms of lying. They misrepresent the truth, both to ourselves and others. Gurdjieff was insistent that most people lie, most of the time. That they do not know they are lying makes their situation even worse. When you know you are deliberately lying, your perception of reality is probably adequate. When you identify with the lying and experience the lie as truth, when you deceive yourself, your perception has become very distorted.

Frequently, we pretend to know a truth that we cannot know. People adopt the habit of speaking about things they cannot know, as though they know all about them, e.g. of what other people's motivations and feelings are - in fact, much is imaginary. Man starts to imagine something in order to please himself, and very soon he begins to believe what he imagines, or at least some of it.

Sometimes we lie to avoid our more essential and higher natures. We may tell ourselves and others, 'Everybody does it, it doesn't mean anything', when something in us knows quite well we have not lived up to our true nature: the integrity of the Higher Self.

Four manifestations demonstrate to man his basic mechanicalness, when they are compulsively and reactively engaged in: lying, imagination, negative emotions and talking. They happen so quickly, so habitually and so imperceptibly, that one cannot notice them, and one does not want to notice them because they are defense mechanisms.

Suppression, invalidation and not acknowledging are self-lies used to submerge the truth, to keep it subconscious, to maintain the status quo, to avoid confronting reality or one's true feelings. They are defense mechanisms, used unconsciously, habitually, automatically - attached to anything we don't want to emerge, to look at or know about: the unacceptable. They may be feelings that are opposed or held down by the most strongly held convictions. If a feeling or desire is triggered that is unacceptable, then we distance ourselves from it, we disown it - 'It wasn't me, it wasn't mine' - we identify with some other aspect of ourselves, a sub-personality that daren't have such feelings or desires. So misattribution is a primary lie, or defense mechanism.

Projection is another defense - when an unacceptable feeling or desire comes up, it is labeled 'this is what someone else feels, needs or wants', such as the person over there. It's disowned and passed to the other person, unknowingly, due to reactive, subconscious suggestions from the past, which make the feeling unacceptable for oneself.

rationalization is substituting a plausible and acceptable rationale for the unacceptable feeling. With this protective device, a lie is covered up with a truth. The mind rationalizes away failures, finds excuses why you should not do something. We lie to ourselves, and we have the audacity to believe it!

If people are to act morally at all, they must act for a reason: they must not be just pushed around by causes. However, there is a vital difference between feelings of guilt, repulsion, aversion, taboo, etc., or strong desires, passions and impulses, which make people avoid or seek out certain things - and for which they can usually provide a 'rational' justification - and people acting voluntarily, intentionally and for a reason. Rational actions are those for which the agent is responsible, and for which he can provide a reason which is causally operative: it must not be a rationalization.

The degree to which an action or a belief are rational is connected with to what extent they are really our own: that is, how far they are the result of facing facts and responding freely, rather than compulsively, to them. In so far as our actions approximate to mere reactions or reflex movements, and our beliefs to sets of words which are merely parroted or accepted solely on authority, to that extent we fall away from acting and thinking as moral agents.

Some people may feel worried at describing morals in terms of 'using reason', but they need not. Words like 'rules', 'reasons', 'logical' and 'rational' on the one hand, and 'imagination', 'feeling', 'emotion' and 'commitment' on the other, may present a mythical conflict of 'reason versus emotion'. Being rational, however, does not mean disregarding one's feelings, but trying to assess, guide or direct them in some coherent way.

We cannot make judgments about our feelings, commitments, etc. except by reference to some kind of standard, rule or principle - words like 'right', 'justifiable', 'wise', 'sensible', 'authentic', 'unprejudiced', 'perceptive' and many others are tied to the notion of such standards. Hence, while one cannot do without standards altogether - unless one wishes to resign one's humanity and live at random - they must be one's own and not accepted uncritically from some authority.

In Ayn Rand's words: 'rationalization is a cover-up, a process of giving one's emotions spurious explanations and justifications - in order to hide one's motives, not only from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalising is the distortion of one's cognitive faculty - instead of perceiving reality, reality is made to fit one's emotions.

'Without a ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection, you will not discover what you feel, what arouses the feeling and whether your feeling is an appropriate response to the facts of reality, or a mistaken response, or a viscous illusion produced by years of self-deception. The men who scorn introspection take their inner states for granted and let emotions rule their actions - they spend their lives struggling with incomprehensible inner conflicts, alternately repressing their emotions and indulging in emotional fits, regretting it, losing control again, rebelling against the mystery of their inner chaos, trying to unravel it, giving up, deciding to feel nothing - and instead feeling the growing pressure of fear, guilt and self-doubt!'

rationalization frequently occurs when an action or reach is considered a bad action, either because it is not considered acceptable by others, or because the person himself would not like to experience the effect that he caused. Not being able to accept causing that effect, i.e. to be responsible for it, he may justify his action by finding a motive. Then his action becomes the other's fault and instead of reaching towards, he is now in opposition and may then withdraw. After this break in relations the motive may then be used to make himself right and the other wrong, an aberrated computation which becomes fixed in his mind as a way of handling people and the world - a defense mechanism used unconsciously (without inspection of the new reality) to aid survival. In effect the lower state of being that is withdrawn to, becomes a safe solution - a way of continuing towards the original goal and survival, without having to face opposition previously encountered.

Adopting another identity, viewpoint, idealization or fixed idea for its survival value, its ability to make you right or OK and another wrong or not OK, are such safe solutions. They are a view of things that was at one time in the past, felt to be of service in survival. When the solution is used reactively, without inspection in the present time, it is unlikely to be based on the truth of a current situation, or to be fair or rational behavior, and this is extremely prevalent in all our transactions and thinking.

All of these factors may hang together within a COEX, and in present time the COEX is extended further. For example, a decision made in the past may have been a solution to the problem of wanting to keep quiet about a bad action, which followed on from a trauma, which was due to being forced to do what one didn't want to do and then being criticised for it and physically hit. dramatizing these factors now, causes further disturbance and upset, as decisions made in the past may be irrational in the present context and emotional responses of the past may be inappropriate now. In this way the COEX grows and its roots become ever deeper enmeshed in the repressed unconscious.

These are the things that immediately concern a person and cause him stress: severe shocks and losses, interpersonal upsets, difficulties with making decisions, internal and external conflicts, guilt and self-recriminations, the fear and expectations of humiliation, rejection and abandonment, and the (not necessarily rational) fixed ideas, beliefs and decisions that have been made in the past and now run his life. Underlying these are the COEX structures that contain constellations of associated experiences and decisions, common to a particular situation or aspect of life that is recurring.

At any time your attention may get fixated on these factors:

A disagreement or unacceptable reality - involving breaks in Communication, Understanding or Empathy with another - the 'CUE' of relationships;

A current problem;

Being afraid something you have done will be found out by another;

A bad action about which you feel shame or guilt;

An evaluation someone is making affecting your free choice;

An invalidation you are receiving that affects you;

A 'way to get around' your problems.

These are factors that cause compulsions and inhibitions, which prevent the client from being stably in the present with the ability to confront and communicate, and that cause reversals from one motivational state to another (such as from enthusiasm to anxiety), so they need to be cleared up whenever they appear in session, alongside the defense mechanisms (justifications, rationalizations, etc) used in life which hold the above in place and make the solutions 'OK'. Also, when necessary the traumatic experiences of the client's life (physical and emotional) that lie behind all these disturbances, must be handled when they become reactivated.

When these factors have been fully examined they fall away - you have got back to the source of the COEX, through the Core Self to the Higher Self, who recognizing this, then has power over it. These are the primary elements of personality disturbance.

Accompanying any intention is an identity - a role or 'way of being' appropriate to carrying out the intention and achieving the intended purpose. So this is a cycle of action: to BE, to DO, to HAVE. When the intention is fulfilled or abandoned, there is no longer any role for that identity.

We can see that when a person has a high emotional tone, his strategy involves movement towards: being causative - confronting and handling any barriers that prevent understanding - and being in control. With a reduced emotional tone, actions are directed against the perceived obstacles or threat, with destructive intention. When the person has a low emotional tone, the direction of motion reverses away from the situation; the person is mostly being the effect of it - instead of handling it, he is mostly avoiding it.

In the mental realm, aversion or rejection is repression - a refusal to be aware of something, 'sweeping it under the carpet' and forgetting it. When this is applied whilst reflecting on a situation that has gone wrong, the net result is that the person does not learn adaptive (realistic) behavior.

Strategies of repression include the following:

* Failure to perceive. The learning cycle may be interrupted at the point of perception; the person may sub-consciously filter the sensory input, may cease to pay concentrated attention, may look away or may faint.

* Failure to interpret. The person may have perceived the reality but refuses to make the 'obvious' interpretation or to think further about it.

* Failure to verify. Even if an interpretation is in mind, the person may find this too uncomfortable and refuse to verify (or disprove) it.

* Failure to accept. The person may fail to accept something that he 'knows' and has found out is true. The interpretation is invalidated - this is the defense mechanism of denial. Alternatively he may validate another (previously rejected) interpretation and feel unable to decide which is 'correct', in order to procrastinate the decision.

* Delusion. Repression is often aided by the introduction of delusion: distorting, altering or fictionalising an acceptable interpretation of the facts. rationalization is a form of delusion - various reasons and justifications that avoid the crux of the matter, the uncomfortable truth.

Primary Beliefs

The young child builds further on this start and attempts to get its needs met in a world that often seems hostile or unaccomodating to its needs. Because, often, those needs were not met, the child represses the feelings that accompanied them, and uses other strategies. The child is literally composing the script for its life when it forms these strategies into a belief structure, its own solutions and adaptations to the challenges of life.

In adulthood these largely unverbalized primary beliefs remain, but are repressed beneath a secondary belief structure, built up in later years (when language and the semantic programs have been imprinted) as new learning and perspectives exposed the shortcomings of behavior based on the primary beliefs.

When under stress, the person may begin thinking and acting in ways that are a response to primary and early secondary beliefs, rather than to here-and-now reality. Under stress, the repressive defenses of the upper 'thinking' brain (containing secondary beliefs) against the lower 'feeling' brain (containing the primary beliefs) tend to break down. Via the right-hemisphere, the primary beliefs are expressed in unverbalized emotions; in the left-hemisphere they are expressed symbolically, i.e. with deluded rationalizations, distortions and substitutions, inserted into the person's train of thought.

Outside of therapy, the feelings are unlikely to be released enough for a direct (unsymbolised) expression; also most people have less than full communication between the hemispheres to associate the emotional and symbolical expressions. In this way, the primary beliefs become activated but their expression remains outside of consciousness; the person meanwhile cannot account for repetitive patterns of maladaptive behavior, thoughts and feelings caused by these negative COEXs (of associated primary and secondary beliefs, condensed experiences and disturbances).

Because the infant forms its decisions mainly without words (except for 'installed' parental injunctions) any verbal descriptions can only be an approximation to the infant's actual experience: vague, changeable images, charged with emotion and unconcerned with the logic of adult waking life.

Early decisions are made on the basis of concrete and magical thinking, rather than the conceptual and cause-and -effect thinking of the older child. They tend to be global and sweeping, of catastrophic importance, on the issues of survival, self-worth and keeping the love and attention of parents. Made under traumatic circumstances, the core of these beliefs tend to be such as:

I mustn't exist
I mustn't be myself
I mustn't demand
I mustn't say
I mustn't trust
I mustn't play
I mustn't be noticed
I mustn't be wrong
I mustn't get close
I mustn't feel
I mustn't refuse
I mustn't take

Fortunately a small infant cannot act on these beliefs and bring about the tragic outcome that a belief like 'I mustn't exist' would imply; however a child could do so, and the primary beliefs are therefore repressed by the child, and he incorporates in his secondary belief system, defenses and checks to prevent himself acting on the primary beliefs. A secondary belief is often a combination of two primary beliefs, with one keeping the other in check, e.g. 'I mustn't exist' combined with 'I mustn't get close', to give the compound belief 'It's OK for me to carry on, so long as I don't get to depend on anybody'. It may be a potentially dangerous point in therapy, when such a primary belief is 'unchecked' and the student of The Insight Project undertakes, at all costs, not to respond to the stimulus of such a belief and to harm himself or another, or to 'go mad' as an escape from the primal pain which initiated such a belief. He must 'close all escape hatches' and confront and handle the charge involved; this is the way through to the spiritual path, and those who want to tread that path must at critical junctures have courage, and make the necessary effort.

Typically this belief system contains a huge collection of slogans, mottoes, generalizations, definitions, fictions and value-judgments that have been picked-up from parents or parent-figures and were either uncritically accepted or accepted under duress or at times of vulnerability. They may contain assertions that were either true or false, then or now, but may be untestable. A person's belief system reflects his cultural background as well as his own parenting and schooling; this may incur racial, social and sexual stereotypes, as well as a whole host of behavioral norms that differ from culture to culture. Importantly also, the person's installed 'script' also contains a set of performance demands, do's and don'ts that were imposed by the parents or parent-figures. The underlying Child motivation is to stay acceptable to the internalized Parent.

While much of this belief system may be valuable information and programming, some of it usually is not. When the grown-up person makes any move that would contradict one of the demands, he will often be able to hear in his head the scolding he would have received as a child had he disobeyed the original demand ('No, no! Only bad boys do that!'). Sometimes the person identifies with the Parent and projects this demand onto others ('Touching yourself is wrong'). When someone says 'you' and means 'I', then what follows is often a statement from the person's belief system ('If you don't get it right first time, you should keep on trying, shouldn't you?').

Demands on a person and demands he makes on others are seen as ideals to which he feels obliged to conform. When such an ideal conflicts with a basic belief the person has about himself, then a structural conflict results: 'I should be powerful; I am powerless'. The person oscillates back and forth, persuading himself that he is powerful, failing in some way to prove that and then returning to that belief. Very often the belief is too painful to confront, so the person rationalizes and considers it is reality that conflicts with the ideal, not him - that he is a victim of circumstances and the effect of others. To get around this, he attempts to manipulate and control reality (his own behavior and that of others) either to prove that the ideal is true, or to prove that it is not his fault if he cannot match the ideal. The problem is not the belief itself, but the refusal to accept it and the painful manipulative strategies that result. In fact the only solution is to learn the objective reality and accept the belief; without its attached charge (efforts to resist) it is powerless. The effort to resist something gives it implicit power and persistence.

The imposition of such standards and ideals is often the result of another determinism affecting the person - he is identifying with another's view of the way he should be, the things he should do, or what he should be aiming for. The other person may mean well, but effectively the identity of the person affected is being suppressed. He is not self-directed and wholehearted, working towards goals that are genuinely expressive, but nevertheless he feels pressured to match-up to the ideal set for him, so he is likely to remain in the telic mode and become anxious easily when problems arise.

To get out of a problem situation, because he has a conflict of interests, he may find himself mishandling the situation and effectively committing what he feels to be bad actions. These are then kept secret, causing further alienation, and he then feels the need to find motives for his actions (or lack of action) that he can justify. If the justification is dubious, he has now backed himself into a corner and as a solution, adopts the viewpoint of himself being right and the others being wrong. He believes this himself and the justification becomes a fixed idea, a solution he can use repeatedly if necessary, and a new part of his belief system.

The pride system

'False-pride versus self-hate' becomes the new conflict structure, and this results in compulsive strategies to match the internal demands (the parental ideal 'shoulds' which have been accepted and identified with) as well as in-built, instinctual role-models of behavior (further archetypes). Emotions and feelings that do not conform to the new idealized selves (sub-personalities that may themselves be in conflict) are repressed and denied.

The compulsive strategies, if they work, reinforce the idealized identities. Such strategies involve three major directions:

* MOVING TOWARDS OTHERS. Seeking protection and approval; restricting own demands and idealizing the other; be 'loving and submissive'. Real purposes and drives are shut away, to conform to daily repetitive tasks.

* MOVING AGAINST OTHERS. Expansive solutions, seeking to dominate; by seeking admiration and being better than others; by arrogant vindictiveness; by aggressive mastery and control; by perfectionist standards. Justify harmful actions against others by rationalization (I'm right and they're wrong'); be blind to the implications of one's actions; if can't be as good then destroy, spoil, invalidate the other's status.

If there is unresolved opposition, aim for a lower ideal that can be managed but think less of oneself - become the underdog, the victim, apologetic, use psycho-somatic illness to get sympathy.

* MOVE AWAY FROM OTHERS. Resigned solutions, attempting to immobilise conflicts; withdrawal by aloof self-sufficiency and detachment; over-sensitivity to criticism; refusal to change or contribute; retreat into trivia; control of emotions - never letting go and intellectualising; be elusive, refuse to commit oneself.

Compulsive strategies are applied unconsciously, inappropriately and rigidly. As you find the idealized image doesn't conform with the real world, you try to make the real world conform with you, by manipulating and making demands on others. Further defenses which may be adopted in this conflict-structure are:

* PROJECTION. Attribute one's emotions and desires (especially self-hate) to other people, leading to paranoia.

* EXTERNALISATION. Being pre-occupied with changing others, having no inner life: self-hate turned outwards.

* LYING. Withholding truth from self and others. Turning compulsive needs into assets - appeasement to goodness, dependency to love, inconsistency to freedom.

* PSYCHOSIS. When anxiety is especially acute, neurosis turns to psychosis: an almost complete loss of touch with external reality - the breaking apart of the ego is the final defense.

Clearly, it is necessary to restore contact with the repressed feelings involved in this central inner conflict, those of the innocent bewildered baby who could not but have come to the conclusion that he was helpless and dependent, and in need of every possible support and defense. Clearly, the more loving care the baby received, the more likely it was that a sound bio-survival program was established, giving him a sense of security from which to venture further. But even in the most favourable circumstances, the birth and overwhelming sensations of infancy will have installed a reservoir of primal pain, which has somehow to be released in order to rehabilitate the real Self to full functioning, with an ego that is clear of defensive posturing, but rather has learnt the tools for living a personally expressive and creative life to the fullest potential.

Unconsciousness

It would seem that tension is a result of the strain between separate consciousnesses that are not integrated - one part of you wants this, another part of you wants that: a structural conflict. Such lack of integration result from blockages, parts of the brain that become unconscious to prevent overload; once there is this duality, a person then suffers from inexplicable symptoms and strange dreams. He can literally no longer get himself together.

Shutdown as a result of overload is a key defense mechanism in the human brain. A tense person may report a sense of ease after further stimulation, but this is a spurious state. The subject has induced a repressive mechanism due to overload and as with the effects one sees with meditation, when repression is effective there is a sense of well-being. However it is accompanied by symbolic rationalization of the blockage in the left cortex (especially by lies and alteration or fabrication of the reality) and repression of right hemispheric feelings (by suppressing, invalidating and ignoring them). This is why it is so easy to be misled by the various approaches claiming to eliminate anxiety and tension. The way out is always the way through; what is resisted will persist.

In a slow and subtle process, parents infuse into their children a psychological web which traps feelings and permits no release - an inner rigidity bucking against one's natural impulses. If nothing a child can do is right for his parents he is left without any adaptive (even neurotically adaptive) responses. The energy of his anguish and frustration will be added to the general pool of psychological pain, ultimately leading to overload and overflow into symptoms.

We have examined how a split in consciousness develops between the two hemispheres of the brain cortex, but it can also come about between the higher and lower brain centers - between the old reptilian brain, or limbic system, and the frontal cortex.

The limbic system of organs, part of the lower brain, is the oldest in evolutionary terms. It has much denser packing of brain cells and operates at a signal frequency four times faster than the typical cortex frequency. It is the central processing unit of the brain, with parallel functions (like a powerful computer RISC chip) linking up the conscious cortex via the sensori-motor system to the body's nervous systems.

70% of the brain's capacity is devoted to controlling the body and in receiving and processing the kinesthetic (physical sensation) feedback, and every perception is automatically recorded (including emotional feelings), even those received when the cortex was unconscious or incapable of representing them (such as with a baby). Such memories may be accessed in the hypnotic state, when the cortex is 'switched off' and no longer repressing lower brain memories, or the communication between higher and lower brain may be progressively improved by mental development (including the discharge of traumatic blocks). Its 'brain power' is responsible for the tremendous potentials of the unconscious, which are hardly tapped by most people's way of life, but which may be seen on occasions, for example under hypnosis or with the idiot sevant who, by way of his malfunctioning cortex, has access to these powers.

The limbic system is the central processing agency for feelings and acts as a 'gateway to consciousness' i.e. whole-brained consciousness. It is optimally in clean communication with the left and right hemispheres which represent its information in their own style (the left side symbolically, the right side emotively). However, when faced with an intensity of feelings that the cortex would not be able to assimilate, this system blocks the pain and rechannels it, diffusing the output of the energies flowing upwards from the reticular activating system (RAS) in the brain stem

These diffuse energies then produce activation of the entire forebrain; rather than being directed precisely, they are routed to a variety of cortical pathways, which indirectly mobilises the cortex into action, so that it may aid in its own defense by devising symbolic rationalizations and denials of the unacceptable feelings. It is only when the pain can be accepted and felt that there is no need for symbolic channels, and direct frontal connection can be made, from the cortex back down to the limbic system, which can then stop the diffusion of reticular activity. The limbic system may also control RAS connections to the hypothalamus, which affects hormone balance and thus the body-mind in a profound way, including the thyroid and the heart.

The overflow of blocked pain can find its outlet in many ways, such as compulsions. For example, an overwhelming sexual urge can occur where pain, blocked at the limbic system, is re-routed to a sexual center, which in turn causes the cortex to become aware of sexual feelings, rather than the original feeling of pain. The person is unconscious in the full sense, even while he is aware of his sexual urge, his partner and sex techniques, because he is completely unconscious of his driving motivation. This is the difference between awareness and consciousness.

The only consciousness beyond what is real is unreal consciousness. A liberated mind can only come about as a result of specific connections being made to one's historic consciousness. The use of LSD, by prematurely opening the limbic gate, continuously drives the cortex into all sorts of bizarre thoughts in a desperate effort to defend and symbolise the liberated (but not liberating) pain. The mind is fragmented by over-activation, so that coherence and discrimination is lost. Due to overload the number of rechannelled connections has proliferated. Some of these may open up higher circuits and cause insights to occur, but the psychedelic overload can destroy the integrity of consciousness, and this may cause severe later problems.

When deep primal trauma is unconsciously reactivated, the feelings rise up from their limbic roots. If blocked at that point, as a defense against overload, pain is detached from its specific feeling experiences and simply causes a generalized response to a symbolic representation. Instead of a fear of father in a particular memory, there occurs instead a repressed fear of authority figures. With enough terror, that fear can spread to almost any social contact with an adult. This is the basis of neurosis: generalizing a repressed past in the present, making current reactions inappropriate.

Let us take an example of 'symbolic' consciousness. Instead of the specific feeling that 'Mother is never here for me', the thought is, 'Women are useless and best ignored'. How bizarre the symbolism is depends on the charge value of the pain which is trying to gain access to the frontal cortex. Given enough deprivation, the person may come to despise women and be hostile to them in general. Women, in his awareness, are a generalized symbol upon which he projects a past, lost consciousness.

True consciousness is something that evolves from our feelings. You do not 'lose your head' in order to feel, rather you 'find your head' in the sense of finding the right connections. Consciousness, then, is determined by horizontal access and by the fluidity of connections between the limbic system and the frontal cortex. Any higher state of consciousness depends upon these connections being in place.

The frontal cortex integrates the impressions from the major sensory modalities (sight, hearing, touch, etc.) with representations of information from the limbic system, and co-ordinates them into consciously connected responses. It is pain which raises the threshold of the frontal cortex to sensory input, keeping itself unaware of reality, both externally and internally. Repression of feeling means repression of both what is inside and what is coming from outside. The brain 'selects its input' and shapes what we see and hear; it deliberately misperceives, or it rationalizes in such a way as to soften any hurt.

The most common causes of neurosis are simply the common experiences of childhood - all the ways in which our child needs are continually frustrated - because of the negative traits, moods and admonitions (silent or overt) of one or both parents. It does not necessarily take a terrible incident (though most people have some trauma); rather a painful COEX (pattern of condensed emotional experience) builds up through positive feedback on the learning cycle. One reaches, gets knocked back and retreats, then later tries again more tentatively, and a mal-adapted pattern gradually emerges.

Attention

The ability to attend to the environment is crucial to learning and fundamental to intelligence. If a person's attention is introverted into keeping traumatic material repressed, or if the attention threshold is lowered in order to filter the possibility of threatening perceptions, little attention is available for the tasks in hand and for analytical decision making. Without the ability to focus attention recall of data will be minimal. If a person is not paying attention at all, his intelligence is effectively zero.

A certain degree of alertness is necessary before conscious selective attention comes into play and the person can select appropriate stimuli from all that is going on around him and maintain focused excitement on them until the task is done. Intelligence requires a set (indeed a hierarchy) of workable mental adaptations or 'tools' with which one can handle lower level tasks with minimal attention, so that the maximum attention can be placed on solving current problems, which often involves a large attention span, keeping several streams of thought active simultaneously. A person who can do this will be field-independent and well in touch with reality.

With mal-adaptive tools (or 'un-skills') this isn't possible; thinking becomes slow and he cannot respond to changing circumstances and challenges quickly enough. He does not have the resources (sustained attention span) required to learn new skills and will resort to fixed ideas to try and resolve this confusion, causing further mal-adaptation. He may be fixated on an old habitual pattern and not be able to follow the sequences of a new learning situation. Existing well-adapted responses and behavior patterns will continue on automatic, they won't be updated and may soon become redundant, or they may be applied inappropriately. Such a person will tend to field-dependency, where he may be adapted socially but be unable to get anything constructive done in life.

Control of attention is also required to exercise the complementary capacity to withhold a response, to selectively inhibit an internal reactive response, compulsion or habit for example, or to shut down background noise so that focus can be retained on a selected element in order to concentrate (sustain attention span). Being able to obtain a large enough body of data in one's mind, including various viewpoints and dimensions, and to inter-relate them, eventually enables a completed picture to fall into place, a gestalt. With a large enough attention span, across all sides of the brain, a traumatic experience can be examined and its charge erased in one pass through.

It is possible that information coming into the brain is stored holographically, so that each scene is represented in different areas all at the same time. Each area however would process that representation differently: the limbic would represent feelings, the reticular system the amount of energy, and the cortex would process the left and right specializations of symbolic fantasies or emotional context, and so forth. It would take the entire brain with all its representations to make a complete picture - consciousness. For a disconnected person, then, it would be possible to know about his deprivations, say, but feel nothing; or to be tense and anxious from those deprivations but not knowing why.

There may be a tendency to think that the right-brain is unconscious and the left is conscious, but in practice real consciousness requires an integrated left-right brain, just as it requires the limbic system to be connected. For when feelings are buried, the realistic ideas about those feelings (rather than symbolic fantasy) will also be buried, probably on the left side. A right-brain dominant person is not feelingful, he is impulsive. He cannot properly analyze events and cannot evaluate the consequences of his acts. He is left-brain deficient. It takes two to tango.

It takes energy and activation to keep the gates shut against feelings, to prevent full consciousness of them, and this energy is not then available as a reserve to help prevent telic arousal becoming unpleasant or to enter a high-arousal paratelic state. A truly stable person has fluid access to all parts of the brain and body so that the system does less work and can be specific, knowing what the underlying feelings are at all times. The ability to be specific is what stops the generalization process. So long as consciousness does not know the specific time and event related to felt pain, it remains disconnected and unconscious, exerting a force which mobilises the system in a diffuse way, producing inappropriate ideas, compulsions and physical symptoms in an uncontrolled, mechanically reactive, stimulus-response manner.

When such blocks have been cleared however, using analytical methods that allow an acceptable gradient of increasing confront of the original experiences, painful feelings are able to have access to those higher centers which represent feelings into awareness; when that happens consciousness and awareness are indistinguishable (it is possible to be aware of the existence of pain without being able to be conscious of it, i.e. to really experience it).