“As a clinician-scientist, the practical applications of regulation theory are of great personal interest. In this volume I will cite an extremely large body of interdisciplinary data which suggests that the self organization of the developing brain occurs in the context of a relationship with another self, another brain. This primordial relational context can be growth-facilitating or growth inhibiting, and so it imprints into the early developing right brain either a resilience against or a vulnerability to later forming psychiatric disorders.” (Schore, 2003, p. xv)
Image of Neurons
Although Schore’s work is primarily focused on early childhood and the development of mental health or psychopathology, I have found his work to move beyond just early childhood. One of the possible applications of Schore’s work is in learning situations. Context and relationship is key to optimal brain functioning. So feelings of personal connection, meaning, intimacy, and a feeling of belonging could optimize a group of brains-people to learn and grow similarly to Schore’s “primordial relational context.” At CALCO we teach and facilitate a relational matrix, we facilitate a powerful connection between everyone in a course, so that the brain is fully optimized for powerful experiences. The outcome of such experiences are deeper implicit and differentiated intuition. The right brain is waiting dormant within most of our interactions due to a lack of safety, its not okay to “be ourselves”, anywhere. Now this is an extreme statement and it may or may not be true, but what can be true is that collectively we could all exercise our capacity to create cultures and organization that optimize and are “growth-facilitating” rather than “growth-inhibiting.
Y Schore, A. (2003). Affect dysregulation and disorders of the self. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
One model that paints a clear picture of Somatic learning is Fenwick’s (2003) work.This work is focused on a framework that encompasses and expands Somatic learning, Experiential learning, and Complexity science. It is in this work that I find the most somatic resonance with. Fenwick’s model essentially encompasses the experiences that I have in effective therapy and in effective education that are somatically based. Utilizing many arguments in support of re-embodying the work of experiential learning, Fenwick brings us to complexity science, as a way to create and understand learning contexts. The first idea is that both person and context within a system are inseparable, woven into a single fabric of complex, dynamic, and adaptive interaction. The second idea is that by fiddling with both person and context in such a way as to add to the system, the system becomes triggered to bring about excitation and this “creates a new transcendent unity of action and identities that could not have been achieved independently”, thus stimulating change (p.7). Fenwick goes on to explain that humans are part of systems and will reflect the nature of the system in themselves. We as humans behave as systems do, and using complexity science we can see that whether small-scale or large-scale collective interaction from the autonomic nervous system, as a system within the body to people within families, we operate within a series of relative complex situations with in a series of relating interactions between systems. The result of such dynamic interactions is “unpredictable and inventive” (p. 8). In order for a system to be optimal it needs to able to creatively change to various conditions, both internally and externally, as well as having “diversity among its parts, whose interactions form their own patterns.” (p. 8). In order to facilitate learning, child and adult education must include this systemic model for learning to contain robust effect. Fenwick defines learning: “Learning is cast as continuous invention and exploration, produced through the relations among consciousness, identity, action, and interaction, objects and structural dynamics of complex systems. New possibilities for action are constantly emerging among interactions of complex systems, and cognition occurs in the possibility for unpredictable shared action. Knowledge cannot be contained in any one element or dimension of a system, for knowledge is constantly emerging and spilling into other systems” (p.131). Somatic learning when framed in the context of complexity science reveals many parallels between somatic education and somatic psychology. For instance returning the authoritative power of growth back to the individuals lived experience(Aposhyan, 2004). Also seeing how the mind is essentially a reflection of its interaction with its environment or its system (Siegel, 2001). Fenwick’s thinking and model is an integral idea that could describe an interface between both somatics and education. Looking at Fenwick’s definition of learning, I find a living language that can grasp and explain the complex nature of the lived experience within a series of systems, thus he captures a meta-process that can contain dynamic interactions within multiple complex systems. This could explain how both somatics and education could be used to implement innovative forms of learning, which for instance could utilize embodied pulsation (expansion and contraction) and social engagement as core principles in the design.
Aposhyan, S. (2004). Body-Mind Psychotherapy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.
Fenwick, T. (2003). Reclaiming and re-embodying experiential learning through complexity science. Studies in the education of adults , 35 (2), 123-141.
Siegel, D. (2001). Toward an interpersonal neurobiology of the developing mind: atachment relationships. “mindsight” and neural integration. Infant Mental Health Journal , 22 (1-2), 67-94.
As I study the latest edges of psychobiological development via Neurobiology, I am taken to see that we are imprinted with the dyadic impressions of our earliest interactions with our primary care givers. As infants we grow through the experience dominant right brain, as the left comes fully online from two years old onward. Taking this idea through the life time of development, I am wondering if we are imprinted continually throughout all ages. So during the teen years we are imprinted by the complex weaving of our deep intersubjective core self and the socialization process of attaching to adolescent peers, subculture identities, music, etc. Further into our twenties we are again imprinted by leaving the family to create our autonomy. These imprints are deep unconscious, right brain, implicit forces that effect our deeper emotional life. Leading us to live out in a variety of ways, with a variety of choices all governed by the implicit impressions of our emergence from infancy to adulthood and onward. Without Somatic awakening these deeper implicit forces will make choices through us as core reactions and hungers. What I am thinking is that without self knowledge in the form of an ever increasing felt sense through the introception of the nerves of our internal physical life, we are at the whims of impressions and culture. Thus the way to autonomous interdependency, full human-hood, loving and deeply gratified beings, is to fully process these impressions. I think these deep impressions are most likely a cause of deep dissociation and muscular numbness, which leads us to collectively believe we are our thoughts and superficial identities. Yet lying underneath this superficial self is the deep fulfillment of living in our core perceptual truth of deep embodiment. What seems to prevent the full expression of this core self is both social forces ruling the impressions through absurd and unspoken taboos and a deep fear of loosing the identity that we do have. The fear of loosing this identity is wrapped up with the deep fear of feeling our most deepest emotions: grief, terror, shame, and oddly enough pleasure. This collective quagmire is promoted and supported by most of us. I would like to support an inner-revolution, not based on a switch of power structures, or financial, or philosophical ideas, but rather an emotional freedom to feel as a sentient aware conscious being
Thoughts
Scot