Intro to Psychology

Montage by Victor D. Bloomberg, December 27, 2016

Psychology and Healing

Psychology and Psychotherapy

What is the difference?

It can be confusing because the words overlap as a discussion goes back-and-forth. Psychotherapy is a method to affect a person’s psychology. Psychology is an explanation of why a person is the way they are and how they became their current version. I’ll start with psychology because it can help us recognize healing. Then I’ll discuss psychotherapy which is a way to heal.  

I and Thou: A Theologian/Philosopher’ View

Let’s start outside the field of psychology and psychotherapy to see what it looks like to be at our best, as human as possible. In his book, I and Thou, Martin Buber wrote something that is very important:

For the real boundary, albeit one that floats and fluctuates, runs not between experience and not-experience, not between the given and the not-given, nor between the world of being and the world of value, but across all of the regions between You and It, between presence and object.

(1970, W. A. Kaufmann, Translator, 2nd Edition, originally published in 1923, p. 63)

Philosophy uses words in strange ways and even invents words. It’s a bigger problem when the ideas are translated. So I’m going to say little bit about the ideas and why they are important to the recognition of healing.

What is the “boundary” between “You and It”?

I-It or I-You is about the perception, experience or encounter. Is the other seen as an object (a Thing) or a human being (a Person). Injury happens when we turn a person into a Thing. Martin Buber writes that the “boundary” is not fixed like a physical border, rather it “floats and fluctuates”. We can recognize healing each time that we see our self and another as a person.

I refer to Buber’s “floats and fluctuates” as the Thing-Person Swing. His “world of value” are beliefs or schemas in theory of cognitive psychology. Schemas (core beliefs) [are different from] “underlying assumptions (conditional beliefs) and automatic thoughts [that are temporary]”. [1]

The Thing-Person Swing can be beyond conscious awareness, it can be reflexive and it can be a Self-orientation. Imagine a couple. They were in love, so they decided to live together. Their feelings of togetherness motivated each of them to pay attention to their partner whenever they were together. Their I-You orientation was mutual. But then one of them became inconsistently attentive, and the other reflexively reacted to each lapse with Flight-Freeze behavior. (Flight-Freeze is part of the Fight-Flight-Freeze response associated with the amygdala.) The upset was smoothed over by re-establishing I-You. Then the upset occurred again. What happened next? The couple entered psychotherapy because one partner became aloof and the other was angry. In the session, beliefs that converted their orientation to I-It were revealed. The aloof partner’s stories showed that each lapse of attention confirmed shaming, Self-It orientation, “I’m worthless.” The angry partner’s stories showed that each withdrawal confirmed a punishing, Self-It orientation, “I can’t get it right.” Each pointed their finger to blame their partner, “You’re not fair.” Their I-It orientation was intersubjective. Psychotherapy can engender an intersubjective I-You experience. Intersubjectivity is a shared meaning that emerges from, enacted within the social fabric of interaction. [2]

Emotions

Montage by Victor D. Bloomberg, March 7, 2024

Neuroscience* describes the influence of the limbic system.

[The] amygdala (part of the limbic system of the brain) plays a large role in emotion and is activated before any direct involvement of the cerebral cortex where memory, awareness, and conscious ‘thinking’ take place. [3]

In other words, thoughts are influenced by the nonverbal limbic system and vice versa.

Emotions are physiological signals that we use to navigate interactions with others. [4] Emotions are signal waves that signify something is important. [5] And similar signals can flow from different reflexes. We all know that there are tears-of-sorrow and tears-of-joy. The release of tears is not inherently healing. Acceptance of the experience (the emotions and the significance to one’s sense of self) is crucial to understanding whether released emotions injure or heal.

When a person is turned into a Thing, their humanity is denied. Then released emotions produce spasms that injure. When a person's dignity is respected, then the emotions can be accepted and healing happens. Psychotherapy can, through the telling and re-telling of stories, open up emotional waves of varying degrees of intensity and duration, such that the past injury coexists with the present safety. This is when the re-experienced pain does not add to the injury. Rather, the talk-therapy heals.

The Psychology of Healing

Illustration by Victor Bloomberg, October 3, 2021

My illustration (above) introduces the term “gestalt” - it is a psychology concept (distinct from the psychotherapy method.) The Gestalt psychology theory provides a “field theory”. It says that there is foreground and background perception, based upon bioelectrical activity in the brain (and emotions condition perception.) [6] [7]

Healing occurs when the experience, be it private or social, creates an encounter of humanity such that emotions flow without a flight-flight-freeze response. The healing experience is one of powerful connection with safety, trust, respect - love.

References

[*] “Exploring How Fear Is Regulated in the Brain” (July 19, 2021) Original story from University of Bern https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/exploring-how-fear-is-regulated-in-the-brain-350985 Retrieved March 2, 2024

[1] Padesky, C. A. (1994). Schema change processes in cognitive therapy. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 1(5), 267-278. (p. 267).

[2] Garte, R. (2016). “A sociocultural, activity-based account of preschooler intersubjectivity” Culture & Psychology, 22(2), 254-275.

[3] Ruud, M. (2019, March 5, para. 1). "The four theories of emotion: What, why and how?" Retrieved December 1, 2020 from https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Emotion

[4] Geller, S. M. & Porges, S. W. (2014). Therapeutic presence: Neurophysiological mechanisms mediating feeling safe in therapeutic relationships. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 24(3), 178–192. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037511

[5] Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

[6] Köhler, W. (1972). The task of gestalt psychology. Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1969)

[7] Köhler, W. (1973). Dynamics in psychology: Vital applications of gestalt psychology.W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1940)