Recent neuroscience is finding that the brain is particularly adapted for movement. Much goes on in our, for want of a better word, autonomic brain/body connection that, though we constantly use it, we are unaware of. Vision and our other senses provoke general conscious plans for movement and then leave the actual movement to this autonomic connection. Only when sensory feedback indicates something is not going to plan do they begin to play a part again. One can look to pick up a cup and then continue talking while the action ‘automatically’ happens. Pick up a cup from your own hand and your hand won’t move, but get someone else to pick it up and your hand move upwards because the other person is not part of your autonomic system. This in many ways should be expected because the older parts of our brain that pre-date and precede our human conscious were predicated on movement for survival. When our survival depended on our agility the brain will have evolved to provide the sophistication required. Monkeys are amazingly agile but can’t do sums. Sports men and women ‘in the zone’ are probably subduing their conscious brain almost entirely so that it doesn’t interfere with this far more direct interplay of brain/body/senses. Professors on the other hand are renowned for their inability to dance. Where Deep Blue can beat a grand master at chess it would be childlike in terms of agile movement.
In these earlier times of our brain’s development survival will have evolved mechanisms of flight, fight or freeze and our drives to feel safe, eat and breath. These, like movement, will be part of this autonomic brain/ body response.
We often talk of ‘the unconscious’ as a part of the conscious mind below our awareness; that they are a continuum of a similar cognitive substance, but what if they are in a sense mechanistically different or belong to different layers of overall consciousness? ???? describes these layers in terms of the reptilian, mammalian and human brain each contributing in that order to our reactions. Simplistically the reptilian brain is the source of our emotional responses, the mammalian of our physical responses and the human our conscious responses. Recent experiments where respondents were asked to indicate their answer by both a physical movement and verbally found the two answers were often not the same; a raised finger might indicate yes where the voice said no. Might these two answers have been generated by different parts of the brain, the finger from the autonomic mammalian part and the voice from the human conscious brain? Might mirroring and anchors used in therapy be ways of connecting with a person on an autonomic level? Might the UPR and empathy of Rogers be ways of connecting on the reptilian level where the basic motivations of fight, flight, safety and food are the driving consciousness?
I begin to see these three layers providing their functions independently of each other.
The conscious brain of the sportsman is incapable of awareness of how he can play so well, the musician of what are the means of her appreciation. We all experience the results of all these layers yet insist on straining everything through the sieve of our human consciousness brain as in, ‘I think therefore I am.’
I wonder if we might, in experiencing another person, consider them and ourselves as having three independent brains each contributing their own particular aspect of consciousness and response. In this model a therapeutic relationship would wish to in some way directly address each on its own terms. Talking ‘about problems’ addresses the conscious human brain but not the other two. Talking as part of physically ‘being with’ a client can contribute to the mammalian consciousness in the same way as touch, mirroring and grooming. (observe a women’s hairdressers) It may also contribute to the feeling of safety required for the reptilian consciousness, but mostly how one ‘is with’ a client must address how one makes connections with each of these three different forms of consciousness. None of the different therapeutic approaches contain this view explicitly. Person centred approaches it in terms of Unconditional Positive Regard and empathy, NLP in terms of physical awareness of ‘state’, relaxation and hypnosis, while CBT considers the human consciousness to be a portal to the other two through controlled experiential feedback. Every therapist is though aware of how a comfortable and calm quiet room, of a mellifluous tone of voice and even smell contribute to effectiveness. I’m suggesting here that these aren’t simply niceties or ‘the norm’ but that they are ways of allowing communication with these deeper, different forms of consciousness. Further I’m suggesting that we might consider structuring our awareness in terms of these three different forms of consciousness. How might one metaphorically ‘talk’ to each of them explicitly and directly?
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