September 04, 2004ingenuity [citadel]i sincerily hope this is not an indication it's time for me to go back to school. i find it marginally disturbing that i'm writing a veritable term paper on a whim. at least i know i retained enough from classes up to six years ago to write something of this length and depth without any textual resources or notable intermission... even if... i'm not exactly sure what instigated the need to actually write such a lengthy discussion in the first place. apparently casual conversation evolved into tackling a more formal address.
[.09.06. - presentation in more bite sized format, as requested]
there is a rather novel complexity about the things that happen prior to the age of reason.
disciplined analysis is a learned skill. without the tools of structured problem solving enhanced by the abstractly infinite voyage of hypothetical theory - there is an unquestionable dependence on what is a very basic and oft times limited repetiore of coping mechanisms employed to understand the stimuli constantly pouring in from the environment.
psychological schools of thought struggle to agree on anything more specific than the possible congruence and parallel of certain - and deliberately - vague theories. while the majority of information is left to individual interpretation, there is the undisputable acceptance and similarity of argument outlining how a personality develops through a series of stages.
long before the empowerment of self actualization, the infantile mind acknowledges the importance of attending to the body's needs. piaget explained through by naming human cognition as one of the ongoing processes of biology. he believed all humans are born with an innate drive towards knowledge as part of our overall need for survival. from the moment of birth, impulses organize into schemata patterns focusing behavior to meet the biological needs that assure survival.
freud named this primordial, driving entity the id. one-third of the central forces unconsciously shaping the personality. unavailable to immediate, cognizant awareness these forces are a dynamic component endlessly jostling for expression through molding a person's behavior, feelings, and thoughts. following the belief people operate on the primary motivation of the id, actions are directed in accordance to the pleasure principle's constant search for gratification.
in the terms of laymen - the id is instinct.
it is a dominant mechanism with the tendency to discover what is the quickest, easiest, and safest course for fullfillment. freud's ever-popular libido is an umbrella concept acknowledging the sexual energy fueling gratification found in the body's physical pleasure. satiation came in the forms of three integral functions which define the base qualifications for sustaining life: nourishment from nursing at the mother's breast, defecation which eliminates toxins and waste, and masturbation self-reliantly meeting the body's most sensitive of responses to touch.
this platform triad forms the base for secondary needs to develop as the mind realizes not all gratification can be directly met by the environment or with previously accomplished methods. as with the adaptation of schemata patterns shifting to meet the increasing complexity of any given problem, the mind's responses and operational methods will assimilate and accomodate accordingly. the id differentiates into the ego which begins applying reason to rationalize gratification's new association with consequence. secondary processes are organized through ego defense mechanisms to assess new situations, weigh in past experiences, anticipate consequences, and plan the most effective course to obtain gratification.
from the ego grows the super-ego. while the ego maintains vigilant watch over impulse expression and its direct results, the super-ego acts as governing council to police behavior according to composite standards and ideals of value.
more often than not, the three forces are in constant conflict. thoughts, acts, and feelings will produce contradiction and frustration rather than singular solution. effectively working relationships support a healthy personality through reaching a compromise among the components. however, if the id, ego, and super-ego are in excessive conflict the person will show signs of dysfunction.
nonetheless, there is little deviance from the primary motivations directing behavior towards satisfying the basic physiological needs of survival.
maslow created the heirarchy of needs to organize and account for the biological and psychosocial stimuli which motivate behavior. physiological needs for biological survival create the base layer of the pyramid; the strongest needs that must be met before all others (hunger, thirst, and internal body maintenance). subsequent layers form according to the inherant value of the motive in comparison with base survival: safety (2), belonging (3), esteem (4), and self-actualization (5) needs. intuitively correct, the importance of sequentially working up the pyramid is overstated. basic needs must be met first, however partial satisfaction due to circumstances should not prevent the pursuit of higher level needs.
events and pressures from infancy through maturity challenge a child and threaten its habitual way of doing things. these clashes require adjustments to all three facets of the personality to facilitate developmental progress. certain pressures, however, do not facilitate the proper interaction and adaptation of the id, ego, and super-ego resulting in what is generally labeled as abnormal development due to indulging the incorrectly valued need.
the first of freud's developmental stages - oral - spans the initial eighteen months of life. an infant's main labidinal gratification comes from the body parts involved in feeding: the mouth, lips, and tongue. the mother is established as the sole figure capable of meeting both the need for sustinal satiation as well as comfort, protection, and ensuing needs as they arise. the most significant threat during the oral stage is the possibility that the mother will disappear and these components will no longer be available.
without considering the negative repercussions of parental inadequacy, children are taught from birth to associate the mother with gratifying biological and psychosocial needs. until further education teaches self-reliance and other important skills - there is no concept of surviving by any other way.
unconsciously, the infact realizes that preserving the mother's continued presence is of the utmost importance - no matter the cost.
imagine, then, what lengths the infant mind would go to in order to protect itself from even realizing, much less experiencing, the horrific possibility of a mother's absence. ideally, a defense mechanism has been created far beyond the reaches of directed thought, ready to deploy instantaneously on the id's deeper, sub-conscious level - effectively protecting the aware mind with total ignorance if the stimulus event is traumatic enough to warrant it.
to cognitive theorists, we are all artists. as artists, human beings mentally reproduce the world as they try to understand each event that happens. effective artists successfully create accurate and useful cognitive representations. however, failure to effectively interpret stimuli and correctly design a mental representation leads to a cognitive inner world that is wholly alien to others and painfully harming to the person themself.
these incorrect representations can be wildly irrational and maladaptive to social function. normally benign stimuli becomes hazardously interpreted through illogical thinking processes which result in devastating overgeneralizations further damaged by selective perception. specifically upsetting thoughts occurring regularly within a mind will ultimately produce counterproductive thought patterns.
the cognitive model focuses on the most singular and intimate of human processes: thought. just as thoughts are responsible for the problems that characterize human functioning, our special cognitive abilities are also responsible for the wonders of human accomlishment. thoughts organize creative potential and establish the resources a threatened mind uses to fabricate a uniquely personalized system of effective self-defense.
creativity, obviously, becomes the double edged sword. while the mind is praised in its ability to both design and navigate through imaginative abstractions of the living world - there is the equally negative effect of unguided construction dessimating any potential growth and success. self-destructive thought patterns routinely halt progress when reinforcing doubt of either the self, others, or world as a whole. troubled individuals act only to protect themselves from perceived threats and do little to actualize their potential. subconsciously, these defense mechanisms become the habitual mode of influencing behavior.
the matter complicates further in a lack of concurrence when the discussion turns to benefits weighed against harm. mechanisms that are generally accepted by society as a disorder or dysfunction may, in truth, provide certain advantages when in the spotlight of evolutionary theory. ideally, it culminates in the id's creative adaptation of behavior to suit the shifting sources of gratification without risking the ego's careful balance of impulse and consequence.
at the beginning of human evolutionary history, the autonomic nervous system served as the fight or flight system. when a person was under extreme stress there were only two reasonable alternatives: fight or flee. the body naturally adjusted heart rate, blood pressure, and hormone levels to adequately prepare for either option. the modern world presents an entirely different set of challenges with far more complicated expectations of appropriate response. even though humans continue to employ the autonomic system preparation to fight or flee, universal acceptance of these actions no longer exists to facilitate an outlet for the physical changes.
instead, the mind is forced to create another method of defense which appropriately solves the fight or flight stimulus.
adults have at their disposal a variety of rational resolutions from which to choose the most appropriate response to any given stressor. application, of course, varies, but the central argument focuses on the resource provided by such a modified skillset. in comparison to a child's vastly reduced set of coping mechanisms and social skills, the necessity of mental creativity as a supplement to intelligent resourcefullness becomes clearly apparent.
take, for example, the diagnosis of an adult with dissociative identity disorder. dissociation of this severity generally results from extremely traumatic conflict experienced before the age of eight. documented case studies cite physical, mental, and/or sexual abuse as the type of extreme conflict necessary for the development of such a highly complex defense mechanism. while not uncommon, the adult is unable to recall a specific experience of that type.
however, given the correlation of mental development with gratification needs, associations, and preservation methodologies, it is not wholly unacceptable to explore the possibility of another type of "trauma" resulting in the same distinct mode of defense. dissociative disorders lack an abundance of reference data due to the relatively recent appearance of the disorder as an individual diagnostic tool. incorrect diagnoses are far too common, and quite often verifiable cases go unnoticed behind another abnormality or never appear in for treatment to begin with.
sadly, this is mainly the result of an absent and yet-non-existant standardized methodology to the disorder. while theories exist balancing on vaguely common events to similar to ignore, there exists a vast amount of knowledge simply out of reach as in-depth study produces individualized structure constructing each system of alters within one mind. dumbed down, there is no one set way dissociative identities develop in an individual. each and every case is quite literally personalized to the situations, events and particular person in need of such complex defense.
thus, the lack of concrete protocol provides the golden opportunity to explore and test novel approaches to the disorder not dependent on severe trauma as the catalyst. expectation acknowledges the need for some cataclysmic event to necessitate this particular defense mechanism, however such a highly personalized methodology allows for varying degrees of severity to incite similar dissociation.
basically - to each their own. each individual mind will require a unique level of "severity" to achieve the same result. what one finds unbearable may not be so overwhelming to another, and vice versa.
back to the example, as therapeutic treatment continues, the adult recovers an experience from pre-school which exhibits a striking probability as motivation for dissociative defense.
as a child, the adult remembers arriving at pre-school in the early morning. to cross the parking lot and safely enter the building, the mother offers her protection and guidance by holding the child's hand. an employee confronts them immediately after entering the building and shares the devastating news another classmate's mother passed away the previous night from toxic shock syndrome. as the mother pauses to internalize the situation, the employee continues with extending an invitation for the mother to attend a service for parents taking place in the chapel within the half hour. the employee leaves to attend to other arriving parents, and the mother proceeds to escort her child to class and return alone to the service.
initial review does not provide adequate evidence to support dissociation's development. as far as involved parties were concerned, the child was too young to comprehend the parent's death and assumed to be paying attention to other environmental stimuli. generally, the situational affect on the child is dismissed without maliciously neglectful intent.
in most situations, further attention would not be warranted for, indeed, the child did not cognitively recognize the consequences of the event. such a child would continue to develop normally without any fears of future damage or inadequacy.
on the other hand, the child innately proves the adult assumptions incorrect by internalizing the event in a way that the mind responds defensively. acceptably, linear connections can be defined as easily as fabricated to suit a cause - so the discussion remains hypothetically possible provided analysis objectively considers compormising factors.
the first thing required to solve this puzzle is verifying the child's attention focused on the discussion between employee and mother. because the mother held her child's hand en route to the building, the assumption can be safely made contact remains once inside so that she is assured they halt as a pair when confronted. automic response would supplement any tightening grip reacting to the surprise interaction - changes that could be enough to alert a responsive child to the potential serious ramifications of what is beginning to happen. curiosity would lead a child to observe a mother's interactions with others in order to learn social behaviors.
vocal tonality, facial expression, body tension and language accompanying any physically observable emotional reactions from either adult will be interperted by the child's investigation of the current conflict. such behaviors will probably be assimilated as a socially appropriate schemata for the precise stimuli. so far, it is not unlike any other learning opportunity presented by observing other people, especially mother, interact.
soon enough, the child may have the vocabulary to understand the words exchanged or by mere autonomic instict and imitation realize a rising state of distress. at the very least, the child should recognize the negativity of this specific subject matter by the mother's behavioral clues. the mother figure is obviously upset emotionally and showing some signs of this physically (through crying, and so forth). should intelligence support an acute conceptualization of the situation the child will be exposed to the horrific confirmation a mother figure and provider can, at any point, disappear from the world. by now vocabulary should have developed to understand the assocations between mother and child if not the more abstract death or medically technical details.
the integral factor is that the child is faced with the potential destruction of what has been developmentally reinforced as normal and essential. autonomic response dictates a subconscious reaction that may or may not appear outwardly. the mind is forced to cope with loss of the mother provider with resources limited to individual creativity motivating the choice of fight or flight. fight may seem an unacceptable response due to pre-existing behaviors encouraged by the parents. however, physical flight is rendered unpreferable by the connection remaining through held hands.
an option that remains is a purely mental flight response that activates on the perceptual thoughts within the brain. unable to physically turn away, the child turns away within their mind. this input is unacceptable and so the personality of the child itself is forcibly turned away and sheilded from undesireable and potentially detrimental knowledge. this is a young mind's attempt at self-preservation acting to reinforce the security of thinking a mother provider will not disappear.
essentially, this is the primary split dissociating identities.
presented with the need to continue navigating through the day as far as bodily function and pre-school interaction, the mind cannot remain "unmanned" for the duration of time the first personality is under protection. the split is solidified as the mind simply creates another essentially normal personality (the alter) to replace the primary presence so that needs are gratified throughout the remaining day. the alter's purpose is to accomodate the undesirable knowledge and sequester it safely out of consciousness until a time more appropriate for the primary personality to deal with such facts. once the initial split has occured, the proven defense mechanism is applied to reproduce the second alter for a situation, or create yet another alter capable of handling any new conflict.
there is reasonable conclusion available by certain summation highlighting a distinctly creative approach to developing dissociative identities. while little more than hypothetical theory, there's undeniable evidence a less than unconventional catalyst could produce this defense mechanism if presented with a specifically stimulating series of events which allow particular adaptations. while there are certainly a variety of ways the child's mind could have dealt with the situation, individual creativity chose dissociation as the preferable defense protecting both the developing thought processes and ensuring continued gratification of pleasure needs.
the mind is an exceptional thing. far too often it is allowed to waste under the blanket of apathetic ignorance. on the other hand, unique accomplishments are labeled as socially unacceptable due to a lack of knowledge which would facilitate a recognition of success instead of an abnormality's need for isolation. unfortunately the association of detrimental or distasteful catalysts does not accomodate a willingness to publically acknowledge the malicious potential of human behavior necessary to foster additional research.
it is nothing less than tragic to realize the extent of depravity generally blamed for motivating a mind's miraculous struggle to survive and protect itself. yet as research continues with each additional case study, we are exposed to how extensive the artistic potential of initmate thought truly is.
Posted by Wolf at September 04, 2004 04:37 PM
Comments....wow. that was a mouthful. *chuckles* your profs would be proud.
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I know I am.
Will take a while to digest it all, but it is well written, and relatively easily understood. even for me. hee.
Posted by: me on September 4, 2004 05:07 PMPost a comment