The Neuropsychology of the Unconscious: Integrating Brain and Mind in Psychotherapy (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by Efrat Ginot

Author:Efrat Ginot [Ginot, Efrat]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2015-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

THE INEVITABILITY OF REPETITION

One of the central brain/mind characteristics that can account for the power of resistance is its built-in preference for repeating what has already been learned and reinforced. As was previously illustrated, powerful and rigid self-systems are surprisingly successful at choreographing emotional environments and interpersonal dynamics that closely resemble and enact the internal expectations and predictions comprising one’s unconscious self-system. Theoretically we seem to acknowledge this tendency, but still do not fully appreciate its innate nonconscious and ongoing control of all perceptions and behaviors. As Koziol and Budding (2010) suggest, all behavioral processing can be categorized as either stimulus control–based reflexes or a higher-order responses that involve slower, more reflective reactions. It is important to remember that these brain/mind processes are not only simple reflexes that only involve motor skills we perform without thinking—the examples we usually think of are riding a bike, driving, or playing tennis. In effect, our stimulus-based reflexes include all forms of reinforced learning, from reactions embodying unregulated raw affects to sophisticated, subtle defenses. Such innate learning occurs automatically and out of awareness, and its function is to safeguard physical and psychic survival.

Obviously, the concept of evolutionary survival needs to significantly expand to include the need for emotional survival and the sense of personal comfort and well-being. Such needs are especially invoked within the intersubjective sphere, where attunement and empathy (or lack thereof) give rise to many learned reactions and defenses. As the internal thermostat of adaptation is always at work, seeking to restore homeostasis and a sense of control, the responses that best achieve the goal of restoring the sense of well-being (even if illusory) will be maintained. Styles of affect regulation, for example, relational and attachment styles as well as cognitive defenses marshaled to defend one’s self-worth, are the result of what seemed to work for adaptation. In a predictable environment, such emotional and behavioral styles acquire fast and automatic qualities, especially in their unreflected response to familiar environments.

As a quick resolution to emotional distress, a child’s stimulus-based control of behavior has clear advantages for adapting to a predictable environment by affording reactions that are already tested and known to work (Toates, 2006). But it also has obvious disadvantages, ingraining whole patterns of behaviors with little opportunity for reexamination or spontaneity: a stimulus will evoke the same reaction each time. Even in ambiguous or new conditions, if there is any remnant of the familiar stimulus, the same responses will ensue. Furthermore, the entrenched connections will seek the stimulus even when it is not fully there (Toates, 2006). When confronting new situations that may require different behavioral patterns, if the entrenched unconscious system is inflexible, it will seek to fold new situations and stimuli into the old.

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