1stOnlineCongress of Humanistic Psychology andPsychotherapies.

Thescienceofintegrativepsychotherapy

Neuroscience,psychotherapyandresourcesforpersonalgrowth

COMPLEX THINKING IN COUPLE PSYCHOTHERAPY:Vertical Integration

Luís Casado Esquius (casado@copc.cat)

CENTRAL ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION AT THIS CONFERENCE:

ü Vertical integration: why and how?

ü Complex thinking

ü TA and complex thinking

ü Application to couple psychotherapy

POST-MODERNTIMES

THE PERFECT STORM

CONSTANT CHANGE

CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY:

HYPER-SUBJECTIVITY

POSTMODERNITY NEW SOCIALS MODELS

AUMENTO DELA COMPLEJIDAD

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

AUMENTO DELA COMPLEJIDAD

HYPERCONNECTIVITY

POSTMODERNITY IMPACTTHE ABILITY TO KNOW THE REAL WORLD IS IN DOUBTINDIVIDUALITY / SUBJECTIVITYLAKCED OF SHARED SENSES (CRISIS OF GREAT SOCIAL STORIES)FRAGMENTED IDENTITY

CONSTRUCTION OF REALITYLOSS OF INFORMATION DUE TO THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HUMAN PERCEPTIVE SYSTEMFOCUS CARE TO AVOID OVERSTIMULATIONCOGNITIVE BIASESSTIMULES PASS THE FILTER OF BELIEFS, VALUES AND EMOTIONS

NEW SOCIAL MODELS

NETWORKED SOCIETYNEW FAMILY AND COUPLE MODELSDISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP vs CENTRAL AUTHORITYCOLLABORATION PLATFORMS WIKI MENTALITY

CONSTANT CHANGE HYPERCONNECTIVITY

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

“A human being is a colorful energy SYSTEM, full of Dynamic striving” A layman’s guide to Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis(1987/1947, p.35)

“This book outlines a unified SYSTEM of individual and social psychiatry” Análisis Transaccional en psicoterapia (1976/1961, p. 9)

“…ego states, which are coherent SYSTEMS of thought and feeling manifested by corresponing patterns of behaviour” What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1980/1973, p. 25)

“The standars of health for a group, as for an organism, are durability, effectiveness and capacity for full growth” Thestructure and dynamics of organizations and groups. (1988/1963, p.90)

BERNE’S WORLD (60’s)

OUR WOLD (2020)

COMPLEX THINKING

“It is not about taking up theambition of the simple thought of control and dominate the real world.It is about exercising in a thoughtcapable of dealing, of dialoguing, ofnegotiation with the real world”

(Morin, 2011, p.22)

COMPLEX THINKING

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

The unit is the system (the interactions), not the elements

The linear cause - effect relationship does not work, the causality is circular

Order and disorder follow one another

Systems are self-organizing (they seek new forms of adaptation).

Evolutionary self-organization implies the appearance of an emergent phenomenon that cannot be explained at the lower level of complexity.

Systems are self-regulating (a system in a state of order regulates itself autonomously)

Finally, a complex system cannot be static, or it evolves or regresses

BASIC IDEAS ABOUT COMPLEXITY(Morin 2009)

• The natural tendency of closed systems is entropy, but open systems can be negentropic. Human systems can also be intentional

• The basic dynamic is:

Disorder Interactions Order Structure Disorder

in which each new order is of higher complexity (Morin, 209, p.125 y sig.)

• Interactions are communicative processes, order is an agreement on meaning, structure is the result of self-organization to act on meaning

• When the level of complexity exceeds the system must be replaced by another

THE PHYSIS

For the pre-Socratics, the physis is the process of birth and development of the existent, but also the underlying reality of the world that we perceive

Physis, the force of Nature that moves the eternal cycle between order and disorder(Morin, 2009)

Physis, the force of Nature that seeks growth and perfection(Berne, 1987)

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

THREE REVISIONS REQUIRED

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS AS A THEORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, not only as a clinical model and method, to avoid convertingpsychopathological imbalances between the model and postmodern reality

THE TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS WITH A CONSTRUCTIVE LOOKnon-determining, to focus on the adaptive capacity (evolutionary or involutional) fundamental in a time of permanent change

THE PSYCHOSOCIAL TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS,non-reductionist (only individual and relational theory) to include the “we” in the responses to postmodern challenges, in the face of which the transactional humanistic postulate of modernity focused on personal growth is insufficient and dangerous

AUTONOMOUS INDIVIDUALS

COOPERATIVE RELATIONSHIPSSYNERGISIC GROUPS

Casado, (2016, p. 137)

A TRIPLE OBJECTIVE

GROUP LEVEL

RELATIONAL LEVEL

INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

BIOLOGICAL LEVEL

SOCIAL LEVEL

THE INTER-INFLUENCE OFLEVELS OF COMPLEXITY

EGO STATESINTERNAL

DIALOGUES ACTIVE EGO STATE

TRANSACTIONS

LINKS

ROLES

GROUP ORGANIZATION

Casado, (2016, p. 144)

INTEGRATION OF TRANSACTIONAL CONCEPTS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF COMPLEXITY

COMPLEXITY LEVEL SELF-ORGANIZATION PROCESS TRANSACTIONAL EMERGING

Biological (brain) La mente (órganos psíquicos)

Individual Interactions of the information received from the interaction with caregivers and, later, with the environment, generation of representations and internal dialogues

Internal dialogues

Construction of the story that gives continuity and meaning to the experience (identity)

Ego states

Active ego state

Life script(existencial position,mini scripts racquets)

Relational Interactions with the environment(transactions)

Relational roles (extortion ofpettings, psychological games, symbiosis and passive behaviours)

Psychosocial Group dynamics interactions(imago)

Groups processes, group script

Most of the programming is negative. All parents fill their children's heads with these restrictions. But they also give them permissions(Berne, 1980, p.143)

P1

A1

N1

decision

needs

Answers fromtheenvironment

EXAMPLE OF THE INTRAPSYCHIC LEVEL: THE FORMATION OF THE CHILD STATE AS A COMPLEX SYSTEM

P

A

N

EXAMPLE OF THE INTRAPSYCHIC LEVEL: INTERNAL DIALOGUES AND THE EGO STATE

EXAMPLE OF RELATIONAL LEVEL: PSYCHOLOGICAL GAMES

Drama Triangle(Karpman)The persecutor The rescuer

The victim

On the psychological level each person has unmet needs that they hope to satisfy through the other. To do this, at the social level it behaves according to certain roles:

Persecutor: needs submission, manipulates by frightening (Pc, NAs)

Rescuer: needs to be needed, manipulates incapacitating (PP)

Victim: needs protection, manipulates by incapacitating (Nas, NAr)

CULTURAL FATHER (Drego) GROUP SCRIPT (Krausz)

PAN

PAN

PA

P

NAN

PAN

“Individuals and systems are interconnected through psychosocial processes…” (Massey, 2007, p.61)

GROUP LEVEL EXAMPLE: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GROUP SCRIPTS

MULTILEVEL INTERVENTION

GROUP – CULTURAL:

Gender roles, family scripts,

Transgenerationalscripts

RELATIONAL:Roles and links psygames.

INDIVIDUAL:Needs, internal

dialogues

A dilemma or problem cannot be solved at a lower level of complexity than the one from which it originated. A group problem, a family one, for example, cannot be successfully approached relationally, and a relational problem, of a couple, for example, cannot be successfully approached individually. This issue leads to the need for multilevel approaches.

The so-called pathologies correspond to three types of systemic situations: the stages of disorder (as in some anxiety disorders), an order of a system that is rigidly self-regulating and loses the ability to adapt to the environment (as in personality disorders) , or to an involutional (regressive) order.

In a complex system problems are not "solved", the system is accompanied towards a new evolutionary order, with which problems are actually "diluted" before the appearance of a new stage of growth.

The health-pathology dynamic is a largely self-organized process that implies the opening or closing of the system, and agreater or lesser capacity for adaptation. A very closed system oriented to control and security is pathological, but a verylax system without elements of roots fragments identity at the individual level, dilutes ties at the relational level, orweakens principles, beliefs and values at the group or social level.

In intervention at the social level, not only is evolution, change and growth sought, but all of this must be accompanied byintervention formats that provide stability to the system.

One can think of dialogue groups to create spaces of order through agreements on the issues that postmodernity hasmade liquid. What in modernity was given by tradition (values, beliefs), now it is necessary to create it throughparticipation and collective intelligence.

SOME CONSECUENCES IN THE INTERVENTION

COUPLES

COMPLEX THINKING AND INTERVENTION: SELF-ORGANIZATION, EMERGING, AND ORGANIZATION

PERSON A PERSON B

The couple relationship is an adaptive process to successive life situations, self-organized, the emergence of each revision is a new organization (link) that can be evolutionary or involutive.

It will be evolutionary if it favors individual fulfillment, in a cooperative relationship that helps to create synergistic groups, that is, if it means growth at all levels of complexity.

In the multilevel approach to couple difficulties, the gateway is the relationship, from the visualization and understanding of the bond that the two people have created in the current moment of their partner. This is so due to the existence of different levels of complementarity (in the heterosexual couple) that will be seen below.

From this understanding they can visualize the evolutionary link they want, the individual difficulties in committing to achieve it and the group / cultural permissions and limits in which their decisions to change will take place.

THE THREE COMPLEMENTARITIES IN THE HETEROSEXUAL COUPLE

Ø MEN AND WOMEN HAVE A HISTORY OF COMPLEMENTARITY AT THREE LEVELS:

BIOLOGICAL - EVOLUTIONARY: REPRODUCTIVE PURPOSE (INDIVIDUAL AND AS A SPECIES)

SOCIAL/CULTURAL : GENDER ROLES ACCORDING TO LABOR DIVISION CRITERIA FOR ADAPTATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT

PSYCHOLOGICAL: COMPLEMENTARITY OF LIFE SCRIPTS WITH AN "ANSIOLYTIC" PURPOSE

Ø COMPLEMENTARITY MAY BE:

SYMBIOTIC: BASED ON DEFICIENCY

FORCED: BASED ON POWER

SYNERGIC: BASED ON STRENGHTS

SYMBIOTIC COMPLEMENTARITY

A symbiosis happens when the behaviors of two or more people form a whole person.

It can be healthy if one of the individuals is lacking in information, skills or petting. Symbiosis becomes pathological if it interferes with the development of spontaneity, awareness and intimacy (Schiff, 1975, p. 5-6)

There are four passive behaviors that we use to establish unhealthy symbiotic relationships: doing nothing, over-adaptation, agitation, and incapacitation or violence (p.10)

TWO TYPES OF SYMBIOSIS

COMPLEMENTARY SYMBIOSIS COMPETITIVE SYMBIOSIS

SECOND ORDER SYMBIOSIS

SYNERGIC COMPLEMENTARITY

• THE MOST INFORMATION OR THE BEST SKILLS OF EACH MEMBER ARE TAKEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PARTNER

• THE CAPACITY OF SPONTANEITY OF EACH MEMBER IS RESPECTED, THAT IS, THE CAPACITY TO CHOOSE THE OPTIONS OF THINKING, FEELING AND BEHAVING

• THE CAPACITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH MEMBER IS RESPECTED, THAT IS, THE CONTACT WITH THE INTERNAL SENSATIONS AND THE EXTERNAL STIMULES

• THE RELATIONSHIP IS PRIVATE, THAT IS, THE FEELINGS AND NEEDS ARE SHARED IN AN OPEN WAY, WITHOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL GAMES

• NO PASSIVE BEHAVIORS