The Three Main Libraries of Knowledge
The Psychological Phase-Space
LEGEND
Set of Value Systems
Assembly configuration
Neuron
Thought configuration
By exercising its downward effect upon selected assemblies of neurons the attractor facilitates the connectivity of specific assemblies of assemblies at the expense of other sets. These constrains, which operate all the way down to the neurons – as in its facilitatory-inhibitory balance – “force’ specific configurations of thought over other potential ones.
The Pathological Attractor System
A pathological attractor system and its constraint upon symptom formation
LEGEND
Set of Value Systems
Assembly configuration
Neuron
Thought configuration
See Enlarged Below
A pathological, highly energized value system exercises powerful downward constraints upon specific, favored, cell assemblies. These in turn dictate the organization and reactivity of specific neuronal systems at the expense of a more generalized pattern of response. The process eventuates in the appearance of a specific set of “symptoms’, i.e. stereotyped and overriding neuronal responses. The symptoms then feed recursively the value system in a complex self-sustaining feedback loop.
The Disease Illness Spectrum
The disease-illness spectrum along the hierarchy of cognitive dynamics
Multiple Sclerosis
The illness of the person
A neuropsychiatry disease
A neurological disease
Human cultures
Phase Sequence
Complex Assemblies
Assemblies of assemblies of assemblies
Assemblies of assemblies
Neurons
Nerve impulses
Nerve Membranes
Membrane proteins
Molecules
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
An illness experience
A psychiatric disorder
A "synaptic" disorder
The Trilingual Perspective of Treatment
A trilingual perspective of treatment
NEUROBIOLOGICAL APPROACH
- Modify synaptic connectivity of value system's; the chemical constraints will hopefully have the greatest effect at the level of the circuitry most out of balance.
- Continue the pharmacotherapy until new metastable synaptic organizations may have the chance to affirm themselves over the dysfunctional ones.
Human Culture Phase Sequence
Complex assembly
Assemblies of assemblies of assemblies
Assemblies of assemblies
Assembly of neurons
Neuron
Neuron
Nerve impulse
Nerve membrane
Membrane protein
Chemistry
PSYCHOTHERAPY APPROACH
- Modify context of value system(s) by introducing other "coordinates" [perspectives] and other "attractors [as counter transference]
- Continue the recategorization process until the contextual changes in the value system(s) become solidly affirmed.
Pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy represent legitimate options, NOT mutually exclusive, operative at different levels of the hierarchy's dynamics.
Pharmacotherapy targets the lower levels of the cognitive hierarchy (represented at the center of the figure), specifically the processes at the level of the membrane structures (receptor sites). These chemical modifications exert a ‘bottom-up” diffuse effect upon the upper levels of the hierarchy, inclusive of – but not limited to – the assemblies responsible for symptom formation. It is questionable if these changes affect in any intrinsic way the organization of the pathological value system, but they might diminish its influence and allow for the dynamic operation of other organizing value systems. At these higher levels of the hierarchy psychotherapy could represent a significant complementation.
Psychotherapy targets the pathological attractors; it expresses them into consciousness and disconnects or modifies their affective loading; it also counteracts them by emphasizing other, more adaptive value systems that have been shadowed by the maladaptive ones. In this way it exercise a “top-down” focused effect upon the activation of specific assemblies of assemblies, and assemblies of cells, modifying their Hebbian linkages. It is questionable if these changes affect in any intrinsic way the organization of some basic metastable neuronal circuits, now operating in a way reminiscent of Edelman’s routines and subroutines, which might explain the persistence of low-level symptoms. At these lower levels of the hierarchy pharmacotherapy could represent a significant complementation.