Illustrations from
“A Rosetta Stone”

The Three Main Libraries of Knowledge

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The Psychological Phase-Space

LEGEND

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    Set of Value Systems

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    Assembly configuration

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    Neuron

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    Thought configuration

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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

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    Set of Value Systems

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    Assembly configuration

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    Neuron

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    Thought configuration

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See Enlarged Below

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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

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The illness of the person

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A neuropsychiatry disease

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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

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An illness experience

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A psychiatric disorder

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A "synaptic" disorder

The Trilingual Perspective of Treatment

A trilingual perspective of treatment

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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.
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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

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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.

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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.