October 11, 2012: Mindsight by Gary and Paul

Towards An Alternative View of Psychology and The Potential Role of Meditation as a
Treatment Modality – Largely Based On the Recent Work of Daniel Siegel

Our understanding of the building blocks of the cosmos and life is now based on the quantum paradigm. This paradigm displaced the previous reigning paradigm, as defined by Isaac Newton’s brilliance, approximately one century ago. The Newtonian paradigm emphasized the significance of matter, space and time. Our understanding of matter was as chemically based building blocks that interacted with the environment in a fairly
predictable fashion, since the environment was viewed as defined by space and time. Space and time were both understood as fixed entities that were governed by laws and rules that could be observed and understood. For the most part, the varieties of psychological theories appropriately reflected this understanding. The self was viewed as separate and distinct, made up of these chemicals that followed certain rules. It interacted with an environment that also followed the rules of space and time. Concepts like free will were discussed within this reductionistic, cause-and-effect framework. Resolution of philosophical debates regarding the significance of mind and matter could never be attained and the debates continued.
However, the change in paradigms has greatly altered our understanding of matter, space and time. As noted in previous discussions, Einstein’s theories of relativity, both special and general, stated the equivalence of matter and energy. Matter came to be understood as a manifestation of underlying mass and energy. Space and time came to be understood as relative to an independent observer, making the observer primary to both. Quantum
notions like complementarity (the notion of particles as both points and waves), uncertainty (an inability to determine place and momentum at the same time), entanglement and non-locality (shared processes, whereby information is instantly exchanged between related particles) further undermined the primary significance of matter, space and time. However, despite the magnitude of these changes in our understanding of the building blocks, our theories of psychology have continued to reflect our old Newtonian concepts of cause and effect that exist only if space and time
are fixed entities. The shift to the significance of the observer and choice with the corresponding lack of determinism and the beauty of potential and information has never occurred. A change in colors is in order.

More recent ideas put forth by Daniel Siegel suggest that thinking in regards to psychology may be moving in a new and different direction. To be clear, I don’t recall the invocation of the word “quantum” in his writing. He begins by highlighting the evelopment and differences between the right and left hemisphere of the brain. These differences emerge in the embryo brainstem, which then regulates asymmetries in the development and functioning of the cerebral cortex. Brain circuits that constitute an
intrinsic motive formation (outside of awareness) exist even before cortical neurons develop, and these include the hypothalamus, basal ganglia, and amygdala. The asymmetry of the intrinsic motive formation leads to the asymmetric development of the hemispheres. On the other hand, extrinsic motive formation, which involves conscious awareness, begins to ascend at about age two and follows the development of the cortices and hippocampus.

Implicit motive formation and memory do not carry the internal sensation that something is being recalled. Conscious processing during encoding or retrieval is not involved. Implicit motive formation relies on the brain structures that are intact at birth and include the amygdala and other limbic regions for emotional memory, the basal ganglia and motor cortex for behavioral memory, and the perceptual cortices for perceptual memory.
Somatosensory memory is also a part of implicit processing and is likely mediated by the somatosensory cortex, the orbital frontal cortex, the anterior insula, and the anterior cingulate, especially on the right side of the brain. All of these implicit elements form part of the foundation for our subjective sense of ourselves that filter our experience in the moment, though we do not recognize their influence on our present reality. There is
no sense of time or self associated with implicit memory. Repeated experiences shape the development of these circuits and our lives can become shaped by re-activations of the more readily activated circuitry that forms the implicit memories. Knowing about implicitmemory allows us to free ourselves from the repetitive behaviors and automatic memories derived from the past, as we will discuss later. Explicit memory, on the other hand, is what most people mean when they have the sense of remembering. It begins to develop by the second birthday and reflects the development of the medial temporal lobe (including the hippocampus), parietal, and orbital frontal ortex. The development of the hippocampus, as a “cognitive mapper,” allows for a sense of sequencing as a sense of time develops. The hippocampus also includes a spatial representational map of the locations of things in the world; this function allows the child
to identify context and create a four-dimensional sense of the self in the world across time. There are two forms of explicit memory. There is semantic, or factual, memory and episodic, or autobiographical, memory. Both forms of memory seem to require focal attention to activate the hippocampus. Items that activate the hippocampus then move into working memory where they can be maintained for longer periods of time by
rehearsal or refreshing the activity that activated the circuits. For memory to be permanent, it must undergo a process called cortical consolidation. This does not involve the hippocampus, but may rather depend on the REM stage of sleep; dreams may play a significant role in the consolidation of explicit memories. The hippocampus subsequently becomes necessary again for retrieval of these long-term memories. Semantic memory involves the symbolization of external or internal facts, is called ”noesis,” and is
otherwise known as factual memory. Semantic recall more generally involves the left, as opposed to the right, hippocampus.

Autobiographical memory, “autonoesis,” depends on the development of the frontal cortical regions of the brain. By the third year of life, a child begins to join caregivers in mutually constructed tales that lead to self-knowledge and autobiographical narratives. Thus, autobiographical memory emerges out of our interpersonal experiences with attachment figures. It depends on the development of a sense of subjective self that is continuous in time, consistent with the process of a narrative. As a result, it can also be
referred to as episodic recall because a process of mental time travel is evoked. The right hippocampus is more preferentially involved. It is linked to the processes of the prefrontal regions, specifically the midline prefrontal regions, especially the orbital frontal cortex in the right hemisphere.

Explicit memory is typically context dependent. Further, emotion plays a significant role in the development and encoding of memories. Emotions make experiences more easily remembered. Experience becomes more personally meaningful, perhaps because of the role of neurotransmitters as well as the activation of the amygdala. However, excessive activation of emotions, like fear, may lead to increased release of cortisol that can block
the function of the hippocampus and our ability to encode these memories. Additionally, the hippocampus can be damaged by chronic exposure to stress hormones. On the other hand, an enriched environment leads to enhanced development of the hippocampus. There are some significant implications to what has been discussed to this point. For example, implicit memories are not conscious and shape our subsequent thoughts and
behaviors without our knowledge. They can include elements of emotional memories, behavioral memories, perceptual memories and somatosensory memories that serve as the basis for our subjective sense of self. They can result from many repeated experiences in infancy, and beyond, which are implicitly encoded and subsequently become models for behaviors and interactions with others without our awareness. Previous psychological
models that invoked notions of mysterious drives with undefined energies, psychosexual stages of life and various defenses may otherwise come to be understood as secondary to differential developmental processes, anatomical connectivity, and various hormones, neurochemicals and neuroreceptors that are part and parcel of the intrinsic system. All of
these are impacted upon by genetics, the very real significance of a child’s relationship to it’s attachment figures, as well as the ways children interact with the environment, including attachment figures, by way of sensory exploration of the environment in response to such social interactions as toilet training, for example. Any resulting implicit memories can have a profound impact, outside of our awareness, on our explicit functioning for the remainder of our lives.

All this is meant to serve as an introduction to Daniel Siegel's central ideas. He proposes that our one reality is made up of three interrelated pieces: the mind, brain and relationships. Energy and information are exchanged in a continuous feedback between these three interrelated pieces. Information is the expression of energy in a given pattern. We are born with a temperament that is largely dependent on genetics, but attachments
with caregivers shape our subsequent abilities to form relationships (our ability to share information/energy with others), the development of our brain (the embodied mechanism of energy/information flow), and the development of our mind (the emergent self organizing regulatory process for energy/information flow). Activation of the attachment system involves an infant seeking physical proximity with a caregiver that most basically
enhances its chances of survival. Attachment establishes an interpersonal relationship that helps the immature brain use the mature functions of the caregiver to organize its own processes. It is associated with the processes of emotional regulation, social relatedness,access to autobiographical memory, and the development of self-reflection and narrative. According to John Bowlby, the nature of an infant's attachment to the primary caregiver
becomes internalized as a working model of attachment. A mental model of attachment is formed. This is a fundamental way in which implicit memory allows the mind to create generalizations and summaries of past experiences early on, before we have the ability to develop explicit memories.

Mary Ainsworth developed the Infant Strange Situation as a means to assess attachment. An infant is observed in different situations that include staying with mother, staying with mother and a stranger, staying only with a stranger, and then staying alone for up to 3 min. Ainsworth and her student Mary Main observed for general patterns of attachment: secure, avoidant, anxious and disorganized. The secure pattern is one of attunement between infant and caregiver. The avoidant pattern is characterized by a lack of
attunement, with the infant subsequently minimizing attachment and the need for others, so as to minimize disappointment. The anxious pattern is characterized by inconsistent attunement. This results in difficulties with being soothed, leading to an intense search for attachment that is never satisfied. The disorganized pattern is a combination of avoidant and anxious, with the attachment figure being a source of terror causing the need for protection that leads to fear that can never be resolved, resulting in a fragmented sense of self. Further, all of these attachment patterns are malleable. Changing conditions can change the working model of attachment as development unfolds across the lifespan. Mary Main was subsequently able to move the field of attachment beyond the study of
infant behavior and into the representational level of analysis. A protocol called the Adult ttachment Interview (AAI) was developed. The AAI is a narrative assessment of an adult’s state of mind with respect to attachment, which reflects a particular organizational pattern of the mind of an individual at the time of the interview. They found that a parent’s pattern of narrating the story of early family life within a semi-structured interview correlated with the strange situation classification of that parent’s child. The
four categories included: secure/autonomous (correlating with secure ttachment), dismissing (correlating with the avoidant attachment pattern), preoccupied (correlating with the anxious pattern), and solved/disorganized (correlating with the disorganized attachment pattern). These findings cut across socioeconomic and cultural groups. They were unrelated to long and short-term memory, social desirability, or interviewer style. They were not found to correlate with measures of personality that have a large degree of
heritability. These findings suggest that the patterns of relating between parent and child have significant influences throughout a person's life. The AAI continues to be the most robust predierctor of an infant’s attachment to his or her parents, perhaps because it is consistent with coherent autobiographical reflections and the ability to reflect on the mind. Overall, these findings support the view of childhood attachment as relationship
based.

Daniel Siegel proposes that attachment experiences influence the developing brain. Most simply, consider that all sensory information, save olfactory, is routed through the thalamus. From there, two neural branches separate. One branch goes to the amygdala and hippocampus, where we become alerted to the stimulus. The other proceeds to the cortex of the corresponding sense via the thalamocortical circuit, eg. the sense of sounds
go to the auditory cortex where they are sorted out and comprehended. Recall that neurons that fire together wire together. The fibers to the amygdala are shorter and, therefore, easier to navigate. Thus, at first blush, it is easier to maintain a degree of alertness than comprehension. Unless the thalamocortical tract is strengthened, by things like myelination, allowing for increased comprehension, we will more generally remain at a lesser degree of awareness and a higher level of alertness, resulting in increased
secretion of cortisol and adrenaline. It can generally be considered that secure attachment results in strengthening of the thalamocortical circuitry allowing for a greater degree of comprehension, while the other three attachment patterns strengthen the thalamus/amygdala connections because of the associated fear and corresponding need or alertness. The resultant increase in connectivity to the cortices in those who are securely attached, are naturally more widely distributed and result in novel connections
that would not be possible if the more limited connections between the thalamus and amygdala are emphasized. The increased connectivity results in increased complexity leading to an increased capacity for integration. A more cohesive sense of self follows an increase in integration. Thus, while much of our early experience, including attachment experiences, may be intrinsic in nature, the increase integration in the cortices allows for
stability and cohesiveness over time and greater likelihood that what was previously intrinsic can become extrinsic with time. There is support for other processes at work whereby insecure attachments might inhibit
neural integration. For example, in the process known as “developmental overpruning,” high levels of stress hormones lead to excessive death of neurons in the crucial pathways involving the neocortex and limbic system, which are responsible for emotional regulation. High levels of stress have also been known to block hippocampal functioning, and chronic exposure to stress hormones may lead to neuronal death in the hippocampus.
If the hippocampus is inhibited or damaged, the ability to encode what would become explicit memories is diminished and an implicit sense of fear, by way of the amygdala, is increased, as in PTSD. This results in fight or flight reactions/fear being triggered by current, non-traumatic events that have similarities to previous traumatic events on an intrinsic level; we are unable to discriminate between these events on an extrinsic level because we lack the memory that would allow us to symbolize these events on a higher level. Siegel also notes that unresolved traumatic memories are associated with an excessively right dominant activation pattern, which, as you may recall from Dr. Robinson’s work, will lead to excessive anxiety and withdrawal. Traumatized children have also been found to have asymmetric brain abnormalities and altered development of the corpus callosum, which is responsible for integration of information between the right and left cerebral hemispheres. Indeed, verbal abuse has been shown to have an adverse impact on the development of the corpus callosum. Overall, increased exposure to stress will lead to an increase in implicit, as opposed to explicit functioning, because of a decrease in integration between the hemispheres, leading to subsequent decrease in cohesiveness. This decreases the potential for intrinsic processes to subsequently be made extrinsic.
Therefore, attachment relationships greatly impact the developing connectivity of the brain, its’ integration and cohesiveness, and its’ ability to process information. Attachment relationships also greatly impact our subsequent abilities to form other relationships, become self aware and empathic. It has been discovered that there exist neurons in the frontal and parietal regions of the cortex called mirror neurons, which are activated by either one’s own purposeful actions or the perception of another’s actions.
Upon activation, these mirror neurons influence the state of activation of lower subcortical areas, including the limbic and brainstem regions, by way of what is known as the insula. The insula is a bilateral, midcortical region that sits at the interface between these lower parts of the brain, involved in taking in information from the body and the senses, and the higher cortex that integrates information and leads to thoughts and plans. The insula includes a map of the internal workings of the body, known as an nteroceptive map. The activation of the limbic and brainstem regions is then relayed back upward, again through the insula, to the middle prefrontal regions, including the anterior insula and cingulate. This pathway is how we come to integrate what we are feeling, via the interoceptive map, with awareness of others’ actions. Thus, self-awareness and empathy are integrated. It follows that our sense of a coherent self will be compromised if communication with others is less than secure and attuned. This is consistent with what is known of the functions of the middle prefrontal cortex, and especially the right orbital
frontal region; it serves the vital integrative function of correlating social communication, empathic attunement, emotional regulation, registration of bodily state, stimulus appraisal and self-consciousness. It is this mid-prefrontal region of the cortex that is enhanced by the secure attachment
pattern. It is also this area of the brain that is the focus of the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is thought to strengthen the mid-prefrontal cortex, including the anterior cingulate, orbitofrontal cortex, medial and ventral regions of the prefrontal cortex. Further, mindfulness and the mid-prefrontal cortex share many of the same functions including body regulation, attuned communication, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear modulation, insight, empathy, and morality. It becomes Daniel Siegel's assertion then that our attachment experiences of childhood can be modified throughout
adulthood by pursuing mindfulness practices. He proceeds to discuss his metaphor entitled “the wheel of awareness.” (Please see the accompanying figure entitled “The Wheel of Awareness,” to be handed out.) This consists
of a central hub that is consistent with the mid-prefrontal cortex (PFC). This is the place of “knowing.” It is the plane of open possibility in which information can exist before it becomes more defined. Extending out from the hub would be spokes of attention. The spokes would be anything that we intend to attend to. These spokes correspond to any focus of attention we might pursue while meditating. They can extend outward to either
the inner rim or the outer rim of the wheel. The inner rim is an area of increasing probability, where the energy/information invested by our attention is more defined. It involves implicit processing. It consists of intentions, beliefs, attitudes, moods, mental models, and motivation. This implicit processing does not involve conscious awareness. However, it significantly biases and shapes our explicit awareness. As we attend to the inner rim during a state of meditation, we may become more aware of these implicit processes, such that the unconscious bias and shaping of the
explicit awareness by implicit awareness becomes conscious and itself shifts to the outer rim of explicit processing. This would be an example of increasing integration. Extending outward would be the outer rim of explicit processing. This is the “known.” It is the area where the energy/information shifts from a possibility to a certainty, or “known” entity. It is where the implicit intentions, beliefs, attitudes, moods, mental models, and motivation of the inner rim explicitly become the emotions, thoughts, images, memories and perceptions of the outer rim. It is here that we choose peace and love. Certainly, from what has preceded, it should be evident that we would be in a much better position to make such choices later in life if our attachment experiences earlier in life were more positive. It should also be evident that earlier disruptive experiences can be shifted to a more integrative level using meditation and mindfulness at a later time.

As the above information and ideas are considered, we move away from a sense of a separate self, existing in a space and time governed by cause and effect. Rather, our sense of self is part of a continuum that includes our relationships with others, our neural development and integration, and how the self regulates, via the mind, the flow of information and energy between and within these modalities. This is similar to the quantum notions of entanglement and non-locality (shared processes, whereby information is immediately exchanged between related particles). Further, the self is in a
state of perpetual redefinition. This is similar to the quantum notions of uncertainty (an inability to determine place and momentum at the same time) and complementarity (the notion of particles as both points and waves). Previous notions of the psychology of a static self may be considered as illusions of isolation (as opposed to the continual flow of
relationships and information) and rigidity (as opposed to perpetual redefinition), both individually and collectively. They resulted in a preoccupation with self-importance and an anthropomorphic/anthropocentric orientation, both cosmologically and
metaphysically. As we shift our understanding of self to be more consistent with the current paradigm, the possibilities and choice of the quantum paradigm, as opposed to older notions of cause and effect, enhance our creativity and imagination. We become less encumbered by dualisms, judgments and bigotry. The role of meditation to help the
implicit become explicit and increasing our cohesive sense of self is an obvious modality in pursuit of such equanimity. The seeming paradox, that a greater awareness of self allows us to be in the moment of such selflessness, is resolved by an understanding of self and psychology from a quantum viewpoint, vs. the previous limitations of the Newtonian understanding. Such awareness of self and the resultant selflessness will
ultimately enable an ever-increasing empathy and love for each other, our environment and our cosmos.