Wednesday, March 28, 2012

cerveau figé?


Question de JD:
Je suis une agnostique sans trop de convictions mais agnostique quand-même. L'instinct de survie et/ou de reproduction est à la base de tous vivants. Les sentiments, les concepts de deuil, souffrance, sagesse, abdication ne sont qu'invention de l'homme pour arriver à comprendre et accepter ce qu'il est et ce qui l'entoure. Embrasser la vie, ne pas la subir, gagnant ou victime, je veux bien croire que notre attitude devant tout cela fera une différence entre être actif ou passif, positif ou négatif, mais qu'en est-il si notre cerveau est figé dans un modèle de marbre?

J'ai toujours tenté de sortir de mon milieu, mais nous sommes le produit d'une éducation, d'une société, d'un genre féminin ou masculin et d'un cerveau composé de neurotransmetteurs qui fonctionnent selon une chimie bien précise qui modèle notre esprit, nos idées et je ne parle même pas des connaissances acquises, de l'intelligence. Ainsi, pour moi, le désir de vivre, n'est que la résultante de notre cerveau reptilien, l'instinct de survie.

Réponse de P.I.:
Attention! Le cerveau n'est pas "figé dans un modèle de marbre". Le nouveau modèle neuroscientifique, basé sur des données stupéfiantes, parle au contraire de la neuroplasticité du cerveau, c'est-à-dire de sa malléabilité. Nous pouvons changer notre cerveau avec nos pensées. Des résonances magnétiques le constatent bien. Grâce aux IRMs, nous savons, par exemple, que la méditation et la psychothérapie transforment le cerveau de la même manière que des anti-dépresseurs.

Le cerveau reptilien est étroitement lié aux émotions. Il consiste d'un réseau d'associations émotives. C'est la fondation dans laquelle est imprimée nos toutes premières expériences de la vie. Oui, il peut avoir l'air d'être devenu comme du béton mais il n'en est rien.

Un vidéo que tu trouveras peut-être intéressant sur le livre de Norman Doidge:
The Brain That Changes Itself

Cela dit, si on persiste à croire que le cerveau ne change pas, il ne changera pas. Un peu comme un placebo à l'inverse!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

splitting



I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it.

~ J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye


She went from cool to hot in about 15 minutes because nobody leaped into action.

The dynamic had always been to make Dad "the bad guy" for resisting her whims and desires and Mom "the good guy" who was willing to rescue her from frustration and distress. (This is called splitting. Teenagers are pros at it. When their efforts are frustrated they’ll pull a tantrum worthy of a two-year old.) But since Mom had learned to deflect her daughter’s pressure tactics, the girl was at loose ends. Nobody was willing to jump in and be the hero.

The girl had a meltdown in my office. Because her parents knew that the problem their daughter faced was manageable and that she was well-equipped to handle it, their hearts broke for her but they did not cave. Instead they just gave their sobbing child lots of empathy, encouragement and support.

In our next family meeting, the girl described how she had handled the situation, by herself. She got through it alone and was glowing, proud and confident.

By forming a united front, by refusing to split into good cop/bad cop, the parents in this story enabled their daughter, not only to find the resources she needed within herself, but also helped her to see her own parents more realistically. Mom and Dad taught her that there are no good guys and bad guys out there. That nobody’s a monster and nobody’s perfect and that there are no magic solutions to life’s problems. We all just do the best that we can.

Monday, March 12, 2012

the drama triangle




This above all, to refuse to be a victim. Unless I can do that I can do nothing.

~ Margaret Atwood; Surfacing


In 1968, Steven Karpman coined the term drama triangle to refer to the constellation of roles we play when we engage in the game of victim-rescuer-persecutor. Basically, the triangle comes about when one or more person gets stuck in a corner of the triangle as opposed to moving into a more adaptive position. To defuse the drama, we need to refuse to play the game.

Unfortunately, we often respond to conflict by moving into one of these roles.

For example, when a bully is name-calling another student at school, the student, feeling helpless, may see himself as a victim and just stand there crying. A teacher witnessing the interaction may decide to intervene. She completes the triangle by rescuing the bullied student.

In an alternative scenario, the bullied student refuses to play the victim and takes action against the bullying by saying that he does not like the way the bully is speaking to him, and then leaves. He seeks out friends to support him and then he and his friends confront the bully and the bully backs off.

This is a more constructive response.

It sounds easy. And in a way, it is. The problem is that, like the Bermuda Triangle, the drama triangle is insidiously magnetic, drawing us in against our wills! We may unconsciously identify with the roles projected onto us, as in projective identification, introjecting the role attributed to us and colluding with the projection. We then unwittingly act out someone else’s nightmare.

The antidote? Self-awareness and the commitment to not playing the game. In order for the triangle to lose its power, you need to know your own nightmare and identify the roles you play in it. Then you make a conscious effort to interrupt your tendency to play them out and take back the playwright in your head.