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Glossary of Integrated SocioPsychology
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Marxism:

 

Major Depression: aka Unipolar Disorder, see Clinical Depression.

 

Manic Depressive Psychosis: aka Bipolar Disorder, this is a mental illness characterised by both the kind of Depressive episodes charateristic of Major Depression/Unipolar Disorder and episodes of Mania. The Manic phases are characterised by elevated and expansive mood, rapid speech that can be hard to understand, delusions, overactivity and impulsive behaviour.
A number of studies of monozygotic twins (from the same egg) have shown high concordance rates - even as high as 80% - implying there is often a genetic predisposition (diathesis) in the development of this condition.

 

Mean: see Measures of Central Tendency.

 

Measures of Central Tendency:

 

Measures of Dispersion:

 

Medical Model:

Medulla Oblongata: a structure in the hindbrain which is more or less an extension of the brainstem. It controls vital functions such as heart rate and breathing as well as important reflexes such as salivation and sneezing.

 

Melatonin: a hormone produced by the pineal gland which increases sleepiness.

 

Meme: a term coined by Richard Dawkins for a unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is contained in a medium of communication - eg: a book - or is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. When it 'infects' a mind, a meme is effectively a culturally-transmitted schema.

 

Memeplex: Susan Blackmore's term for a confluence of memes which together comprise a bigger idea - for example: a large memeplex such as religion is comprised of hundreds of smaller memeplexes - such as worship which is composed of more singular memes such as prayer and adoration. The meme-memeplex relationship is an example of the holon-holarchy relationship.

Memetics: the study of how memes are transmitted culturally in a 'virus-like' manner.

 

Memory Trace: the neurological/physical record or 'trace' of a memory.

 

Mercedes Model: reputedly named by Tad James & Wyatt Woodsmall, this is the Think/Cognitive-Feel/Emotions-Do/Behave/Bodily Condition) model developed by Richard Bandler & John Grinder in the early days of NLP from the state concepts of the great Russian philosopher, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. The crux of this model is that what we think cognitively, how we feel and what we do are all bound up symbiotically and change in one domain will inevitably influence change in the other two.
For instance, if someone has a bodily cold, they will tend to feel 'down' and think sluggishly. Someone who uses strong and positive body language will tend to feel confident and think positively.
NLP thus presupposes that a positive intervention in one domain will have therapeutic effects in the other domains also.

MeshWEAVER: Don Beck's title for those involved in creating MeshWORKS, using CAPI and Spiral Dynamics.

 

MeshWORK: Don Beck's terminology for the application of Spiral Dynamics at an organisational or cultural level.

Meta-Analysis: statistical technique for finding common patterns and trends in the findings from a number of studies.

 

Meta-Mirror: a conflict resolution exercise developed by Robert Dilts, using the 4 Perceptual Positions.

 

Meta-Model: the Meta-Model is a complex analysis of linguistic structures developed by NLP founders Richard Bandler & John Grinder, based upon the 3 key filters identified in Naom Chomsky's classic work - ie: we delete information, we distort information and we generalise from it. To meta-model someone is to break apart that person's linguistic patterns and enable exploration of issues at a far deeper level.

 

Meta-Programme: an NLP concept, meta-programmes are observable distinctions in mental processing styles, usually measured between two opposites - eg: Big Picture/Little Detail, Self-Referenced/Others-Referenced.
Some meta-programmes - eg: Introvert-Extravert - appear to be grounded in temperament - but most can be related to the operational structure of a person's vMEME Stack.

 

Meta-State: this NLP concept, developed by L Michael Hall, is closely related to schema theory in Cognitive Psychology. It is concerned with how we interpret events, then how we interpret the result of that interpretation, then how we interpret the interpretation of the interpretation, then how we interpret the interpretation of the interpretation of the interpretation, etc - creating multiple layers of interpretation. with every additional layer that much more removed from the original sensory information. Each layer beyond the initial primary interpretation-less state is a meta-state. So a meta-state can be defined as 'the mental state arrived at through the application of meaning' .
The Cognitive Triad can be linked to meta-stating to show how vMEMES influence the formation of belief structures at every level.

Midbrain: this contains part of the recticular formation and part of the brainstem.

 

Mistaken Belief Visualisation: an Inner Child therapy exercise developed by Penny Parks for destroying people's core limiting beliefs (maladaptive schemas) and replacing them with new enabling beliefs - thus increasing their self-efficacy.

 

Modality: a sensory system - eg: the visual modality.

 

Motor Neuron:

Multiple Intelligences: Howard Gardner has extended the importance NLP attaches to sensory processing and linguistics, added in Carl Gustav Jung's Introversion-Extraversion continuum (replicated in both Meta-Programmes and Hans Eysenck's Dimensions of Temperament) and may even have caught onto the G-T (Graves)/Self-Actualisation (Maslow) level (with Naturalistic) to produce his Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Gardner postulates that people have at least 8 intelligences:-

Gardner emphasises that people will prefer to work in certain intelligences over others. He has pushed his ideas strongly at teachers and other educators - with some notable success. However, Gardner's concepts are not without their critics - some pyschologists labelling them as 'unscientific'. Certainly they lack an underpinning systemic theory (such as Spiral Dynamics). Nonetheless they do provide effective descriptors of a range of learning/thinking patterns and Gardner is to be applauded for encouraging people to accommodate difference.
Much of the controversy around Garner's ideas is centred around his use of the term 'intelligence' . Many feel he is confusing it with aptitude, ability, talent, etc - but then one of Gardner's principal aims is to challenge traditional concepts of intelligence!

Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD): a conditionin which an individual seems to have several different people living within them. These 'alters' may have a different age to the biological age of the host body - and may even be the opposite sex! They invariably have different names and speak and act in totally different ways so that they do indeed seem to be different 'people' living in the same body.
There is real controversy surrounding MPD and much debate as to whether it really exists.

Firstly the condition was relatively unknown - only 76 documented claims were in existence in 1944 - before the 1957 oscar-winning movie, 'The Three Faces of Eve', based on a real-life case study. After its success, psychologists and psychiatrists reported an explosion in the number of cases of MPD. It is claimed ongoing media interest keeps the number of 'cases' high.
Secondly a number of high-profile deliberate fakes and iatrogenic (therapist-induced) occurences have been exposed, casting real doubt on the reliability of methods of diagnosis.
Thirdly a substantial body of the psychiatric profession have come to the point of view that true 'multiple personalities' is a psychological and biological impossibility and that the lesser Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) would be a more sound diagnosis. (However, some even claim that DID is a fabrication!)
Ralph Allison, one of the world's leading experts in the field, has argued consistently for both MPD and DID being real conditions, with a significant qualitative difference between them.
In terms of Integrated SocioPsychology, both DID and MPD are theoretically plausible. If very different vMEMES dominate in different contexts and the selfplex is very weak and/or ill-formed, then it is not impossible it could fragment, with dissociation producing partial selfplexes around contextual vMEME Stacks.

 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): developed by Kathrine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Myers, during World War II, the MBTI is the most widely-used form of personality assessment in the Western world. Derived from Carl Gustav Jung's theories on personality types, it is based on four scales:-

Answering questions set to measure against each of these scales leads to one of 16 personality profiles.
Jung's personality types - which he himself admitted were based more on intuition than scientific analysis - have been attacked by any number of other psychologists as unsafe. (However, the Introversion-Extraversion scale has very much held up to scrutiny and forms one of Hans Eysenck's 3 Dimensions of Temperament.) The MBTI itself has drawn criticism for poor reliability - primarily when short-term follow-up assessments have resulted in a different personality profile for the same person. This may be because, as Jung's critics emphasise, personality typing is in itself a flawed concept and what differening results from MBTI administration really show is shifts in thinking and emotional states. Nonetheless, the majority of organisations using the MBTI claim substantial satisfaction with its accuracy.