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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

Meta-States’

‘James’ & ‘Alan’

Updated: September 2005 I had been supplying business development consultancy and management development training to ‘Larsago Ltd’, a small engineering company, for a little over a year. The business was family-owned and run, with father ‘Dan’ making all the decisions and mother ‘Emma’ doing the accounts and making the mid-morning toast. Both their sons, ‘James’ and ‘Alan’, worked in the business which also employed another 9 people. The business was growing and clearly had potential for further growth. Part of the business strategy was to develop a middle management structure. Since Dan and Emma wanted their sons to take over the business eventually, James and Alan had to be part of the little group I was putting through management training. One evening, after all the machines had been turned off and everyone else had gone home, Dan asked me how I thought his sons were doing in terms of management development. I responded by asking Dan the question: “What if they’re not the right material to run the business?” Dan, being a bluff Yorkshireman, replied: “You fucking cunt!” For all that he was highly innovative in many ways and open to much new thinking, in other ways Dan was pure Yorkshire… Read More

Stages of Infant Attachment

Updated: 23 August 2016 Attachment can be defined as a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space (John Bowlby, 1969; Mary Ainsworth, 1973). Attachment does not have to be reciprocal.  One person may have an attachment to an individual which is not shared.  According to Bowlby, attachment is characterized by specific behaviours in children, such as seeking proximity with the attachment figure when upset or threatened. The process of attachment is clearly influenced by caregiver sensitivity, plus where both caregiver and child tend to locate on the Dimensions of Temperament – see Caregiver Sensitivity vs Temperament Hypothesis. However, other factors also have a major influence:- The PURPLE vMEME’S need to find safety in belonging This will be underpinned by a BEIGE/PURPLE vMEME harmonic using close proximity as a means to ensure survival, in terms of both sustenance and protection Perceptual development The baby needs to develop visual, auditory and kinaesthetic senses to recognise its mother/primary caregiver Cognitive development The baby needs to make sense of its perceptual input and relate it to its need to survive and develop through attachment In attempts to track the progress of attachment development, there are 2 principal stage… Read More

Glossary I

Nos   A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P-Q    R    S     T     U    V    W    X-Y-Z Id: in Psychoanalytic Theory the Id is the innate part of the mind which operates on the ‘Pleasure Principle’ and is concerned only with fulfilling its desires, without regard to either morality or consequence. According to Sigmund Freud (1923), the Id has 2 instinctual drives:- Eros – the life instinct, the drive to express oneself as alive – Freud (1905) originally conceived the Id in terms of sex drive but later broadened it into the life drive (perhaps with sex, the creation of new life, as the ultimate expression of life) Thanatos – the death instinct, the drive to destroy self as well as others – a late addition to Freud’s theories reputed to be inspired by the wanton slaughter on the battlefields of World War I and, according to Max Schur (1972), the death of his daughter Sophie in the influenza epidemic of 1919. In Integrated SocioPsychology terms the concept of the Id is reflected in the self-orientation of the warm-coloured vMEMES on Clare W Graves’ Spiral and can be seen at its most… Read More

Glossary C

Nos   A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P-Q    R    S     T     U    V    W    X-Y-Z CAPI: As part of his Organisation LifeCycle concept, Ichak Adizes (1987) developed the concept of Coalescing the Authority to make decisions and the Power to implement decisions by those who know how to Influence/Integrate. Don Beck (2000a) has promoted CAPI of the stakeholders as a vital step in structuring any form of MeshWORK. Capitalism: a form of economic organisation in which the means of production are privately owned and controlled. Making profit from the use of capital is the prime objective. In theory those employed by the Capitalists benefit from the wages they are paid for their labour – though, as labour is often a principal – if not the principal cost – to maximise profit, the Capitalists have to keep wages as low as possible. They also have to sell what is made by the workers for the highest price the market will bear. Supporters of Capitalism tend to claim that the profit motive has lead to many countries – Western countries especially  – enjoying affluent lifestyles. Critics attack its reduction of all relationships… Read More

Glossary A

Nos   A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P-Q    R    S     T     U    V    W    X-Y-Z Abnormal Behaviour: is behaviour that differs from the norm. Conventionally in Psychology and Psychiatry, abnormal behaviour is defined by one or more of 4 ways:- Statistical Deviation – measured in standard deviations from the mean (average) in a set of scores of behavioural and/or linguistic responses in a population sample, this is a means of describing difference statistically Deviation from Social Norms – though cultural relativism means social norms will vary from culture to culture and in sub-cultures Failure to Function Adequately– in broad terms, not coping with life eg: not being able to hold down a job, sustain a relationship, etc This quite simple definition has been greatly expanded by David Rosenhan & Martin E P Seligman (1989) – though their enhancement of the definition has been quite heavily criticised Deviation from Ideal Mental Health – ‘ideal mental health’ being represented by the tendency to Self-Actualisation (the actualising tendency) found in the writings of Abraham Maslow (1943; 1956) and Carl Rogers (1961) and paralleled in Don Beck’s (2002a) concept of the prime directive… Read More

What is Romantic Love?

Relaunched: 5 November 2018 Being able to define ‘romantic love’ and understand how it comes about, how it works, how it lasts, how it changes and how it all too often fades is a set of challenges that has beguiled philosophers throughout the millennia and over the past couple of centuries psychologists and, to some extent, sociologists too. The theme of romantic love – and the sex that usually goes with it – is one of the most pervasive memes of our times. It dominates Western culture: approximately 90% of all pop music is concerned with it and it is at the core of many dramas – whether on TV, in films or in books. In so doing, it gives a great many of us a mission in life: to find that ‘special person’ to love and be loved by. The love to be obtained is as seen as somehow mystical; and terms with a hint of mysticism are often used for the special person such as ‘soulmate’ and ‘life partner’. Of course, while men and women in all civilisations seem to experience romantic love, not all cultures regard it as a suitable basis for marriage. Phil Shaver, Shelley Wu & Judith Schwartz (1991) compared… Read More

Miscellaneous FAQs

Click the question to go to its answer… 1. It’s said you have severe reservations about NLP. Please explain. 2. Were you expelled from the British Association of Counsellors & Psychotherapists? 1. It’s said you have severe reservations about NLP. Please explain. Updated: 17/05/15 Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) contains some very powerful therapeutic techniques indeed. And I use a number of these as first choice in tackling a therapy client’s problems. However, I do have severe reservations about NLP being presented, taught and used as if it is a complete and cohesive set of theories, models and techniques. Firstly, it is theoretically weak. There is no unified or even connectionist set of theoretical underpinnings. In terms of theory, it is a ragbag of disjointed models which are not properly integrated. Put the vMEMES of the Gravesian approach at the core of NLP and most of it starts to make sense. Even then it ignores many facets of the human psyche covered in other schools of Psychology. This, unfortunately, does not stop many NLPers – including ‘guru’ figures who should know better – from claiming that NLP can be used to tackle any and every form of psychological problem. It can’t! For one… Read More

Meta-Programmes

Updated: 10 February 2016 Meta-programmes, a key concept in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), are observable distinctions in mental processing, as reflected in language and behaviour. They act as filters for how and what we let into our heads  – memes from the external world influencing the schemas of our internal representations – and they shape what comes out from us in terms of language and concepts – our schemas becoming memes to influence others. Meta-programmes are usually depicted as poles at the opposite ends of a scalable continuum. The concept of meta-programmes was conceived in the late 1970s by Leslie Cameron Bandler (then wife of NLP co-developer Richard Bandler), building on Noam Chomsky’s groundbreaking work around linguistic patterns reflecting mental filters. David Gordon, Robert Dilts and Maribeth Meyers-Anderson were among Cameron-Bandler’s leading collaborators in identifying the first sets of meta-programmes. As NLP has grown in scope and complexity, so more and more meta-programmes have been charted to identify more and more distinctions. Leading ‘guru’ Wyatt Woodsmall has reputedly talked about having identified over 350 meta-programmes! In 1997 L Michael Hall & Bob Bodenhamer grouped 51 principle meta-programmes into 5 overarching categories: mental, emotional, volitional, response and meta meta-programmes.They also linked meta-programmes to the concept… Read More