PRENOTES TIME 8

10-14-6

“Furthermore, the elaboration of autonoetic consciousness permits patients to reflect on the past, understand the present, and help actively shape the future.  Such mentalizing reflective dialogue is also a fundamental component of secure attachments.  Indi- (siegel/tdm/297) viduals with histories of disorganized attachments can thus become freed from the “prison of the present,” in which they were repeatedly trapped when they had no words to reflect on their rapidly enveloping and terrifying states of mind.  (siegel/tdm/298)”  [copied this from prenotes ch 21 trauma]

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“As self-states emerge over time, the mind has the challenge of integrating these relatively autonomous processes into a coherent whole.  Psychotherapy can catalyze the development of such a core integrative process by facilitating dyadic states of resonance:  right-hemisphere to right hemisphere, left hemisphere to left hemisphere.  In such a process, the mind of the patient (and that of the therapist) can become immersed in primary emotional states while simultaneously focusing on reflective narrative explorations.  Such affect attunement and reflective dialogue catalyze an internal, bilateral form of resonance within each member of the dyad….this form of resonance may be at the core of an integrating process that permits emotion regulation across time and across self-states.  It is from this state of cooperative activation that coherent narratives emerge, and through this process that the mind is able to achieve maximal complexity and thus stable self-organization.  (siegel/tdm/299)”   copied from endnotes brain laterality 7

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“One of the mind’s most robust features is its capacity to interconnect a range of processes within its present activity, as well as its functioning across time….[Integration refers] to the collaborative, linking functions that coordinate various levels of processes within the mind and between people…[and is] a fundamental aspect of interpersonal experience and the developing mind.  (siegel/tdm/301)”

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“The fundamental role of complexity has helped to clarify the development and functioning of neural networks and has pointed to the central role of “spatiotemporal integration.”  Various levels of hierarchical systems – from sets of neurons to the interaction of complex circuits – involve space-time patterns of neuronal activity.  What this suggests is that the brain is capable of representing, in the moment, patterns of activity in which direct influences from the past (siegel/tdm/304) are encoded…the organization of memory and the brain’s function as an anticipation machine enable it to “represent the future.”  Such anticipatory mechanisms directly shape the ways in which linkages may be made across various processes and across time.  (siegel/tdm/305)”  from brain notes 8

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all one paragraph – copied from brain notes 8

“For example, the ways in which neural circuits anticipate experience may help us understand how the mind develops through a recursive set of interactions.  As representational processes anticipate experience, they also seek particular forms of interactions to match their expectations.  In this way, the “bias” of a system leads it to perceive, process, and act in a particular manner.  The outcome of this bias is to reinforce the very features creating the system’s bias.  As development evolves, the circuits involved become more differentiated and more elaborately engrained in an integrated system that continues to support its own characteristics.  These recursive and anticipatory features of development may be at the core of how the dorsal and ventral circuits influence the unfolding of the lateralization in hemispheric functioning.  (siegel/tdm/305)”

“…a clearer understanding of the developmental origins of these different systems [hemispheric lateralization and brain asymmetry] may be achieved by examining how the anticipation of encounters with the world influences each hemisphere in quite distinct ways…..This anticipation can be seen as emanating from a form of spatiotemporal integration:  The mind creates complex representations as a process between perception (input) and action (output) in an effort to interact with an environment that changes across time and space.  The value of such a representational process is that it allows the individual to anticipate the next moment in time and in this way to act in a more adaptive manner, enhancing the chance for survival.  Spatiotemporal integration may therefore be a fundamental feature of how the human mind has evolved.  (siegel/tdm/305)”

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“The brain is normally integrating information processing across widely distributed circuits at any given moment in time, or in a “synchronic” fashion…emotion may be essential in such an integrative process at a given time (synchronic”), as well as across time (“diachronic”).  (siegel/tdm/311)”

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INTEGRATION ACROSS TIME

“The brain is normally integrating information processing across widely distributed circuits at any given moment in time, or in a “synchronic” fashion…emotion may be essential in such an integrative process at a given time (synchronic”) [cohesion], as well as across time (“diachronic”) [coherence]. (siegel/tdm/311)”

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Following is all one paragraph – all copied into dissociation notes 6

“What does integration at a given time or across time look like?  We can propose the following possibilities.  Synchronic integration involves the elements…which create a cohesive mental state.  Various aspects of neural activity are clustered together with a functional state of mind as a part of vertical, dorsal-ventral and lateral integration in a given moment in time.  (siegel/tdm/311)”

“At another level, we can suggest that as the individual’s states of mind flow across time, diachronic integration somehow “links” these together in a manner that facilitates flexible and adaptive functioning.  This is an example of spatiotemporal integration.  Such cross-time integration serves as a mechanism of self-regulation, in that it serves to organize the flows of states.  (siegel/tdm/311)”

“…complex systems can function as a cohesive state – a form of synchronic integration as we are defining it here…the mind may create coherence across time through diachronic integration.  As time itself flows, it is in fact difficult to distinguish between cohesion in the moment and coherence across time.  In the physical world, when does a “moment” actually end?  The complex system of the brain, however, has the capacity for abrupt shifts in state that more clearly define the neural edges of time.  Though time itself may have no clear boundaries, these neural shifts give a functional reality to the temporal contrasts between states.  In this manner, cohesion exists within a given state of mind as a form of synchronic integration.  (siegel/tdm/311)”

“The recursive nature of systems establishes a continuity in a given self-state across time.  As a given state changes, it goes through a phase transition involving the temporary disorganization and then reorganization of the system’s state.  In contrast to cohesion of a given self-state, coherence is created across states of mind as a form of diachronic integration….such abilities to create coherence can be proposed to be a function of the individual’s experiential history, which enables the acquisition of a core integrative process.  (siegel/tdm/311)”

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“Regions of the brain such as the orbitofrontal cortex, which function to coordinate these disparate functions across time, may be proposed to play a crucial role in the integrative process.”  (siegel/tdm/320)”

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“The hippocampus is considered a “cognitive mapper”:  It gives the brain a sense of the self in space and in time, regulates the order of perceptual categorizations, and links mental representations to emotional appraisal centers.  These are multiple layers of integration.  (siegel/tdm/330)”

“A number of authors propose that the associational areas of the neocortex, such as the prefrontal regions (including the orbitofrontal cortex) that link various widely distributed representational processes together, form dynamic global maps or complex representations from the input of widely distributed regions in order to establish a sensori-motor integration of the self across space and time.  This capacity allows for the anticipation of and planning for future events as they are created from the integrated  representation of the experiences of the self.  [I couldn’t do this as a child and not sure I can do it now] This is autonoetic consciousness.  Such a spatiotemporal integrating process can be proposed to be fundamental to the narrative mode of cognition.  This mapping process may be at the heart of autobiographical narrative and the way the mind attempts to achieve a sense of coherence among its various states; trying to make sense of the self in the past, the present and the anticipated future.  We can propose that the capacity of the mind to create such a global map of the self across time and various contexts – to have autonoetic consciousness – is an essential feature of integration that may continue to develop throughout life.  (siegel/tdm/330)”    copied from brain notes 8

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“Autonoetic consciousness gives us the ability to perform “mental time travel,” in which we can represent the self in the past, present, and future.  (siegel/tdm/332)”

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