creatingpositivechange

"In Every Nursery There Are Ghosts" (Fraiberg)

KEY WORDS: maps - subjectivity – virtual other – internal representation

Motivational speakers often point out “change is easy” – all you have to do is follow a few simple rules and you can transform your life.

I’m not saying this is not true, but I am fascinated by the complexities of creating lasting change through a deeper understanding of how we’ve grown up from the time we were born, and even before.

One of the presuppositions in NLP is “to respect each other’s maps” so we work with a person’s subjective experience knowing that the past shapes present perceptions as we anticipate the next moment in time.

According to Aitken and Trevarthen, the concept of the “Virtual Other” (Siegel:1990:102) is the internal image we hold of our primary caregiver which is out of awareness yet present in our everyday communication.

In other words, the “Virtual Other” in NLP terms is an internal representation coded using our senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and sound. As infants we develop this capacity within our first year and this helps us to hold an absent parent in mind.

As we grow, we expand our set of “Virtual Others” to include key people in our life who ‘invisibly’ shape us over time and who come to life unexpectedly as we communicate with people in different contexts!

So, for example, you may or may not have had the experience of realising you suddenly said something which sounded just like your mother, or other people tell you you’re turning into her! This may or may not be good news!

As you consider the next time you’re talking to someone and you’re not getting the results you want, maybe you’re not just communicating to who you think you are or perhaps it’s your ability to perceive which is being blocked by one of your own “Virtual Others”!

I’m choosing to end on a ‘right brain’ note by including a short verse from the Finnish writer, Eva Kilpi:

As grandmothers die,
They become flowering meadows,
And some grandmothers become trees,
Singing and whispering to their grandchildren,
Protecting them from rain and wind,
They spread their boughs to create huts
Of snow to shelter them.
But before that they are passionate.

REFERENCES

S. Fraiberg, E. Adelson & V. Shapiro, 1975, ‘Ghosts in the nursery: a psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships’, Journal of Amer
Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 387-421.

D.J.Siegel. (1999). The Developing Mind, Guildford Publications, Inc.. New York

We all need people

I've been browsing through websites doing some research on personal development.  The cynic in me notices the clever use of celebrity endorsement and highly niched target marketing, and I'm left wondering if everyone is saying the same thing, just differently?

What does impact me is how we can't do it alone on this earth .... meaning we do need one another for a source of support and inspiration.  So whether we connect to one person or another perhaps is irrelevant and it's more about who speaks to us the most.  In some ways it's as though these people know our deepest fears and what consumes our thoughts.  It's as though they're having a one-to-one conversation, although they don't know us personally. 

Maybe it's a bit like reading your horoscope - you see the relevance to your own life because we want to and we're good at creating meaning.  It is actually what humans do - we are meaning-making machines!

Knowing that we create our own meaning can be the starting point for change because if we are the 'creators', we have choice. 

Perhaps, before 'fixing' meanings in our mind, we can consider what's happened and choose which one fits best - and here's another difference - not which one fits best in terms of defaulting back into old unwanted patterns, but more in terms of which one helps us live life differently - and in a more meaningful and empowered way.