L.3 - Embodied sense making

Question 1

Core concepts of today

Answer 1

➢ Enactivism
➢ Embodied sense-making
➢ Existential stance taking
➢ Primary emotional systems of Panksepp
➢ SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, PANIC/GRIEF, CARE, PLAY
➢ Forms of vitality
➢ Mirroring and Marking
➢ Attunement
➢ Misattunement and Repair
➢ Detachement and despair

Question 2

Lecture overview

Answer 2

I. Animals and arts
II. Primary Emotional Systems
III. From emotions to personality?
IV. Forms of vitality and the sense of self
V. Attunement and experiences of self-with-other

> we have talked about the I and the Me, now we talk about what the experiential I could be about

Question 3

The self as dancer

Answer 3

• on the side of the experiential I
  ➢ Before ‘I’ start to have a self (a ‘Me’), there are already bodily movements and sensations
  > child born already moves, …
  ➢ Affective experiences are always taking place within this context of a body that moves and is being moved (affected)
  ➢ So, movement and affect seem a beautiful place to start when trying to grasp something of the development of the experiential basis of self
  ➢ In this lecture I will look at the movement of the animals on the one hand and human art (dance) on the other

Question 4

Enactivism

Answer 4

➢ A version of Theory Of Mind strongly influenced by phenomenology and existentialism, but also neurobiology
➢ Alternative for cognitivism and dualism
> we have become a bit too cognitivist and dualist, enactivism pulls away from that
➢ It emphasis the embeddedness in a body and in an environment of the thinking and experiencing of minded animals like ourselves
➢ It is an understanding of cognition as being a fundamentally embodied and embedded form of action
> thinking goes much together with moving (e.g. moving when thinking)

• e.g. dancing in a group can be regarded as a form of actively thinking by moving together
  > rather than in dualism: thinking on the one side (in the mind) and then moving on the other (in the world)

Question 5

Why do we use other animals in our theories?

Answer 5

• useful to have an evolutionary biological basis for explaining
  ➢ We evolved from common ancestors and share a huge amount of genes with them
  ➢ They may provide models for what human bodies share with other animals that do not have the kind of symbolic structures we live in
  ➢ This might give glimpses of non-cultural aspects of humans, although we have to be carefull
  ➢ Many more types of experiments can be done with animals than with humans. Even if we are strict on ethical boundaries of such experiments

Question 6

What is embodied sense making?

Answer 6

• it is a fundamental part of being alive
• to live we must make sense of our environement
  > even if only by distinguishing food from non-food, danger from safety, mates from non-mates, …
• living beings are dependent on their environment for their survival, which implies some basic form of sense-making activity of the organism

Question 7

Existential stancing-taking in a symbolic world

Answer 7

• as soon as organisms are capable of relating to themselves and their environment, the functionality principle (of e.s.m.) is loosened or altered
  > functionality: I need to know the valence of food, what is dangerous, …
• now not only survival counts, but also living a good life
• if valences result from being a needy creature in relation to an environment, we can say that values emerge for those organisms that on top of that can relate to this relationship
  > first of all I can make sense that I want food, now I take food and I have a certain relationship to taking the food
  > should I take the food now? what person am I if I take this food? …- we do not only have the will to survive, we also have the “will to meaning”
• Once an organism (like a human) can reflect on itself and its environment, its behavior is no longer just about surviving. Instead, values and meaning emerge. For humans, this means we don’t just act out of instinct — we reflect on our actions, assign meaning to them, and seek a life that feels valuable or purposeful. This shift gives rise to the “will to meaning,” a deep drive to make sense of our existence.

Question 8

previous flashcard but ~~ make it clear ~~

Answer 8

1. Organisms relating to themselves and their environment:
   → once an organism can reflect on its own needs and its environment (like humans do), its behavior is no longer driven just by survival instincts
2. The “functionality principle” is loosened:
   → originally, actions are functional — e.g., “I eat because I’m hungry.”
   → but with self-awareness, it’s not just about eating to survive. The meaning behind the action becomes important
3. Functionality example – food:
   → Basic need: know what food is good or bad
   → More advanced level: think about your relationship with food, your choices, what they say about who you are
4. Not just survival, but living a good life:
   → Humans care not only about surviving but about how they live — values, ethics, fulfillment
5. Valences and values:
   → “Valences” are basic preferences or aversions (like wanting food, avoiding danger).
   → When organisms (like humans) become aware of these needs, they can develop values — beliefs about what’s good, meaningful, or important
6. Reflection creates values:
   → Example: “I want food” → “I choose to take food” → “What kind of person am I if I take this food?”
   → This shows how self-awareness adds layers of meaning to basic actions
7. The “will to meaning”:
   → This is a concept from existential psychology (notably Viktor Frankl).
   → It means humans are not just driven to survive or feel pleasure — we need meaning in our lives

Question 9

Primary emotional systems

Answer 9

1. Seeking
2. Fear
3. Rage
4. Lust
5. Care
6. Panic/Grief
7. Play

Question 10

1. Seeking

Answer 10

• the Seeking system provides animals with energy to explore the environment
• necessary to find mating partners as well as food to nourish brain and body
• Affective experience
  > High s.: interest → euphoria
  > low s.: disinterest / lack of motivation → anhedonia and apathy
• Possible clinical problems:
  > high s.: manic state, drugs of abuse
  > low s.: anhedonic, depressed, detached state
  ! seeking ≠ liking (seeking is about keeping on going, it’s not about satisfaction)
  ! you might go into a seeking loop (e.g. phone apps)

Question 11

2. Fear

Answer 11

• animals have a Fear system (along with the learning) that promotes the avoidance of dangerous situations and to carefully monitor the safety of environments
• Affective experience
  > High: Flight (high seeking) or Freeze (low seeking) → terror
  > Low: safe (to explore) → recklessness?
• Possible clinical problems:
  > High → anxiety disorders, cluster C, PTSD, …
  > Low → psychopathy(?), Risk-taking

Question 12

3. Rage

Answer 12

• Activity of the Rage system is observed when animals are in need to defend themselves (when a predator is closing in)
  > also in situations of frustration, when an expected reward is absent or being enclosed in a small space
• also visible to solve territorial conflicts in animals
• Affective experience:
  > High: irritation → exploding
  > Low: trusting → naivety?
  *Possible clinical problems:
  > High → intermittent explosive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder,
  narcistic rage, etc.
  > Low → lack of assertion (e.g. in depressions or dependent, avoidant PD)
  (where does it go?)

Question 13

4. Lust

Answer 13

• Lust activity in animals is of importance for procreation
• In many mammals it also appears to serve social functions
  > not only towards the opposite sex
  *Affective experience:
  > High: feeling some attraction → orgasm
  > Low: low interest → asexuality
  *Possible clinical problems:
  > High → problems concerning problematic sexual behaviors
  > Low → problems concerning impotence, lack of pleasure, etc.

Question 14

5. Care

Answer 14

• for mammals and birds, taking Care of one’s own offspring helps assure that the young children grow into adults and themselves can have families
• In social groups, Care feelings extend to non-family members
  > In a community they may extend widely (e.g. referring to a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’)
• Affective experience:
  > High: tenderness → parental love
  > Low: carelessness → detachment
• Possible clinical problems:
  > High CARE → self-sacrifice(?), over-protectiveness(?)
  > Low CARE → anti-social features(?), parental failures(?), postnatal depression(?)

Question 15

6. Panic/Grief (attachment)

Answer 15

• Panic/Grief (or Sadness) reflects separation distress
• it signals a situation of having lost contact with an important person or being lost in the environment
• for mammals and birds, separation from a caregiver or another important person triggers a distress reaction leading to distress vocalization (crying) to reunite with
  a partner or a parent
  > if reunion does not happen strong feelings of deactivation and grief appear
• Affective experience:
  > High: a longing or loneliness → Panic (high Seeking) or Grief (low Seeking)
  > Low: safety (exploring) → detachment
• Possible clinical problems:
  > High → separation anxiety, trauma, borderline states, etc.
  > Low → schizoid, detached states, maybe psychopathy(?)

Question 16

7. Play

Answer 16

• in mammals and birds social Play is inherent, especially in young animals
• such behavior is of importance to learn social competencies and motoric skills
• also helps to get better along in complex social groups when being an adult.
• via play friendships emerge
  > humans in particular play a lot with
  symbols, for example in humor
  ! play is an essential part of life, it is a need and if prevented, can have negative consequences
• Affective experience:
  > High: friendly joy, comradery, tickling → bursting in laughter, playfighting
  > Low: satiety or quietness → boredom, loneliness
• Possible clinical problems:
  > High → difficulty concentrating on routine-tasks or overly structured
  situations, ADHD(?)
  > Low → Obsessive patterns, joylessness, depressed personality(?)

Question 17

properties of emotional systems

Answer 17

➢ Once activated they tend to remain active for some time
➢ They ‘color’ our experience of the world
➢ They ‘shape’ the movements in the world (towards, away from, etc.)
> e.g. when I am angry, everything makes me angry
> e.g. when I am anxious, everything becomes worrysom
➢ They present strong motivating force
> that is → they activate certain ‘modes of being in the world’
> e.g. playful mode, anxious mode, angry mode, …

Question 18

Neural definition

Answer 18

1. Intrinsic inputs (US)
   > e.g. loud noise in fear system
2. Coordinate physiological and behavioral outputs (UR)
   > once a system is activated, new stimuli become connected to said system
3. Gating of inputs (CS and CR)
4. Positive feedback (including ‘auto-activation’)
   > the systems tend to activate themselves as well
5. Cognitions instigate emotions (top-down influence)
   > if I see something dangerous, the fear system is activated
6. Emotions control cognitions (bottom-up influence)
   > if the mode of seeking is activated, I will have more attention towards certain stimuli
7. Affect reflects the full operation of such processes
   > the full affective experience is not just the basic system, it is the activation of the system + all that comes with it (not just anxiety in the brain, but also the body becomes tense, …)
   ! all systems can be traced back, hormonally, brain-wise, …

Question 19

From emotions to personality

Answer 19

(picture 1)
- they have created scales that go from the emotion to the underlying system
> e.g. anger scale linked to Rage system, …
- then they correlated them to personality scales
> they correlate!
= these seven emotional systems underlie personality dimensions
→ trait realism: there is underlying psychobiological system that causes traits variations

Question 20

Hypothesis about affective neuroscience, temperament and the Big Three

Answer 20

• Fear, Rage, Panic/Grief → negative affectivity → negative emotionality
• Seeking, Play, Care → Surgency → positive emotionality
• effortful control → constraint

Question 21

is this hypothesis valid?

Answer 21

• to some extent yes, but there is so much more between emotional systems and personality
  > e.g. if I am introverted, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s because my Seeking is low
• we are actors in social stage: symbolic order, language, author, …

Question 22

How do emotional systems shape personality?

Answer 22

• maybe genetic predisposition (e.g. if rage is not triggered often)
• maybe you learnt when you were young that you couldn’t be mad, so you repress the rage
• maybe you were raised to not be mad, but you have a high Rage system; then there is a conflictual situation

Question 23

Forms of vitality

Answer 23

1. Forms of vitality are patterns of arousal that are associated with certain sensory experiences & movement
   > e.g. when you move, you experience the movement in a certain way
2. They are generally cross-modal; that is we do not experience them only in vision or hearing, but in any modality of sensory experience
   > e.g. if I walk, we are also seeing and breathing and talking, …
3. They translate between these modes; hence music and dance, poetry and being ‘touched’ are intrinsically related
   > music is the best expression of vitality (explosive, rythmic, acceleration, diminuition, …)

Question 24

Experiencing the movements of a body in a world

Answer 24

• Vitality forms are perceived as wholes
  > they are Gestalten originating from five components: movement, force, temporal
  contour, space, and directionality / intentionality (not in exam)
  > you experience things as their totality, e.g. the walking, the breathing, the seeing… not as different activities
• Vitality forms are not primary emotions
  > rather, they are structures of dynamic behavior, which can contain emotions as well as fantasies, streams of thoughts, desires, and so on
  > thus, a content (a desire or an emotion) can have an exploding form, or a fantasy can have a surging form
• It’s possible to suggest that infants precociously represent other people’s emotional manifestations mainly as forms
  of vitality
  > these dynamic vitality forms are the first experience of the infant towards the world (e.g. experience of being held)
  > these vitality experienced, when repeated, they become a memory (e.g. the child listening to mom’s voice and calming down)

Question 25

How do we move each other?

Answer 25

1. Direct touch 2. Via the air by using our voice 3. Via they eyes by the reflection of light 4. Via that also mirror-neurons are affected > so we literally mirror the movement of the other 5. And finally, later, via symbols (next lecture)

Question 26

The regulation of forms of vitality and affect

Answer 26

➢ Because of the possibility to share forms of vitality, we can ‘move’ each other > Thus, the parents can use there gestures, voices and movements to down-regulate and up-regulate the forms of vitality and state-of-mind their child is in > this gives rise to all kinds of vital experiences of embodied being-with-an-other ➢ In their repetition and memorization these represent persisting "internal modes of being with an other" → how is it all done?

Question 27

Mirroring

Answer 27

- Mirroring generally refers to aspects of sameness in the reaction of the parent to the child > e.g. the rythm of a sound can be mirrored; the sudden movement of an arm, the slow emergence of a smile, a decelaration of breathing - In complete mirroring there would be almost no difference between what the movement and sound of the child and that of the parent > the child then would have a difficult time distinguishing self and other → therefore, marking is important

Question 28

Marking

Answer 28

- Marking generally refers to the aspect of differentiation in response to the child > e.g. the child may utter a voice that goes upward and the parent a similar voice that goes downward - Or there may be variations on the pattern of the child, or responses in a different modality like making a sound that mirrors the movement of the child - In development the amount of variation and differentiation tends to increase > If the difference is too large the connection may be lost ! this is called a misattuned response

Question 29

Attunment vs misattunement

Answer 29

- in misattunement, the world doesn't make any more sense to the child - the child doesn't understand why the mom doesn't mirror anymore, and what is going on in the world - the parents goes back from misattunement → attunement comes back - attunement all the time is not good, not even in therapy, because then the client beliefs that everyone should be attuned to them and trust issues start - real trust: even if we are not on the same level, that's okay and we can repair it; we don't need attunement all the time to be okay