-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
guidelines (Mind/Body)
state-dependent learning
psychospiritual approaches
definition
What is learned and remembered is dependent on one's psychophysiological state at the time of the experience. Since memory is dependent upon and limited to the state in which it was acquired, it is referred to as "state-bound information," and its consequent behavior as "state-bound behavior." Since the limbic-hypothalamic system is in a process of constantly shifting psycho-neuro-physiological states, all learning associated with it is, of necessity, state-dependent.
State-dependent memory, learning, and behavior (SDMLB) is the broad, generic class of learning that takes place in all complex organisms that have a cerebral cortex and limbic-hypothalamic system. Rossi traces the evolution of the scope of the state-dependent theory of mind-body healing and hypnosis over the past 200 years, beginning with Braid's definition of hypnotism as a process of dissociation or reversible amnesia giving rise to the "double-conscious state." Memories acquired during the state of hypnosis are forgotten in the awake state but are available when hypnosis is reinduced. Pavlovian and Skinnerian operant conditioning are specific varieties of SDMLB, although these pioneering investigators where unaware of the limbic-hypothalamic factors in their early experiments. Freud and Jung agreed on the root of psychoanalysis; that emotional trauma leads to dissociation, repression, complexes, and amnesia as the basis of neurosis and functional psychosis.
A careful comparison of the work of Hans Selye and Milton Erickson indicates that they were both dealing with the same basic phenomenon of state-dependent memory and learning as the genesis and resolution of psychosomatic problems; Selye from the perspective of physiological research, and Erickson from the psychological perspective.
Selye's formulation of the General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) has been described as the foundation for psychosomatic medicine. Learning and memory acquired during Selye's "alarm reaction" of sympathetic nervous system response tend to be state-dependent. A person in a traumatic car accident experiences an intense rush of sympathetic hormones, and his detailed memories of the accident are intertwined with the complex psychophysiological state associated with those hormones. When he returns to his usual or 'normal' states of awareness a few hours or days later, the memories of the accident become fuzzy, or in severe cases, traumatic amnesia occurs. The memories of the accident have become "state-bound" - that is, they are bound to the precise psychophysiological state evoked by the alarm reaction, together with its associated sensory-perceptual impressions of the accident. Although hormones usually function autonomously, we now know that their activity is modulated by significant life experiences and encoded in the form of SDMLB.
Selye's next stage, the "stage of resistance", is the period during which psychosomatic symptoms become particularly evident. In the car accident, the psychosomatic response could be any part of the alarm reaction originally experienced - anxiety, pain, hysterical paralysis, headaches, ulcers, etc. - which is the subtle "problem of adaptation" that traditional medicine often does not know how to deal with. This is especially the case when the initial cause of the stress (car accident) has disappeared and yet the mind-body, having learned a new defensive (psychosomatic) mode of adaptation, continues to use it. The psychosomatic mode of adaptation was learned during a special (usually traumatic) state-dependent psychophysiological condition; it continues because it remains state-bound or locked into that special psychophysiological condition even after the patient apparently returns to his normal mode of functioning.
Milton Erickson, psychiatrist and hypnotherapist, explored the unique patterns within each individual in his investigations of psychosomatic phenomena. (Selye was silent on the dynamics of these conditioned psychological components). Erickson discovered "coincidental phenomena": spontaneous associations that arise during hypnosis which reveal interrelationships and interdependencies specific for that individual. Rossi (1986, p. 64) characterizes these as manifestations of the uniquely individual state-bound patterns of information and behavior that each person acquires as a result of his or her particular life history of experiential learning. These individual patterns are the basis of each person's unique repertory of hypnotic responsiveness, which can be utilized therapeutically.
(see also: hypnotherapy)
When the person is subjected to undue stress over a period of time, these "coincidental phenomena" become the basis of the psychosomatic symptoms that express the experiential learnings encoded in the memory filters of the limbic system. As with all mind-body connections, psychosomatic problems are highly individualized expressions of the learnings and life experiences of each person that have been encoded as state-bound information and behavior. Because the sources of this state-bound information are not easily available to the associations and frames of reference of our habitual patterns of awareness, we tend to be amnesic to the cause underlying the problem. The problematic origins of a state-dependent pattern of memory and learning are often easily resolved, but the psychosomatic symptoms that they give rise to persist. The new dysfunctional pattern has become "functionally autonomous." It endures as a form of state-bound information and behavior that expresses itself independently and indeed frequently in seeming defiance of the conscious will/ego.
(Rossi, 1986, p. 36-39, 45, 59, 64-65, 101, 127, 135, 173)
see:
bodymind psychobiology
body reveals: the spirit
converting a symptom to a signal
holographic paradigm
human energy fields
hypnotherapy: overview
process paradigm
reframing
self-hypnosis
shifting cerebral dominance
the shadow and physical symptoms
ultradian rhythms
footnotes