Re: Is there "an unconscious"?


Wilba wrote:
> Tim McNamara wrote:
> > Wilba wrote:
> >> So I'm interested in how you think about motivations out of
> >> awareness, what ideas you use to make sense of them.
> >
> > Attention or awareness seems to be flexible and directable. We can
> > attend to one thing and ignore something else. We can even change how
> > we look at something (such as negative space exercises in art class).
> <snip>

An interesting extension to the unconscious/conscious question here...

In art class you change how you look at something - like the negative
space exercise. One time you're painting a tree, focussing on the tree
contours, colours etc etc. Then your attention changes and you're
looking at the spaces around the tree, between the leaves.

It allows a different perspective, and allows the artist to perform
differently too. The thing is, many people aren't aware of HOW they are
paying attention to the tree, not aware if they're almost ignoring the
background, and may not realise there are multiple ways of looking at
their subject.

We unconsciously perceive the world a certain way, our attention
focuses unconsciously in certain ways, and we may change how we look at
things both unconsciously and consciously.

> OK. That sounds quite like figure-and-ground to me, and makes fine sense
> when we are talking about things that are in some way available, but I'm
> thinking more about things that are not readily available. For instance,
> I've been reading about the challenges faced by adoptees. Here's a paragraph
> from Nancy Verrier (The Primal Wound).

I know that isn't responding to me... but do you think our attention in
art is significantly different to our attention in a relationship?

> "Paul Brinich said that because the child is rejected by his biological
> parents, it is not surprising that he repeatedly tests the commitment of his
> adoptive parents. <snip>
>
> Let's leave aside the interpretive elements and focus on the behaviour.

yes - otherwise this thread will quickly degrade to adoptive children's
behaviours, rather than unconscious and motivation.

> The logical answer to "how can I be accepted?" is to be acceptable,
> but this kid does the exact opposite,

Careful - what makes you think any kid is asking "how can I be
accepted"?

> which leads to the outcome the kid is (supposedly) trying to avoid.

There are so many ways of framing behaviours. Even a simple TOTE.
Test: am I accepted?
Operate: (if not accepted) - do something
Test: am I accepted?
Exit: (if I am accepted, otherwise go back to "Operate").

So which do you work on? Am I accepted may be a valid question - but
the kid's behaviour doesn't help. So you can work on a better way of
operating to fulfil the question.

Of course the question could be "am I accepted no matter what?", in
which case the behaviour may be perfect for that question. But the
question is not useful.

Note also that the child might not have his attention on this AT ALL.
His/her attention might be on "what can I play today?". How do we
choose what we attend to ("am I accepted?" vs "what can I play?")?, or
how specificially we attend to it ("am I accepted?" vs "am I accepted
no matter what?")? How much of this is conscious or unconscious?

> I find Whitaker's nuclear/focal conflict theory very useful
> in mapping out these situations. A _disturbing_motive_ (the core impulse or
> wish) is to be accepted. The _reality_factor_ would be rejection by the
> biological parents, which transmutes into a _reactive_motive_ (a fear or
> guilt) which would be fear of rejection. The _solution_ that reconciles the
> disturbing and reactive motives is to behave in unacceptable and destructive
> ways to test the adoptive parents commitment. This is a
> _restrictive_solution_, because it deals in some way with the reactive
> motive but doesn't satisfy the disturbing motive.
>
> So, after all that preamble :-), there are obviously a lot of other things
> involved in any such situation, but I'm thinking about motives at the
> disturbing and reactive motive level and how accessable they are, through
> "attention and awareness", or otherwise.

In my experience many of our drivers aren't conscious, but can be
brought to conscious attention (sometimes easily, sometimes with
difficulty)

So there will be hard-to-access motives - but really we're saying
"something is going on that we don't know" - which makes all the
theories we have (of what the child or whoever is doing) guess work
until we can find out what's going on. If we assume that one of the
above theories fits we're likely to bias what we observe because OUR
attention is motivated to find something specific. What motivates us to
do that? Are we conscious of it? :)

And can we work with something without being consciously aware of what
it is?
Greg



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