These articles are connected by their relationship to what Dr Phil Carter calls an ‘internal schema in the brain is projected out and then perceived as external’. The title – the internal map concretised – is reflected in Phil’s great article from earlier in 2015, a recent Radio National podcast, and two great You Tube videos. You could start with the videos, they are just plain fun, and the podcast is for when you have time to listen. The article is for serious contemplation.
This one is the Australian mob with the radio National podcast team.
This one is with Paul Giomatti as part of a doco.
This rather brilliant article Phantoms in the brain: A neuroscience view of social self repair using the psychodramatic method by my esteemed colleague Dr Phillip D. Carter is well worth a close read. It is one brilliant piece of creative sleuthing and original juxtapositioning where Phil connects up what psychodramatists would term concretisation, a powerful and potent technique for creating real world representations of inner and past experiences, with some of the profound work that is occurring in areas of neuroscience. The connection to the video's seems obvious.
Abstract: Use of mirrors with people with phantom limbs reveals that extraordinary and immediate changes in felt experience can occur when an internal schema in the brain is projected out and then perceived as external. This opens up a fascinating new area of work for group psychotherapy given the discovery of the neurologically embedded social self. Examination of a psychodramatic production of an individual’s internally held social self suggests similar mechanisms are in operation for the updating of the social self schema. It appears that the interpersonal field is a primary factor in the formation of the self and that the corresponding neurobiological structures can be further modified with mirroring of the cognitive, affective and relational aspects of the social self. Understanding these mechanisms will enhance the different techniques of interpersonal mirroring that already occur in most group modalities. Progress will be made as we reflect on the results of putting these new insights and ideas into practice. Click here for the paper.