Chapter 2

A DEEPER COMMUNICATION

      In the story of the tower of Babel, the descendants of Noah were able to understand each other because they had "one language and few words.  " In this section of my paper we will look at a mode of communication that lies deeper than words.   By gaining an understanding of this communication, we may begin to understand how communication on this level will allow people to better understand each other.   This section will also provide an insight as to what a mind-body split is and how it can develop.   I'll start by sharing what can be learned from commissurotomy, or split-brain patients.

      The cortex of the brain is divided into two hemispheres (more on the brain will be discussed in the section on health and disease).   The left hemisphere is responsible for language based skills such as reading, writing speaking, and analytical skills.   The right hemisphere is responsible for sensory information and spacial relations.   The hemispheres communicate through a bundle of nerves called the corpus callosum.

      It was found that severing the corpus callosum in people with severe epilepse would ease their seizures (Jaynes, 1976).   This operation is called commissurotomy or split-brain operation.   The following is what we can learn from these people.

      In an experiment, a person who has undergone a split-brain operation is shown two different pictures with each eye (Jaynes, 1976).   Information received from the right eye processes in the left hemisphere of the brain while information received from the left eye processes in the right hemisphere.   The person is then asked to draw, without looking at the drawing, what they seen.   The person will draw what was shown to the left eye and processed by the right hemisphere.   If asked what they have drawn, once again without looking at the drawing, the patient will insist they have drawn what was seen in the right eye and processed by the left hemisphere (Jaynes, 1976).   There is a gap in the patient's perception.   These patients would behave relatively normal.   An outside observer would not see anything peculiar and the patients themselves would not feel any different after adjusting to their new condition (Jaynes, 1976).

      In another experiment, a patient was shown a series of photographs flashed into the different visual fields.   When a photo of a nude girl was flashed into the left visual field, the patient (who was probably male) would grin, giggle, and blush.   When asked what he saw he would say it was nothing but a flash of light (Jaynes, 1976).   This patient's body is reacting to something that he is not aware of and cannot articulate in speech.

      While a split-brain patient is a special case, I include it here because it is evidence of the possibility to behave and act relatively normally while having a gap in perception, and not even knowing that such a gap is present.   Perhaps in everyday life there could be sensory input that we are not fully aware of, that we react to without fully understanding why.   It may even be possible that an individual will make up a reason for their actions that they do not understand even when it is not true.   Let us take a look at the various ways that we can receive information.

      Mindell (1988) is the founder of process oriented psychology.  It is an extension of Carl Jung's work.   Carl Jung studied dream imagery as messages from the unconscious.   Mindell (1988) took this work a step further and also recognized bodily symptoms as messages from the unconscious.   He recognized several "channels," he called process channels, from which information is brought into awareness, or communicated to the individual.   Process is "the total flow of what is happening, the conscious and also the unconscious.   Process means the constant change of signals in their many channels" (Mindell, 1988, p. 8).   It is these "channels of communication" that I wish to introduce.

      The visual communication channel refers to information received visually such as, sight, color, dreams, and visions.   It can include stories, mythology and intuition.   Reading is a function of the visual channel.   The auditory channel includes information received auditorily such as sound, music, language, grammar, and tone of voice (Dennehy, 1989).   The visual and auditory channels can be further divided into verbal and nonverbal channels.   Language is received verbally.   Crying, yelling, and sighing are examples of nonverbal communication received through the auditory channel.

      The proprioceptive communication channel refers to information received through body phenomena such as feelings, pain, pressure, tension, and temperature (Dennehy, 1989).   Body symptoms that indicate a disease is present constitute information received from the proprioceptive channel.   Since his work is directed towards the therapy process, Mindell (1985) does not discuss smell and taste as process channels, however I include them in the proprioceptive channel.   The kinesthetic channel includes information received through movement or lack of movement.   This would include facial expressions, gestures, and incomplete motion (Dennehy, 1989).

      The other two channels Mindell (1985) mentions are combinations of the basic four.   They include the relationship channel and the world channel.   The relationship channel includes information received through relationship or lack of relationship.   The sexual impulse can be understood as input from both the relationship channel and proprioceptive channel.   The world channel includes perception from the outside world such as job, money family, world events, and the universe.

      Mindell (1985) associates the visual and the auditory channels with the mind.   The proprioceptive and kinesthetic channels he associates with the body, and the relationship and world channels are associated with the universe, or what I call the environment.

The Mind-Body Split

      Mindell (1985) suggests, "people identify themselves with particular channels, with their 'main' channels and tend to dissociate themselves from other channels" (p. 23).   These dissociated channels become "secondary processes" which then become unconscious.   Mindell (1985) states that "stressing one aspect of the personality over long periods of time impoverishes another aspect and separates the individual . . . into parts" (p. 7).   Here we have the foundation for a mind-body-environment split by focusing primarily on the mind channels over the body and the environmental channels.   Mindell (1985) notes that the visual channel is usually most developed.   Language is perceived through the visual channel by reading and the auditory channel by hearing speech.   Rules and belief systems are created with language.   When the rules and beliefs that we live our lives by conflict with the information received through the body channels, a mind-body split is created.

      Bradshaw (1988) explains how family dysfunction occurs due to "inadequate rules or belief systems" (p. 37).   These rules are based on "shoulds", "musts", and "oughts" that determine an individuals behavior and ultimately take one away from their feelings, thoughts, perceptions, decisions, and dreams.   He calls these rules "abusive and shaming" (1988, p. 2).   Shame is the feeling that one is no good.   While it has its place in a healthy psyche, when it is chronic, it can become the core of one's identity giving rise to "depression, alienation, self-doubt, isolating loneliness, paranoid and schizoid phenomena" as well as many other disorders (Bradshaw, 1988, p. 2).   Shame is sometimes understood as the "master emotion" (Karen, 1992).   To compensate, Bradshaw (1988) says, "one develops a false self in order to survive" (p. 3).   This constitutes, a mind-body split.   Body sensations are denied and become unconscious or a secondary process to the rules created through language and received through the mind channels.   The person is no longer whole, but fragmented into parts.   There is a gap in perception similar to, although not as drastic as, the gap in perception experienced with the split-brain patients.   This gap in perception ultimately effects the way one perceives one's self, others and the world around them.

      Third-person perception is objective observation from the outside in; First-person perception is subjective observation from the inside out (Hanna, 1986).   When perceiving another from the third-person perspective, "the phenomenon of a human body is perceived" (Hanna as cited in Greene, p. 102).   Behavior and dialogue can be observed through the visual and auditory channel, however, the "inner workings" of a human being are not visible from the third-person perspective.   First-person perception allows us access to all inner feelings, sensations, intentions, and internal functioning.

      In viewing oneself from the third-person, one can develop what Fromm (1947) called a "marketing orientation.  " An orientation is the way an individual relates to the world.   The marketing orientation is where one views oneself as a commodity to be bought and sold in the market place; bought and sold, at the cost of one's internal experiences.

      In communicating with another person from a third-person perspective, language will be full of words that objectify the other.   From this perspective it would be easy to command that person's behavior based on a set of rules that may contradict that individual's internal experiences.   If the other views the communicator as an authority, they may disregard their own internal experiences and live by the communicator's rules, thus creating for the other a mind-body split.

      In communicating from the first-person perspective, language would be filled with words that convey the internal experience (Greene, 1995).   From this perspective, the purpose of communication is to convey ones own experiences.   It does not objectify the other nor does it command their behavior.   The individual is free to process the information they are given and act on it based on their own internal experiences.

Implications of Deeper Communication

      The following is a passage from Levine (1992) which I include because it gives a wonderful example of being"in tune" with the different channels of input:

      The wind shifts.   The grazing impala are poised to a hair trigger of acute alertness.   They smell, listen, and look.   Danger is in the air.   It is in the form of a few molecules of a new, but familiar scent, diluted in millions of parts of air.   The impala will flee, or, if they find no further cues, return to their grazing.   In the same split second, the cheetah, hidden and waiting, also knows that the moment must be seized.   It leaps up from behind the bush.   The herd of impala spring together as one organism.   They flee for the cover of the thickets at the perimeter of the wadi.   (p. 85)

      The impala are able to sense and flee from the potential danger.   Levine mentions the "impala spring together as one organism.  " The cheetah's actions that ultimately provoke the response become a part of the performance.   The cheetah and impala operate together as one unit in what might be referred to as an intimate play based on subtle clues from sensory input.   Had one of the impala stopped to ponder whether fleeing would be socially acceptable, it might fall short and become cheetah lunch (which is ultimately good for the cheetah).  

      By increasing awareness of the deeper channels of communication one can gain a greater awareness of self in their surroundings.   Self and other no longer act solely as separate individuals but as one organism.   Empathy and intimacy can increase.   Empathy is defined by Kohut (as cited in MacIsaac and Rowe, 1989) as, "the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person" (p. 15).   Intimacy, according to Moore (1994) is when, "the 'most within' dimensions of ourselves and the other are engaged" (p. 23).   Amodeo and Wentworth (1986) claim, "intimate contact requires us to be in touch with our real feelings" (p.16).   Increasing internal awareness will lead to an increase in empathy and intimacy and a greater unity of humanity as self and other are engaged through their internal experiences rather than through rules of behavior, received through the mind channels, that often separate one from another on a deeper dimension.  

      The implications of learning to communicate based on the internal experiences of the proprioceptive as well as non-verbal channels of perception allow for a greater unity of humankind.   Rather than operating as selfish individuals that objectify self and other, we could begin to operate as a single unit.   Then perhaps, "nothing [we] propose to do will be impossible for [us]" (Genesis, 11:6).

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• Bradshaw, J.   (1988).   The family: A revolutionary way of self-discovery.   Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications.
• Dennehy, V.   (1989).   Process oriented psychotherapy.   dissertation.
• Fromm, E.   (1947).   Man for himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics.   New York, NY: Fawcett.
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• Jaynes, J.   (1976).   The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.   Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
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• Karen, R.   (February, 1992).   Shame.   The Atlantic Monthly.   40-70.
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