Basics of Structural Psychology

This site promotes the teaching of structural psychology and structural psychotherapy strategy based on ethology, ethno- and anthropology, psychoanalysis and body-psychotherapy knowledges. It is a new well-founded approach for the treatment of autism, psychosis, addictions, heavy neuroses, and sexual or relational disorders.

Content and Structure

In structural psychology, we distinguish 4 elements which are basic to the psyche:

element	definition	source	type	description
essentials programs	the few root or skeleton major programs of our psyche for survival and growth	innate	IRMs	innate releasing mechanism: a program actively seeking for a key stimulus during a definite period, initiates when the key is found, then runs along set lines using the key as an initial input
			FAPs	fixed action pattern: a program which runs independently of the outside context (except when stopped by an aggressive input)
imprints	key inputs necessary to initialise a major program	external	stimuli	specific and definite trigger stimulus (or set of stimuli) necessary for the onset of an essential program
structure	ensemble of the major programs at the stage of their present completion	internal	open system	a system of macrofunctions linked with one another, in relation with the outer world
contents	inputs to the inner programs, lived, integrated, and then resident	external-internal	records	contents are organised stimuli sought in the outer world for the supply and development of the inner programs events are recorded and resident from acquisition on

Psyche is an open system

Primacy of sensations

At variance with the type of systems usually dealt with in physics and chemistry, the psychic system is an open system: 1-it is embedded in an environment it has to cope with (not chosen information); 2-it seeks information in the outer world for its survival and development purpose (chosen information); and 3-it releases information after treatment, refinement, and meaning production (treated and elaborated information returned to the outer system).

Information in this context means sets of organised sensations owing to the forced encounter with the outer world, we call these units of information events. Events are ensemble of body reactions feeding the psyche with specific signals. We also use psyche or psychic system to mean the immaterial system experiencing the environment via the body.

The source of information feeding the psyche is not directly the environment, but the body. It is the body which is in interaction with the environment, and feeds the psyche with feelings and elementary meaning. Conversely, the psyche is able to modify to some extent the raw input from the encounter with the world (tuning it up or down, and even distorting the quality and quantity of information). This principle is called the primacy of sensation. It is contrary to the Cartesian principle of primacy of thought, which puts common “defence mechanisms” (isolation of the body, dissociation, rationalisation, devices preventing the upsurge of inner events and their meaning into the mind) in the place of a foremost operator of the psyche.

Direct experience without body sensations is possible to the psyche: this is called transference and is discussed in another page.

Therefore, our system takes in various more or less raw inputs, experiences them, treats them, gives them sense and elaborates on them, stores those events and associated meanings, and returns the elaborate significations to the surrounding world, the society. We call the recorded events contents (either in raw form or in elaborate form). A fraction of those contents are rendered unconscious to the mind by various procedures, personal and social.

Principles of the psyche

Principles

The psychic system is an open system.

The field of experience of the psyche is the body.

The field of return of elaborate information is the society.

Definition

 The units of information treated by the psyche are events, ensembles of organised sensations experienced by the body during its interaction with the environment.

Innate and acquired

Sigmund Freud surmised that there were elementary forms in the unconscious (Gestalten, Urphantasien, etc.). Later, Jung discovered that there were in fact predefined macrofunctions, void at first, initiating under some circumstances, then developing with life experience (he called archetypes). We found that this principle is even more general than both thought:

Proposition

 Each psychic function is both innate and acquired. It is already there in latent form, but needs external inputs to develop and grow in ability.

In short, psychic functions are self-developing programs. From innate basic functions, they can become very elaborate complex treatment programs.[1]

A few of those programs or functions are essential to the psyche. They are built-in but need an external trigger input to start and run. Without the external trigger, they do not run, and later they do not feed subsequent less prominent programs using their fundamental experience as a source. We call these programs structural functions, or shortly structure.

Our structure therefore consists of a set of essential fundamental macrofunctions, each taken in its stage of development. Those macrofunctions are as we shall see develop in a hierarchy of subsequent “needs, fulfilment, and completion” units appearing in their order of necessity and complexity. One function having played its part subsides and let another offshoot more complex function take the dominant part, the experience gained from the earlier set functioning as an integrated substrate in the background.

Thus, contents are of two types:

•       initial impacts of definite type which are used to set major programs on we call imprints

•       a flow of various stimulations which constantly feed and complete the majors programs we call events

Principle of active search for inputs

Our psychic system does not take in passively all information at hand in the surroundings. On the contrary, the inner programs look actively for specific and definite stimuli for their own purpose from birth on. When one macroprogram looks for imprinting, it is in a standby state (does not run) and scans the external field to get the precise stimulation it needs to set on (it does nothing but that). Once started, it constantly looks for necessities, i.e. all usable stimulations, and discards all foreign information in the outer field, so as to run along the set lines. Thus, the result matures both from the inner preprogrammed needs and from outer idiosyncratic stimulation acquired and used.

Essential functions, basic imprints, and psychic structure

Psyche is constituted of a set of embedded functions. The most necessary constitute the core of our system and appear first, to be progressively integrated and assimilated and form a kernel similar to a physiological silent mechanism. Then, others appear being fed by the core structure to interact with a widening world. We may summarize this multilayers structure as follows:

Core	=	Ethological Originary	Vitalityj Symbiosis (safety of contact)k Separation (autonomy)l	enlivening Æ symbiosis with mother Æ separation from mother
1st layer	=	Primary	Relationship: pleasure and distance; emotion, play and imagination; consolidation of imprints k and l	Æ symbiosis with close group of peers
2nd layer	=	Secondary	Freedomm, sentiment - reason, actuality, causal and instrumental activity	Æ symbiosis with enlarged group of peers
3rd layer	=	Tertiary	Collectiven: genital sex, participation and integration in group, acausal and relational activity, maturity, transmission, death	Æ symbiosis with local group and nature

Numbers refer to the five essential imprints which will be described below. 

The core functions, once established serve as substrate for the first layer functions, and so on. When core functions have been impeded to start, run or complete, severe disorders occur. The earlier and the deeper the damage, the worse the result. We shall see in the appropriate section that the outcome of imprints disturbance can be roughly stated as:

damage to the core functions	vitality	=>	autism
	symbiosis	=>	psychosis
	separation	=>	paranoia
damage to the 1st layer functions	emotion learning	=>	neurosis

In addition to damage to the core essential functions, late traumatic events such as rape, accident, or disaster, may have an effect on the psychic structure since they may destroy psychic integrity and leave a more or less fragmented functioning as a result.

Definition

 The ensemble of the basic functions is structural. The structure of the psyche can be defined either by the set and state of development of the essential programs in the order of their activation, or by the set and quality of imprints the individual had had.

The fundamental programs or procedures are built-in, innate, equal, and given at conception to all human beings. Imprints, however, are picked up from the outer environment which is instrumental in producing them. They may be adequate, absent, or aberrant. They will make those essential programs start or stay. They will make them run in a way which is unique and dependant on the persons of the environment, mainly the medical staff and the parents at first, but involving the whole society, its models and its goals.

Therefore, although we have from conception all the necessary programs to survive and develop, our environment will have a dominant action in the way those programs start and run. This is what structure means: any individual is the result of what has been done to his core programs at first. He or she has then to live with this psychic skeleton and try and adapt to the world as it is with it.

Whatever the quality and quantity of later learning and additions to the psyche, the core structure of the individual will pilot all his motivations, way of reacting, intelligence, access to the reality of the world, and his relational capacities for the rest of his life.

[1] This fact resolves the old debate about the innate and the acquired: all psychic functions are dual, they have an innate part which acquires from the outer what is necessary for their operation and development.