Forms of Vitality: Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts, Psychotherapy, and Development 9780199586066

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Forms of Vitality

Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts, Psychotherapy, and Development Daniel N. Stern MD Honorary Professor of Psychology, University of Geneva, Switzerland Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Cornell University, New York, USA Lecturer, Columbia Center for Psychoanalysis, Columbia University, New York, USA

OXPORD U N IV E R SIT Y PRESS

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OXFORD U N IV E R S IT Y PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0X 2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University o f Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective o f excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford NewYork Auckland Cape Town D ares Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lum pur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

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W ith offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade m ark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press, 2010 The moral rights o f the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transm itted, in any form or by any means, w ithout the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly perm itted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you m ust impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stem, Daniel N. Forms of vitality: exploring dynamic experience in psychology, the arts, psychotherapy, and development / Daniel N. Stern, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-19-958606-6 (acid-free paper) 1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Vitality. 3. Experience. I. Title. BF637.S4S814 2010 155— dc22 Typeset by Glyph International Private Ltd., Bangalore, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic ISBN 978-0-19-958606-6 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

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Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers m ust therefore always check the product inform ation and clinical procedures with the most up-to-date published product inform ation and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the m ost recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work.

Dedication

The inspiration, support and ideas given by my wife, Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, have made the writing o f this book possible. I wish to thank her.

Contents

Part I Introduction and Background 1 1 In tr o d u c in g D y n a m ic “F o rm s o f V itality ” 3 2 T h e N a tu re a n d T h e o re tic a l F ra m e w o rk o f D y n a m ic “F o rm s o f V ita lity ” 19 3 Id eas fro m P sy c h o lo g y a n d B eh av io ra l Science L e ad in g to D y n a m ic F o rm s o f V ita lity 33 4 A P o ssib le N e u ro sc ie n tific B asis fo r V ita lity F o rm s: th e A ro u sa l S ystem s 57

Part II The Role of the Arousal Systems, and the

Examples of Music, Dance, Theater, and Cinema 73 5 V ita lity F o rm s in M u sic , D a n ce, T h e a te r, a n d C in e m a 75

Part III Developmental and Clinical

implications

99

6 W h e n d o V ita lity F o rm s Begin? A D e v e lo p m e n ta l V iew 101 7 W h a t Im p lic a tio n s d o F o rm s o f V ita lity H a v e fo r C lin ical T h e o ry a n d P ractice? 119 R eferen ces 151 In d e x 169

Part I

Introduction and Background

Chapter 1

Introducing Dynamic "Forms of Vitality"

The idea of this book is to call attention to an aspect o f hum an experience that remains largely “hidden in plain view.” This is the experience of vitality. It is rarely talked about, yet vitality takes on m any dynam ic form s and perm eates daily life, psy­ chology, psychotherapy, and the arts. However, what is vitality? W e know that it is a manifestation of life, of being alive. We are very alert to its feel in ourselves and its expression in others. Life shows itself in so many different forms o f vitality. There m ust be an almost infinite range o f forms of vitality. How should we deal with vitality and where do we start? In centuries past, the doctrine of “vitalism” stated that life was caused and sustained by a vital principle involving a vital ele­ m ent (elan vital) that is distinct from all known physical, chem ­ ical, and m ental forces. This view was abandoned long ago w ith the advance of science. Moreover, little attention has been paid to vitality subsequently. However, the issue o f vitality has not gone away. It remains as a real hum an experience. We live impressions of vitality like we breathe air. W e naturally experience people in term s of their vitality. W e intuitively evaluate their emotions, states of m ind, what they are thinking and what they really mean, their authentic­ ity, what they are likely to do next, as well as their health and ill­ ness on the basis of the vitality expressed in their almost constant movements. The time-based arts, namely music, dance, theater,

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and cinema (the examples used in this book), move us by the expressions of vitality that resonate in us. W ithout manifestations of vitality, the world would be bereft o f m uch of its interest, and hum an interactions would be dig­ ital rather than analogic, whatever that might be like. Therefore, in order to resume, in this century, an exploration of vitality, we shall start by treating vitality as a m ental creation, as a p ro d u ct of the m in d ’s integration of m any internal and external events, as a subjective experience, and as a phenomenal reality. However, vitality m ust have a basis in physical action and traceable m ental operations. It is n o t independent from them as the doctrine of vitalism would have had it. We shall start w ith m ovem ent, for reasons evident below. However, m ovem ent does n o t occur alone when experienced by the h u m an m ind. It carries along w ith it o th er events. A movement unfolds in a certain stretch of time, even if that is very short. There is a tem poral contour or tim e profile of the m ovem ent as it begins, flows through, and ends. Therefore a sense of tim e, its shape and duration is created in the m ind, along with the movement. After all, time is a hum an invention. M ovement also brings with it the perception or attribution of force(s) “behind” or “within” the movement. In addition, m ovem ent has to happen in space, so a sense of a space is defined by the movement. Finally, a m ovem ent has directionality. It seems to be going somewhere. A sense of intentionality is also inevitably added. In a sense force, time, space, and directionality could be called the four daughters of movement. Therefore, starting with movement, we get five dynamic events linked together. These five theoretically different events m ovem ent, tim e, force, space, and intention/directionalitytaken to g eth er give rise to th e experience o f vitality. As a globality, a Gestalt, these five components create a “fundamental

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

dynamic pentad.” This natural Gestalt gives rise to the experi­ ence of vitality in one’s own movements and in those o f others. Yet how are all of these separate elements pulled together to result in the experience of vitality? Do we learn that these five events belong together or is the m ind designed to fuse them? The sciences are in a difficult situation. On the one hand, they are led by their nature to understand events at smaller and smaller levels of greater reduction, and in greater isolation one from the other, to understand better how they work. This results in a fragmenta­ tion of the world as we normally know it. For example, in explor­ ing our ability to recognize a familiar face, we now know that the nervous system has neurons or separate circuits th a t process light-dark contrasts, while others are devoted to evaluating sym­ metry in the vertical plane, yet others process specific features and proportions, and so on. All of these operations occur out of con­ sciousness. They are fascinating, b u t are far from the norm al unthinking phenomenal experience of recognizing a familiar face. The problem then becomes how we p u t this fragmented world back together again. How can we reintegrate it into the familiar “wholes” that make up our everyday phenom enal experience? Vitality is a whole. It is a Gestalt that emerges from the theo­ retically separate experiences of movement, force, tim e, space, and intention. It is not analyzed in any conscious way piece by piece, any m ore than a familiar face is, even though each sepa­ rate element could be taken aside and studied in isolation. The Gestalt or “emergent property” seems to be the m ost use­ ful concept for dealing with holistic experience. The leap to a Gestalt is as mysterious as the appearance of an emergent prop­ erty. The sciences struggle with it (e.g. dynamic systems theory, com plexity th eory, an d chaos th eo ry ). H ow ever, w holes, Gestalts, and em ergent properties are w hat we have to work with and are, largely, what the familiar world seems to be made of. W e accomplish this extraordinary integrative act all the tim e

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w ithout thinking about it. In addition, at the surface, dynamic form s o f vitality, like so m any phenom ena, are im m ediately grasped from the fundam ental dynamic pentad. However, it is helpful to identify the various features th at contribute to creating the whole and to look m ore closely at this Gestalt of vitality. W hat makes forms of vitality “dynamic”? Albert Einstein was once asked w hether he thought in words or pictures. It is said that he answered, “Neither, I think in terms of forces and volumes m oving in tim e and space.” That is a physicist’s language of “dynamics,” the process of change or rapid evolution of forces in motion. As used by Einstein, “dynamics” describes the changing happenings of the universe. There is even something like intention here, except that it takes the nonmental form of entropy or gravity. Now zoom in to describe the “dynamics” of the very small events, lasting seconds, that make up the interpersonal, psycho­ logical m om ents of our lives: the force, speed, and flow o f a gesture; the tim ing and stress of a spoken phrase or even a word; the way one breaks into a smile or the tim e course o f decom ­ posing the smile; the m anner of shifting position in a chair; the tim e course o f lifting the eyebrows w hen interested and the duration of their lift; the shift and flight of a gaze; and the rush or tum ble o f thoughts. These are examples o f the dynam ic form s and dynam ic experiences of everyday life. The scale is small, b u t that is where we live, and it makes up the m atrix of experiencing other people and feeling their vitality. The same is true for the time-based arts. The dynamic flow of music (sound in m otion), dance, theater, and cinema sweeps us up at mom ents and then releases us, only to sweep us up again quickly just downstream. The fundam ental dynamic pentad of m ovem ent, tim e, force, space, and intention appears to be a basic, natural Gestalt that applies to the inanimate world as we observe it, to interpersonal relationships as we live them , and to

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" | 7

the products of culture as we experience them. This seems to be the way the m ind was designed to grasp dynamic happenings. The term “dynamics” has m any meanings. Physics deals with the dynamics of objective forces that act to move or equilibrate m easurable systems. It is energy, power, and force in m otion. Alternatively, it is change that is in process. It is the opposite of static. In m usic, the term “dynam ics” is usually restricted to changes in loudness (am plitude, as the product of force). The time course of the change is implied. In psychoanalysis, psychic forces and counter-forces and their resultant experiences (“psy­ chodynamics”) act over developmental time to create a history of meanings. Thompson (1994) writes about “emotional dynamics,” referrring to the processes that create an emotion from mutually interacting inputs (forces) of arousal, cognitive appraisal, social context, etc. There are also the “dynamics” of our bodily move­ ments in daily life and sports. The dynamic forms of vitality are different. They are psychological, subjective phenom ena th at emerge from the encounter with dynamic events.1 To understand dynamic forms of vitality m ore clearly, con­ sider the following list of words: exploding swelling drawn out forceful cresting rushing

surging bursting

accelerating fading

disappearing powerful pulsing

fleeting weak

pulling

pushing floating

tentative

relaxing

languorous

fluttering tense

effortful gentle swinging

easy halting

loosely

bounding

gliding holding still and m any more.

tightly

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FORMS OF VITALITY

The time X intensity (force) axes are readily grasped for some, less easily grasped for others. For example, see Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Time x intensity (force) graphs for three possible vitality forms.

Although these words are com m on enough, this list is curi­ ous. M ost of the words are adverbs or adjectives. The items in it are not em otions. They are n o t m otivational states. They are not pure perceptions. They are not sensations in the strict sense, as they have no modality. They are not direct cognitions in any usual sense. They are not acts, as they have no goal state and no specific means. They fall in between all the cracks. They are the felt experience of force - in movem ent - with a tem poral con­ tour, and a sense of aliveness, of going somewhere. They do not belong to any particular content. They are more form than con­ tent. They concern the “How ,” the m anner, and the style, not the “W hat” or the “W hy.” Regardless of the “content” (thoughts, actions, and emotions), this Gestalt o f vitality has its own flow p attern (e.g. acceler­ ating, exploding, and fading). It constitutes a separate kind of experience. I argue that dynamic forms of vitality are the m ost fundam en­ tal o f all felt experience w hen dealing w ith other hum ans in motion.

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

Why is this Gestalt called forms of "vitality"? The experience of vitality is inherent in the act of m ovem ent. M ovem ent, and its proprioception, is the prim ary m anifes­ ta tio n o f being anim ate and provides the p rim ary sense o f aliveness. W e m ove all the tim e, both physically and mentally. If our m ind and body were not in a constant process of change when awake, we w ould n o t feel alive and vital. I am w riting about dynamic changes th at occur constantly. O ur respirations rise and fall over a cycle th at repeats every three or four seconds. O ur bodies are in almost constant motion: we move our m outh, twitch, touch our face, make small adjustments in head position and orientation, alter our facial expression, shift the direction of our gaze, adjust the muscular tone of our body position, wheth­ er standing, sitting, or lying (if awake). These processes go on even when n ot visible from the outside. Gestures and larger acts unfold in time. They change fluidly once an act has started. W e can be conscious of any of this, or it can rem ain in peripheral awareness. In addition, with every m ovem ent there is proprio­ ception, conscious or not. At the same time as the body is moving, thoughts are “moving” (virtually) in the m ind, sometimes wandering, at other times progressing apace, or exploding or tum bling about, or fading out. Similarly, emotions ebb and flow, slightly or dramatically. Sensations impinge, build up or overwhelm, their intensity and duration tracing a tim e line, as does musical flow or dancing, or any stim ulus. In addition, while often neglected, ou r arousal level undergoes micro-shifts. There is shifting vigilance, atten­ tion, and engagement with passing events. Seeing a dead person is im m ediately shocking because they do n o t move, nothing moves, and even the almost subliminal vib ratio n s o f to n icity stop. W e grasp this in a glance w ith

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peripheral vision. W ithout m otion we cannot read in or imag­ ine m ental activity u n d ern eath , or thoughts, em otions, or “will.” That is how we know there is no vital presence. (This is also related to how we experience ourselves; see Sevdalis & Keller, 2008.) Similarly, when a m other goes “still face” while facing her infant, i.e. not moving her face at all, not even with slight expres­ sions, the baby, or even a neo n ate, becom es u p set w ithin seconds. Newborns already have working peripheral vision that is designed to detect m otion at the periphery. Accordingly, still­ ness is registered no m atter where their focal vision is on the m other’s face. The ongoing changes of almost constant m ovem ent reignite and m aintain our sense o f being alive, of “going on being” a la W innacott (1971). In addition, if m ovem ent did n o t have a dynamic flow, but was a sequence of discrete steps, we would be digital organisms from the land of the early-generation robots. H ow is it that dynam ic form s of vitality are relatively little considered and understood? We know them so well, perhaps too well. Vitality forms are hard to grasp because we experience them in almost all waking activities. They are obscured by the felt quality o f em otions as it accom panies them . They are absorbed into the explicit meaning as the vitality form accom­ panies a train of thought, so we do not pay attention to the feel of the emergence of the thought, b u t only to its contents. It slips through our fingers. It is strange th a t even w hen it comes to m o to r acts, dynam ic experiences are m ost often taken for granted as a p a rt o f m eans-ends operations to accom plish a goal, and thus receive little additional attention. Today we think m ore in term s o f “em bodim ent” and the “em bodied m in d ” (Varela, Thom pson, & Rosch, 1991). One of the meanings of this concept is that all acts (mental and physical) m ust take on

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" [ 1

a tem poral shape while they are being enacted. If they did not, our experience of the hum an world would not be incarnated - it would be unrecognizable. Forms of vitality, although little studied, are rich w ith impli­ cations. These will be explored below.

Why should we explore forms of vitality further? The first set of reasons are psychological and clinical. 1. D ynam ic form s of vitality are p a rt of episodic m em ories and give life to the narratives we create about ou r lives. Accordingly, dynamic forms of vitality provide another path for psychotherapy to access non-conscious past experience, including memories, dissociated experiences, phenom eno­ logical experience, past experience known implicitly and never verbalized, and in particular “implicit relational knowing” (how we implicitly know how “to be w ith” a specific other (Stern, 1985; Lyons-Ruth, 1998; Boston Change Process Study Group, 2002). Forms of vitality are part of all past experience. As such, they offer a special verbal way to evoke past experi­ ence (see Chapter 7). Gestalt and other therapies do this, too, b u t w ith o u t a particular focus or m ention th a t dynam ic aspects are an im portant element of opening the past. To provide an example, here is a m icrodynam ic anecdote from everyday life: A m an is sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. Except for the easy back-and-forth m otion, he is still. H e is thinking about his daughter’s visit right after she left. Thoughts surface in sequence, some surge up quickly, others float u p m ore slowly: how she looked, h o w it m ade h im feel good, b u t was there a sadness underneath? Emphatically, “Yes”! D id she alm ost say something? B ut still, w hen she was here he laughed m ore fully. At this point, he breaks into a slow slight smile.

| FORMS OF VITALITY

It fades ... and a song floats up from m em ory, "The sunshine girl has tear drops in her eyes.” H e makes no interpretations. Each th o u g h t and its feeling makes its own different entrance onto his “m ental stage.” Some arrive w ith a rapid “attack” and are sud­ denly there. O thers slip quietly onto the stage. Each has its own con­ to u r, som e fluctuate in -o u t, others w eak-strong, som e accelerate and crest, some arrive w ith force then peter away. Each has its own duration and form o f disappearance for the next to surface. The train o f his thoughts is broken off altogether when the presence of a tree on the lawn emerges involuntarily and easily into his awareness. The leaves are m oving slightly in the breeze. A new present m om ent emerges before him , b u t it doesn’t hold him . It slips away and stops getting registered. H e sinks into a m om entary stretch o f apparently n o t thinking, n o t perceiving, b u t his overall feeling is still m oving down, settling deeper into him . The chair’s rocking m otions dim in­ ish in size, so the rh y th m accelerates progressively an d th e n stops. N ow there is only the rise and fall o f his breathing. A feeling jum ps u p into his consciousness and swells - a feeling o f things n o t right, o f agitation. The feeling grows very gradually and then faster. A t its crest, he suddenly tenses his muscles, ready to bu rst o u t o f the chair an d go to the telephone. B ut th at feeling subsides, rapidly at first, th en slowly. H e deflates. As it decreases, it becomes m ore sad, even sour. H e slumps back into his chair.

To best grasp the perspective taken in this chapter, the reader should h o ld in check for the tim e being his or her usual paths o f curiosity about the above vignette. Do n o t dwell on questions like the following. W hat did the daughter not say? W hat did he imagine was going on within her? W hy was his reaction not more immediate when she was still there? W hat did he plan or w ant to say to her on the telephone? Is this in te rac tio n th eir characteristic way o f dealing w ith the unsaid? Is this a repeating pattern between father and daugh­ ter, or a family pattern? W hat historical events forged these patterns? And m any other such questions. Instead, I would direct the reader to ask different questions. W hat does it feel like and mean to have a thought “surge up,”

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

“fade in,” “accelerate and crest,” or enter on the scene with a “rapid attack”? W hat does it m ean and feel like to have a “feeling jum p up and swell” or “move down and settle deep­ er”? On the other hand, what does it m ean and feel like to suddenly alm ost “b u rst” out of a chair? In this particular example, I would have asked him first to tell me m ore about w hat it felt like to have a surge up and crest, then to subside the intention and readiness to get up from the chair. Is he fam iliar w ith this sequence of vitality dynamics from the past? H as he experienced these before, and when? T hat m ight better prepare him for later questions about the nar­ rative. Q uestions directed to the dynam ic experience o f vitality lead to clinically pertinent material by a path that is described m ore fully in Chapter 6. 2. H ow can empathy, sympathy, and identification be explained w ithout in some way capturing the exact m ovem ent charac­ teristics o f a specific person? M irror neurons can well explain the “w hat” o f an act (its goal-directedness). In addition, other mechanisms like intention detection centers can help to explain the “why,” its intent and goal (Ruby & Decety, 2001). However, for identification based on faithful im ita­ tion one also needs the “how” - the other’s “dynamic move­ m ent signature,” their form of vitality (see H obson & Lee, 1999 for an example of the difference between the how and the what). 3. Related to the above, how can one recognize known others w hen they are n o t in focal vision? Each individual has a m ovem ent signature. W e can recognize their w alk from behind, even at a distance (Loula et al., 2005). Peripheral vision allows us to keep at least two separate and different actions occurring at different speeds in the visual fields at the same tim e, one in the left visual field, and one in the right

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FORMS OF VITALITY

(Paxton, 2008). In a similar vein, jazz musicians can move in tim e w ith the other players in an im provising ensem ble, allowing them to mesh their music (Keller, 2008). In groups where everyone is moving, as in hunting or some sports, it is an advantage to be able to pick out individuals using just peripheral vision based on their movement dynam­ ics. We do not have to rely on the focal vision needed for face or body shape recognition. This gives an adaptive advantage. 4. Dynamic forms of vitality dynamics help one to adapt to new situations th at arise. If one had to deal w ith each dynamic element separately (its speed, intensity, tem poral contour, etc.), the process would require m uch integrative work with the fragments and w ould be inefficient. Some Gestalt that integrates the m any dynam ic elem ents needs to be in te r­ posed between the stim uli and the subjective experience as acted upon so as to streamline the processes of adaptation. This Gestalt is the dynamic form of vitality. The situation is no different from ou r passing over phonem es to grasp a word, or passing over words to capture the sense o f a phrase, or being unaware of the evaluation checks when appraising an em otion (see below). Similarly, how can we progress from a general category of action (walking, smiling) to someone’s specific walk or smile that carries the signature of their own unique vitality? We now know that m any categories of action that we previously thought of as fairly fixed m otor patterns, or representations or schemas, such as reaching to grasp an object, are not so fixed. Thelen & Sm ith (1994) have shown how a specific reach by an infant is accomplished by a “soft assembly” of different forces, speeds, hand orientations, limb extensions, and muscle groupings that are fitted to the exact local situa­ tion at the m om ent o f reaching (i.e. a “real-w orld” reach,

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" | 1

n o t an abstract one as given by language). There are thus hundreds of reaches. And so it is with forms of vitality. They are involved in the translation from the general to the spe­ cific, in the m oment-to-m oxnent process of adaptation and enactm ent. Vitality dynamics are thus crucial for fitting a living organism into the world that it encounters. Pursuing the dom ain of vitality dynamics m ay refocus inter­ est on several neuroscientific questions that rem ain open. 1. W e have good descriptions o f m any Gestalts, em ergent properties, and other holistic events, b u t still lack greater detail about the nature of their form ation and underlying structure. 2. .Where in the brain do dynamic experiences reside, or rather emanate from? It cannot be from any one modality, or any one specific dom ain such as cognition, emotion, or action. It has to be in m ultiple sites throughout the brain, how do they get integrated coherently? This involves various forms o f the “binding” problem and the question o f multisensoriality, particularly because it applies to distinct holistic expe­ riences. 3. H ow is speed, or rate of change, processed in the brain, and where? Even m ore difficult is the question o f how a progres­ sive change in rate is processed and represented (e.g. an acceleration). After all, an exponential rate shift can be fasci­ nating, exciting, and memorable. 4. H ow are relative levels o f intensity in different m odalities grounded and scaled? In addition, how are different inten­ sity levels in different modalities compared? 5. H o w are d iffe re n t rh y th m s processed? H ow does the brain allow the m ind to open up to polyrhythm icity or to synrhythmicity?

FORMS OF VITALITY

6. Similarly, how are different tim e and intensity contours processed and represented, and where? How large a reper­ toire of dynamic experiences can the brain handle and rep­ resent (i.e. how m any forms of vitality)? 7. Will multisensoriality prove to be ubiquitous not only at the level of single neurons (Stein & Stanford, 2008), regardless of the anatomical region in which they are found, but at higher organizational levels as well? Will the functional anatomy of the brain have to be radically changed (Ghazanfar & Schroeder 2006), and if so, what are the consequences for psychology?

Plan of the book This book is divided into three parts. Part I is an introduction and background. This first chapter has been an overview of the n a tu re o f dynam ic form s o f vitality, and an in tro d u c tio n . Chapter 2 provides the conceptual framework that vitality forms are built upon, and explains m ore of their nature. Chapter 3 provides a brief selected review of the attempts of psychological and behavioral science to deal with dynamic forms of vitality. Part II suggests a neuroscientific underpinning for forms of vitality, and shows how the tim e-based arts require and use these form s. C hapter 4 suggests a m ajor role for the arousal systems in the creation of dynamic forms of vitality. It addresses the neuroscience of the arousal systems that suggest and sup­ p o rt the ideas p u t forward. Chapter 5 examines how vitality forms have been dealt with in the arts of music, dance, theater, and cinema, and forms the basis of collaborations. P art III concerns the im plications of form s o f vitality for developm ental and clinical work. C hapter 6 discussses when dynam ic vitality experience m ay arise in very early develop­ ment, and the central place of arousal in life’s beginning. Finally,

INTRODUCING DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" |

Chapter 7 addresses various theoretical and practical implica­ tions o f dynamic forms of vitality for adult psychotherapies. This inquiry aims to further identify and explore this realm of dynam ic form s o f vitality, and to illustrate the breadth of its scope. This descriptive enterprise m aybe helpful in approaching the dynam ic dim ension from psychological, neuroscientific, and phenomenological perspectives, and m ay be useful in reo­ rienting some of our notions of emotion theory, mem ory struc­ ture, and social com m unication, as well as psychotherapeutic theory and practice. Notes 1 I have been concerned w ith the dynamic aspects o f experience over m any years. Along the way, different term s have been used for this aspect, including “vitality affects,” ‘‘tem poral feeling shapes,” “tem poral feeling contours,” “proto-narrative envelopes,” “vitality contours,” an d now “dynamic form s o f vitality” (Stern e ta l, 1984; Stern, 1985,1994, 1995, 1999, 2004). Koppe, H arder, & Vaever (2007) p o in t o u t that som e o f the shifts in term inology create problems. They ask w hether the shifts in term s reflect changes in underlying concepts. Yes and no. Probably the m ain reason for this terminological drift is the difficulty o f putting dynam ic term s into precise w ords and never quite capturing w hat is w anted, leading to fresh attem pts, which are, never fully satisfying. In other words, changes in the term s do n o t necessarily reflect significant changes in the underlying concept. In m y m ind, there has been less conceptual drift and m ore re-emphasis in different conceptual contexts. In this book, I gather all o f these term s together under the m ore englobing term “dynamic forms o f vitality.” This adds “force,” “m ovem ent,” “space,” “directionality,” and “aliveness” to the previous discussions o f tim e and intensity.

Chapter 2

The Nature and Theoretical Framework of Dynamic "Forms of Vitality"

This chapter explores the basic concepts essential to forms of vitality, nam ely the prim acy o f m ovem ent, the nature of the forces involved, the tem poral contouring of movements, space and directionality/intentionality, the em ergent p ro p erty o f aliveness, the separation of form from content, and the disen­ tangling of vitality forms from emotions and sensations.

The primary role of movement in creating forms of vitality As dynam ic experience arises from forces in m ovem ent, the place of m ovem ent becom es crucial. M ovem ent is our m ost prim itive and fundam ental experience. M any thinkers have long argued that besides the fact that m ovem ent comes first in anim ate evolution and in developm ent, it has a prim acy in experience throughout life. D uring evolution, approach and withdrawal emerged from the general capacity to move. The different emotions then dif­ ferentiated out from approach and withdrawal. Bodily concepts and then, progressively, language evolved from this m ovem ent base (Panksepp, 1998). The philosopher Sheets-Johnstone (1999) has w ritten a book entitled The Primacy o f M ovement, which also proposes th at m ovem ent comes first in both phylogeny

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and ontology. Langer (1953, 1969/72) gave movem ent a foun­ dational role in feeling. Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999) and McNeil (2005) give it a fundam ental role in thinking and lan­ guage. Gallese & Lakoff (2005) suggest that images, concepts, and language itself are b o rn in the integrative activity o f the sensory m otor cortex. Husserl (1962, 1964), from the perspec­ tive o f philosophy, considered m ovem ent to be the m other of cognition. Similarly, Polanyi (1962) stated that thoughts come out of bodily experiences, from the tacit knowledge embedded in the body. (Einstein also said that, for him, thinking in m ath­ ematics involved sensations of bodily movement.) M ovem ent is alm ost everywhere. W hen we hear music, we experience “sound in m otion” (Kurth, 1925). We often imagine specific sounds (from one source) m oving in different direc­ tions. W hen we watch dance, b ut are not moving ourselves, we have the feel o f our own bodies in virtual m otion because of m irror system activity (see Chapter 6). W hen we hear or read language, or let free the imagination, we can experience virtual worlds of forces in m otion. The m ind is indeed embodied, and m otion is key. However, we cannot fully understand movem ent without knowing how it is deployed. Knowing the “what” and “why” of a m ovement is incom plete w ithout knowledge of the “how .” Dynamics con­ cern the “how.” I am interested in how different m ovem ents w ith different dynam ic form s are grasped by the m in d and felt as vitality forms. It does n o t m atter w hat m odality the dynamic m ove­ m ent arises from. It is recruited by the emotion system but also by other systems. It can arise from inside or outside, from emo­ tion or cognition, from nature or art. In fact, concerning art, it is obvious that vitality dynamics is a fundam ental aspect of per­ formance in the tim e-based arts. Dynamic forms of a piece of m usic are w ritten into the m usical score. M oreover, beyond

NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" |

that, the difference between a technically adequate perform ­ ance and a transporting interpretation lies in the unique vitality dynamics that a great artist can bring to the work and transm it to an audience. The power of dance and cinema lies beyond the storyline and resides in the dynamic experience of the story’s enactment. The different forms o f art could never talk to each o th er and collaborate w ith o u t vitality dynam ics. It is their “esperanto.” I shall return to this point in Chapter 5.

Mental movement Dynamic forms of vitality include mental m ovement as well as physical action. However, what is a “mental m ovem ent”? As we th ink of som ething or feel em otion or sensation, the m ental experience is n ot static. Subjectively, a thought can rush onto the m ental stage and swell, or it can quietly just appear and then fade. It has a beginning, middle, and ending. The experience of m ovem ent (physical or mental) traces a small journey. It takes time. M ental m ovement, while it is happening, traces a profile of its rising and falling strength as it is contoured in time. This is its dynamic form of vitality. M ental m ovem ent also includes imagined m ovem ents such as preparing to execute a physical m ovem ent or form ing an image. As B rentano (1874/1973) pointed out, the m in d can in ten d (i.e. reach o u t for) a w ord or image. If som eone says “T hink of the m oon,” your m ind will “stretch” for an image, subjectively. (“In te n d ” is translated from the Latin for “to stretch o u t” toward, to “aim .”) Intentions are m ental expres­ sions o f directio n al forces getting ready, even straining to “m ove,” or already started b u t still unfolding. Like a musical phrase, they lean forward subjectively. In addition, we now know th at imagining the perform ance of a particular action generates a pattern of brain activity that

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is sim ilar to th a t g en erated w hen th e activity is actually perform ed. T here is v irtu a l m ovem ent (e.g. Jean n ero d & Frak, 1999).

Force M ost m ental and physical m ovements are subjectively experi­ enced as caused and guided by forces. Different fields of inquiry use different concepts and terms for these forces. Psychology, in general, speaks of “m otives” and “intentions,” cognitive psy­ chology and neurosciences o f “values” th a t attract, psycho­ analysis o f “desires,” “w ishes,” an d “drives,” ethology o f triggering activation or releasing fixed action patterns, and phi­ losophers speak of “will” (Haggard, 2008). As forms of vitality are subjective phenomena, they arise from how the m ind processes dynamic experience from any source (“real” or imagined). The experience contains an inferred, sub­ jectively felt force th a t is experienced as acting “b eh in d ” or “within” the event and throughout its course. Although we know that movement, as a purely physical phe­ nom enon, is explicable in terms o f anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology, we nonetheless have a tendency to attach the feeling-perception of force, energy, power, and vigor to hum an movement. We read these attributes into the actions of others, and experience them em anating from our own actions. This fundam ental tendency appears to be a “m ental primitive” (how the m ind evolved to process certain events) that continues to act alongside what we call scientific knowledge. It does not m at­ ter if we call these forces the products o f animistic thinking or folk psychology. As holistic events, they will n ot disappear from our daily psychological world. The pairing of force with m otion is indissoluble as direct experience - it is p art of the “funda­ m ental dynamic pentad” for experiencing dynamic events.

NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

Separating vitality forms from the unfolding of content Vitality forms are associated with a content. M ore accurately, they carry a content along w ith them . Vitality form s are n o t empty forms. They give a tem poral and intensity contour to the content, and w ith it a sense of an alive “perform ance.” The c o n te n t can be an em otion or shifts in em otion, a tra in o f thoughts, physical or m ental movements, a memory, a phantasy, a m eans-end action, a sequence o f dance steps, or a shot in a film. The vitality dynamic gives the content its form as a dynam ­ ic experience. The contents, by themselves, need not conform to any particular dynamic experience. Anger can appear on the scene explosively, or build progressively, or arrive sneakily, or coldly, and so on. So could happiness a n d its smile. The arousal systems provide a good part o f the dynamic force and form. The content material provides the goal, the specific behavio­ ral patterns to reach the goal, and the qualia. However, only w hen the contents are yoked to arousal do they take on a dynam ic form o f vitality. This is w hat gives them the feel of flowing and aliveness - of being human. Vitality form s color the experience of the content and are colored by it as well. Vitality forms rarely exist alone w ithout some content (although they can do so). Throughout, we shall m aintain this distinction between the vitality form of an experi­ ence and the contents of the same experienced event, even when they can have various degrees of merger. In addition, even when the contents are sculpted into phenomenal shape by the dynamic form of vitality. (The general issue of form versus content has a long history in m any fields. I shall not take it up, as it would lead us too far afield.)

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Although we often merge the vitality form w ith the experi­ ence of its content to create a holistic event, they rem ain sepa­ rable. Usually it is the experience of the contents (the thought, act, em otion, etc.) th at attracts ou r hum an interest, b u t not always. For instance, suppose th a t som eone reaches for an object (the goal-directed reach is the content of the act, the “what”) but they do so violently (the dynamic form, the “how”). We can focus on the reach-to-goal or the explosion o f the act, or back and forth, or merge them. The only tim e when we could experience a pure vitality form devoid o f content would be in the first milliseconds after a stim ­ ulus, when the arousal system has already fired, but before the emotions and cognitions have had time to kick in, or perhaps in the earliest phases of life, as we shall see in Chapter 6. However, not all experiences have a perceived duration. Some act instantaneously, or else they arise from static stimuli, such as paintings or photography.1 The problem of separating vitality forms from the experience of the content has not yet been resolved here, and requires fur­ ther discussion. Experience m ust be m ultiply encoded in the brain, presumably in separate b ut overlapping neural networks. There m ust be a “content recording” that registers w hat h ap ­ pened, and in what modality it was received, another recording th at registers w hy it happened (the in ten tio n ), and a third, a “dynamic recording” that registers the dynamic form of the event while unfolding how it happened. There m ust also be other separate b u t related recordings, such as a real tim e and place recording that places the experience in personal-historic time and place, and others. I shall focus only on the distinction between the content and the dynamic form encodings. Suppose the brain (not the m ind) did not care as m uch as we usually imagine how stimuli got inside to activate neural circuits.

NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

Once inside, the neural circuitry is so interconnected and multisensory that the original source or modality of entry is im por­ tant b u t not necessarily controlling or over-restrictive. W hether a sound was heard or a movem ent visually perceived, the brain will deal w ith it, to some extent, as a m ultisensory event (e.g. Calvert etal., 1999; Pourtois e ta l, 2000; Ghazanfar & Schroeder, 2006; Zatorre et a l, 2007; Karns & Knight, 2009). Once an experience activates the brain, it will leave a purely vitality dynamic representation and a content representation. The dynam ic representation m ust encode the speed and its changes, the intensity (force) and its changes, and the duration, and the tem poral stresses, rhythm, and directionality. The con­ tent representation m ust encode the m odality from which the stim ulus em anated, sound, sight, touch, etc., the qualia of the experience (redness, harm onious, etc.), the m eans and goals, and the meaning. Let us call the two records strands o f represen­ tations (i.e. “dynamic vitality strand” and “content-m odality strand”). (These strands would metaphorically be at the level of psychology. In neural terms, these would be overlapping neural networks.) The suggestion of this book is that the dynamic vitality strand is the m ost fundam ental and prim ary. The content m odality stran d m ust be encoded along or aro u n d (so to speak) the dynamic vitality strand. The content strand takes on its phenom ­ enal form and appears to us only when it is twisted around the dynamic vitality strand. This is more than just “embodiment.” W ithout the dynam ic vitality strand, the content m odality record would be digital and would never take on the analogic, dynamic flow of hum an activity. There would be no flow, no vitality, and no aliveness. (All of this is at times easier to imagine when thinking in strands and at other times easier to envisage when thinking in overlapping and reentering neural networks.)

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Disentangling vitality forms from sensations Vitality forms are modality non-specific. They belong to no one sensory m odality b ut to all (vision, audition, touch, etc.). One could even imagine th at in addition to the usual five sensory m odalities there is a sixth - a m odality of “dynamics vitality form s” that senses the duration, speed, and tim e-shape o f the force making up felt events. I shall not go so far because it would require that an amodal sensory modality join the other sensory modalities, which does not quite make sense. Nonetheless, this rejected idea captures the situation, and will reappear. Traditionally, sensations are modality specific. They originate from specific sense organs in the body and are treated in known loci in the brain. Vitality forms have no specific sense organ or brain locus. They would appear to arise from m any parts of the brain simultaneously. However, are vitality forms truly meta-modal? The question brings up the ancient problem of w hether there are universal senses that are evident in all modalities. Lawrence Marks (1978) has written an overview of this issue. His review from Aristotle th ro u g h Galileo to con tem p o rary th in k ers lists the suprasensory attributes from all of these philosophical sources. The lists contain several spatial items (shape, space, extension in space, form), several tem poral elements (mostly duration), plus intensity (magnitude), m otion, rest, num ber, unity, brightness, and hedonic tone. The m ost frequently m entioned are intensity (on all lists), tem poral features, and spatial features (on almost all lists). The attributes that we ascribe to vitality forms accord with these traditional lists. M arks also asks w hether supra-m odal form s arising from corresponding senses can be interpreted as manifestations of a general, perhaps m ore “prim itive sensibility.” However, what m ight such a prim itive sensibility be? One way to tackle this

NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

question is to consider it from the phenom enological view­ point. Subjectively, there seems to be a “super-Gestalt” of force, m otion, tim e, space, and intentionality all com bined to make emerge a dynam ic form o f vitality - a basic pan-m odal p h e ­ nom enon in the form of a fundam ental dynamic pentad. K urth’s (1925) notion of music as a state of m otion (psycho­ logically) is pertinent. For him, harm onic progressions are seen as the “constant surging up of energy into the phenom enal w orld in term s o f felt m otion” (Hsu, 1966). And likewise for rhythm s. This is obviously true for dance and for “m o tio n ” pictures (see C hapter 5). The fundam ental role of m ovem ent for living organisms becomes m ore and m ore evident. Ultimately, we shall need a m ore elaborated categorization, a typology o f the m any different types o f form s of vitality th at arise in our subjective life. To advance, we m ay need a multiple approach combining neuroscience, phenomenology, and some ideas from the w orld of the arts with its particular perspective on dynamic forms and vitality dynamics.

Disentangling vitality forms from emotions Vitality form s are n o t the same as em otions. Em otion is only one of the possible contents that can be shaped into the dynamic experience of a form o f vitality. We usually think o f emotions as containing at least three aspects: first, a felt quality such as angry(ness) or joyful(ness); secondly, characteristic action ten ­ dencies and specific m otor patterns (including facial expres­ sion); an d th ird ly , th e dynam ic aspects o f its arising a n d enactment. In other words, what we usually m ean by an em o­ tion consists of the coming together of a vitality form (which provides the force and the tem poral shape) with a specific em o­ tion (which provides the direction, goal, felt quality, and action tendencies). There is m uch confusion on this point because we

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usually feel the quality and action tendencies of an em otion and the dynamic vitality form together as if they were one unitary experience, but not always.2 Thom pson (1994) grasps this situation as follows: “W e call these response features (the tem poral and intensive features) em otion dynamics because, while the discrete em otion (e.g. joy) m ay ‘play the tune’ of an individual’s response, em otion dynam ics (like the dynam ic m arkings on a m usical score) significantly influence quality, intensity, timing, and m odula­ tion and thus significantly color emotionality” (p. 48). A lthough em otions m u st be shaped into dynam ic vitality forms to give emotions their final expression, the dynamics are not a feature belonging to a particular emotion. I return to the example that anger can “explode,” “ooze out,” “sneak up,” or be “cold.” These four different vitality form s do n o t belong to anger alone. M ost often we feel the amalgam of a type of em o­ tion plus a vitality form as if they were one event, even though they result from the coupling of separate phenom ena that use different neural pathways. Nonetheless, everyone agrees th at a dynamic dim ension is present in em otions and em otional feelings. A full concept of emotions cannot do w ithout physiological arousal and neuro­ logical activation arising from subcortical areas of the brain. Accordingly, em otions necessarily also becom e dynamically enacted. However, emotions are not vitality forms. As a piece o f com m unication to others, a smile or baring the teeth, if performed without a vitality form, would only be a con­ ventional sign. It would lack the full signature of its force and nuanced tem poral enactment for it to be a real-life comm unica­ tive act fashioned for that m om ent and containing aliveness. It w ould n o t be em bodied in the richest sense o f th a t term . In short, vitality forms are different from emotions in their nature, feel, non-specificity, omnipresence, and neurobiology.

NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

Levels of organization of the concept "forms of vitality" H ow do we go a b o u t reo rg a n iz in g frag m en ted pieces o f knowledge so that they become holistic perceptions? At times the reductive sciences can take apart a w ristw atch to better understand its workings, but then cannot p u t it back together again so that it works. Are we there with some questions? At one pole o f th o u g h t it is suggested th at, w hen needed, we p u t together our perceived w orld by bringing and fitting together the m any diverse pieces of what we know separately, (e.g. recognizing a familiar face by assembling the m any known elem ents th a t constitute it) . At the extrem e this w ould be a constructivist model. At the other extreme, a strict holistic view would suggest that some pieces of separate diverse knowledge are innately assem­ bled for direct im m ediate use together as a unit. If so, there m ust be some form o f pre-construction of parts of ou r world directly perceived as wholes. Gestalt phenom ena w ork in this way so that illusions of a whole new larger integrated pattern appear while only two unrelated discrete perceptions have been p u t in relation. Earlier thinkers relied on notions o f innate ideas and prim al (original) phantasies to explain different complex constella­ tions of behavior and thought. The great advantage of holistic experience is its directness, which implies greater speed and efficiency. The disadvantages are a loss of flexibility and size of possible patterns. W h at w ould a m ore holistically endow ed w orld be like? How complex can these Gestalts be? How m any parts can they integrate? W e do not know. The idea of forms o f vitality is a sort of compromise solution. W e know o f m any G estalt-like events even on the first day

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Table 2.1 Organizational level of dynamic experience Level of organization

Dynamic terms

1, 2. 3. 4.

Physical dynamics Neuronal dynamics Vitality dynamics (e.g. emotions, perceptions, etc.)

Physical stimuli Neuronal Psychological/subjective Elaborated psychological

of life. W hen a newborn hears a sound, he turns his head towards the source so th at he can see it, thus integrating two patterns that are n o t tied together reflexively. A larger, m ore complex perceptual field emerges for him. The idea of vitality forms is an extension of holistic thinking. It posits that four different components are directly integrated into one whole, a form of vitality. Further, such vitality forms provide the basis of ou r m ost daily encounters w ith hum an behavior.3 Vitality form s accom plish two other functions. They unite the elements that p u t flesh on experience so that it is felt and seen as coming from a living person existing in our real daily world - someone who moves in time and space, and with force and direction. Forms of vitality are not directly based on physical nature. Yet they correspond w ith realities in n atu re th a t m ay n o t exist independent of the mind. This is because our m inds tend to see dynamic events in term s o f vitality forms w hether they come from nature, self, or other humans. The dialogue between exter­ nal and subjective reality never stops (Merleau-Ponty, 1962).

NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY'

Notes 1. Take, for example, brightness. You walk into a dark room and all of a sudden all the lights go on and flood the space. The stimulus is instantaneous, but the arousal shifts will take a second or more to play out, so a dynamic form emerges afterward. The same would be true for color, or for a static picture or photograph. The narrative of what one sees in a static visual display takes time to create. The eyes have to travel over the static picture to take it in. That takes time, and the eye-tracking voyage is not likely to be even and smooth from the point of view of micro-shifts in arousal. Also static visual forms, colors in particular, imply motion. W arm colors (like red) come forward, and cool colors (like blue) recede. Next to each other, they pull apart in the third dimension. Paul Klee said that “color has always had something secretive about it that is difficult to grasp. This mysterious quality penetrates the mind. The colors are the most irrational elements in painting. They possess something suggestive, ‘a suggestive power’” (Petitpierre, 1957, p. 19). They are like a force that acts on you. Curves “move” smoothly and gracefully, whereas sharp angles “move” jaggedly. Vertical and horizontal lines “hold” the .observer in virtual space differentiy than diagonals, and so on (see Werner in Chapter 3). 2. There is disagreement about what emotions are to begin with. Many definitions abound (e.g. Panksepp, 1998; Frijda & Zeelenberg, 2001). In any event, the discreet emotions have been far more studied than the dynamic features of experience. Rather than put vitality forms into an over-enlarged category of “emotion” as most thinkers have, I would opt for creating a field of study devoted to feelings in the largest sense of the word. This would include affective feelings, and background feelings, and dynamic forms of vitality, plus possible others. 3. I shall not take up the issue of the role of consciousness. Damasio (1999) has written extensively on the leap from emotion to feeling, a leap that both requires and creates consciousness. This could happen for some vitality forms, b ut need not.

Chapter 3

Ideas from Psychology and Behavioral Science Leading to Dynamic Forms of Vitality

Psychology and the behavioral sciences have m ade repeated attem pts to u n derstand vitality form s. This book is another such effort. I shall jum p into the historical flow late, at the begin­ ning o f the twentieth century. Two cardinal ideas were coming into their own at th at tim e, nam ely psychoanalysis and p h e­ nomenology. These will be briefly discussed as their influence and insights have trailed from the end of the nineteenth century into the beginning of the twenty-first century. I shall then pick up the story from the 1940s to the present. This highly selective account is not m eant to be com prehen­ sive, b u t rather it follows the m ain influences on this book. Also this account focuses as tightly as possible on the issues of the dynam ic features o f subjective experience involving vitality forms, leaving accounts of other work incomplete or absent. Psychoanalysis plays a crucial role because of F reud’s basic assum ption that “psychic energy” drove the psychic apparatus. W ith just that, we are immediately plunged into the dynamics of experience. Freud saw psychic energy as a kind o f transfor­ m ation of som atic energy, n o t totally different from the vital force o f the earlier doctrine of vitalism. Once Freud postulated psychic energy, he had to deal w ith the dynam ic aspects o f experiences that were energy driven. He thus spoke o f forces the “pressure” of the drives, o f being “impelled,” o f the push

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and pull o f m otivations, o f forces being countered, blocked, displaced, p u sh e d dow n, rising back up, and leaking out. All of these notions are in the prevailing m etaphoric language o f hydrodynam ics. At tim es, this hydrodynam ic m odel was only metaphoric, while at other times it was reified and used as explanatory. D ynam ic term in o lo g y becam e the currency for psycho­ dynam ic theorizing. It was all about energy and forces. The language of defenses, conflicts, symptom formation, and drives was the clinical language o f vitality dynam ics. It captured, at least in m etaphoric term s, what m any experiences felt like, (the “rising u p ” o f em otions, etc.). It was both experience— near and abstract. This language is still w ith us as m etaphors, b ut no longer as a scientific explanation. The relative decline of interest in psychoanalysis over the past few decades, along with the rise o f the neurosciences and the cognitive revolution, has left a partial vacuum. The dynamic features of experience have stopped being so active an area of study. We are left only with the m etaphors for felt experience, but that is still important. A nother m ajor idea taking form at the tu rn of the twentieth century was phenomenology, which provides an account of the subjective world experienced as it is lived, pre-theoretically and pre-reflectively. The subjective, phenom enal world is whatever is passing across the “m ental stage” right now. It does not con­ cern itself with how the scene got on to the m ental stage, nor why it got there, nor when, nor whether it is “real” in any objec­ tive sense. This current of philosophy is relevant because it cir­ cumscribes what subjective experience is, and what it is not. It provides a starting place to look for vitality forms or the feel of being alive. W illiam James (1890), Edm ond Husserl (1964), and M aurice M erleau-Ponty (1962) are the m ost influential thinkers on phenomenology in this present work.

IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

James states that the sense of “activity” is synonymous w ith the sense of “life,” in the “broadest and vaguest way.” By “activ­ ity,” he means that the word “activity” has no imaginable con­ tent except the experiences of process, of obstruction, striving, strain, or release. He also finds that these processes are in con­ stant change. They are operating all the time to m aintain a level o f vitality th a t fluctuates. W ith in this fram ew ork, vitality dynam ics are crucial for a sense o f being alive. P u t m ore strongly, the dynamic aspects of experience are what “aliveness” is about. Jumping from these classic texts to the m id-tw entieth centu­ ry, Heinz W erner with his collaborators began in the 1940s to explore a “sensory-tonic field theory of perception” (W erner, 1940; W erner & W apner, 1949; W erner & Kaplan, 1963). They suggested th at the different senses are undifferentiated at the beginning of life, when a more general and primitive sensibility prevails. C ross-m odal m erging and synesthesias (e.g. feeling different types of touch when hearing different notes, or seeing the color red when hearing the sound of a trum pet) are initially m ore com m on in infancy, and in fact are the norm (in any case these mergings are phenomenally “real”). Developmentally, the modalities first cross over, mix, and merge m ore freely. Only later are the separate modalities sharply differentiated from one another. M ore recent research by m any has repeatedly dem onstrated the cross-m odal capacities o f infants, in particular neonates (e.g. M e ltz o ff & M oore, 1977; M eltzo ff & B o rto n , 1979; K um gium utzakis, 1985; M eltzoff & G opnik, 1993; Kaye & Bower, 1994; Nadel & Butterworth, 1999; Rochat, 1999). Such findings are suggestive of W erner’s views b u t not proof. This research has n o t yet singled out the problem of the dynam ic features in im itatio n , although they m ust be there at som e developmental point.

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W erner and colleagues further postulated th at there was a general bodily response to stimuli, including changes in m uscu­ lar tonus and arousal/activation. These global responses taken together comprise the “sensory-tonic” dynamic field of experi­ ence. For instance, a jagged, saw-toothed line is associated with or ap prehended as anger, strength, vigor, and im patience, whereas a progressively curved line is associated w ith gentle­ ness, grace, and sm oothness (L undholm , 1921, qu o ted in W erner & Kaplan, 1963, p. 338). They are essentially describing arousal profiles and vitality form s w ithout nam ing them as these. They placed the dynamics o f arousal into an essential position in felt experience. Apropos the notions of W erner, it is notew orthy that, very recently, n e u ro sc ien tists have fo u n d evidence suggesting th at m any neu ro n s th ro u g h o u t the b rain are m ultisensory. They respond to stim uli from m ore than a single sense. Such m ultisensory neurons exist even in brain areas thought to be devoted to only one sensory modality (Ghazanfar & Schroeder, 2006; Stein & Stanford, 2008). These findings suggest th a t there is multisensory integration very early in cortical process­ ing. They also throw into question the prevailing view that some cortical areas are exclusively devoted to one sensory m odal­ ity. This m ight lead to a fairly radical rethinking of functional neuroanatomy. Stein and Stanford state that, at least in neonatal kittens, m ultisensory neurons exist th at are incapable of integrating senses until later when they have had more cross-modal experi­ ence. It is not unusual in development for capacities to operate very early on, and then disappear, only to reappear later, b u t organized differently. This appears to be the case for early im ita­ tion (Maratos, 1973; Kumgiumutzakis, 1985, 1998). The devel­ opmental story of multisensory integration in hum ans is not yet known. In any event, these recent findings are in line with some

IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

of W erner’s ideas and m ay help to clarify the “m ultim odality” of dynamic forms of vitality. W erner and Kaplan went further and suggested linking these dynamic holistic responses to the emergence o f symbols. They called this “physiognom ic perception.” It was an attem pt to bring symbol form ation and language into relation w ith the dynamics of felt experience. It was also an attem pt to put felt experience at the interface of neuroscience and language, as Langer had done. In a different vein, the philosopher Susanne Langer (1953, 1969-1972) described w hat she called “forms of feeling.” She coined this term to capture the m any feelings evoked by music (and life), such as “fading, exulting, easiness, rushing,” that do not fall into the usual categories of emotions, nor belong to any particular act or action. The basic notion of vitality dynamics has long been inspired by her work. She placed feelings and their dynamic forms at the interface between the narrative and the physiological. I am avoiding the term “feelings” because of its close association with emotions. Instead, I am placing vital­ ity forms at that interface. Sylvan Tompkins (1962, 1995) approached the same general problem addressed by W erner and Kaplan (1963) and Langer (1953, 1969-1972) from a different perspective. He suggested th at interest and excitem ent (arousal functions) are separate states from the positive emotions, at least. This separating out of arousal from em otional experience is exactly the point we are re-emphasizing. This aspect o f his work is less quoted than his ideas on the pre-program m ing o f a linkage betw een specific stimuli and specific basic emotions. Even when discussing innateness, his m ajor concern was the pre-program m ed relationship of stimulus intensity and timing to arousal and then to emotion. Tompkins linked the evocation o f surprise to a particular intensity and rise tim e o f arousal.

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A rap id increase in the am plitude o f a sou n d (a “physical dynamic”) will produce a rapid increase in the patterns of neu­ ral firing (our neuronal dynamics), which will produce surprise (a specific em otion for Tompkins, rather than a form of vitality plus an emotion). It is this that he saw as innate. Tom pkins’ work gives arousal a central role in the emergence of the dynam ic features o f experience. He did n o t take into account arousal-related dynamic experiences except under the rubric of emotion. We extend them to include almost all kinds of experience. W erner, Langer, and Tompkins are perhaps the m odern pio­ neers who explored the dynamic feel of experience. Ray B irdw histell (1970), A1 Scheflen (1973), and A dam Kendon (1994) have been am ong the leading pioneers in the field of kinesics, beginning in the 1950s. They have given us the concepts and language to deal with the social acts o f everyday life (e.g. movements at the dinner table and around the house, greetings, kissings, b irth d ay parties), all in ordinary, nonexperimental, unscripted settings. Their work paved the way for microanalytic description, which included dynamic features. It revealed the huge variety of experiences seen in spontaneous interactions (so m any of them unnameable). In addition, they made it clear that dynamic features had to be taken into account to describe the almost unlimited nuances of expression in everyday life. This reinforced the idea that, ultimately, research has to take into account events that arise in spontaneous, natural set­ tings, even w hen experim ental procedures are com prom ised and where m any events are not categorizable in the prevailing academic lexicon. This kind of free-range observation revealed to what extent these expressions were socially and culturally composed, and in so doing, inform ed fields of cross-cultural studies. Their work also brought attention to the dom ain of m ovement and action,

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w hich at th e tim e h a d been largely left by the wayside in th e e n th u sia sm fo r lin g u istica lly c a rrie d psy ch o an aly tic meanings. D uring the decade of the 1970s, Ekman, Friesen, and their collaborators revisited D arw in’s works 100 years after their publication. In a sense, they ushered in the m odern epoch of the behavioral study o f emotions, particularly with Ekman and Friesen’s studies on the coding o f facial expressions (1976, 1978). Their initial task was to describe systematically the facial expressions o f the Darwinian emotions. They chose to focus on the m ovem ents o f the facial muscles, thus providing an ana­ tom ical base for a scoring system (the Facial A ction Coding System, FACS). While focusing on the anatomical they paid far less attention to the dynamic, b u t were fully aware of its ongo­ ing presence. Their reason for focusing on anatom y was that it was where Darwin focused. In addition, as they state, system­ atic studies o f dynamic features are enormously time consum ­ ing and costly. Therefore their coding system looked for each u n it of m ovem ent o f the separate muscle groups involved in facial expression, and then treated them as a series of p h o to ­ g rap h s w here th ey c o u ld score th e a n a to m ic a l changes. Frequency and tim e o f onset were all that was needed to fix a given change in anatomy. A description of the entire contour was not needed for that. The choice of privileging categorical anatom ic form s over dynamic forms was appropriate for the creation of a coding system. However, that is not the end o f the story. They also turned to exam ine dynam ic features. One of the five aspects o f facial movements they scored for was timing. O nset tim e, the span between the start o f each action u n it and w hen it reaches apex, apex tim e, the period o f m axim um excursion, an d offset tim e, the span betw een th e end o f apex a n d th e disappearance o f an action unit, can all be m easured. A dditionally, w hether the onset, the apex and the offset are sm ooth o r irregular can be scored. All o f the

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action units th a t appear to m ake up a single expression do n o t always have the same onset, apex and offset timing. Ekm an & Friesen (1982, p. 242)

These parameters, when translated into subjective terms, come close to describing dynamic vitality forms. However, they only give a skeletal description and only describe events th at have one up-dow n, crescendo-decrescendo movement. W ith this in m ind, they w ent on to show th at false versus au th en tic smiles could be distinguished by th eir dynam ic features, namely duration (longer for false smiles), time to onset (either shorter or longer), apex duration (too long), and offset time (too short and abrupt or irregular, not smooth). The success of the anatomical approach and the FACS set the field off in a direction w here the dynamic, analogic features were either left behind or played a secondary role, even though Ekman and Friesen themselves explored the dynamics of facial expression in several studies (Ekman & Friesen, 1982; Ekman, Freisen, & O ’Sullivan, 1988; Ekm an, Friesen, & D avidson, 1990). M anfred Clynes, a professional pianist and psychologist, described a field of “sentics” (Clynes, 1973; Clynes & Nettheim, 1982). Among other things, he differentiated the different ways that a finger can touch the key of a piano, and how the emotion in the pianist and listener were affected by the form o f touch and the co rresponding so u n d released. In essence, he was describing something very like vitality forms, but classed them under the rubric o f emotions. M y own preoccupation w ith the dynam ic form s o f vitality began with observations o f m other-infant interactions, where the dynam ic features o f early hum an exchanges jum p out in high relief because there is little going on linguistically to dis­ tract focus from the non-verbal (Stern, 1971, 1977). The term

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“vitality affects” was first coined in this context (Stern, 1985). An im p o rta n t observation was w hat m others do w hen they want to show the baby they understand or share what the baby is felling. Here is an example. A ten -m o n th -o ld girl is seated o n the floor facing h e r m other. She is trying to get a piece o f puzzle in to its right place. A fter m any failures she finally gets it. She th en looks up into her m other’s face w ith delight and an explosion o f enthusiasm . She "opens up h er face” [her m o u th opens, her eyes w iden, h er eyebrows rise] and th en closes back down. The tim e co n to u r o f these changes can be described as a sm ooth arch [a crescendo, high point, decrescendo]. A t the same tim e her arm s rise and fall at her sides. M other responds by intoning, “Yeah” w ith a pitch line th a t rises an d falls as the volum e crescendos an d decrescendos: “yeeAAAaahh.” The m o th e r’s pro so d ic co n to u r m atches th e child’s facial-kinetic contour. They also have the exact same duration. Stern (1985, p. 140)

W hat else could the m other have done to let her daughter know that she understood and shared the baby’s excitement and joy at that moment? The m other cannot just say, “Oh I know how you felt. I do know how th at feels.” After all, the girl is only 10 m onths old and w ould n o t understand. Alternatively, the m other could im itate w hat the girl did, i.e. open up her own face and then close it down in a fairly faithful im itation of what the girl did. However, there is a different problem with this. The girl could say to herself (so to speak) “OK, you know w hat I did, physically. But how can I know that you know what it felt like to do what I did? You could be a m irror, or a M artian. How do I know you even have a mind?” The m other resolved this by doing a selective im itation, an “affect attunem ent.” She switched to a different m odality (from seen action to heard sound), but she kept the dynamic features faithfully, i.e. there was a m atch­ ing of the vitality form. She shared the dynamics of the form but n o t the m odality. The girl then understood th at her m other was n o t just im itating, b u t th at som ething similar was in the

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m other’s known experience and was sharable between the two. The m atch thus becomes a match of internal feeling states, not overt behaviors. Some sense of m utual understanding has been established. “Affect a ttu n e m e n t” is based on m atch in g a n d sharing dynam ic form s o f vitality, b u t across different m odalities. Its frequent use permits a m other to create a degree of intersub­ jectivity higher th an faithful im itation. At th a t p o in t in the research, I was prim arily interested in the development of inter­ subjectivity and its clinical role in developm ent. Because the phenom enon first appeared to us in the m other-infant dyads, it m ade me aware o f the parallel between the vitality dynamics and the “vital” functions in babies. Despite this, vitality dynam ­ ics were never m eant to have their conceptual roots in early life support vital functions. Moreover, they do not. Later, vitality dynamics were revisited, b ut within the context of examining the “present m om ent” of experience, the “now” (Stern, 2004). This leads to a greater emphasis on tem poral dynamic features. It was suggested that dynamic events were the subjective backbone of the feeling o f being in a present m oment. In addition, present moments were designated as the unit in which m any varied sequential events were grasped into one global “take” of consciousness. In this way, dynamic events play a part in the creation of consciousness. These shifts in con­ text have entailed relatively m inor remodeling of concepts. Now, however, the introduction of the term “dynamic forms of vitality” signals a conceptual enlargement. Vitality forms are seen more clearly as a Gestalt, a subjective phenomenon. Force, motion, aliveness, space, and content have been added to temporal con­ tour and intensity (force). Vitality forms are the overarching con­ cepts for the previous terms. It is a more global, holistic grasp. A w ord about terms. Traditionally, emotions are designated as emotions or affects, except w hen they becom e reflectively

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conscious and usually linked with language, at which point they become feelings. This distinction is from Damasio (1999). I shall not, however, enter into the discussion of the role of conscious­ ness in vitality forms, as it would take us elsewhere. I shall continue to use the term “affect attunem ent.” This is m eant to be the same as matching of vitality forms. However, as “affect attunem ent” is now widely used, we shall keep it. Intersubjectivity has becom e a topic o f great interest and activity, in particular its developm ental course and value for clinical practice (e.g. Trevarthen &Hubley, 1978; Reddy, 1991; W hiten, 1991; Tomasello, Savage-Rumbaugh, & Kruger, 1993; Nadel & Butterworth, 1999; Hobson, 2002; Rochat, 2009). By intersubjectivity, I m ean the sharing o f another’s experience. There are different degrees of sharing, namely “one-way” shar­ ing (e.g. “I know (or feel) th at you know (or feel) . . . ”), and “two-way” sharing (e.g. “I know that you know that I k n o w ...”). In ad d itio n , there are different subject m atters th a t can be shared, such as the c o n te n t o f language co m m unications, emotions, and vitality forms. Among the three, the sharing of an o th er’s vitality form s is probably the earliest, easiest, and m ost direct path into another’s subjective experience. Three different researchers, selected among many, have adopted slightly different approaches to the developmental problem of intersubjectivity, nam ely Colwyn Trevarthen (1998), Andrew M eltzoff (Meltzoff & Gopnik, 1993), and myself (Stern, 1985). Beatrice Beebe (Beebe e ta l, 2005a) has reviewed the differences among these three in detail. Meltzoff has focused largely on im i­ tation and Trevarthen on synchrony, and I have focused largely on the “affect a ttu n e m e n t” o f dynam ic form s. A ny act has parameters of all these - shape (or form), timing, and intensity. One could say th at M eltzoff has entered the problem m ainly through shape and goal, Trevarthen through timing, and myself through tim e-intensity matching. Despite these differences, all

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three consider the dynamic features as central for intersubjec­ tivity, as does the work of Braten (1998, 2007) and others. The concept of dynamic vitality forms brings together four converging lines o f thought, nam ely inter subjectivity, crossand m eta-m odality, the dynamic features of experience, and a phenomenological focus on subjectivity. The work of Thom pson (1994) considers the dynamic features of emotional experience in the light of “emotion regulation.” In this context he includes intensity, persistence, m odulation, onset, rise time, range, and recovery time (i.e. most of the basic parameters of forms of vitality). It is im portant to bear in m ind that Thompson is speaking of general arousal as seen during emo­ tional states. This permits him to speak of “emotion dynamics.” It is clear that the qualitative and dynamic aspects of emotions are tightly bound together: “ ... the subcortical and cortical sys­ tem s influencing em otional arousal are m utually in terco n ­ nected and are intimately linked with other neurophysiological systems, including those governing cognition and vegetative regulation ...” (1994, p. 30). Thom pson advances our appreciation o f vitality dynamics. However, two questions rem ain largely unresolved. Does n ot specific and general arousal also occur outside of em otional experience, and what shall we call such experience, if not some­ thing like dynamic forms of vitality? Secondly, can appraisal proc­ esses apply to the regulation of vitality dynamics that are unrelated to emotions? Thompson suggests that they can, as we do. M ore recently, Damasio (1999) has described “background feelings” and the “feeling of what is happening.” These feelings largely concern emotions and sensations from changes and per­ turbations in the inner state of the organism, including changes in functioning of smooth muscle and that of the striated muscles of the heart and chest, the chemical profile of the internal milieu as it concerns homeostasis, drives, and motivations. Damasio (1999)

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also includes dynamic experiences (e.g. going from slow to fast, or from a sharp focus to a vague one), but ultimately considers these changes to be “an integral part o f em otions” (p. 282). He conceives background feelings as an extension of emotions or sensations. Sensations from the viscera, muscles, entire body, and m ind together form background feelings th at report on the organ­ ism’s internal state at that time - on “the general physical tone o f o u r being” (D am asio, 1999, p. 286), be it contentm ent, tension, feeling “not quite right,” etc. These sensings m ost often rem ain out o f conscious awareness, b u t can also be brought into consciousness, where they become feelings and are verbalizable (but only approximately). Damasio (1999) gives the fol­ lowing examples: “fatigue; energy; excitement, wellness; sickness; tension; relaxation; surging; dragging; stability; instability; bal­ ance; imbalance; harmony; discord” (p. 286). (I have italicized the feeling states that could have been included on the list of vitality dynamics that opens Chapter 1.) Background feelings are co-extensive with vitality dynamics. Both track ongoing processes, or flows, where a “piece of the flow” can, b u t heed n o t be, isolated for special treatm en t. However, there are im portant differences. Damasio conceives of background feelings as belonging to the domains of em otion and sensation. I conceive of vitality dynamics as belonging to no one dom ain, b u t present in all domains, which also means they can be independent of em otion and sensation. Background feelings refer m ore to the overall feel of the well functioning and changes in the inner state o f the system at a given m om ent. Vitality dynamics refer m ainly to the shifts in forces felt to be acting during an event in m otion, and thus focus m ore on the dynamic qualities of the experience, in particular the profile of th e f lu c tu a tio n s in e x c ite m e n t, in te re s t, a n d aliveness. Background feelings are about the “feeling of what happens.”

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Vitality dynamics are about the “feel” of being alive and full of vitality. Clearly, b o th are needed. The distinction, however, is worthwhile, as the neural mechanism s subserving each are likely to be different. Psychoanalytically oriented thinkers have also described dynam ic form s in their work. The ideas o f Genevieve Haag (1991,2006) on the “representation of forms” are highly pertinent, as are those of Francis Tustin’s (1990) notion of “autistic shapes.” Ideas and findings from the field o f m usic perception have come unexpectedly close to the concerns of this book. Recent studies have looked at the association between musical param e­ ters and images of physical space and bodily m otion (see Eitan & Granot, 2006, for a review). There is one m ajor question. Are musical changes (in amplitude, pitch contour, pitch intervals, attack rate, articulation, and tem po) associated w ith hum an movements in space (type of movement, direction, pace, etc.)? Indeed they are. For instance, “a crescendo both approaches and accelerates motion; a pitch fall moves downwards, leftward and closer; ... listeners rate tempo curves derived from hum an m otion profiles as m ore m usical and expressive than simple tem po change” (Eitan & Granot, p. 242). These results are dis­ cussed in term s o f “intensity contours” and other am odal or pan-m odal notions that include m otion in tim e and space. In effect, they are describing vitality dynamics from a different starting point. Similarly, there are studies on the interaction of music with visual an d k in esth etic stim u li in th e p e rc e p tio n o f dance (K rum hansl & Schenck, 1997) and film (Bolivar, Cohen, & Fentress, 1994; Lipscomb & Kendall, 1994). A recent confer­ ence on “D ance, tim ing, and m usical gesture” chaired by Dr Katie Overy (Edinburgh, 13-15 June 2008) made apparent the long interdigitation and even substitutability of one for the other, e.g. as seen in north Indian Tihal (Walker, 2008).

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Less than two decades ago, the “m irror neuron system” was described. It was a m ajor discovery (Rizzolatti et a/., 1996; Gallese, 2001, 2003). The m irror neurons are part of the prefro n ta l m o to r cortex. The basic finding was th a t w hen an observer watches someone execute a goal-directed action, the m irror neurons in the observer will fire in the same pattern as if the observer him self had perform ed the same action. In other words, the observer has a virtual experience of the actor’s experi­ ence. The implications for understanding empathy and identifi­ cation and our reactions to artistic performances were evident. These researchers then found that m irror neurons also worked for stimuli in other modalities. Therefore if the listener heard, b u t d id n o t see, a sou n d characteristic of a specific action (e.g. tearing paper), the listener’s m otor neurons would fire as if he h ad m ade the sam e tearing action. F urtherm ore, they showed that when asked to imagine an action, the subject’s m ir­ ror neurons fired as if he were executing that action (Gallese, 2001; Rizzolatti etal., 2001). M irror neuron activity is strongly influenced by local context. In fact, Iacoboni et al. (1999) sug­ gest that it is logically related to m otor acts given by context. However, do m irror neurons apply to the dynamics o f move­ m ent, and if so, how? Hobson & Lee (1999) have asked whether autistic children im itate the “style,” the “expressive quality,” with which an action is perform ed (i.e. the vitality form of the action). It is already known that they can imitate m eans-ends actions. F o u r differen t situ atio n s w ere created w here the children (autistic and controls) could perform either a delayed im itation of a m eans-ends action, or the exact vitality form of the action, or both. For example, in one of the situations the children watched an experimenter take a pipe rack with ridges separating compartments for each pipe, and run a wooden stick across the ridges, making a vibrating sound. The experimenter did this in tw o different ways (“styles”), either rapidly and

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forcefully or m ore slowly and gently. These were the two vitality forms. After a delay, the children were given the two objects that they had only seen and heard being used. The n on-autistic children imitated both the action and its exact dynamic vitality form. The autistic children imitated the means and goal of the action, but rarely imitated its vitality form. The authors conclud­ ed that the imitation of “style” requires an interpersonal engage­ m ent that is impaired in autistic children. The same overall results are found with other experimental tasks (Hobson, 2002). How does the central nervous system track and encode vital­ ity forms? This problem can be approached in each specific domain, e.g. a musical phrase as heard, a physical movem ent as seen or p ro p rio cep ted , a skin pressure p a tte rn as felt, etc. However, cross-modal transfer of vitality forms presents a more in trig u in g problem (synesthesias representing an extrem e example). Clearly, different parts of the brain, anatomically and functionally, m ust talk to each other and exchange inform a­ tion. H obson’s w ork suggests that action (the what) and the specific “style” (the how ) of the actio n can be separated. Somehow inform ation about the vitality form is “extractable” and can be tre a te d by different b rain loci. The exact form remains a challenge to the neurosciences. The same problem is seen w hen exam ining the role o f the m irror neuron system. W e know that actions as m eans-ends operations are well handled by the m irror neurons. But w hat about the vitality form s of those actions? The vitality form s present a different anatomical problem from m eans-ends action in m apping another’s action to virtual action in the self.1 Only part of the m irror neuron system is understood. Could some of the unknow n part be responsible for dealing with the dynamic experiences of vitality? The full role of the m irror neu­ ron system remains to be seen, and is likely to be larger than we originally thought.

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Gallese & Lakoff (2005) partially answer the question and take the situation to another theoretical level. This jum p is based on their previous work (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999; Gallese, 2003). They suggest th at the sensory m o to r system, including the m irro r n eu ro n system, is phylogenetically an ancient system. It has m ultim odal capacities to receive input from the other modalities (hearing, vision, and touch), which are then integrated w ith the original sensory and m otor func­ tions. Thus there is no need for a “Cartesian theater” (Damasio, 1994), a sort o f “th ird place” (e.g. “association area”) in the b rain w here th e in fo rm atio n from the separate m odules is replayed and integrated. Instead, this integration occurs in the sensorim otor system. This suggestion has sim ilarities to the idea o f a vitality form arising as an emergent property or Gestalt from different sources, except th at they suggest w here this emergence m ay occur. In any event, a dynamic representation of all stim uli is the prim ary and fundam ental layer o f experi­ ence. In addition, those stimuli belonging to content-m odality aspects of experience are layered on top o f the fundam ental dynamic layer. Gallese and Lakoff take a next step. T hrough a process o f “neural exploitation,” sensory m otor mechanisms have, during evolution, taken on new roles in imagining, concept construc­ tion, and language. This upsets the traditional view th at con­ cepts and language are abstract, symbolic, amodal and arbitrary, and are assem bled in another “th ird place” (e.g. a language center). This n o tio n is in line w ith the ideas o f Lakoff and Johnson. These functions, too, are assembled in the sensori­ m otor system, and in this way become “embodied.” W here then are the vitality forms in these proposals? Gallese and Lakoff ask how the various conceptual relationships are realized neurally. The authors suggest that for any kind of p u r­ poseful action there are three different requirem ents th a t are

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m et by three different clusters o f neurons. The first indicates the general purp o se o f the action (grasp, push, pull, etc.). A second cluster specifies the “m anner” in which the action is to be executed (e.g. index finger and thum b, or whole hand, etc.). It is here that vitality dynamics should come up. However, vitality forms are not included in “m anner.” A third cluster specifies the temporal phases in which the action is sequenced. These sequenc­ es are treated as distinct phases rather than as analogic wholes. All of the above concerns purposeful action, but also applies to the images produced in sim ulating another’s behavior. Real m otion and imagined m otion follow the same descriptive rules. An opening for vitality forms seems to appear when Gallese and Lakoff (2005) describe the “param eters” th a t influence m otor programs. The first param eter concerns the level of force (one of the major concerns for vitality). Neurally, force is deter­ m ined by the level of activation of the neurons or the num ber of neurons activated. The system as they describe it works like the shifting gears in a car. The example is the gait of a cat. W hen the neurons fire at low frequency (a low value), the cat will strut. W hen the frequency increases above a certain value, the cat will break into a trot. W hen the frequency becomes even higher, the cat will gallop. These are discontinuous shifts in m otor programs, based on defined thresholds of frequency. However, there are m any kinds of struts and m any possible vitality form s w ithin the same frequency range for strutting. The above system could account for various vitality forms while rem aining w ithin the frequency range o f strutting, such as accelerating (only up to a certain point without trotting), decel­ erating, a slow progression in speed, or a measured slowing as in “sneaking up,” or a burst that quickly becomes a trot. Another param eter concerns whether an action is dynamically and contextually adapted to the current context. This opens the door wider to the dom ain of vitality dynamics.

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Gallese and Lakoff often refer to the dynam ic shaping o f m ovem ent (real or imagined) as a detail that takes care of itself. This is not a criticism. They set out on the task of describing the role o f the sensorim otor system in a variety of basic m ind/body tasks, which is an impressive undertaking. By analogy to dance, they describe the workings of the basic units of ballet, the posi­ tions, steps, leaps, etc., “the classroom steps.” We, on the other hand, are describing the dynamic variations on these basic units that can be subjectively felt and reflect the psychological “forces” and creative impulses behind the actions. At this p o in t in the advance o f the neurosciences, vitality forms are not the first order of business. However, in the longer term , it cannot be forgotten that w ithout vitality form s there could n o t be the exquisite fine-tuning o f interpersonal inter­ actions, no r creative artistic interpretations. W e w ould also lose part of w hat makes us feel alive and vital. There is another fascinating line of research that bears on the centrality of dynam ic vitality form s in h u m an interaction. Colwyn Trevarthen has coined the term “communicative musicality” (Trevarthen, 2000; Trevarthen &Malloch, 2002; Malloch & T revarthen, 2008a and b). “M usicality” does n o t refer to music as usually thought about, but rather to the duet o f move­ ments and sounds between two people expressing motives and intentional states - a synchronizing o f two people’s behaviors. This coupling occurs on a scale o f milliseconds and seconds. This research on synchronizing people’s behavior has a rela­ tively short history. In 1967, C ondon and Ogston published a paper describing “interactional synchrony” between two adults. Using frame-byframe film analysis, they observed that split-second changes in the m ovem ents of a listener (when the m ovem ent stopped, started, or changed direction or speed) were synchronized w ith split-second changes in the sounds m ade by a speaker.

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The movement changes in the listener lined up with the speaker’s changes of phonem es, syllables, words, stresses, and beats. It was as if one were seeing the “vibes” between people. Condon & Sander (1974) then reported the same phenomena in neonates listening to the vocalizations of their mothers. These findings created a stir, as mechanisms explaining such a tight coupling were not evident and no theory was in place to address it. These findings proved difficult to replicate, and the phenom ­ ena rem ained outside m ainstream research for several decades. Nonetheless, some researchers picked up the basic notion and used frame-by-frame m ethods of microanalysis to study “pri­ m ary intersubjectivity” betw een m others and infants (Stern, 1971,1977,1985; Trevarthen, 1977,1985; Trevarthen& Hubley, 1978; Beebe, 1982; Beebe et al., 2005b). They found that inter­ actional synchrony did indeed seem to apply to some stretches of the interaction, b u t n o t to all. Such synchrony was n o t an obligatory continuous event. More recently, with the advent of more advanced methodologi­ cal and mathematical tools (Lee, 2005), interest in the phenomena has revived. Trevarthen and colleagues have thus introduced the idea of “communicative musicality” as the basis of sympathy (i.e. feeling “with,” not empathy, which is feeling “in”). One of the basic ideas underlying intersubjectivity has been the long held philosophical notion th at we are b o rn w ith an “open m ind” and see others as “like m e” (Meltzoff & Gopnik, 1993; Braten, 1998, 2007; H obson, 2002). C om m unicative musicality changes the “like m e” to “with m e.” A greater em pha­ sis is placed on the role o f the intersubjective m atrix as the material from which the m ind is created (not from an individ­ ual m ind’s encounter with the (social) environm ent as another, separate context). M ore im m ediately for our purposes here, com m unicative musicality is largely based on the coupling o f vitality dynamics

IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

betw een people. “M usicality” is com posed o f pulses th at are form ed by timing, in the rhythmic sense, and its tem poral con­ touring, and the deployment of force in time. This is the back­ b o n e o f vita lity dynam ics w here “being w ith a n o th e r” is accomplished by sharing the vitality dynamic flow.2 Various “non-verbal” therapies have had to deal directly with w hat I am calling vitality form s, or at least b rush up closely against them . These w ould include, as examples, “focusingoriented psychotherapy” (Gendlin, 1996), Gestalt therapies (Peris, Hefferline, & G oodm an, 1951) and the work o f m any other Gestaltists over the last 60 years, psychom otor therapy (Pesso & Crandell, 1991), and music therapies (Wigram, 2004). Michael Heller (2001) provides an excellent overview o f the developm ent o f m any o f these body-oriented therapies from the 1970s through the 1990s, including dance therapy, choreo­ graphic therapy, Alexander method, Feldenkrais, and the work of Downing with infants and parents, and others. We have benefited from the challenges that these approaches have taken on, especially their focus on the “feel,” the sense of experience and its unique occurrence at a precise m om ent. Nonetheless, overall, vitality dynamics per se are not directly identified an d conceptualized in these works. The w ork of Gendlin (1996) well illustrates the situation. Gendlin writes of a “felt sense,” a “felt gesture” and “felt shifts.” At first glance, this appears to be confluent with vitality dynamics. However, what G endlin m eans by a “felt sense” is larger and m ore com plex than a dynamic form o f vitality. It includes the “felt sense” of a whole situation, including the em otion(s), and there m ay be many, the sensations, movements, local physical context, social context, etc. Indeed, vitality dynamics are an im portant part of the whole. In contradistinction, we are trying to tease out from this com­ plexity one of its elements (vitality forms) that we believe can be

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fruitfully exam ined in the light of recent thinking. However, such an effort on our part is contrary to the rightful insistence of Gestaltists that the “felt sense” of the experience should not be fragm ented. The same w ould apply for Gestalt therapies. W e w ould agree th a t the “felt sense” o f G endlin should be m aintained as a whole. It is at a different level of complexity. However, equally we need to understand the elements o f the whole, in and o f them selves, some of w hich are lower-level Gestalts. After all, we do have a field of knowledge about emo­ tions, movement, or sensation. We need such a field of knowl­ edge about vitality dynamics that need not take away from even higher holistic views. Recent findings in the neurosciences have revealed a new pic­ ture of arousal as regulated from the brainstem . The work of Pfaff (2006) and others emphasizes the need to bring the arous­ al system into the dialogue on dynamic experience of vitality. The integrative neuroscience m odel o f “significance process­ ing” is a good example of this renewed interest in arousal and its in te g ra tio n w ith o th e r m en ta l fu n ctio n s (G o rd o n , 2000; Williams, 2006). These researchers have added time in the form of a “tem poral continuum m odel” in which the known brain processes underlying arousal, perception, em otions, m otiva­ tions, and cognition are placed in a sequential fashion on a time dimension measured in milliseconds. In doing so they stress that “M uch of brain science is focused on the location of structures and functions, yet effective neural processing relies as m uch, if not more, on its tem poral organization” (Williams, 2006, p. 2). Keeping in m ind the key role of arousal and the brainstem for vitality forms, I shall now tu rn to the studies which suggest that the arousal systems m ay provide a neuroscientific und erp in ­ ning for the emergence o f vitality forms. W ith this review in place, we can now exam ine a possible neuroscientific dom ain with relevance for vitality forms.

IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

Notes 1. At what level of organization might the distinction between “what” and “how” collapse? If we wanted to see whether children (normal compared with autistic) tell the difference between an act with its goal (the “what”) and the style or dynamic manner in which the act is performed (the “how”), we could perform the same act (e.g. a reach) in two versions, fast and slow. W hen the movement is performed slower, the movement appears to be the same act as the faster version, at least at the organizational level of visually perceived action patterns. However, at the neuromuscular level, the activation of the antagonistic muscle groups is different. The balance between activations and inhibitions overall, i.e. the neuronal firing pattern, is different. Does that make it a different act - a different “what” - at the organizational level of neuronal firing and arousal profiles? In other words, at the level of seen behavior (and presumably vitality dynamics), the difference between the “what” and the “how” is clear. However, on passing to the level of neuronal firing patterns, the difference may collapse. The “how” could become absorbed by the “what.” 2. Communicative musicality adds elements that are not dynamic per se, such as pitch, although sequences of pitch changes are.

Chapter 4

A Possible Neuroscientific Basis for Vitality Forms: the Arousal Systems

The arousal systems provide the felt "force" of vitality dynamics W hat m ay be the neuroscientific infrastructure that makes the experience of vitality forms possible? Historically, psychology has entertained several candidates to provide forces w ithin the m ental system that are o f sufficient strength, speed, and flexibility to be com patible w ith vitality forms. “Vitalism,” the “psychic energy” of psychoanalysis, the “drives,” “activated motivational systems,” or emotions and so on have not m et the required criteria. W ith the recent advances in the neurosciences, it is becoming clear th at th e arousal systems fulfill this role in great part. Arousal satisfies the need for a force for behavior (Tinbergen, 1951; Lorenz, 1981), a force that throws the m otivations (sex, hunger, attachm ent, etc.) into action, th at triggers the em o­ tions, sharpens the attention, starts up cognitions, and initiates m ovem ent. The centers for m otivation do n o t contain their own “force.” It comes from the arousal system. The m otivation centers, such as hunger, for example, provide features other than force and time, in this example providing the orientation, selective attention, salience o f perceptions, and specific action patterns that lead to eating. However, the force or m otor behind

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these features, w hich sets them in m o tio n and adjusts their strength and duration while they act, comes largely from the arousal system. The same is true for emotions. The neuroscien­ tist, Donald Pfaff (2006), states it clearly: “The m ost fundam en­ tal force in the nervous system is arousal.” The im portance o f arousal in providing a dynamic aspect to experience has long been recognized. In addition, the role of the arousal-activating systems in the brainstem in changing levels of arousal has long been know n (M oruzzi & M agoun, 1949; Lindsley, Bowden, & M agoun, 1949). W e wish to re-explore this territory in the light of recent discoveries from several fields, and re-examine its possible implications. The hope is to present arousal-related experiences in a new light and better u n d e r­ stand their contribution to the creation of vitality forms. However, what is arousal? Dictionaries and scientists agree. To be aroused is “to be put into m otion” or “stirred up” or “excited into activity,” physically, mentally, or emotionally. It is synony­ mous with “to animate.” In m ore scientific terms, it is the force behind the initiation, the strength, and the duration of almost everything we do (Hebb, 1955; Robbins & Everitt, 1996; Pfaff, 2006; Pfaff & Banavar, 2007; Pfaff & Kieffer, 2008). Arousal also includes, by implication, turning off or turning down the arousal, calming the excitement, or deactivating the m otion or emotion. Arousal determines when we do what we do, and the dynamic manner of doing it. It is well suited to direct vitality forms. Yet the experience of arousal shifts, particularly micro-shifts, in relation to short-lived vitality forms has not been explored.

A closer look The arousal systems have a crucial role in the form ation of unreflected dynamic experience. Arousal systems can act very specifically and rapidly, in milliseconds, to elicit a multiplicity of

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

discrete vitality forms, which may be small and fleeting or large and longer acting. An arousal system is not just a master switch to regulate the general level of central nervous system activation (alertness, wakefulness, sleep). The five parallel arousal systems (plus the general arousal system) are finely differentiated to cre­ ate a vast array of different neural firing patterns. They can con­ sist of only one of the five systems firing, or any combination of them , giving multiple possible arousal profiles. Each presum a­ bly leads to a different vitality form. W ith this in m ind, I shall address recent neuroscientific find­ ings about the arousal system th at are relevant to the above suggestions. Arousal is the “fundam ental force” for all bodily and m ental activity. Are there no other “sources” of force for th e mind? Generally speaking, no! (There are biochemical sources of energy for the brain.) W ithout the support'of the arousal system one cannot think, feel, perceive, or move voluntarily. At the extreme of deactivation of arousal, one goes beyond sleep and into coma. A functional definition from Pfaff follows: "G eneralized arousal” is higher in an anim al or h u m an b eing w ho is m ore alert to sensory stim uli o f all sorts, m ore m otorically active, and m o re reactive em otionally. This is a concrete definition o f th e m ost fundam ental force in the nervous system. To understand w hat we are talking about here, consider two analogies. If we were talking about the geophysics o f the p lan et earth, instead o f the arousal o f the CNS and behavior, this book w ould be dealing w ith m agm a - the h o t central core o f the earth whose physical distribution controls the m agnetic field of the planet. M y second analogy is based o n the prim acy o f tim e. If we were talking about the astrophysics o f the universe, m y book w ould be dealing with the Big Bang. (Pfaff, 2006, p. 5)

This powerful system is not only a switch that turns the m ind on or off, b u t is also like the accelerator in a car. It operates no m atter what gear the car is in. It is a flexible system providing (usually) as m uch arousal as is needed for the tasks immediately

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at hand. Accordingly the quantity of arousal can and m ust fluctu­ ate from moment to moment, in a split second, and with the poten­ tial for very wide swings in magnitude to meet sudden dangers and joys, or needs (such as sleep). It is generally agreed that tasks are most easily accomplished if the level of arousal is neither too high (anxiety, panic) nor too low (boredom, inattention, etc.). There are several arousal systems with different loci of origin in the brainstem . Each of these acts along different pathways with different distributions elsewhere in the brain, and each uses different neurotransm itters. Suffice it to say that all of these arousal systems are located in the m ore prim itive parts of the brain from the evolutionary perspective, namely the brainstem, also functionally called the reticular activating system. Currently, their connections to the higher brain centers are m ost often referred to as the “ascending arousal pathways.” They ascend to the cortex, to the centers for perception, emo­ tion, movement, and cognition, and almost all parts o f the brain where they adjust sensitivity to stimuli, m otoric activity, em o­ tional responsivity, and cognitive activity. However, the influ­ ence does not flow in only one direction, “up” from brainstem arousal centers to the higher cortical centers. It also flows “down” from the cortex and emotion centers to the arousal systems. They are m utually influencing. M ore accurately, they regulate one another constantly. The input of arousal, from bottom up, will determine the strength, duration, rise time, and tem poral shape of m ental actions, i.e. their dynamic form. Arousal profiles act in a similar m anner on thoughts, em otions, perceptions, and movements. In addition, influence comes from the other direction, topdown. The input from the cortex and higher centers will deter­ m ine in p art the strength, duration, and shape o f the output from the arousal systems. The two systems can also act alone. There are cognitive operations that do not require input from

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

the arousal systems (beyond m aintaining a level of alertness and body tonicity). In addition, there are m any arousal shifts th at operate independently o f cognitions and affects, such as short-term responses (e.g. internal startles, a m om entary arousal jag), or longer activity-rest cycles. The narration of subjective experience need not tightly m atch the neuronal sequences of events. Take the well-known exam­ ple of seeing a wild bear in the woods. First, there is the jolt of a salient novelty, then avoidance flight, and only after that is there recognition that you saw a bear. This means that the visual cor­ tex “saw” (w ithout “truly” seeing) the stim ulus as it entered the brain on its way to the brainstem . It was recognized only enough to inform the arousal systems what to do next. It passed through the brain, b u t in a sense bypassed the mind. It did not enter awareness. Only after the arousal systems sent a signal back up to the cortex could the bear be seen phenomenally. As Zajonc (1980) puts it, “preferences need no inferences.” These considerations becom e im portant w hen lining up introspec­ tive, first-p e rso n experience w ith objective, th ird -p e rs o n descriptions. It is clear that bottom -up explanations do apply (e.g. that the arousal systems “tu rn on” the cortical visual system to register that it was a bear). There m ay also be a top-dow n explanation (e.g. that the visual cortex may initially “impose selection crite­ ria on the brainstem ’s regions” before they report back to the visual cortex) (Pfaff, 2006, pp. 29-30). It seems most likely that both are true. W e are dealing with extremely intricate interact­ ing systems that could reconfigure their sequences depending on the stimulus conditions. V itality form s are usually short-lived events with nuanced tem poral patterning th at arise in different contexts. Does the arousal system have the finesse and flexibility to shape the tim ­ ing and intensity of arousal - to sculpt its force into a dynamic

FORMS OF VITALITY

form - to m eet specific local needs? The answer appears to be yes. The reasoning is as follows. The arousal systems are m ultiple. The ascending arousal pathways can be divided into two m ain groups. There are the “m aster cells of the arousal crescent” that are responsible for general arousal (they are responsible for sleep and wakefulness). This is the m ost prim itive and undifferentiated p a rt of the a ro u sal system s, arising fro m th e re tic u la r fo rm a tio n o f the brainstem . It has its own specific anatomical site, pathway distribution, and neurotransm itter. It is the oldest part from an evolutionary standpoint. The second group of arousal pathways, nam ely the specific ascending pathways, go to m ore specific parts of the brain and serve as the “force” for different specific arousal states, e.g. hunger, pain, sex, fear, aggression, thirst, etc. There are five different specific ascending pathways (all distinct from the general arousal pathway). Each of the five specific ascending pathways is differ­ ent. They differ in exact anatom ical site o f origin w ithin the brainstem, type of cell body and dendrites, anatomical locus of term inations of their pathways higher in the brain (with over­ lapping distributions), and functions. They also probably have a different evolutionary and ontogenic history (Pfaff, 2006). Also, five different neurotransm itters are used for each of the five different specific pathways. These are norepinephrine, d o p a m in e , se ro to n in , acetylcholine, an d h ista m in e . For instance, the norepinephrine pathway is largely concerned with sensory alertness and control of emotions, dopamine is largely concerned with directed m otor acts, serotonin is largely involved w ith em otional behavior and control of autonom ic nervous system activity, and acetylcholine is largely concerned with cortical arousal and histam ine with general arousal (Robbins & Everitt, 1996; Pfaff, 2006; Pfaff & Banavar, 2007; Pfaff & Kieffer, 2008). The com plexity o f this system and its differentiation

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

in to separate p a rts provides su p p o rt for the idea th a t the arousal systems could produce a m ultitude of highly specific and complex arousal profiles, each eliciting a specific vitality form. F u rth erm o re, concerning differentiated signals from the arousal systems, it is suggested th at the brainstem itself has perceptual gating capacities to assign salience and to select its responses before and/or without significant cortical processing (e.g. the wild bear) (see Williams, 2006, p. 18). A nother way th at the arousal system could produce m any specific vitality forms involves taking up the ideas of the apprais­ al theorists of emotions (see Chapters 4 and 6). Suppose that we treat felt arousal as they treat emotions. Specific em otions are thought to be created by a sequence of checks or evaluations. Is the stim ulus novel? W hat is its hedonic tone? W hat is it? Can the organism deal with it? And so on. The result is a particular em otion that has been shaped by all o f these appraisals occur­ ring in a tim ed sequence. Specificity becomes almost infinite. Suppose, in the course of the neuronal interactions up and down between the arousal centers and the higher functions, the higher centers can appraise the arousal signal and adjust it to best fit the im m ediate context, which includes all of the other appraisals. For instance, is an arousal burst too long, too strong, rising too slowly, having too sharp a peak, falling away too rap­ idly, etc., for the context in which it occurs? The arousal signals can become fine-tuned in such a process. This notion takes a step beyond the above idea of the cortex playing only an initial selection role in what reaches the brainstem. The neuroanato­ my and neurophysiology suggest this possibility. LeDoux (1996) proposes another way in w hich th e (sup­ posed) non-specificity o f the arousal systems can have specific effects. He suggests th a t the cortex (sensory and prefrontal) along w ith the thalam us can gather in fo rm atio n ab o u t an

FORMS OF VITALITY

external stimulus and can organize perception, attention, and m em ory (working and long-term memory). However, all that, taken alone, only provides in fo rm atio n . It does n o t elicit dynamically felt experience and it does not turn an event into a felt experience. To do that, the activation of the arousal systems and the amygdala is necessary. (The amygdala is an ancient part of the basal forebrain.) The argum ent is as follows. Perceptual inform ation from the sensory cortex (devoid of feeling) goes directly to the brainstem arousal systems. The brainstem is reciprocally connected to the amygdala and sends a signal up to the amygdala (Gallagher & Holland, 1994; LeDoux, 1996). The amygdala then projects a signal back to the cortex to further activate the very sensory areas that started the process, i.e. the same areas that initially sent the inform ation “down” to the arousal system. (So far, it is like encountering the wild bear.) A feedback loop is created whereby the arousal from the amygdala can influence the cortically organized perceptions, attention, and memories related to the initial stimulus. These can then be sent back “down” to the amygdala, and so on. Now comes the essential part. W hen cortical cells (e.g. in the visual system) are in the process of being stim ulated (e.g. by something in the visual field), their ongoing function of percep­ tion becomes heightened by an arousal signal (Hobson & Steriade, 1986; M cCormick & Bal, 1994). The cells in the cortex that are n ot actively processing inform ation at th at m om ent rem ain uninfluenced. In this way, a non-specific arousal signal exerts a specific effect. It is selectively directed to the perceptual processes that are ongoing. The result is that the dynamic features of arous­ al can be integrated into specific inform ation processes. The resultant inform ation becomes dynamically enacted - charged w ith “engagem ent,” so to speak. Thus a specific experience is created by a very non-specific mechanism (LeDoux, 1996).

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

LeDoux, like m any others, notes that arousal is elicited by any novel stimulus, not just by emotional stimuli. However, he adds th a t if the stim ulus is em otionally insignificant, the state of arousal will “dissipate alm ost im m ediately ... arousal is p ro ­ longed in the presence of em otional stim uli” (LeDoux, 1996, p. 290). But arousal elicited by simply novel, but not emotional, stimuli does not recruit the amygdala. One m ight ask what hap­ pens when stimuli arise mainly by virtue of a nonem otional state being activated (e.g. a string of ideas, a movement, a color con­ trast, etc.). Can these not also perpetuate the dose and duration of arousal? Moreover, what about esthetic stimuli in general? LeDoux’s approach to the dynamics o f experience, and the arousal system, is in the service of explaining emotional experi­ ence, especially fear. Although he recognizes that emotions do not encompass all felt experiences, and that fear/danger is not the same as the other em otions, he takes fear and the related systems of defense as the central model. This explains in part his view of the specialness of emotions vis-a-vis the arousal system a sort of em otion-centric view o f arousal (of great value for understanding emotions, but less so for arousal). The same point of view influences LeDoux’s suggestion that emotions, in particular strong emotions (such as fear in the face o f danger), m u st be able to perpetuate arousal. One cannot deactivate arousal because of boredom (habituation) while the danger persists. This makes good sense. However, there are other situations besides danger where variability is built into the nature of the stimulus so that habituation is less of a problem for example, watching a fire or listening to music. M ost music is constructed on a them e-and-variation form at, the whole idea being for the variations (novelty) to m aintain a level o f arousal (or rather to repeatedly reignite it) while at the same tim e m odulating, tickling, and m om entarily playing off the active eliciting o f arousal. The same is true for dance, cinema,

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or theater in general. It is also em inently true in spontaneous interpersonal interactions, beginning in infancy (e.g. games) and lasting throughout life (Stern, 1985). O f course, there are stretches when one does get bored. Finally, there is the question of timing. W hat is needed is an exam ination o f the range of tem poral param eters available to the arousal systems. We know that each of the several specific arousal systems has its own range of frequencies, durations, and magnitudes at which it can fire. One area of the brainstem can fire at different magnitudes to other areas, resulting in different durations. For instance, m any different frequencies are emitted from the amygdala when responding to a fear stimulus (Quirk, Repa, 8c LeDoux, 1995). We also know that the different ascend­ ing pathways governed by different transmitters can fire at dif­ ferent frequencies, d u ratio n s, and m agnitudes. M oreover, groups of cells can fire in synchrony or be desynchronized. A very rough estimate o f the potential num ber o f different arousal shifts and profiles that, at any m om ent, could eventuate from the complexity of the arousal systems is astounding. An arousal shift could go in one of three directions, i.e. rise, fall, or rem ain steady. O f the five different specific arousal systems, any one could fire alone or in any combination with the other four. There are thousands of possible options for ascending signals. Add the fact that each system can act over a range of density of neural firing, and a range of durations, with various overlaps, and the num ber o f possibilities for different arousal profiles becomes astronomical. There is the potential for creating a uni­ verse of dynamic experiences. Perhaps the limiting factor is our creativity in d ifferentiating separate dynam ic experiences among the panoply of arousal profiles. Language will likely be a restrictive force in such a differentiation, because it is too cate­ gorical, b u t it does help to anchor families of dynamic forms and, accordingly, vitality forms.

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

It is pertinent to point out th at the basal ganglia along with the cerebellum control m any aspects o f tim ing. A clock-like mechanism o f pacemaker and accumulator has been described in the basal ganglia, and it plays a p art in fine-grained tim ing discrim inations (Ferrandez et a l, 2003). The basal ganglia are im p o rtan t in auditory tasks as well as m o to r tasks. They are thought to perm it the tim ing of sound durations (Belin et a l, 2002; Nenadic et a l, 2003).1 Related to this, patients with basal ganglia (brainstem) im pair­ m ent have difficulty perform ing the dynamic aspects of apply­ ing force. They apply m ore or less force th an is needed. For instance, they imitate the force needed for a handgrip less well than norm als, and are less accurate in regulating force pulses (Vaillancourt et a l, 2007). The above findings about the basal ganglia’s involvement in tim ing and force regulation are not surprising in the light of the role suggested for the brainstem in vitality dynamics.

Are the arousal systems regulated from higher centers? The regulation of emotions from other centers in the brain pro­ vides the m odel for this question, so we shall start there. It is generally agreed that m ost emotions are regulated by cognitive appraisals, or even created by them . Does this also apply to vitality forms? M any have proposed th at the final em otional experience (what we say that we feel) is the result of m ultiple processes acting together and in sequence, namely physiological arousal, neurological activation, attention processes, hedonic eval­ uation, the social context, cultural biases, “basic” response ten­ dencies, past history, and so on (Scherer, 1993, 2001; Thompson, 1994; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001). All o f the above processes filter, m odulate, appraise, and interpret an initial stimulus. Emotional states arise by virtue of

67

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the course and result of the sequential appraisal process. For instance, in one version o f this process, a stimulus will first be appraised as to w hether it is novel, containing p otentially im portant information. Is it significant or is it just noise that is uninterestingly familiar? Milliseconds later it is appraised as to whether it is to be avoided or approached (a hedonic appraisal). Only later, in milliseconds, is it appraised as to its identity what it is. In other words, we are already reacting to a stimulus well before we know what it is. (You can decide while running away that it was a wild bear you saw. If you had to wait to decide before you began to run, you would be dead.) After the identity appraisal, the situation is appraised w ith regard to available coping mechanisms, social implications, m oral consequences, etc. (Zajonc, 1980; Scherer, 2001). The strongest position ofthis idea is that of the cognitive appraisal theorists who propose that appraisal is responsible for the em otion th at finally emerges. Different appraisals at each point in the sequential “evaluation check” cause different em otions (Lazarus, 2001). It is like a d ju stin g several b a rre ls o n an o ld -fa sh io n e d telescope. Accordingly, there m ay be hundreds or thousands of qualities and blends of feeling that different processes of appraisal pro­ duce. Each one is a separate em otion on its own. We then have to squeeze this panoply of emotions into the few categories that our particular language provides. We can now return to the m ain question that has been posed. Do vitality form s exist before or only after arousal has been “regulated” to fit local needs? In addition, what would vitality forms be like w ithout any content? Alternatively, viewed from the opposite side, why can appraisal processes n ot be applied to dynamic experiences alone, even when they are occurring outside of an emotional event or before one? Some assume that at certain times, under certain conditions, dynam ic features can be felt and expressed directly w ithout

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

having to pass through an appraisal process (LeDoux, 1996, 2002; Frijda & Zeelenberg, 2001; Pfaff, 2006). W hat form might such direct expressions take? We generally think that if neural discharges from the brainstem are unregulated by higher cent­ ers so as to fit the immediate local context, they would be very primitive, untam ed, unm odulated, and uncontrolled (e.g. rage, escape, attack, exploratory behavior, and other survival and vital functions). Suppose that it is true only under certain circumstances, such as physical trauma, illness, surgical procedures, and/or experimen­ tal procedures (where m ost o f the evidence for this position comes from ). Suppose, further, that under norm al conditions the original, unregulated dynam ic experience evoked by the arousal system makes up a m uch larger, richer, and finer reper­ toire o f felt experience than we have imagined, both w ith and w ithout cortical appraisal. In other words, the brainstem itself creates or imposes finer distinctions and nuances. This is n o t so far-fetched w hen one considers th a t fetuses beginning at 10 weeks of gestation (with no cortical input) have a repertoire of non-reflex movements triggered by arousal surges (see C hapter 6). R est-activity cycles and sleep-w ake cycles begin to form well before 30 weeks o f gestation (som e say 18 weeks). It is not so clear when brainstem projections to the cortex and vice versa are functional, even w hen they are ana­ tomically present. In any event, the arousal system is organizing itself an d fu n ctio n in g well w ith o u t dem onstrable cortical input. In addition, very young infants grow up partaking in multiple dynam ic experiences long before they “appraise cognitively” (as usually m eant). They breathe in and out smoothly, they hic­ cup, yawn, burp, defecate, urinate, swallow, and suck. Each of these activities also has a different arousal profile, and traces a different vitality dynamic. Babies wait with growing expectation

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and excitement for the breast to be uncovered or the bottle to be prepared. They suffer waves of hunger and the m ounting of tension. All of these events involve dynamic experiences. It is likely that infants do perceive and represent these in some non­ verbal, kinesethetic, and bodily m anner. They give so m any indications th a t they do, particularly in their spontaneous anticipatory behaviors. Let us extend this list. Infants shut and reopen their eyes very often to a new scene with the “upsurge of a fresh present” as a n a tu ra l h ap pening (M erleau-Ponty, 1962). They learn the dynam ics o f the w orld “reappearing.” They w atch cycles o f change that repeat every day or m any times a day in their visual, auditory, olfactory, proprioceptive, and tactile fields. Games of tension buildup like “peek-a-boo” or “I’m gonna get’cha” or “pat-a-cake,” where expectations of various vitality forms build up to high levels, climax, and resolve. Young babies also elicit and solicit interactions to bring their level of excitation down soothing, stroking, singing softly at slowish tempos, etc. Each of these happenings has a different arousal profile and vitality form. There is a body of work suggesting that in the first days and weeks of life, neonatal (and preem ie) psychology turns a round the regulation o f stim ulus strength and the arousal elicited. The m anagem ent of the dynam ics of experience is am ong the baby’s first, unavoidable, vital tasks (Als, 1984; Dunn, 1997; Bruschweiler-Stern, 2000).

Are the arousal systems specific enough? The following question becom es crucial. Do the neuroanatom ic arrangem ent and neurophysiologic functioning of the arousal systems, have enough specificity, by them selves, to account for the variety o f m ovem ents seen in the (largely “pre-cortical”) fetus, neonate, and young infant? The answer is yes.

A POSSIBLE NEUROSCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR VITALITY FORMS

In short, infants grow up living a large spectrum of dynamic experiences. W e assume that this does not necessarily require any or m uch cognitive appraisal. Dubowitz et al. (1986) have asked whether the cortex is even needed for vision in the infant. Yet the dynamic aspect of experience can be represented in body, kinesthetic, and dynamic form representations. This repertoire will n ot disappear with development; it will grow in breadth and richness to include how we expect others to move and to talk. And it will include our own m anner of being alive, our style, our characteristic vitality forms, and our dynamic signature. W hile the dynamic features of experience can be felt before and w ithout any appreciable cognitive processing, they are usu­ ally finely sculpted and fitted to local conditions by cognitive appraisal processes a n d em o tio n al co lo ratio n w hen these become available during development. In fact, higher m ental activity such as conscious imaginings can trigger vitality forms. The b o tto m -u p and to p -d o w n m u tu al regulation m akes it possible to feign an inauthentic arousal response in social situ­ ations when called for. We do this very frequently with exagger­ ated raising of the eyebrows, opening the eyes wider, brightening them , shifting posture forward, m oving when previously still, or stilling w hen previously in m otion, and so on. Such social adjustm ents are presum ably directed by the cortical centers regulating the ascending arousal pathways, as they do for the facial expression of emotions. Dynam ic experiences of vitality can arise from the arousal systems acting relatively alone. Alternatively, they can evolve from the input of cognitive and emotional centers that regulate the original brainstem message to meet local conditions. In summary, there are anatomical and functional features of the arousal system th at make it a plausible candidate for pro ­ viding the tem poral and force features to underpin the experi­ ence of dynamic forms of vitality.

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Notes 1. There is a difference between event timing (e.g. tapping) compared with continuous timing. It is suggested that event timing is more controlled by the cerebellum and continuous timing is more controlled by the basal ganglia, as might be expected concerning dynamic happenings.

Part II

The Role of the Arousal Systems, and the Examples of Music, Dance, Theater, and Cinema

Chapter 5

Vitality Forms in Music, Dance, Theater, and Cinema

The arts provide an excellent example of how arousal-related vitality forms work on us. Everyone has experience o f the timebased arts. In addition, everyone has encountered m om ents w hen v itality form s evoked by the arts have m oved them . Equally im portant, the arts show vitality forms in a relatively purified form - pure in the sense that the dynamic features of a performance have usually been amplified, refined, and rehearsed repeatedly. They are pure also, because, as Langer (1953) has pointed out, vitality dynamics can be relatively disentangled from the contingencies or storylines of daily life. N onetheless, the arts are n o t unique. They serve as a good example o f w hat happens in daily interactions betw een two people, as well as in special situations like the consulting room. An ordinary interaction is also a performance where the faces, bodies, tone o f voice, etc. of the speaker and listener are the show for each other and for themselves, involving rapid shifts in arousal, interest, and aliveness. Seen from the outside, such an interaction is a duet. So let us look at the dynamic aspects o f these arts m ore closely. We are moved by the arts from m om ent to m om ent as well as over longer stretches of time. Tensions, forces, and excitement rise and fall. O ur arousal level is constantly in play during a per­ formance. The time-based arts are largely about the dynamics of experiences. Vitality forms are the working experiential units.

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(At times they carry with them specific emotions.) The vitality forms arise in the m ind of the audience, if not in the perform er’s mind, and had to have been present in some form in the m ind of the original artist. Some contem porary artists have chosen to do away w ith traditional form s such as narrative structure, linearity, n o n ­ random ness, totality, etc. Nonetheless, while any gesture or musical line is unfolding, it creates expectations of how it will resolve itself. Implications appear, and with them arousal shifts and vitality forms emerge. Two questions arise. First, each art has had to identify the basic dynamic forms used by its art form , and then to invent codes for m arking these dynamic forms (dynamic indicators) so th a t reproductions of the w ork can faithfully render the forms of vitality desired, and establish a canonical version that individual interpretations can be evaluated against. Secondly, as vitality forms operate in all modalities and p re­ sum ably elicit sim ilar felt states regardless o f w hat m odality they arise from, what opportunities does this offer for collabo­ rations between artists working in different art forms? Can the same vitality forms be triggered by two or more art forms? Will their effects be com plem entary or additive, or m ore than the sum of the parts? W hat m ay artistic collaborations tell us? This question is pertinent because all art forms bring the same rep­ ertoire o f vitality forms into the collaboration. Before going further, two general comments are relevant. We shall be dealing almost exclusively with the smaller or shorter dynamic forms - the m om ent-to-m om ent shifts in arousal and excitement. Also, we shall limit the discussion to the strictly timebased arts, namely music, dance, certain theater, and cinema, because they take place in “real” time. In contradistinction, the language-based arts, such as traditional theater, fiction, and poetry, are usually driven by the narrative process and take place

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

in both “real” time (the time to read, hear, or see) and narrative time simultaneously, thus complicating the situation. The fasci­ nating problem of dynamic experience in prose and poetry will be p u t off for now, even though these arts have implicit nonlinguistic “rules” for expressing vitality forms, and the linguistic means to evoke them. This also includes the “art” of rhetoric.

Collaborations M uch of w hat follows on collaboration was aided by a round­ table at the Philoctetes Center for the M ultidisciplinary Study of Imagination, New York, in 2007. C ollaborations seem very natural when one considers how one art form is so frequently spoken of in terms of another. For instance, consider Alastair Macaulay’s 2007 review of the fare­ well perform ance of the ballerina Kyra Nichols from the New York City Ballet: ... the b rig h t pulse she brings to the circuit o f jum ps, ... th e singing legato c u rr e n t... [of] a rapid skein o f turns ... the devout way h e r arms rise?

O r c o n sid e r h o w R o b in G old in g (1986) w rites a b o u t Beethoven’s quartet, opus 131: T he th ird variation is ... p liant ... coaxing ... flattering ... in its first half, b u t em phatic in its second ... [the last variation] ends virtually in m id-air.

M ost probably, all cultures since the beginning have used dance and m usic together. O nly in the n in eteenth century, however, did mixing different art forms take on another aspect. U nder W agner’s influence, a new spirit emerged of exploring the com bination of art form s to create new and m ore “total” form s o f art, and ultim ately to renew the artistic landscape (Borchmeyer, 2003). A sort of artistic/cultural revolution started. Under the influence of Darwinian evolution, Wagner saw each art form as if it were a different species. He thought that each form had evolved to a high point and was at the end o f its possibilities.

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Musical composers, he thought, could not go beyond Beethoven, and theater could not go beyond Shakespeare. He saw the col­ laboration or fusion of different art forms as a way to create new and m ore “total” art forms - to reinvigorate. W ith Wagner, the m eta-m odal nature of vitality forms com ­ m on to all arts seems to have come m ore into the foreground. Artists began to seek o ut other artists who worked in different art forms to explore the feelings and ideas evoked by combining them. The following is a highly selected chronological grouping of collaborations th a t sought som ething m ore “to tal” in the W agnerian sense. Am ong the m ore rem arkable collaborations th at emerged were the “symbolist” collaborations at the end of the nineteenth cen tu ry betw een poets (B audelaire and M allarm e, am ong others), painters (including Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Serat), and theater artists. The guiding notion was “correspond­ ence” between the art forms that was seen as a way of regenerat­ ing the arts and leading them beyond where they were then. A new avant-garde was created (Balakian, 1967; Deak, 1993; Fleischer, 2007). The symbolists were not trying to create a new, more total, static form, as Wagner was. Rather they felt that one art form could stand for another, and reinforce or evoke another. The idea was to create a m ore transcendental subjective proc­ ess, something m ore mysterious. “Correspondences” between art forms are necessarily created because of the m eta-m odal nature of vitality forms that assure a com m on ability to render similar, but n ot identical, experi­ ences. The magic lies in pairing the similar with the “n ot exactly the same.” W hen different art forms are juxtaposed, certain aspects do not translate well from one form to the next. For example, literal sense does not. Specific emotion does only a little better, and mood and vitality forms probably do best. Vitality forms are closer to

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

the ground. O n a m om ent-to-m om ent basis, vitality forms are readily transferable between art forms - in large part because of their meta-modality and potential speed of modulation. Beginning in the early 1900s, Diagaleff and his Ballets Russes w orking in Paris b ro u g h t together com posers (Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, and Prokofiev), poets (H ofm annsthal and Cocteau), choreographers (Fokine, Massine, Nijinsky, Nijinska, and Balanchine), and painters (Picasso, Braque, Matisse, and D erain). High m om ents o f collaboration resulted in classical works still danced today, such as Le Sacre du Printemps, Les Sylphides, Firebird, Petrouchka, L ’A pres-midi d’un Faune, and Les Noces. Here, too, the underlying Wagnerian idea of creating a new and greater art form, a “totality,” was in the air (Garafola, 1989). At roughly the same tim e, the choreographer, Fokine, split from D iagaleff s Ballets Russes and created Ballets Suedois: “W hat ballet company has ever put on such a display, bringing together at one time the most famous musicians and the cream of French artists” (Hager, 1990, p. 7). The Ballets Suedois was inspired by m odern dance as well as classical ballet. It was con­ sidered even bolder and m ore avant-garde th an th e Ballets Russes, especially in the daring juxtaposition of vitality forms taken from sound and sight. Again, the m eta-m odal character of vitality forms is crucial for the effects achieved. A little later, an extraordinary collaboration began between the Russian film-maker Eisenstein and the composer Prokofiev. For sections o f film, they planned each cinema shot so that the dynamic feel (including spatial extension) evoked by the visual line of the camera shot corresponded to the musical line and feel o f the m usical phrase th a t accom panied the film shot. Classical films like Alexander Nevsky resulted. The collaborative work o f the Bauhaus School in Germ any from 1919 to 1933 involved the com ing together of painters,

FORMS OF VITALITY

sculptors, architects, dram atists, avant-garde film -m akers, musicians, and perceptual psychologists. Among the Bauhaus’ initial “m aster teachers” were Josef Albers, Laszlo M oholyNagy, Walter Gropius, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Lyonel Feininger. The goal of the Bauhaus School was to make a “build­ ing o f the future,” to “combine all the arts in an ideal unity.” Its influence was enorm ous, and affected som e o f the arts throughout the rest of the twentieth century. The work of Paul Klee provides a good example, He was inspired by all these influences, in particular m usic and architecture (D uchting, 1997). The subtitle of Duchting’s book, “painting music,” cap­ tures the spirit. In the mid-twentieth century there was the famous collabora­ tion between the composer John Cage, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, and the painter Robert Rauschenberg. Their guid­ ing notion was not to create a new art form, grander and more “total” as W agner had originally hoped for, but the opposite, to create a m ultim odal dissolution and deconstruction of estab­ lished forms and assumptions. (The dancers may have heard the music they were to dance to only just before the performance.) These are only some of the earlier collaborations directly or indirectly influenced by W agnerian ideas. (It cannot be forgot­ ten that cinema (see below), opera, and the Broadway musical are quintessentially collaborative art forms.) Attracted by the allure of the meta-modal, new collaborations continue to spring up. As an example, the Judson Dance Theater was one of m any groups in the dance explosion in New York dur­ ing the 1960s and 1970s. This group of experimental choreogra­ phers and theater artists turned mainly around Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton. The group was highly perm eable to influ­ ences from others who passed in and out and gave rise to other collaborations, such as the Yvonne Rainer Dance Co., Grand U nion (an improvisional ensemble), Contact Improvisation of

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown Dance Co., Douglas D unn Dance Co., David Gordon, Pick Up Co., Lucinda Childs, and others. In a sense, collaboration, in and of itself, became an art form, a living organism in constant change (Banes, 1987; Rainer, 2006). New coding systems that could capture dynamic features of any m ovem ent form could hardly catch up (with some exceptions, e.g. N oaEshkol). The w ork o f R o b ert W ilson created e x tra o rd in a ry new dynam ic form s of vitality in the lighting and scenic arrange­ ments, such that m uch of the dram a of dance and theater turned around or took off from visual effects. At tim es, in W ilson’s hands, the real dram a was in the lighting and other visual effects (Holmberg, 1996). In one way or another all of these collaborations are founded on the assum ption that at a fundam ental level time-based art is concerned largely, but not exclusively, with Langer’s “forms of feeling,” i.e. w ith vitality forms. In addition, the dynamics o f experience are revealed in all art forms because they speak the same m eta-m odal language of vitality form s w ith or w ithout identifiable emotions. Furtherm ore, the “language” o f vitality forms is applicable to ordinary, everyday movements (Rainer’s We Shall Run) and even to contact im provisation (Paxton’s Proxy). Vitality form s serve a similar function for interactions with pre-verbal infants or non-verbalizing adults as do m etaphors in the realm of the verbal and symbolic. Such forms are also used in the teaching of music (e.g. Emile Jaques-Dalcroze).

The problem of coding for the experience of vitality forms in music, dance, theater, and cinema Exactly how do vitality forms become translated into “the realm of the perceptible” in each art form?

FORMS OF VITALITY

Music Over m any centuries, m usic developed a system of m arking the dynamic features that make a performance faithful to the inten­ tions and impulses of the composer, and also provide a stand­ ard for evaluating individual interpretations. These codes, often called dynam ic m arkers, are well know n. However, as n o n ­ m usicians we often do n o t realize the very central place o f dynamic m arkers in com posing and playing music. Here are some of the codes that music uses to m ark dynamic forms and thus create vitality forms. ♦ The intensity (force) is indicated with signs or symbols: p (piano) = quietly, softer, weaker; pp (pianissimo) = very quietly; f (forte) = loud, stronger; ff (fortissimo) = m uch louder, stronger, etc. The term “dynamics” in music refers to loudness alone. However, the loudness is felt to reflect force by the listener. Indeed, to achieve a louder sound, a pianist m ust bring more weight over their hands, and the audience feels the force of that action (Alderman, 2007). The equivalent is true for any instrum ent. It is the body’s force plus gravity and intent that ultimately shape and express vitality forms. ♦ Changes in intensity, i.e. contouring the intensity in time, are marked with signs such as < = growing intensity (cre­ scendo) and > = decreasing intensity (decrescendo). These markings when played elicit specific vitality forms. ♦ Stress or accents are many. For example, sf (sforzando) calls for a sharp, strong “attack.” There m ust be bodily and m en­ tal preparation to unleash the power of a rapid blow. This is transm itted as a vitality form to the listener by way of our cross-modal perception and m irror neuron system. Short notes with dots under them (staccato) call for abrupt notes with distinct breaks between them, as opposed to legato,

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

where there is a sm ooth glide between notes. There is a sharp tripping as against a flow. ♦ The flow can be m arked with arches over a group o f notes to indicate that they should all flow together like a single phrase, or with a m ark to hold a note. In fact, m ost of the above indications m ay alter the flow. The flow of the music as heard is complicated. For instance, a repeated phrase has a different flow because the dynamics of its flow are expect­ ed the second time. The nature of sequences, and the expec­ tations that they fulfill or violate, play a large role, as do cultural norm s in our dynamic responses to flow patterns. ♦ M ore familiar is the speed (tempo), which is m arked by musical convention. In addition, the “spirit of the speed” is implied in the indications of allegro (light), andante (walking speed), and so on. These notations are not simply speeds, b u t help to make up the vitality form to be expressed. Progressive changes in speed are written as “ritardando” (slowing down) or “accelerando” (speeding up), etc., again creating micro-shifts in arousal. ♦ The rhythm is also indicated by conventions. Changes in rhythm immediately shift the orbit of arousal. W ith the developm ent from the harpsichord to the piano­ forte, with its greater dynamic possibilities, the need for written dynamic indicators became far greater. Some composers, such as B artok, use th em copiously. The extrem e dynam ics o f Beethoven provide a well-known display of vitality forms, an exercise in playing with our arousal level. In his fifth symphony, the first four sounds (two notes) are the famous, “da da da dah.” He establishes an initial level o f arousal and a specific vitality form. He takes this four-note dynamic/melodic theme through m any variations in intensity, speed, tim bre, color, and stress. For instance, sometimes the them e is preceded with a longish

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silence - isolated. It is then attacked with gusto and force - it stands alone. Arousal is heightened. At other times it is quieter and almost flows out of or into the surrounding sounds. O ur arousal shifts downw ard. It is placed som etim es higher and sometimes lower on the scale, or again different instrum ents may carry the theme. Beethoven’s subject m atter is nothing less than the vitality dynamics o f music and life. In another vein, the dynamic features of a musical piece can tell you w ithin seconds w hether it is rock, blues, country, or reggae, even when all are playing the same song. The dynamic features that differentiate them are clear when you know what to listen for, e.g. w hich notes in a m easure are stressed, etc. (Levitin, 2006). Using these dynamic markers, the rhythms and melodies with their variations and harmonies are imbued with the feel of being alive and vital. Dance Dance, like music, had to create a system o f codifying its basic elements (positions, gestures, and movements, plus partnering conventions). It also needed a way to m ark the dynamic forms that express in what m anner these “classroom steps” were to be performed. Late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Royal court dances in France (not true performances) developed conven­ tions for certain dynamic features. For example, the m ain stress, beat-m arker, was a “dow n” (bending the knees, like a curtsy) followed by a relatively strong rise “u p ” (O kam oto, 2008). These have been coded. The sharp “up” gives a mini-arousal jag a pleasing vitality form. Classical ballet developed its own conventions for positions, steps, jum ps, etc. Over several centuries dance, like m usic, developed a corpus of accepted elements (body positions, etc.).

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

However, unlike music, it had no standard comprehensive cod­ ing system. Dances, w hen n o t being danced, existed only in m emory, where in tim e they became distorted or slipped into oblivion. They needed a perm anent system of coding. As m od­ ern and im provisational dance grew, dance became less about telling a story with conventional positions and movements, and more about the play of vitality forces. R u d o lf Laban to o k up the problem and was the m o d ern “fath e r” of a dance n o tatio n system called “L abanotation” (Laban & Lawrence, 1947; Laban, 1956). His work began in the 1920s and 1930s, well before adequate video recordings. Even now m any dance companies still use Labanotation (along with video) because it is hard to get everything needed from all of the dancers on video, even with several cameras. He wanted a system whereby any dancer, from anywhere, at any point in tim e could reproduce a dance with technical fidel­ ity, without ever having seen it performed. Therefore he created a basic graphic system to code the positions o f the legs, feet, body, arms, hands, and head, as well as the steps, movements, jumps, etc. In addition, the direction, durations, and rhythm of all of these are scored. That is the backbone. The graphic record is written vertically so that left, right, and center are easily read. The music is written alongside the vertical record in parallel. Laban was also sensitive to what he called “the spiritually vital­ izing effect” of dance - of rendering movement so as to capture the inner feeling - and the need to allow for and code different, even individual, interpretations (in short, the vitality forms of the dance). To capture the uniqueness of an interpretation he needed w ritten dynamic indicators. He also had to be able to distinguish a technical performance from a creative interpreta­ tion. To cite Macaulay (2007) describing a ballerina: “Thousands of dancers can do these classroom steps, but who will make us care about them the same way?” To address this lack, Laban

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added a repertoire of “stresses,” “flows,” and “effects” to the basic system. Accordingly every movem ent is scored along three stress dimensions: strong-light, direct-flexible, and sustained quick. So “punching” w ould be a strong/direct/quick m ove­ m ent, whereas “floating” w ould be light/flexible/sustained. These stresses and others help to capture the “flow,” or what he called the “action-character of an elaborate m otif.” He also coded the “initial impulse” that is added to the funda­ m ental m ovem ent and a “preparatory effect” (the movements to get ready), and other features to capture the vitality form. The attention that Laban devoted to capturing the dynamic features of dance is impressive because, in a sense, that was sec­ ondary to establishing a notation system for the basic categorical elements (the classroom steps). Some dynamic features are almost impossible to code; there is no language or sign system for them . Two exam ples from Jerome Robbins’ choreography are telling. A dancer was told to suddenly tu rn h er h ead sharply to the side, at 90 degrees. She did, and it looked fine, but it was n ot exactly what Robbins wanted, so he said, “T urn it like you had been slapped in the face, h ard .” W hen she did that the effect was quite different. M any of the dancers he worked with cited him as often saying “Do it faster ... only slower.” There was an explosion of m odern dance in the 1930s, p ar­ ticularly in Germany and the USA by choreographers such as Harald Kreutzberg, Yvonne Georgi, Doris Hum phrey, Isadora Duncan, and M artha Graham (see Jowitt, 1988). They greatly inspired a burst of exploration of new forms during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Dynamic experience was examined more, in and o f itself, and choreographers looked to non-linear, ra n ­ dom, non-narrative forms. They found inspiration in improvi­ sation and the ordinary movements and objects of everyday life (e.g. M erce Cunningham , Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, and

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

R obert W ilson, am ong m any). However, no new system atic coding systems for dynamic features were developed for these changes. The composition of working groups was in m ore flux. Im provised moves are h ard to score and usually highly indi­ vidual. Dances were often created in rehearsal or even during the performance. In short, a new perm anent coding system was less of a priority. M odern dance has been in the avant-garde in exploring the dynamics of m ovem ent and experience, and o f working w ith vitality forms in general. Their influence, both direct and indirect, is wide. This is particularly true for all non-verbal, movementbased psychotherapies that touch upon vitality forms. The work of W arren Lamb (1965) straddles the arts and the behavioral-psychological dom ains. Influenced by Laban and m odern dance, he added m any new descriptions and terms to address the problem of forms of dynamic experience. He broke m ovem ent dow n into two m ain categories, nam ely posture, involving the continual adjustment of all body parts, and gesture, where the action is confined to only a part or parts of the body. This permits him to think in terms of the merging of gesture and posture. Think of throwing a ball. The arm gesture and the body adjustments that carry the arm gesture are generally merged in a well-coordinated athlete. They start and stop together, or flow sm oothly into one another. Someone who has never throw n a ball will, at first try, have m om ents where only gesture or only posture is in m otion at a given time. The act looks clumsy. O n the o th er hand, the partial uncoupling o f the m erger between gesture and posture can also create stunning effects. This is frequently seen in comedy, particularly slapstick. In dram a, too, it forces the audience to see freshly; it can act to deconstruct (e.g. Robert W ilson’s work) (Holmbherg, 1996). Lamb also described these two categories in term s o f their effort and shape, w hich can always vary and can be m atched

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or not. D ifferent vitality form s result from the variations o f effort and shape that allow one to speak o f force, speed, decel­ eration, acceleration, pow er, strength, flexibility, etc. For instance, during a dramatic m om ent a ballerina is to run on to the stage from the wings to m eet her lo v e r-p a rtn e r, to be reunited. She enters on beat with the music. It looks banal. The choreographer then says to her, “W ait a half beat before enter­ ing, then ru n and catch up the beat by the time you reach him .” All of a sudden you feel her burst, her effort, her desire to get to her partner. The entrance is now dramatic. She has a pressing immediate goal. M any term s th a t encom pass vitality form s are defined in terms of the merging of gesture and posture, and the matching of effort and shape (e.g. growing, shrinking, spreading, enclos­ ing, freeing, binding, and others). This work applies to the arts, psychology, the workplace, sports, or wherever else the dynam ­ ic dimension of experience is relevant. Paxton’s w ork on “contact im provisation” calls for another kind of system for coding because the “action” is m ore on the dynamics of making and breaking physical contact between two bodies in spontaneous m otion (Paxton, 1993, 2008). This is closer to aspects o f a relational psychoanalytic session when viewed n o t after it is over, b u t from the middle o f the session when one does n o t know w hat will happen next, where each m ove is co-created on the spot and dependent on what h ap ­ pened immediately before. Janet Goodridge (1999), among others, explores the dynamic features of tim e and rhythm in performance events, including dance, dram a, and ceremony. She holds rhythm to be a basic building block for social ties, cultural styles, and individual per­ sonalities - w hat she calls the “signature characteristics of the movement-personality of an individual” (p. 129). We could call this an aspect o f their repertoire o f vitality form s. She also

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

describes differences in the dynamic features o f perform ance in different cultures (a fascinating subject th a t is beyond the scope of this book). The clinical fallouts from dance and m usic have included dance therapy, m ovement therapy, music therapy, Feldenkrais, and others. M any of these practitioners have been dancers or m usicians as well as tra in ed clinicians. They are extrem ely sensitive to the m yriad vitality forms they encounter in their work. They are experts in the realm of dynamics, but rarely call w hat they do “working with dynamics,” although that is exactly what they do better than most. Therefore, w ith dance as w ith music, great effort has gone into theory making and devising systems to capture the features th a t brin g fo rth vitality form s. The arts have paid far m ore attention to this aspect o f experience than has psychology. They have had to do so, as they w ant to express the aliveness and vitality of hum an movem ent and sound. Theater Theater is played in real time, but the story unfolds in narrative time. The two weave in and out. To avoid the complication of a narrative timeline, and focus m ore purely on the vitality forms b o rn o f arousal profiles, I have chosen a short stretch o f a “theater piece” by Robert Wilson. It has no words, and is a sort o f dance-theater. The excerpt is taken from “Bob’s Breakfast” (Wilson, Stern, & Bruschweiler-Stern, 2009). The basic m ate­ rial for the piece is draw n from W ilson’s experience during breakfast one m orning. It concerns how he projects his inner world of imagined or recalled events out onto the stage. How is this transposition made? A very detailed interview takes place w ith W ilson a few hours after his breakfast, which he ate in bed. This interview is called a “micro-analytic interview” (see Chapter 7) (Stern, 2004).

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W ilson is asked what he experienced during breakfast. A short portion of his breakfast experience is chosen - a m inute or so of real tim e. Everything he experienced during th a t short tim e is asked about (e.g. movements, thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies, blanks, sensations, shifts in stance, w hat he saw, heard, etc.). The interview lasts several hours in order to cover the several minutes of lived experience. After the interview is over, Wilson is asked, unexpectedly for him, to make a theater piece o f his breakfast experience. By doing this, we obtained an account of his private subjective experience and its projection onto a pub­ lic stage. The following fragment comes from the theater piece that resulted. (It is to be read as follows: all actions that can be seen or heard by the audience are written in bold type, and all commentaries are written in italics.) There is a “cling” from a small bell coming from somewhere off stage. Our nervous system and m ind are thereby p u t on alert.

An actor enters from back-stage-left and runs downstage at a moder­ ate speed. He starts to circle the whole downstage counterclockwise from left to right, then upstage and around again. His arms are not swinging forward and back as much as they should, given his stride and speed. R ig h t aw ay there is som ething unusual. Where is he going? A n d w hy doesn’t he swing his arms like someone really running? The arm position is odd. Our interest is piqued and arousal rises, carrying curiosity. B u t the legs are running normally. [There is a disjunction between posture and gesture in Lam b’s terms.]

The runner makes large circles. This is no longer everyday running. Yet there is rapid enough forward movement. We sense the forward movement, in and fo r itself. I t becomes a presentation o f forward movement. I t makes you aware o f the feel o f forward motion. He is not going anywhere, he is ju s t going. A n d he is not running, he is ju st moving forward. We are dealing with dynamic essences. We are watching “moving along,” “getting somewhere,” achieved through vitality forms.

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

He makes seven circles. They increase progressively in speed and tightness. A fter several circles, the running becomes boring, the level o f arousal falls back and the audience’s attention is released and moves from the runner to the background which the audience has not y et had time to take in. There is a flying ladder, a hanging tree, a wooden divan and chair. The background comes forward in the viewer’s perception. [Wilson often builds in boredom on purpose, to let arousal fall back so he can build it up again, or to change the perceptual field.] The entire scene would be lit with a diagonal wash o f light, very airy. The flying ladder would be lit specially. A n d the hanging tree would have its own light from above so its shadows are thrown on the floor. Attention has been flipflopped from action to set. Wilson is choreographing shifts in our attention, arousal and dynamic experience.

The runner starts to pick up speed and the circles become even tighter. This change in speed pulls our attention back to the runner. I t is the equiv­ alent o f an accelerando in music. We get a slight arousal jag. Something is going to happen. H e has to be going "somewhere.” The action is building to a crisis. A big crisis?A mini-crisis?A simple resolution? We don’t know. The arousal mounts higher. A new vitality dynamic takes over. H e stops.

His arms are held at his sides but his hands are extended outwards, horizontally, palms down. His head is turned away from the divan. He is facing the back of the stage, in frozen stillness. The fu ll stop resolves the momentary crisis o f his accelerating speed. B u t not completely. The motion is replaced by stillness as the regulator o f arousal. The stillness is juxtaposed against the arrested motion and is thus high­ lighted. W e have reached a new semi-stable point, a different arousal state and different vitality form. Ax the freeze continues, the crisis o f the abrupt stop is resolved, b u t the freeze is unstable. Tension builds again. He can’t remain frozen. I t needs its own resolution. The suspense is stretched by the 'elongated duration o f the arrested movement. W e have been prepared in steps or cycles o f augm enting tension. N ow something m ust happen.

“Cling” (from offstage) We are re-alerted for something else.

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Im mediately after the “cling” the actor abruptly swings his head around to look at the divan and pauses. His arms rise slowly outwards to the side. The runner is now looking a t something. There is a clear focus for the first time. A n d we now see the divan, as i f fo r the first time. The entire space has a different shape. A s Wilson puts it, the actor becomes the “witness for the audience" o f this shift in focus and space shape. We feel the dynamics o f attention in motion.

The actor holds this pose for an extended moment. H e can’t stay like that. Towards w hat action will he break the stillness? Again a new crisis is prepared fo r and the level o f arousal mounts.

“Cling” We are about to begin anew. The turning and looking that occurs between the two “clings” is a kind o f transition that serves as an articulation between two main events. H e starts a slow m ovement towards the divan; he is vigilant, as i f the divan were sacred or dangerous. A new crisis builds. In approaching the divan, he takes three slow-motion high steps as i f step­ pin g over something. This is accompanied by loud whooshing, exhaling sounds that crescendo. The tension grows.

With his fourth step he straddles the divan and very very slowly lets himself down on it, sitting astride. He then lies back against it, and stretches out. The tension o f the odd approach to the divan and the slow sitting down has been progressively resolved. Arousal slowly decreases. We relax. The theater piece continues ...

The entire piece consists of cycles of contraction and relaxation, crisis and resolution, tension and release, and shifts in vitality forms, in particular, variations of tension build-up and release, as in m odern dance. These waves carry the dram a and move it. They are the flesh of the “narrative.” They arrive one after the other, several a minute. They are not like the long ocean swells

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

o f crisis-catharsis o f a Shakespearean tragedy. They are n o t “content waves.” They are the short “process waves” of dynam ­ ic experience, of vitality forms that paint the unfolding feel o f a m ental landscape. Concerning the “translation” from inner musings to theatri­ cal enactment, m any of the “translations” have to do with vital­ ity forms that provide the com m on thread. For instance, lying in bed during breakfast, W ilson periodically leaned his head back against a pillow, while closing his eyes and then bringing his head forward. This was his characteristic way to “say” to himself “clear this and go on to the next.” This small act would be largely lost on stage, so in the “translation” it becomes the “c l i n g ”

of the bell. This serves to shift the arousal and m ental

state of the audience to be readied for the next happening. D uring the real breakfast experience, W ilson felt th a t his thoughts were not quite getting anywhere. They were moving along, but w ithout arriving. This feel of the thought process at breakfast is “translated” into the actor running in circles that do n o t arrive for a while, and only then at an unstable resolution. W ilson progresses from the vitality dynam ics o f m en tal m otions in his m ind at breakfast to the vitality dynam ics o f bodily m ovem ent on stage. Cinema C inem a is the ultim ate m ixed art form . It can create vitality forms through its own unique means as well as simultaneously through any of the other art forms that operate under its r o o f music, the m ovem ent and gesture of the characters, theatrical effects, visual-scenic effects, language, and narrative. These can operate in various combinations. Cinema also has techniques, belonging to the film m edium alone, that craft the dynamic feel of experience. We shall confine our discussion to those markers of vitality forms that belong uniquely to cinema.

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The follow ing d iscussion relies heavily on th e w ork of R aym ond Bellour, and in particular on an analysis entitled “System o f a Fragm ent (on The Birds)” (Bellour, 1979). It is interesting that Bellour does a micro-analysis of film, working with units lasting only seconds, using stop frame, replay, fast forward, and slow m otion - all the techniques that baby watch­ ers use to analyze the “ordinary choreography” between m other and infant (Stern, 1971, 1977,1985). Some term inology for the technical and structural com po­ nents of cinema m ay be helpful. A “frame” is a single still photo­ graph. W hen a series of (usually slightly different) frames is shown at a rate of one every split second (every 1/24 o f a second in most, older, traditional films), it results in a continuous m ov­ ing image (the “movies”). This moving image is a “shot.” Shots last seconds, w ith an average duration of several seconds, but w ith great variability in duration. A shot is usually, b u t not always, the basic psychological u n it o f a film (Deleuze, 1969; Metz, 1974;Bellour, 1979).Itcorrespondstoa“presentm om ent,” a Gestalt of m any sequential elements lasting usually from 1 to 10 seconds, m aking up a vitality form that can be grasped in consciousness as one “w hole” (Stern, 2004). A shot usually begins and ends when there is a change in subject, or characters, or place, or tim e, or cam era m ovem ent, angle, or distance. Several shots that bear some relatedness make up what is called a “sequence,” “segm ent,” or sometim es a “scene.” W ith that m uch we can proceed.

What are the tools available to cinema, uniquely, in creating vitality forms? The framing of the picture is one such tool. The camera can be close to or distant from the subject (long shot, m edium shot, close shot, close up). The distance is akin to intensity. The closer the camera, the m ore the attention is focused and arousal is

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

ratcheted up. Close-ups have an intrinsic force because they violate our established body boundaries and comfortable dis­ tances. They create a burst of arousal that prepares the body for some kind of action (e.g. to touch, kiss, hit, pull back). In addi­ tion, the camera can alter the distance w ithout altering the sub­ ject by progressively m oving from far to close. This is the equivalent o f a crescendo in music, where the dynamics change from weak to strong. The rate of such a progression will deter­ m ine the force o f the effect. The reverse is true for the decre­ scendo of moving from close to far, leading to the sense of a step back, a relaxation of tension, and a psychological “distancing” a distinct vitality form. The camera can also rem ain still, m aking a static shot, or it can move to follow the action of the story. Just as there is closedistant there is static-movem ent. In m any situations (seebelow) the camera alternates shots between close and distant, between static and moving, and especially between subject m atter seen in the picture frame, in what Bellour calls an “alternating narra­ tive syntagm .” This perm its m any different dynam ic effects. It forces an exclusive focus on just one slice of all that is going on in the film. For example, the camera can focus on only the face of an actor watching something else, where the something else is outside the frame and unseen to the film viewer. Then in the next shot the film viewer sees what is happening, b u t not the face of the actor who is also watching. (There are variations of th is.) The cam era can th e n go back an d fo rth a lte rn a tin g betw een the tw o. (This is n o t possible in m usic o r dance. Peripheral attention or inattention is not a substitute for “out o f the picture.”) W hen the viewer sees the watching face of the actor, they cannot know what is happening in the alternate shot. They can only imagine. W hen the camera switches back to what is happening, the viewer cannot know how it is being registered on the face of the watcher. This can create m ore sharply defined

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expectations and violations w ith their concom itant arousal effects, dynamically m odulating the tension of anticipation. The work of montage and editing can also build up tension by accelerating the alternation betw een shots. This creates the counterpart of an accelerando in music. The rate of acceleration of the alternation is intuitively calculated in the viewer’s m ind so that the m om ent of crisis or m eeting or collision is readily predictable. As it approaches, the director can lift us out of our seats by increasing the rate o f acceleration exponentially, or he or she can play with our excitement by slowing the established pace and retarding the predicted end-point in a variety of ways. Alternatively, the tim ing of the vitality form and the narrative line can be placed contrapuntally. All of these techniques play with diverse vitality forms. A short example from Bellour’s analysis of Hitchcock’s film The Birds follows. W e shall focus on only a very small part of the richness of Bellour’s m ore complete and detailed analysis, and render it in skeletal form. W e shall take up only the theme o f a m an and wom an about to meet, and deal only with arousal and its vitality forms. The story up to now is that Melanie and M itch recently first m et at a party, and were m utually attracted. She wants to see him again and uses the excuse of buying a b irthday present (lovebirds) for his little sister. She drives to a pier on a small bay, gets an outboard-m otored rowboat, and m otors across the bay to M itch’s house. No one is there. She leaves the present and starts back across the bay to the pier she left from. As she is m otoring the boat back, she sees M itch return in his car. She sees him and he sees her across a widening distance of water. We have already been set up for a possible meeting. That narra­ tive is in place. The question now is how Hitchcock is going to contour our dynamic experience so that an ultimate meeting will have dynam ic flesh. H ere is m y very short rendering o f the

VITALITY FORMS IN MUSIC, DANCE, THEATER, AND CINEMA

prelude of m eeting, stripped o f all the other them es th a t are being enacted (Bellour, 1979, pp. 44-47). Shot no. 63. W e see M itch’s house from a m edium distance o u t o n the w ater where M elanie’s boat is. He is driving o u t of his driveway (to m eet her where she will land). The camera moves w ith him . He is in action. W e do not see her. Shot no. 64. W e see Melanie looking towards the car. She is fram ed from waist up. Static. W e do n o t see M itch’s car moving. Shot no. 65. A long sh o t o f w hat M elanie sees - M itc h ’s car m oving around the bay to the place where she will land. Shot no. 66. A nother shot o f M elanie looking at M itch’s car [the alter­ nating narrative]. B ut now th e cam era has m over closer h e r im age is larger. She is fram ed roughly from the b u st up. [Is this progression in her size the beginning o f a crescendo in the force o f w hat is being fe lt —the prelude to meeting?] Shot no. 67. A nother shot o f M itch driving aro u n d the bay. The fram ­ ing is m uch closer now . H e is approaching. [Are two crescendos being aligned, as in a duet?] Shot no. 68. A gain o f M elanie in th e boat. O ne m ig h t have expected th a t the size o f her fram ed im age (closeness) w ould have co n tin u ed to increase w ith the anticipated m eeting w ith M itch an d the strength o f feelings carried in th at. B ut h er im age (its fram ing) has n o t come closer. [Is this an interruption in the progression towards meeting? Has the progression been temporarily suspended for some reason?] S hot no. 69. M itch ’s car is n o w m u c h closer. The cam era m oves in further following his progress. Shot no. 70. W e see M elanie’s face again, looking. It is now fram ed as a close-up. The progression o f h er com ing closer has resum ed, a n d with it the force o f her presence, and o f her anticipation. Shots nos 71, 73, and 75. M itch gets closer and arrives. Shots nos 72, 74, and 76. W e see M elanie’s face again. B ut she is n o t g etting closer (i.e. fram ed closer). The progression has been halted. [Is something else going on?] Shots nos 77, 78, and 79. A bird swoops dow n from the sky and strikes M elanie on the head. The altern atio n betw een shots o f M elanie and

Chapter 6

When do Vitality Forms Begin? A Developmental View

Treating or even thinking about young infants makes little sense unless arousal and m ovement and its dynamics are placed at the center. This is especially true when considering the behavior of fetuses, preemies, and neonates. Often sensitivity to stim uli is confused w ith vitality form s, and there is greater discussion about sensitivity in the clinical literature. O ur central focus is on the subjective aspects o f arousal shifts and vitality forms. W e shall start chronologically with the objective behavioral evidence, i.e. physical movement. This account is selective, not inclusive.

The normal fetus M ovement begins very early in development. This supports the idea th a t m ovem ent is p rim ary in ontology and so are the arousal systems. Active flexion of the spine is often described as early as 5-6 weeks of gestation. Presumably the arousal systems are already active. Arousal-triggered behaviors can be reliably observed as early as 10 weeks of gestation (de Vries, Visser, & Prechtl, 1982, 1984; Piontelli, 2001, 2002, 2007). It m ust be recalled that the cortex at this point in time is only a thin layer of cells on the top of the brain, so no behaviors can be attrib­ uted to it at this stage.

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Piontelli places observable behaviors in the fetus during the early m onths of gestation into three m ain groups: “generalized movements,” “partial movement,” and special movements. The generalized movements involve the relatively slow, dance-like, diffuse turnings of head, body, arms, and legs, all together, last­ ing seconds. The whole body is in m otion. These m ovements are frequent up to 13 weeks o f gestation, and th en steadily decline until 17 weeks, when they fall dramatically but continue infrequently. The “partial m ovements” are discrete movements of only one part of the body. They are like gestures, and include touching the umbilical cord, or the face or other body parts, turning the head, and opening the m outh. They appear to be directional. They are infrequent from 10 to 12 weeks and then increase until the 14th week, by which tim e they have become far m ore fre­ quent than the generalized movements. These generalized and partial movements are not stereotypic. They are different each tim e as if “soft assembled” depending on the infant’s position in the wom b at that m om ent. This is im p o rtan t because we assum e th a t they are n o t reflexes b u t rather the result o f spontaneous activity in the arousal centers that trigger different body parts, which are assembled in slightly different patterns depending on the physical conditions at that m oment. The “special movements” include startles, hiccups, swallowing, and breathing-like movements. The startles are particularly inter­ esting. They are spontaneously generated in the brainstem (Prechtl, 1984), and are the most frequent behavior until 13 weeks, During these early weeks, the generalized movements are trig­ gered (“propulsed,” according to Piontelli, 2007), by a preceding startle, as if the generalized movement had to be jump-started by a jolt of arousal in the form of a startle. Partial movements, on the other hand, occur without triggering by startles (Prechtl, 1984).

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W here in all this amazing m ovem ent can one find a hint of the experience o f vitality forms? Evidence for some form o f intentionality would provide a clue. However, these early move­ ments appear to be “ballistic.” All the “thrownness” o f the ini­ tial impulse to move dissipates or ends with no course correction or refining en route. However, there is no route in the sense o f a goal that needs to be reached. There appears to be no inten­ tionality at first. There is an endpoint, however, provided by the anatom y or the environment. W hen the legs stretch o ut or kick they can only extend as far as the leg is long (and it is relatively very short compared with an older fetus) or it meets the uterine wall and stops. M oreover, the violence of ballistic action is attenuated by the liquid medium. By 16 weeks, it is clear that localized movements, particularly of the hands and arms, start to become progressively m ore con­ toured to flow as if there was a goal that needed to be adjusted to. The hand-to-face gesture is no longer so ballistic. It is shaped to arrive at a goal. One can see a deceleration as the target is reached. Prospective control o f m ovem ent starts to appear (Zoia et al., 2007). The m other of an 18-week-old fetus came in for a repeated echo (her last one was 2 weeks before at 16 weeks). The pregnancy was norm al. However, on seeing the m onitor when the echo started, the first thing the m other said was how m uch sm oother and m ore flowing the fetus’s m ovem ent was (Piontelli, personal communication). It is at this p o in t th a t one feels on m ore secure ground in speaking o f “an in te n tio n ” and a “course-correcting m echa­ nism ” that shapes the act. It is only now that one can begin to th ink o f vitality forms. However, m ore m aturation o f higher centers and greater interconnectivity will be required for a base from which m ore elaborated vitality forms can emerge. At this point, we would not know where to look in the central nervous system to find out when vitality forms come on line.

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Probably proprioception, goal-directed intentionality, and pre­ vitality forms are created together and will remain tied together for life. To summarize this point, it is not clear when one can speak of the beginning of vitality forms (and felt aliveness). Movement, p roprioception, and in ten tio n ality are all crucial elem ents. However, we know nothing of the integrative leap to a Gestalt that leads to the subjective experience of vitality. Towards the th ird trim ester o f pregnancy, a different phe­ nom enon provides m ore clues about the emergence of vitality forms. At about 6-7 m onths of gestation, when the fetus begins to perceive external sounds, either one of two melodies is played (experim ent 1), or alternatively the m other’s voice or another wom an’s voice saying exactly the same words (experiment 2) is played to the fetus (i.e. to the belly of the m other). This is done every day for m onths. Then, right after birth, the neonate, only hours old, shows th at he can recognize the m elody or voice presented to him while still a fetus (DeCasper & Fifer, 1980; DeCasper & Spence, 1986). This requires that the sounds heard in utero were perceived and registered in m em ory (before birth), and later (right after b irth ) recalled in some fashion. T hat requires some level of awareness and representation of vitality forms of the sound while still in the womb. Unless the baby, as b oth fetus and neonate, is attentive to vitality forms, it would n o t be possible for him to distinguish a particular voice (his m other’s) from the voices of other wom en saying exactly the same words in the same pitch range. This he can do.1 A closely related story can be traced in studying the ontogeny of sleep in preemies and neonates. M ost pertinent here is that em erging activity-rest cycles are the product o f “generalized arousal” and n ot the “special ascending arousal pathways” that probably control the “partial m ovem ents” m entioned above.

WHEN DO VITALITY FORMS BEGIN? A DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW | 1

These larger pattern s are endogenous and start to organize before 30 weeks o f gestation (Parmelee & Stern, 1972; Prechtl, 1984; Anders & Keener, 1985).2 In short, the story of fetal behavior is in large part the story of the developm ent o f the arousal systems and their initiation of m ovem ent and state change. These prepare the terrain for the later emergence of vitality forms.

The premature infant Als et al. (1994), Field (2003), and others have revealed to the field o f developmental pediatrics the particular fragilities of the pre­ m ature infant in dealing with stimulation and arousal tolerance. W ith detailed observation, drawn from the work with Brazelton’s Neonatal Assessment Scale (see below), Als and colleagues have shown that the average prem ature intensive-care unit is maladapted to the arousal thresholds of preemies. The lights are too bright, the noises are too loud, and likewise for tactile and kines­ thetic stimuli. For example, the decibel level in an incubator is extremely high, particularly when there is assisted breathing with air swooshing in and out, the lights are on all the time so that the staff can see the preemie 24 hours a day, the nurses and doctors come and go to visit the preemie on their own required schedule, at their speed, etc. And the baby is now subject to gravity. Als and colleagues docum ented all the signs of a stressed reg­ ulatory system for arousal. These include subtle signs, such as hiccoughing or going blue around the m outh, which usually go unnoticed. W hat makes regulation even harder for a preemie is that they do not readily habituate, so they rem ain vulnerable to the repetitive stimuli in the environm ent. In short, trapped in this nightm are, the preemies expend large am ounts of energy protecting themselves from exceeding their arousal tolerance. Fighting against overarousal becomes a vital function.3

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The neonate In the neonate, extensive research and clinical efforts are cen­ tered on the baby’s regulation o f arousal. Among the first and best kn o w n is the N e o n a tal B ehavioral A ssessm ent Scale (NBAS). This scale is designed to evaluate the baby’s individual capabilities, as well as their ability and style o f regulating the level of arousal in various stimulation contexts (visual, auditory, and tactile) (Brazelton, 1973; B razelton, N ugent, & Lester, 1987). The baby’s responses to each stim ulus, including the changes in his state, are quantified. His capacity to habituate and dishabituate represents im portant items on the scale. It is w orth n oting th at all o f the baby’s “answers” consist o f his m ovem ents. The dynam ic quality o f the m ovem ents further specifies the “answer.” The scale is used aro u n d the w orld to get a picture o f the baby’s stim ulus tolerance and style of arousal regulation. It is also used clinically, as a p sy c h o d ev e lo p m e n tal-p ed ia tric approach to help parents to learn the baby’s “language” and to deal w ith his individuality in the light o f their expectations (Bruschweiler-Stern, 2000).4

The early social life of the baby In the time period from roughly 2xh m onths to about 6 m onths of age, the baby’s repertoire starts to include social vocalizations and facial expressions that are responsive to his parent’s behav­ ior. The baby suddenly becomes a real partner. The p a re n tin fa n t in te ra c tio n s becom e m u tu a l a n d in fin ite ly richer. Face-to-face play becomes the main “game.” The eyes, face, vocal­ izations, gestures, and body tonus take center stage. Social play (face to face) then becomes one of the best windows for quickly obtaining a privileged view of the clinical situation. It reveals when parenting is easy or hard, natural or forced, intrusive, controlling,

WHEN DO VITALITY FORMS BEGIN? A DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW

disorganized, passive, aggressive, rejecting, etc. This can then guide treatment. Many authors have described such interactions in detail, including Stern (1971, 1977, 1985, 1990), Brazelton, Koslowski, & M ain (1974), Trevarthen (1977), Brazelton (1973, 1982), Trevarthen & Hubley (1978), Tronick et al. (1978), Beebe (1982), Tronick (1989), Fogel (1993), Stern & BruschweilerStern (1998), Beebe et al. (2005a,b), and m any others. In w hat sense are arousal and vitality form s at the center? W hen paren t and infant play, the stim uli for the baby come from the m o th e r’s eyes, face, body, and voice. Parents are a “sound-light show” for the baby, a spectacle to play upon their states of arousal. To understand how this works, a central sim ­ ple psychological principle m ust be kept in mind. As a stimulus gets stronger, the arousal that it evokes gets greater. In addition, the emotional coloring of the arousal gets stronger. The stim u­ lus can be visual, auditory, tactile, or just the degree o f novelty or intensity of expectation. The same principle applies to all. There are two im portant aspects o f this principle in real life. First, if the stim ulus strength is too low, the infant will not be very aroused and will rem ain u ninterested and inattentive. W hen the stim ulus is too strong and the arousal too high, it is aversive and the infant will try to tu rn it dow n or off. Babies learn their own special repertoire of behaviors to regulate stim ­ uli th at are too intense. They can simply tu rn their head away from the stimulus (which can feel like a rejection to the parent), or they can look straight at you but focus on the horizon. (This looking through you is an early form of selective inattention, perhaps even denial. It can drive parents to phantasies o f an autistic child, or of their non-existence in the baby’s eyes.) Some babies become experts in suddenly falling asleep. These are wide swings in arousal to downregulate their level of arousal. O ther babies become overloaded, their regulatory system fails, and they cry. These are the anlage o f defenses

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and coping m echanism s. They are necessary experiences for life (Stern, 1971, 1977, 1985). Moreover, they have distinctive vitality forms. The baby will be optim ally aroused to play and be happy in the zone a short time before he gets overstimulated. To keep the baby in this optimal zone for play, the parent m ust adjust their behavior, i.e. the stimulus value of their “sound-light show,” of the form s of vitality perform ed, m ust be not too low and not too high. So far we have discussed only the absolute level of the paren­ tal stimulation. Equally im portant are the vitality forms used in arriving at a given strength and in shifting it up and down. For instance, when m others speak to their babies, they use a p ar­ ticular prosody, “motherese” (Stern et ah, 1983; Fernald, 1984; Papousek, 1996). (Prosody, from our point of view, is the flow o f vitality form s.) H er pitch range becom es expanded. The musical elements are exaggerated, the speed is slower, the stress­ es m ore marked, etc. The same can be observed in her games and in the quality of her “sound-light show” in general. W ithout these vitality forms babies are m uch less engaged, if at all. H ab ituation is the second real-life aspect of the nature of arousal. Babies habituate rapidly, i.e. they respond less and less to a stimulus that is repeated, even if that stimulus was perfect the first tim e and aroused the baby optimally, and even caused a big smile. By the third or fourth tim e the parent does the same thing the baby will be disinterested. Habituation determines the basic structure of social interactive games with babies. To get around habituation and avoid a fall-off in the baby’s arousal, the parent m ust almost constantly change or vary their stimula­ tion, i.e. behavior (like the vitality forms of Beethoven’s theme). The result is a them e-and-variation form at of vitality forms.5 Some games are alm ost purely a play on vitality form , e.g. sudden almost explosive movements of the m other to tickle, or

W H EN DO V IT A LIT Y FORM S BEGIN ? A D EV ELO PM EN TA L V IE W j 1

progressively slowing down her m ovements to tease anticipa­ tion and ratchet up excitement while preparing for the “punch­ line,” or staccato patting to increase arousal, or slow contouring movements to calm. There is a whole world of vitality forms to play with.

Development of neurobiological aspects of arousal The neuroscientific thinking and evidence are largely concord­ ant w ith the behavioral findings described above. Hughlings Jackson (1931) p ut forth the idea that the structures laid down earliest, such as the brainstem, progressively expand and become integrated into the m ore complex organization of the higher centers as these are laid down later. The tem poral development o f the b rain is an ascending process in b o th evolution and ontogeny. Schore (2003) contributes to and reviews this hierar­ chical model, starting with Hughlings Jackson’s idea. In brief, Luria (1980) and then Luu & Tucker (1996) proposed that the later developing frontal cortical areas o f the b rain regulate arousal th ro u g h in h ib ito ry and facilitating processes th a t em erge during the first year o f life. This opens the door for social influences to act on the developm ent of this regulatory process during the form ative first year of life. It also opens a door for the arousal systems to function largely unregulated by frontal cortical areas, at least for a period of early postnatal life (see also Dubowitz et a l, 1986). At birth, only the amygdala (involved in em otional regula­ tion) is on line to regulate brainstem arousal systems (Chugani, 1996). It m atures rapidly over the first 2 m onths after birth. Therefore it is little open to early social influence. The cerebral cortex does n o t start to m ature rapidly u ntil the eighth week postpartum , when a general psychobiological developm ental leap occurs (Emde & Harm on, 1984; Yamada et a l, 2000), and

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it then goes through a critical period of growth from roughly 10 to 18 m onths (Schore, 2004). These data come mostly from observations o f postnatal devel­ opment. Nonetheless, it is generally supportive of the ideas and findings already described, nam ely an early independence of the arousal systems from regulation by higher centers; the remarkable specificity of the arousal systems acting w ithout or with m inimal cortical regulation, and the openness of the early developing nervous system to social and cultural influence. Finally, we come back to the view of the prim acy of m ove­ m ent and its dynamic features as the developmental infrastruc­ ture for what will follow.

Further questions about the experience and representation of vitality forms in development An initial question arises. W hy did nature plan for babies not to speak and not to understand words for the first year or so of their lives? O ur answer would be, infants have too m uch to learn about the basic processes and structures of interpersonal exchange. In particular, they have to learn the forms of dynamic flow that carry social behaviors. In addition, they have to learn this before language arrives to mess it all up. The basic structures are all non-verbal, analogic, dynamic Gestalts that are n ot compatible with the discontinuous, digital, categorical nature of words. W hat does the baby have to learn in these first 12-18 months? The list includes what you do with your eyes when with another, how long to hold a m utual gaze, what turn-off head movements work, and with whom, how close you should let the other come to you and at what speeds (or you to them , and what distance for whom ), what you do with your face (and with whom ), how to kiss, how to read body positions, how to solicit another for

W H EN DO V ITA LITY FORMS BEG IN ? A D EV ELO PM EN TA L V IE W I 1 H

food, for physical contact, or to play, what the rules of “peek-aboo” or “I’m gonna get-cha” are, how to enter into tu rn taking when vocalizing with another, how to greet or not greet your m other for a reunion when she returns after a separation, and how to joke around, negotiate, escalate, back off, and express affection, m ake friends, and so on. M uch of this knowledge heavily involves vitality forms. W e have term ed such knowledge implicit relational knowing. It is non-conscious and non-verbal. Karlen Lyons-Ruth (1998) and the Boston Change Process Study Group (BCPSG, 2002) (of which I am a member) have addressed this rich dom ain that infants m u st m aster to get on in their interpersonal worlds. Defining implicit relational knowing has drawn on distinctions made by m any cognitive psychologists, which we have adapted to apply to the relational domain. The vitality form s of interpersonal happenings are part of im plicit relational knowing. One needs m uch dynamic infor­ m ation to recognize how someone moves, how they get angry and when their anger will crest, or concerning their attention, when are they really, fully “there,” etc. The suggestion is as follows. In the earliest stages o f life, the in fa n t is first or p red o m in an tly sensible to vitality form s. M ovement is the m ost prim ary event and the m ost salient, but m ovem ent does n o t com e alone. M ovem ent takes tim e to unfurl. It necessarily traces a tem poral profile. And once the infant has experienced intentional action and effort, even in a primitive form, m otion will be imbued with force. The elements for generating the Gestalt of dynamic vitality forms are present i.e. m ovem ent and her four daughters. Along w ith this, the infant early on is largely m ultim odal. Experience is m ultisensory because the qualitative aspects o f the m odalities are n o t yet fully discrim inated. However, the vitality forms are. If this were so, stimulation from any sensory

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modality would first be experienced as a dynamic flow of move­ ment, contoured in time, im bued with force, and with an inten­ tional direction. T hat is to say, it w ould be a vitality form , a Gestalt of the fundam ental dynamic pentad. Vitality forms could thus exist for the very young, b u t with m ultim odal content. This notion picks up on ideas m entioned above, such as a “sensori-tonic field” (W erner & W apner, 1949). These ideas raise another question. Do fetuses and young infants have, or even need, modality-specific sensory inform a­ tion in the womb or right after birth? Such inform ation could be acquired after birth w ith appropriate experience th at cul­ tures need to sculpt. This idea is compatible with the new find­ ings o n m u ltis e n s o ry n e u ro n s (see above) a n d general, interconnectivity within the brain. Stimuli can be divided into mainly static stimuli (or stepwise sequential) and continuously changing dynamic stimuli. We would expect the dynamic stimuli to be in place first developm entally, and th e static stim u li to be differen tiated later. However, while this is often true, it is not universally so. Some static stimuli are slower to develop. For example, only at about 2 m onths of age can infants discriminate color, when brightness is controlled (Bornstein, 1981). Small changes in musical ampli­ tude (of 10 decibels) cannot be discriminated until 5-8 m onths (Olsho et al., 1982). On the other hand, different smells, like their own m o th e r’s m ilk, are discrim inated days after b irth (MacFarlane, 1975), b u t n o t necessarily at birth before they have had several exposures to this smell. The taste of sweetness and perhaps bitterness can be discrim inated at birth from the other basic tastes. However, young infants appear not to dis­ crim inate between salt and sour (Rosenstein & Oster, 1988). Infants aged only 1 m onth can discrim inate the syllables /ba/ and /pa/. These appear to be categorical differences, b u t a closer

WHEN DO VITALITY FORMS BEGIN? A DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW

look shows that they are micro-dynamic, having to do with the rise tim e of sound in “plosives” (the “p ” and “b ”) (Eimas, et al., 1971). The situation is complicated in that different modalities may have different timetables for discrim ination among static stimuli because of anatomic, physiologic, and evolutionary fac­ tors as well as how they are “psychologically” packaged. Still, the possibility exists that for m any modalities the dynamic fea­ tures m ay be psychologically registered very early and, m ost importantly, before the static features. But does a fetus have or even need modality-specific sensory inform ation in the w om b or right after birth? Such inform a­ tion could be acquired after birth with appropriate experience. This is compatible with the new findings on m ultisensory neu­ rons (see above) a n d general in terco n n ectiv ity w ith in the brain. Relative to this line of thinking, the right side of the neonate’s brain is the m ore dom inant side (Chiron e ta l, 1997). Moreover, it is know n th at the right side is better for holistic, synthetic, and multisensory tasks (Schore, 2004). This does n o t adequately explain the nature of early n o n ­ verbal representations, except to suggest th a t they are built around a central core of vitality forms. We shall have to wait for research advances to understand this further.

Another take on vitality forms in infancy In C hapter 3, I suggested the n o tio n of “affect attu n em en t” (vitality form matching), where the m other uses her own behav­ ior to m atch the vitality form of the infant. It is a partial and “purposely” selective kind of imitation. She imitates faithfully the dynamic features, b u t with a different content in a different modality. The concept o f affect attunem ent has been widely used as clinically helpful, but it has often been confounded with

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m aternal sensitivity, appropriateness, or “good m othering.” It is certainly part of all these, but has a m ore restricted sense. Affect attunem ent reflects the m other’s attem pt to share the infant’s subjective experience, n o t his actions. Alm ost every­ thing the baby does traces some dynamic form. The m other’s frequent attuning re-establishes the inter subjective field b et­ ween them, using vitality forms. The distinction between dynamic features and the content/ m odality features becomes useful here. In affect attunem ent, the m other matches the dynamic features of how the baby acted. This assures the baby that she grasps what he did. However, she does not match the content and modality of the infant’s action. Instead, she makes her own choice of m odality and content. This assures the baby that she understood, within herself, w h a t, it felt like to do what he did. It is not an imitation, because she put it “into her own words” - it carries her signature. It is some­ thing she felt, too. She wants a matching o f inner states. This m ay sound complicated, b u t parents have the intuitive sensibility and empathy to do all this without thinking. There is also “u n d e r-attu n em en t” and “over-attunem ent” (Stern, 1985). For example, a child expresses delight in using a toy machine gun found in a friend’s house, and lets out a yelp of joy. If the m other is not delighted but does not want to squash his enthusiasm entirely, or censor him in public, she can underattune. In this situation, if the child’s yelp was quite intense and prolonged, she can let out a sound th a t is considerably lower in intensity and o f slightly shorter duration. In other w ords, she “p u rp o sely ” m ism atches the dynam ic features and returns a vitality form to the child that says “I am not as enthusiastic about that machine gun as you are - in fact, I dis­ courage it, b u t I do u n d erstan d th a t you are enthusiastic.” Similarly, “over-attunem ent” can encourage as m uch as “underattunem ent” can discourage.

WHEN DO VITALITY FORMS BEGIN? A DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW

In this fashion, the m atching/m ism atching of vitality forms can shape what the infant does and how he feels about doing it. It is like sculpting his m ind from the inside out. It is a powerful tool in the parent’s ongoing socialization of the infant into the family and wider culture. It has another advantage. It is well suited for negotiations. It is not a set of rules. It opens the door to the diplom atic dealings that characterize the compromises about w hat you can and cannot do, and w here are the real lim its to be set in d iffe re n t contexts. These n e g o tia tio n s are essential for learning some degree o f subtleness in ordinary dealings w ith others. V itality form s play a large p a rt in all of this. Indeed, one could imagine that affect attunem ent could play an im portant part in the “clinical” shaping of behavior. Markova & Legerstee (2006) asked what kinds of m aternal responses are m ost successful in prom oting infant social awareness and posi­ tive responsiveness. Three different theories frequently referred to suggested different answers. The authors compared m aternal “contingency,” “im itation,” and “affect sharing” (affect attune­ m ent) at 5 and 13 weeks of infant age. Contingency is the m odel suggested by the work of Gergely & W atso n (1999) and Gergely et al. (1995). “C on tin g en cy ” describes the m other responding consistently to infant behavior with faithful imitations within a temporally defined delay. They found that until about 12 weeks, infants are m ore attracted to m aternal stim uli that are perfectly contingent with their own behavior. After 12 weeks, infants respond socially more to m ater­ nal responses that have high but not perfect contingency - that are “nearly, b u t clearly not, m e,” thus shifting the focus from self to the other. Secondly, M eltzoff & Gopnik (1993) and others suggest that m aternal im itation (not necessarily tightly contingent) would interest and please infants most.

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The third model is that of affect attunem ent (matching vital­ ity forms). The focus is on the inner state. This is best seen in spontaneous interactions. The results of the controlled study by M arkova & Legerstee (2006) showed th a t the condition o f affect attunem ent p ro ­ duced m ore gazing time at the m other, m ore smiles, m ore pos­ itive vocalizations, and fewer negative vocalizations compared with the condition of contingency or the imitation condition. Such a result is not surprising in light of all the work, cited above, on the nature of spontaneous parental behavior in inter­ actions, and its evolutionary fittedness for the preferences and sensibilities o f infants. The virtue o f spontaneous m aternal behavior (when carried out “well enough”) is its richness in dynamic features, its aliveness, and vitality. There is alm ost no behavior on the baby’s p a rt th a t c a n n o t be a ttu n e d to. A ccordingly, for so m any stretches of the interaction, affect attunem ent (matched vitality forms) creates a running dialogue underneath the behaviors, inside of which the m other’s real evaluations are revealed. It is interesting how m aternal interactions with a newborn can lead to relatively prolonged m om ents of m utual regard. These events are called “neonatal m om ents of m eeting.” They activate and reinforce the attachm ent process (Bruschweiler-Stern, 2009). The role of vitality forms in early development is pervasive. Notes 1. Voices differ along several prosodic features, e.g. timbre. However, differences in the vitality forms used are evident even when saying the same words at the same pitch. The case is more complex for different melodies. 2. The timing of sleep-wake cycles grows out of the rest-activity cycles under environmental influence. Sleep problems account for far and away the majority of visits for behavioral reasons during the first two years of life. The underlying problems can be several, in fact many, such as disturbances in the parent-infant relationship, particularly attachment problems, as well as marital difficulties, emotional dysregulation, temperament, cultural practices,

WHEN DO VITALITY FORMS BEGIN? A DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW

the physical setting of sleep, and so on. Nonetheless, the final common pathway for these problems runs through the arousal system, and it is ultimately expressed in sleep disturbances. Most often sleep disturbances are like having a fever - a sign that something else is wrong. Because the arousal system and sleep are the final common pathway for so many diverse currents that flow through, they provide large clinical windows on the infant and his or her world (e.g. Anders, 1994). Sleep is a vast clinical subject that is beyond the purview of this book. 3. To help the preemies, Als devised a scale, known as the Neurodevelopmental Individualized Care and Assessment Program (NICAP), to evaluate the cost of energy expended by the preemie for arousal regulation (Als, 1984; Als et al 1994). This permitted her to effect a series of changes in the intensive-care units. These changes all involved reducing the ambient stimulus environment to better control the preemies’ states of arousal. The changes that were implemented are now used in many units around the world. Related to these changes is the use of “kangaroo care” (“skin-to-skin care”), where the preemie spends as much time as possible in the parent’s arms, skin to skin, wrapped together. They are treated this way even with tubes connected to them while in the parent’s arms. A living hum an being is a far better ambient stimulus environment than an incubator. When these changes are put in place, it is clearly demonstrated that the preemie’s time in the incubator, and their hospital stay, are shortened, They gain weight faster and have a lower morbidity (Hernandez-Reif & Field, 2000; Field, 2003). Again, arousal is the key. 4. During this first year of life, maternal speech and vocalizations (motherese or baby talk) are a “hidden source of musical stimulation” with all its possibilities for different forms of vitality (Papousek, 1996).

Chapter 7

What Implications do Forms of Vitality Have for Clinical Theory and Practice?

A brief historical note m ay help to set the stage. W hy are vitality forms not m ore directly addressed in clinical theory and practice? After all, these forms are experienced all the tim e by therapists and patients, in themselves or in the other, consciously or nonconsciously. The evolution of the branch o f talking psycho­ therapies originating in psychoanalysis sheds light on this question. W hy did psychoanalysis develop as a “one-person psychology,” i.e. as having a disproportionately large interest in the intra-psychic, at the expense of the inter-psychic? W hy was the therapeutic relationship conceived o f as prim arily a m ani­ festation of the illness (the “neurosis”) o f the patient? W hy was a sharp cleavage established between talking and acting, and betw een verbal and nonverbal, and w hy was the w ord, the sym bolic, given such a rem arkably elevated and p ro tected status? And in the same vein, why were m ost movement-related therapies split off from the talking therapies for so long, and initially assigned m ainly to handicapped or autistic patients as second-class treatments? These questions are.all interrelated. W hen Freud was creating psychoanalysis, he ran into a poten­ tially disastrous problem . Several of his disciples were having rom antic and sexual relationships w ith their psychoanalytic patients. Such behavior threatened the therapeutic fram e as Freud conceived of it. Also, and of great im portance, he was

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concerned that such “acting in ” and “acting out” (of the ses­ sion) w ould be ruinous for the reputation o f psychoanalysis within the medical com m unity in Vienna. At the time, the rep­ utation was not on a solid base. W ithin this context he wrote the “technical papers” (Freud, 1915, 1918). The m ajor points were that the psychoanalyst should m aintain “abstinence” with regard to the patient, and the therapist should act “like a surgeon” in maintaining emotional neutrality and be in the position of a “third-party” observer and actor who “uncovers” the workings of another’s mind, in an uncontaminated field. (Freud also had the genius to identify transference and countertransference at the heart of the problem, with Ferencyz’s help.) These two phenom ­ ena then became bedrocks of the psychoanalytic endeavor. M ovement in general, and “acting” in particular, were left at the wayside (at least clinically), and all forms o f verbalization were privileged. Since the formative period of “classical” psychoanalysis, psy­ chotherapy (including m ost psychoanalytic approaches) has evolved greatly over the past several decades (e.g. Cooper, 2005; Person, Cooper, 8c Gabbard, 2005). M ajor issues have shifted. Some of the current issues today include the following: ♦ How can we conceive of the clinical role of a more widely conceived therapeutic relationship, a more relational approach? W here are its limits, and where is intersubjec­ tivity to be placed in this enlarged role? ♦ Moreover, in a related vein, what is the nature of implicit compared with explicit knowledge and memory? Is explicit knowledge in the form of verbal interpretations needed for change, or are changes brought about largely through relationship experience? ♦ W hat is the optimal balance between working on the past and in the “here and now”?

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE?

♦ W hat is the nature o f body concepts and their role in pro­ viding an infrastructure for language and verbal concepts? In addition, what do we m ean clinically by an “embodied m ind”? ♦ W hat level o f observation and therapeutic action is currently m ost needed? Is it m icro-observation of behavior at the “local level,” or m ore abstracted notions such as narratives, or a m ore phenomenological perspective, or a more relational and inter subjective focus? Given this slow revolution-rapid evolution in the field, can we see m ore clearly the roles played by the dynamic experience of vitality forms? A closer look at vitality in the clinical context will help to reframe some of the basic shifts that are now under way.

Some of the roles played by vitality forms in psychotherapy Vitality form s and spontaneous talking The deaf and the blind find it very difficult to acquire the amenities of conversation ... They cannot distinguish the tone o f the voice or, w ith­ o u t assistance, go up and down the gam ut o f tones th at give significance to words; n o r can they watch the expression o f the speaker’s face, and a look is often the very soul o f w hat one says. H elen Keller (1902, p. 23)

I shall start with spontaneous speech, as that is by far the m ain activity of talking therapies. It is the defining aspect of these therapies both practically and theoretically. It deserves the first look. Let us then consider the dynamic features of the action and process o f unscripted spontaneous talking as it occurs in m ost therapies. For the following discussion, it m ust be held in m ind that speech production requires physical (as well as mental) movement. The voice is an instrument involving voluntary move­ ments of the vocal chords, tongue, mouth, lips, breathing, etc.

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Spontaneous spoken language sounds hum an, compared with a robot, because it is richly dynamic. The prosody o f speech consisting of melody, stress, volume modulation, vocal tension, etc. creates forms of vitality. These let the listener know that the speaker is a living person and w hat is “really” m eant by what they say in words at that m om ent. The difference between the words as spoken here and now, and as they exist generalized in dictionaries and the “official” language, is a fertile field for understanding hum an social behavior (e.g. see Crystal’s classical text on “The English tone of voice” (Crystal, 1975) and Lacan’s distinction between la parole and la langue (Lacan, 1953)). Secondly, there is the m otive to talk. The listener feels the ongoing action of the intention through the vitality forms of its expression. Thirdly, in spontaneous speech there is a kind of imprecise, messy, hit-and-m iss work to find the “right” words to communicate what one wishes. This messy work is visible or hearable by the listener and made manifest in the forms o f vital­ ity used. Here is an example. Suppose a patient says, “I’ve told this story so often that it has become the reality of what happened ... I even sort of believe it ... but it isn’t what really happened ... W hat really happened was ... .” The therapist will naturally be interested in what “really” happened, and will explore why the distorted first version was needed. However, if the therapist waits and first focuses on the vitality forms and experience of the telling, not its verbal im port, he or she can take a different path that m ight go further, faster, or elsewhere. The therapist could say (if it were true), “You said that with such a rush, like it was being held in prison and finally burst out” (i.e. its form of vitality). This m ight lead to the patient telling of the forces that created the revision in the first place. Alternatively, if the patient spoke differently w ith different form s o f vitality, the therapist m ight say, “You said th at so

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE?

hesitantly, like walking in the dark across an unknow n room, like you were afraid of bum ping into som ething.” This m ight evoke the patient’s fears of being punished or h u rt or hum ili­ ated by revealing the real story. In other words, the experience of the defenses in the form of vitality forms can be evoked well before exploring the explicit conflict leading to the defenses. This focus on the dynamics of telling will, in fact, facilitate the exploration of the conflictual content. In short, the focus is on the vitality forms of how the patient expressed himself, n o t the strict sense o f the words. If that is fruitful, the patient will him self directly get to why the “real version” was disguised. In addition, the patient will get a first­ hand experience of how his defenses operate and what the ther­ apeutic relationship can tolerate and contain. In unscripted speech, there is something in m ind that wants expressing. Let us call this “something in m ind” an image, in the broadest sense o f the term. The image can be an idea, a move­ m ent, a gesture, an em otion, a vitality form, or a background feeling. Usually none of these are initially in a verbal form. Now comes the messy work of fashioning spontaneous speech. There is an intention to link the image (the “something in m ind”) to words. For almost each phrase, the intention enters into a dynam­ ic dialogue with the speaker’s repertoire of pieces of language to find the best fits. This is an “intentional unfolding process,” where intention and language are yoked. Emergent properties form . New linkages are created, tentatively accepted, revised, rejected, reintroduced in a different form, and mixed with all the other creative products of the intention-unfolding process. This process, which usually takes several seconds, is unpredictable, messy, widely distributed in the body and m ind, and usually involves conscious and unconscious bodily happenings. This nonlinear process is perhaps what makes us most hum an. It would include how the word search is performed, with what

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deliberation or rising excitement, and with what burst of enthu­ siasm or calm when it “catches” a word. It is a process that can rush forward, hesitate, stop, restart gently, etc. It can express itself in various forms of the repertoire of vitality. Even after the w ord is chosen and o ut there in public space, it can be partially taken back, and revised or deleted as the talker stum bles forw ard w ith m ore or less grace and coherence. (It does n o t m atter whether there is a “right” fit. O ften none exists. It only has to be good enough for effective comm unica­ tion.) It is these dynamic qualities that give the impression of an “inhabited body” - that is alive, now. W ithout these dynamic vitality features o f the intention-unfolding process we would n ot experience a vital hum an being behind the words that are being said. This body/m ind dialogue of implicit experiencing along with reflective-verbal processing makes it possible for a psychoana­ lyst and his or her patient on the couch, not even seeing each other face to face, to know m uch of the implicit and to share an inter subjective space (BCPSG, 2010). A distinction is required here. There seems to be a difference (felt at least) between a m ore or less conscious and clearly nonconscious intentionality. The idea of an “intentional unfolding process” is appropriate if one imagines that an initial intention was som ehow conscious, or very close to consciousness. The sheet of paper on which the initial intention is “written,” even if faintly or in code, only has to be unfolded to read the original. Indeed, m any in ten tio n s feel this way. However, for m any others it is n ot so clear that there was ever a well-formed origi­ nal intention. In these cases, the term “initial intention” should be replaced with the term “initial tendency.” There is no initial intention to be revealed by unfolding, but rather there is a ten­ dency for action that m ust be specified. The original meaning of intention gets partially lost, i.e. the “aim ing” of the intention

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toward the “intentional object.” Tendencies do not have a clear target. They im ply soft-assem bled specific actions th a t were unpredictable and never “w ritten,” a priori, b u t which find a goal and are fitted en route from m om ent to m oment. For this process, a better term m ight be the “in te n tio n a l emerging process.” The role o f the body, perception, and the ongoing dialogue between all of the factors gives vitality forms m ore room to interact a la Merleau-Ponty (1962). The sharp distinction as just proposed m ay be unnecessary, even unhelpful. Phenomenologically there seems to be a spec­ tru m betw een in te n tio n s an d tendencies and accordingly between “unfolding” and “emerging” processes. It rem ains to be seen how this felt spectrum is handled neuroscientifically. The notions o f the primacy of movement, an embodied mind, vitality form s and the idea of goal-directed m ovem ent being “soft assem bled” on the spot to m eet the im m ediate context m ay help to ease this conundrum . The nuances of soft assem­ blage require that vitality forms do the job of fine-tuning to the found context. Suppose that m ost or even m any goals are n ot only hazy and inexact to begin w ith - m ore like tendencies. They may also rem ain non-conscious until they scream at you and are specified through reflection or action. N ot to be forgotten, the process o f talking involves another person, a partner in dialogue. The two find their way in a rap­ idly changing field. The person listening has their own shifting vitality experiences, which are a crucial part o f the field. In other words, there was never an exactly specified goal. There were tendencies in search o f a finality. M oreover, on the way, they found a series of evolving goals and intentions that were con­ stantly updated and changing. O ur clinical view is generally lim ited because we tend to con­ sider events when they are completed and seen retrospectively (after the session, w hen they can be talked about). From this

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vantage point it seems reasonable to imagine that a specific ini­ tial state somehow found the means to arrive at a predestined end state. However, when an event is viewed while it is still ongo­ ing and unfinished, neither the initiating state nor the end state is so clear. W e move from an inquiry about intentions, means, and goal states to an inquiry about processes of creation, emerg­ ing, and becom ing. The w ork o f the Boston Change Process Study Group (BCPSG) has attempted to focus on this (BCPSG, 2005a, b, 2008). Further pursuit of this line is beyond the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that vitality forms in spontaneous speech reveal m uch of what is underneath unscripted language. There are other perspectives on the issue of spontaneous speech and what m ental entities lie “behind” or “alongside” it. David M cNeill (2005) introduces the concept o f the im age/ gesture to refer to all the bodily shapings of spoken thought. He sees spoken language as consisting of two components of equal generativity and im portance. First, there is language, which is usually conceived of as a m ore or less static structure. Secondly, there is a dynamic process that he calls the image-gesture process. Superficially, this dynamic process consists of the gesticulations that are synchronous w ith speech. He points out that spoken speech is inhabited by the body moving in time, including facial expressions and head nods. Similarly, while gestures have their own isolated morphology, in real speech they become shaped by im agery and in ten tio n . They are ta n ta m o u n t to vitality forms, or at least contain them. The dynamic interplay of intention and word has similarities to choreographing dance or composing music, where the inter­ play is between the inchoate intentions of the creator and move­ ments or notes (Kurth, 1931). Experienced therapists are peripherally aware of m any of the above dynamic features of their patient’s speech that influence

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th eir overall clinical im pressions. However, because of the emphasis on w ord m eaning in talking therapies, the dynamic vitality-related features of speech are less often the central focus of attention. The above considerations lead us to pay a special kind o f atten tio n to the vitality form s in spontaneous speech in the clinical setting. They can reveal what is hidden in the words or behind them , such as the degree of authenticity, hesitation, conflict, difficulty and fear in telling, the am ount of excitation or engagem ent, the distance o f the narrative stance from the “here and now,” boredom , deadness, disavowal, the am ount of defensive blockage in the passage from m ind to speech, and m uch more. This kind of sensitivity requires sensibilization to vitality forms to disembed them from the rest of the verbal flow and the emotions elicited. In this context, “meaning” takes on a different sense. Language and symbolization are no longer the only, or even necessarily m ajor, creators of meaning. The dictionary definition o f “m ean­ ing” is illustrative on this point. “M eaning” is defined as “what is in m ind,” “what is intended,” and “what is shown forth.” The linguistic sense of meaning is either n ot m entioned or is given a second place in dictionary definitions (Oxford English Dictionary, p. 1053; Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, p. 1115). In short, the “intention unfolding/emerging process” shaped by vitality forms is a rich source of clinical material that is fre­ quently not fully used. Dynamic form s of vitality as paths to memory The traces of vitality forms that were experienced in the past are carried in memory. They are connected with the other aspects o f rem em bered experience. W hen the vitality form s o f the experience can be evoked, a whole experience can tum ble out.

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The fading of a church bell can evoke a tim e w hen someone slowly left the room or disappeared from the relationship, etc. How can a therapeutic inquiry be directed to use the vitality forms? An obvious key is to stay with direct experience at the local level, not abstractions about experience, and m oreover to stay with dynamic events such as movements (mental and physical) th a t unfold in tim e, n o t m ental states conceived of as static entities. N or should one stay with body parts or positions to find the experiences they “contain,” as some body therapies do, but rather evoke experiences of the movement of forces in time, space, and intentionality to recall different vitality forms. The overall idea is for therapists to pour themselves (empathically) as far as is possible and clinically useful into the lived-movement-evoked experience of the patient and begin the dialogue there. The g o a l, is to evoke a vitality form that will pull into consciousness some aspect of the whole lived experience. Here is an example. A n adolescent b o y had a sudden an d dram atic “break.” H e retreated into a m ute silence with n o show o f em otion. It had lasted several days. T he prov isio n al in fo rm al diagnosis was a “schizophrenic episode.” All th at is know n is th at o n the night preceding the “break” he had been in the back seat o f a friend’s car w ith a girl, w hom he liked, sitting on his lap. M any questions were posed to clarify w hat happened and break thro u g h his silence: Was she im p o rtan t to him? D id she like him? D id she reject any advances? W as he h u rt, sad, angry, or hum iliated? Was there a previous history? A nd so on. N one o f these opened his silence. It is w orth noting th a t all o f these questions ask about som ething (usually static) th a t m ight have happened. They are hypotheses about his pos­ sible m ental state. However, the only things we do know are th a t he was in the back seat o f a car w ith a girl on his lap. From this physical reality, this local level, the following question arose, “As she sat on your lap and shifted her weight, w hat did her m oving weight feel like on your legs?” After a short while, the boy looked up and tears slowly started to fill his eyes. The door to therapy was opened a crack.

Here is another example. A m an was very u n certain a b o u t h o w he felt tow ards his wife. D id he w an t to stay in th e relationship o r leave? The m arriage h a d been

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difficult an d m o re dead th a n alive for a lo n g tim e. A fter an absence o f several weeks, his wife flew hom e. H e m e t h er at th e a irp o rt. The th erap ist asked how he felt ab o u t her. H e said he still did n o t know. Instead, the therapist m ight have asked, “W hen you first saw her emerge from the gate and come tow ard you, did anything ju m p up or fall down inside you?”

The difference between these two questions is not small. The first is about static m ental states and the second is about vitality forms. M ost experienced therapists do this sort o f thing w ithout thinking m uch about it. I am n o t pretending to invent them. I am trying to identify, conceptualize, and give a name to such experiences, to better understand and use them. M em ories evoked via the path of dynamic experience m ay be unconscious in the sense of being under repression or dis­ so c ia ted , o r m ay resid e in im p lic it re la tio n a l k n o w in g . Therapeutically, vitality form s can be used along w ith other approaches, or alone initially, or after other m ore explicit approaches fail, or to complement the other approaches, or to jum p-start them. Vitality dynam ics as a path to "(re)-constructed" phenom enal experience We usually do not bother to make a distinction between m em ­ ory and phenom enological experience. M em ory is restricted here to rem em brances th a t are selected and assem bled to address a specific “present remembering context,” i.e. to adapt to a novel present m oment. One “remembers the present,” i.e. one uses the past as a guide to adapt to the immediate present situation (Edelman, 1990). Phenomenological experience, on the contrary, is happening now (mem ory is the recall after it is over and p u t into a coher­ ent form). It is whatever is crossing the conscious “m ental stage” right now (including its immediate past echo, which has not yet

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faded into the past). It is purely subjective. It does n ot m atter why or how it got on to the m ental stage, nor whether it refers to real events, past events, or future events, or even if it never happened before. It has phenomenological “reality.” It is in the nature o f direct phenomenological experience that it cannot be verbally recounted as it is happening (attempts to do this would disrupt the happening), so w hen the happening is recounted later it is only a selected m em ory o f w hat was experienced phenomenologically. It would be most interesting clinically if we could get at pure undistorted phenom enological experience (a completely free “free association” in its p u rist form comes close). P henom ­ enological experience is n ot retrospectively selected to meet the unicity of the present rem em bering context, and selection is less based on defensive operations. It is lived experience. If we could get a hold on it, it might offer different paths to different clinical material. There are techniques that can approximate direct lived expe­ rience but never capture it fully or faithfully. Simple introspec­ tion as to what happened subjectively has proven problematic. W e have devised a m ore com plicated way to piece together retrospectively the phenomenological experience in a multilay­ ered fashion. The technique is called the “microanalytic inter­ view ,” w hich can also be used clinically. (T his has been m entioned in Chapter 5. A detailed description of the “microanalytic interview” can be fojudl in the appendix of Stern, 2004, pp. 229-240.) The technique grew out of a project to explore the “present m om ent” as a phenom enal experience. I ask subjects to tell me w hat they experienced several hours earlier th at m orning at breakfast (it was originally called the “breakfast interview ”). Usually they answer, “N ot m uch.” After a while we agree on a brief stretch of tim e where they know exactly when it started

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(e.g. “The kettle began to sing”) and when it ended (e.g. “Then I sat down and picked up my cup”). Once these boundary markers are in place we explore their subjective experience of “all” that crossed their conscious mental stage during the 20 or 30 seconds betw een these two boundaries (things they w ould n o t have remembered ordinarily, i.e. never needed to remember). They are asked, in no particular order, what they felt, thought, and sensed, what positions their bodies were in and when did they change position, what gestures and when, what head positions, did any memories pop up, did they have visual images, and did they project themselves into the immediate future. If they were the director of a movie about their subjective experience during those 20-30 seconds, and I was the cam eram an, w hat angle should I shoot the scene from? W ould I use close-ups or long shots for different moments? How would I cut from one shot to another? And so on. In effect, any question could be asked that m ight throw them into reliving the event. The technique does not prioritize w hether questions target movements or m ental states. The response to each question is graphed in the type o f a vital­ ity form (the intensity o f force, its duration, and contour as subjectively felt). Each response is graphed as a separate time line, one below the next (feelings, thoughts, movements, etc.). Accordingly, the final record resembles a symphonic score with each instrum ent (response to a question) having its own line. W hen the next question is asked it often leads to a change of the previous responses, which then have to be regraphed. All together, a layered composite narrative results. This account is different from a simple reconstruction in that the interviewer uses verbal and nonverbal prim ers to evoke the experience in multiple ways. A m inutely re-worked narrative is created that is different from a m emory. It is m ore comprehensive and con­ tinuous but usually less coherent than a memory.

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W hen w orking at this level o f m icroanalysis, the role o f dynamic forms o f experience comes to the fore. Personal psy­ chological themes are revealed in unsuspected details that would not have popped up using other techniques. For instance: A graduate stu d en t described going to the refrigerator to get orange juice for breakfast. He opened the refrigerator door. H e then, w ithout thinking, while he was talking, m ade the same gesture he used to open the refrigerator door. This struck m e as strange. Everyone knows how to open a refrigerator door. I asked h im if there was som ething u n u ­ sual ab o u t opening the door. He focused on his gesture and repeated it, explaining th a t the door was broken and if he pulled it too strongly it would swing wide open and bang into the cabinet. If he pulled it too weakly it w ould swing back to close and he could n o t get his juice out. But if he pulled it open with just the right strength it w ould stay open ju st so. H e said it was a so rt o f gam e w ith him self to see if he could fashion the right m ovem ent, i.e. give it the right vitality dynamic. N ot too strong, no t too weak, n o t too fast, n o t too slow.

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He th e n to o k th e juice o u t o f the fridge and p o u red it in to a glass on the table. H e tried to fill th e glass alm ost to the brim , so it was n o t so full th a t it w ould spill w hen brin g in g it to his lips, b u t h ad as m uch juice in it as possible. T h at to o was a sort o f game. W hile recounting this, he realized w ith surprise th a t th e juice an d the refrigerator door were b o th a k in d o f risk taking, o f seeing how far he could p u sh the envelope. H e th e n recalled th a t th e n ig h t before he h a d been trying to finish w riting the conclusion o f the research th a t was his doctoral thesis. The w riting involved deciding how far he could go in the scope o f his conclusions. At w hat p o in t w ould it be overreaching o r too timid? Along w ith the experience o f the night before w ith his thesis, we agreed th a t in general he was a risk taker in life, from big things to refrigerator doors and juice pouring.

The extensiveness of this trait would not have been apparent to him from m ost m em ories. It popped easily out of a (re) con­ struction o f an ordinary phenom enal experience revealing a current psychological conflict as well as a character-like trait. In addition, the subject him self put it all together. It is in this sense that a microanalytic approach to phenomenal experience

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can open up a somewhat unique clinical landscape th at might have had to be m ore laboriously constructed over tim e by other paths. W hen used clinically, this interview can be greatly abbreviat­ ed to fit the situation and therapeutic relationship. Vitality form s and imagined movement, including verbal descriptions E xperiences th a t are d escribed verbally, o r im agined, o r witnessed in others, or enacted by oneself, seem to be in ter­ connected by the brain. No m atter how the experience was gen­ erated or received, it ends up in all of these dom ains to some extent. An example illustrates this. If someone is standing, ask them (a verbalization) to imagine taking a step forward, b u t not to take it (an imagined movement). You cannot notice any move­ m ent in their stance. However, if you give them a little push forward from behind they will fall forward and take a little step to break the forward movement. On the other hand, if you give them the same directions and the same little push, b u t back­ ward from the front, their body resists it, and they will not move (Paxton, 2008). Real m ovements (imperceptible to the eye) in the form of shifts of tonicity are also involved. W hen someone imagines a m ovem ent with its vitality form, something happens in the cortex that then sends a signal to the appropriate m otor areas to activate the musculature of the body that would have been used if the imagined event were enacted. However, although some activation is recorded electrophysiologically in the muscles involved, it is n ot enough to release a movement. Perhaps the final com m on pathway for understanding words, imagining actions, intending to act, or imitative, identificatory, or e m p ath ic actions is by way o f “im agined m o v e m e n t.”

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M ovement remains prim ary for animals, b u t during evolution it m ay be th a t im agined m ovem ent has becom e prim ary in hum ans. It is the pivot through which all action and thought pass. Recall that when a w ord is heard the signal goes not only to the language centers of the brain but also to the part of the brain th a t w ould be involved in an en actm en t o f th e w ord. For instance, when the words “skip,” “jum p,” or “ru n ” are heard, the signal will also go to those different parts of the m otor cor­ tex th at control the slightly different m otor patterns of skip­ ping, jum ping, or running. An imagined m ovem ent is created alongside the word meaning. This perspective on imagined m ovem ent helps explain why “narrative therapies” have developed (e.g. Freedman & Combs, 1996). Storytelling is used to provide virtual experience about the self. It brings about change both through its virtual enact­ m ent of narrated actions (Gentili, Papaxanthis, & Pozzo, 2005; Fontani et al., 2007) and through its narrative coherence as the personal autobiography of how you got to be w ho you are (Spence, 1976; Schafer, 1981). In this light, it is clear that imagined movements are used in b o th m ovem ent/body therapies and talking therapies. This includes techniques such as “visualized m ovem ents,” “m ental movem ents,” preparations for movement, virtual movements, and “phantasied movements.” Music and dance therapy, move­ m ent therapies, and some sports therapy depend on these con­ nections through imagined m ovement. Changing a golf swing or tennis stroke can occur by doing it, or by im agining your swing differently, or by seeing another do it. The imagined m ovem ent is not disincarnated - it has the flesh of a virtually embodied vitality form. There is a growing n o tio n th at therapeutic change cannot happen if there is n ot a “real” or imagined action at the local

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level. For instance, the BCPSG in studying the change process in a therapeutic session proposed that changes in “implicit rela­ tional know ing” occur only w hen one “does,” i.e. enacts an aspect of the relationship in a new way. It need n ot be reflected upon and verbalized (Stern etal., 1998; BCPSG, 2002, 2005a,b; 2008). Gestalt therapy has been using such im agining tech­ niques for a long time, as have others. In short, m ental models and neural networks can be reshaped by doing something differently, imagining it differently, seeing another doing it, or by hearing about it in words. The walls separating different m odes o f experiencing are sta rtin g to come down as we realize that all has to pass by way of imagined movement. The b ra in ’s n eu ral netw orks fu n ctio n so th a t successive inscriptions o f experience (cognitive, em otional, sensory, or m otor) can alter and re-transcribe previous traces. The neural networks are in almost constant change depending on experi­ ence. Existing neural synapses can cease to function if n o t used, or get stronger if frequently used; new ones can form, n o t only in the developing person, but also throughout life. The brain’s plasticity and dependence on accum ulating experience have long since been assumed (Givon, 2005), and have been the sub­ ject o f m uch diverse neuroscientific and behavioral research (e.g. Freeman&Schneider, 1982; Ghaem, etal, 1997;McCandliss, Posner, & Givon, 1997; Freem an, 1999; Jones & Greenough, 2002; Collingridge, Isaac, & Wang, 2004; Lamprecht & LeDoux, 2004; Gage, Kempermann, & Song, 2008). A nserm et & M agistretti (2004) have related brain plasticity changes and psychoanalytic changes as viewed in parallel. Vitality form s and the "local level" The “local level” is a concept that underlies m uch of this book. Vitality forms are realized at a “local level.” “At this level, the

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scale of analysis becomes m ore microscopic - gestures, expres­ sions, spoken phrases, or the emergence o f a thought usually last between 1 and 10 seconds, enough time to execute a grasp of consciousness of a single whole event, a Gestalt. The units of m eaning at this level are m ade up of movements/actions (verbal or non-verbal) th at im ply an existing or emerging intention. The actions acquire their inevitable vitality under the influence of the local conditions of specific time and place, and the inter­ nal motivational force (BCPSG, 2002, 2005a; Stern, 2004). There is a general tendency to see local-level happenings as less clinically im portant than the motives “behind” them , the larger psychodynamic forces. In this view, local-level events are seen as only behavioral, non-verbal, unreflected, unelaborated, non-abstract, and n o t generalized, com pared w ith a verbal interpretation as the best clinical example of being elaborated, verbal, reflected, and generalized. Countering this view is the evidence showing that im plicit relational knowings and other body/m ental m odels (e.g. prim ary m etaphors) are, indeed, concepts and abstractions, although n o t arrived at th rough conscious reflection and verbalized. Traditional psychoanalysis and related approaches see locallevel meaning as “superficial” compared with the “deep” m ean­ ings pro v id ed by m ore m acro-psychodynam ic (narrative) meanings. The approach taken here sees the micro-level as just as deep in m eaning, and the macro-level as just as superficial because it is built upon the reality of the micro-local level and in that sense is secondary and derived (BCPSG, 2008). W e view the local level as containing the events that verbal abstractions are drawn from , and as providing the terrain upon which the abstractions and generalization are then instantiated and given expressive form. The dialogue flows from m ovem ent at th e local level to m ental operations at the abstracted level, then back down to

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instantiation in m ovem ent at the local level. Concerning “super­ ficial” and “deep” there is no upside dow n or right side up. Dialogical circles between them continue to turn. Each is neces­ sary for the evolution of the other, and offers different ports of entry into the m ind. Vitality form s and intersubjectivity W here you start from determ ines in large part where you go and what you find on the way. We shall start from a set o f phil­ osophical ideas and scientific findings that include: ♦ the philosophical notion that the hum an m ind is “innately open to other m inds” and to seeing “others as having embodied m inds like m e” and “with m e” ♦ the developmental history of intersubjective capacities from early infancy (early imitation, interactional synchrony, pointing to align the other’s attention, social referencing, affect attunem ent, etc.) ♦ the “m irror neuron” story that starts to explain how we become immersed in the experience of others ♦ the findings of “intention detection centers” that start to clarify how we m ind-read the intentions of others ♦ the tendency for self-reflection (Fonagy & Target, 1997) ♦ the notion that an infant does not pass through a longish phase o f not differentiating self from other, or a phase of norm al symbiosis, but rather that the m ain early developmental tasks are to become socio-affectively com petent and establish attachm ent ties, rather than to first become autonom ous and independent. Thus the focus has to be on inter-psychic events. The em er­ gence of the intra-psychic dom ain can only be observed in the larger context of the inter-psychic. This is true in general as well as developmentally. Accordingly, the inter-psychic happenings

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between the patient and therapist cannot be seen only in terms of transference and counter-transference, b u t rather under the larger roof o f intersubjective relatedness, which includes what happens in a therapeutic session, b u t as a special subset o f general inter subjectivity. In therapy, the spontaneous speech (or vocalizations) of the therapist is rich in vitality dynamics. A therapist can hardly open his or her m outh without using a vitality form and doing a sort o f affect attunem ent with what the patient just said or what they m ight say next. This results in the fine-tuning of their intersubjective field. Suppose th a t therapists lim ited th eir responses to only “H m m m ,” “U h huh,” or “Aahhaaa.” Each is quite different. “H m m m ” usually has a fall in pitch at the end. This kind of term inal pitch fall usually evokes a vitality dynam ­ ic th a t signals a closing out, or a term in atio n - “I got it, go ahead, you can move on.” It can have a slightly negative valence. “Aahhaaa” usually has a term inal pitch rise w ith an im plied question mark. Its vitality form signals an interest in what was said and in w hat m ay follow. It usually carries an im plicit encouragement and curiosity. “Uh h u h ” is m ore neutral. It is a placeholder signaling “I’m still here and listening.” Now add to these three utterances the multiple variations in duration, force, and tem poral contour of the utterance, and one ends up w ith a huge repertoire of nuanced vitality forms that indicate exactly how the therapist felt about what was just said. An intersubjective exchange is taking place w ith only three sounds. Furtherm ore, this attunem ent (under- or overattunem ent) acts as a sort of non-conscious compass to guide the course of the session and therapy. These vitality forms from the therapist act like the affect attunem ents (vitality form m atch­ ing) we have seen m others perform for their infants. However, here w hat is being sculpted is the nature o f the relatedness between patient and therapist - the therapy itself.

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The role of vitality forms in intersubjectivity leads to a renewed interest in some of the basic notions of non-verbal therapies. “Im provisation m usic therapy” provides an example. Tony W igram (2004) describes w hat he calls the “basic therapeutic m ethods” of im provisation music therapy. These include the following. 1. Mirroring, imitating, and copying. The therapist does exactly what the patient just did - its vitality form, rhythm, melody, etc. - on the piano or drum s or some other instrum ent. 2. M atching. This is a p a rtial and selective im itatio n . The dynam ic features o f w hat the patient did are m aintained, b ut other features are altered. This is essentially a musically based affect attunem ent. It is “one of the m ost valuable im provisational m ethods th at can be applied in therapy” (p. 83). Just as affect attunem ent (vitality form m atching) has been shown to be so valuable in parent-infant therapies (M arkova & Legerstee, 2006), so it is in all non -v erb al therapies. 3. Empathic improvisation. The therapist improvises a response th at reflects (w ithout im itation or attunem ent) the em o­ tional state o f the patient, his “way of being” at that m oment. It is a musical rendition o f the patient’s state. This relies on some m eta-m odal matching of vitality forms. 4. Grounding, holding, and containing. The therapist creates a stable musical “anchor” (e.g. steady pulsed beats on a bass d rum ). This provides a dynamic framework that the im prov­ isation can work within. 5. Dialoguing. T urn taking is a m ajor m anner o f dialoguing. Sm ooth turn taking involves sharing a convention about the tim e flow o f that interaction. In adult verbal conversation, dyadic speaker turn-taking pauses (when one ends and the other has not yet started to talk) m ust be mutually adjusted

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to the tim ing o f the other. Otherwise there are either con­ stant interruptions or too long silences (Jaffe & Feldstein, 1970). This very fine timing is not based on verbal content. Even infants during the first half year of life learn to do it w ith th eir parents (Stern, 1971, 1977; Stern et al., 1975; Beebe, 1982; Jaffe et a l, 2001). In other words, it involves a form of intersubjectivity. 6. Accompanying. The therapist provides an accom panim ent th a t is different from w hat the patient is playing b u t lies “dynam ically u n d erneath the p atien t’s m usic” (W igram, 2004, p. 106). In short, the basic m ethods in im provisation m usic therapy all require the use of vitality form s to share or interchange experience. From a related point of view, some music therapists stress the intersubjective aspects of the therapy. For instance, Trolldalen (1997) am ong others sees m usical interplay as offering the p otential for intersubjective m eetings. As the therapist and patient enter the same dynamic flow created by the music, there will emerge m om ents of “m utual recognition” when they both realize, at the same time, that they are sharing a com m on expe­ rience. This is brought about through affect attunem ent, joint attention, and m utual confirm ation. Such shared m om ents then act m uch as do “m om ents of m eeting” in changing the relationship and moving it to a deeper level of intersubjectivity (BCPSG, 2008). Im m ersion in the dynamic flow is the central condition that creates these events. Accordingly, this view of m usic therapy also rests on vitality forms with some cognitive aspects added, especially the im portance of m utual recognition. O f course, once the dynamic musical work has occurred and aspects of the patient’s “way of being with the other and in the

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE? |

w orld” have been musically manifested, the therapist can, but need not, verbalize and render what is heard into a meaningful narrative structure, depending on the school of approach. This rejoins the dialogue between explicit and implicit techniques, between talking and acting. The situation in other m ovem ent therapies is roughly parallel to what has been described for improvisation music therapy, in particular the central role of vitality forms in establishing con­ tact with the patient and working with them. M ovement thera­ pies th at rely on vitality form s include dance therapy, body therapy, Feldenkrais, Alexander technique, and others. This list should also include role-playing techniques. It is beyond the scope o f this book to overview all o f these. The exam ple of music therapy will suffice. The central point is that forms of vitality play an essential role in the expansion and adjustm ent of the intersubjective field betw een p atien t and therapist, regardless of w hether one is using a talking or non-verbal therapeutic approach. Vitality form s in identification Identification and internalization rem ain incompletely under­ stood. Can exploring the dynam ics of vitality form s lead to better understanding? W hat is it about another that we identify with? Is it what they do, or why they do it, or how they do it? It is all three. Nevertheless, how it is done is often the m ost mys­ terious and least explained. W e now know a good deal about the “W hat?,” thanks in part to the m irror neuron story. In addi­ tion, we know that the brain has centers that detect likely inten­ tions (Ruby & Decety, 2001). This helps us to understand the “Why?” (O f course, m uch m ore is needed, such as a tendency to seek out, perceive, and think about others’ actions in terms of intentions and motives.)

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We return to the “How?” It is always remarkable to see/feel yourself walking and m oving like your father or m other, or making the same facial expression while tilting your head a cer­ tain way, or sighing audibly in a way that they do or did. That sigh is not any sigh. W hat m ost makes it particular is its dynam ­ ic features - the force and duration of expiring the air, the ten­ sion of the vocal chords and the opening of the m outh, the attack, the fade-out, etc. (Recall that m irror neurons apply to unseen vocal chord m ovements as well as to visible gestures.) Every sigh has a beginning, middle, and end with a stress some­ where along the timeline. To “take in” another’s sigh one has to have been inside their skin. Identification and internalization are in th is sense m ore com plete im m ersions in a n o th e r’s dynam ic experience th an em pathy needs to be. W ithout the vitality forms, identification and internalization would be like rules of action, not a felt immersion. These m ental processes occurring out of awareness are seen in young children. We often think o f identification and inter­ nalization as m ore inexplicable and quite separate from learn­ ing in general. However, we learn to talk by hearing others talk. W e learn to sigh by hearing/seeing certain others sigh. The mechanisms are different, but the end product of learning how to function in a certain way is similar. In an average nuclear family, the infant is surrounded con­ stantly by the same few people. In the first few years of life the opportunity for a generalized learning (beyond the family) of what, why, and how people do w hat they do does n o t occur. They have to learn how to be someone else, as they learn to be themselves. They learn a repertoire o f vitality forms that they can choose from. We see m any acts perform ed by others every day. W e attribute m otives to them . We observe the m anner in w hich they are accom plished. W e grasp the context. But why do we care?

W HAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE?

H ow is the what, why, and how of any particular act lit up and selected as w orth “taking in,” to internalize, or identify with, or empathize with? If this question cannot be answered, all the rest would lose m uch o f its clinical value. The act o f an o th e r to be id entified w ith m u st belong to th at other specifically. It m ust carry their personal signature. It cannot be any m em ber o f a class of acts. The vitality of the forms of the actions of the other m ust be specific to them. It is what gives it its uniqueness. Even m ore serious, w ithout a selection process we w ould be constantly captured and inundated by the behavior of others in our presence. O ur m irror neuron system would be the prisoner of other people’s m otor neuron systems. Some gating and brak­ ing mechanisms m ust operate. The selection of a specific other to identify with is prim ordial. That person m ust have a special relationship with us. We can­ n o t get away from this notion. There m ust be a way that the behavior of the other has more value because of who they are to us, in reality or imagination. We m ust love, hate, respect, fear, admire, be attached to, or be dependent on them , (i.e. be in an im portant relationship with them ). Their presence, then, has a special value (conscious or unconscious). This value is built up over previous experiences w ith the other, or the other’s proto­ type. These accumulated experiences link the other to m otiva­ tional and em otional centers. They are “charged” by virtue of this linkage. They becom e “charged others.” Their presence alone will cause some activation o f the arousal, m otivational, and emotional centers associated with them. To capture this, Freud (1895) first used the term cathexis (besetsung). He m eant the am ount of psychic energy attached to an object (idea, etc.). Psychoanalysis has in part kept this con­ cept based on the “economics” of psychic energy as a physical reality. Over time, the psychic energy notion has become less of

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a reality and m ore of a m etaphor for value, or the affective value, or the am ount of excitation elicited by an object (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1967). I shall continue to use the term “value” as it is accepted across m any related fields. Arousal and em otion meas­ ure its value to us. So far, we have an individual who will be identified with or internalized. They have been pre-chosen by past experience. But how do they becom e internalized? They d o n ’t - n o t as whole objects and not as “part objects” (e.g. breasts). It is their forms of vitality as these relate to specific actions, feelings, atti­ tudes, reactions, and how they respond to us and make us feel that are internalized and identified with. W hat we take in has been experienced at an intim ate and local level. It is the inter­ active experience that is internalized, not “objects.” Suppose that a “charged other” executes a dismissive toss of the head to som eone else, or makes an attem pt at seduction, which is readily seen and heard in the voice, or that the other is involved w ith their whole body in an act of holding a baby a certain way. These actions with their vitality forms are the ongo­ ing perceptions of the charged other that the observer-identifier is concerned with. H ow do we internalize the local-level actions of a highlighted other? The w ork of LeDoux (1996) offers some suggestions. Recall th at the arousal systems will enhance the activation of ongoing perceptions. Perceptive processes th a t are n o t so engaged will not be activated (see Chapter 4). How can we build on this basic idea? It is reasonable to assum e th a t the sim ple presence and actions of people who are loved, hated, feared, or attached to will elicit activity in the arousal and m otivational centers that regulate these states. Suppose further that a “charged other” is now executing an action (the dismissive toss of the head, etc.).

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE?

Such actions are the “ongoing perceptions” o f the “charged other” that the observer-identifier is concerned with. In such a situation, the arousal systems will be doubly trig­ gered - first, by the presence of a “charged other,” i.e. by the activation o f the m otivational centers, and secondly, by the “ongoing perception” o f a specific act w ith a specific vitality form . The arousal systems will then re-ascend to the cortex to augm ent the activation o f the “ongoing p ercep tio n ” th at is already under way (like the dismissive toss o f the head). This a ction, as perceived, is th u s selectively m ore activated. It becom es a lit-up action that focalizes attention and interest. The m irror neuron system is also called into play and directed to the lit-u p action o f a lit-u p person, and creates a virtual enactm ent o f the other’s action, an imagined movement. This imagined m ovem ent m ust follow the exact dynamic form of the original. The virtual enactm ent can then rearrange the neural circuitry o f how such an action should be perform ed by the identifier in a certain context. The person who has identified ends up with a modified gesture for the action in question, and w ith the feel o f w hat it is like to perform an action as if they were its original performer. A building block for a larger inter­ nalization has been p u t in place. W hat we call em pathy englobes all these processes - object choice, sympathy, em pathy, and enactm ent. Rather than see these processes in sequence, they enter an ongoing dialogue and shape one another. The above teasing apart of empathy may be helpful in evalu­ ating our therapeutic responses or failures, in particular those involving the nature of our “countertransference,” i.e. those occasions w hen em pathic processes are overfacilitated, over­ inhibited, or disinhibited, and those m om ents w hen object choice and empathic action are taken.

US

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W e are perhaps taking a step tow ard understanding better “taking in ,” i.e. the general process b eh in d identification, empathy, and internalization. In any event, these processes have enormous importance for clinical theory and practice, and fur­ ther research is needed. Vitality form s, authenticity, and aliveness A uthenticity is cardinal in both patient and therapist. Being authentic is not an all-or-nothing state - there are degrees of authenticity that can shift (just think of politeness). It is hard to imagine how the nuances of authenticity are transm itted with­ o u t relying heavily on v itality form s. Ekm an, Friesen, & O’Sullivan (1988) have shown that authentic facial displays (tell­ ing the truth) versus inauthentic facial expressions (lying) can be distinguished based on their vitality dynamics (see Chapter 3). In natural situations, including therapy sessions, what goes into authenticity is far m ore complex, involving gestures, physical positions, muscular tonicity, voice, and language. The possibili­ ties for expressing level and shift in authenticity are many. The notion of level o f authenticity needs further discussion. An example involving an infant is useful here. ♦ A m other and her 9-m onth-old son were sitting side by side on the floor playing with a cardboard jigsaw puzzle. ♦ The boy picked up a piece of the puzzle and brought it to his m outh. ♦ His m other said in a norm al voice, “No, it’s not to eat, it’s a leaf’ (of the puzzle). She stopped his m ovement with her hand. ♦ The boy answered “Ugh.” Then he tried again to get the piece to his m outh. ♦ She repeated, in a firmer voice this time, “No!” ♦ His response was “Uugghh!”

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE?

♦ She escalated even higher and said, “NO, IT’S NOT TO EAT!!!” ♦ He escalated even further, “UUGGHH!!” ♦ She then leaned forward towards him, lowered her eye­ brows, and said in a flat voice with no melody and m uch vocal tension (as in anger), “DO N’T YOU YELL AT YOUR MOTHER. I SAID NO!” ♦ He then overescalated her, yet again, and said, “UUUGGGHHH!!!!” ♦ At this point she gave up and conceded the victory to him. She sat back, her face softened and broke into a slightly seductive smile. She said, with a melodic voice, “Does that taste good?” ♦ He then p u t the puzzle piece in his m outh. ♦ She then made him pay for his victory. W ith a disgusted wrinkling of her nose and a slightly contem ptuous voice she said, “It’s only cardboard, does that taste good?” The m other’s family of origin was quite “macho.” H er m other and father were constantly in negotiations where her m other said “N o” and her father said “Yes” to whatever was the source o f contention. This w ent on until he progressively raised his voice and his physical threat level to a point where she would give in to him. After he got w hat he wanted she made him pay for it with contem pt and belittlement: “You’re an idiot, you’re such a baby,” and so on. She and her older brother repeated the same pattern, and it recurred in her marriage with her son’s father. Therefore the whole scene between the m other and her son was not a simple prohibition against putting things in his m outh, as it first appeared. R ather it was a lesson for him in how to negotiate with a woman. The whole negotiation turned around the point when she stopped escalating, and let him overescalate

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her, as if giving up the battle to him. W hen are the “sincerity conditions” such that adequate authenticity has been reached? The whole thing is about m easuring, judging, and enact­ ing authenticity. T hat was the im p o rta n t cultural message. The prohibition against m outhing things was just the conven­ ient vehicle. In addition, the negotiation was conducted mostly with changes in vitality forms. Recall th a t the in fan t was only 9 m onths old and he was already learning non-verbally about the negotiation of the authenticity of desire. He will spend the rest of his life expand­ ing his knowledge of how to do this. In addition, it will come into play in the consulting room. It could never be done w ith­ out vitality forms as a medium. Here is a quite different example of our ignorance about iden­ tification and em pathy and the role o f vitality form s in their operation. It concerns transference and countertransference. Heller & Haynal (1997) studied the videotapes of therapy ses­ sions with patients who were high risk for a repeated attem pt at suicide. The therapists could n o t pred ict w ho w ould make another attem pt. Consciously they did n o t know. Heller and Haynal, and a panel of judges, carefully exam ined the facial expressions of the at-risk patients. Using Ekman and Friesen’s Facial Action Coding System, they could not predict who would again attem pt suicide. However, when they studied the facial expressions of the treating therapists, they could make a signifi­ cant prediction of which patients would attem pt suicide! Something in the patients’ behavior m ust have evoked forms of vitality in the therapists that let them know (unconsciously) that certain patients had a different level o f authenticity o f their belief in “going on being.” It was as if a shadow fell on their vitality. Perhaps I am taking a step too far. However, the over­ reach attests to the clinical possibilities that invite exploration when vitality forms are brought to the fore.

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DO FORMS OF VITALITY HAVE?

It is crucial to remember that the m ost transform ing and cur­ ative element in psychotherapy is the experience of the thera­ peutic relationship, not the theoretical approach or the technical m aneuvers. M ost evidence leads to th at conclusion (BCPSG, 2009). I have tried to show that the flesh of the therapeutic rela­ tionship is form ed in part from the interplay o f vitality forms. These are essential to psychotherapy w hether we recognize it or not. In speaking about the process of supervising young therapists in training, it is often observed that everything that the trainee does n o t tell th eir supervisor is w hat really w ent on in the session.

Overall summary This book calls attention to the dom ain of dynamic forms of vitality. It dem onstrates that such a dom ain exists, and shows th at it is separate and distinct from the dom ains o f em otion, sensation, and cognition. It stands on its own. The second task has been to describe the scope of the dom ain o f dynam ic form s o f vitality in psychology, the arts, psycho­ therapy, developm ent, and neuroscience. It is ubiquitous as a part of all experience. Finally, it intends to influence some of our current notions and suggest further paths o f inquiry into this dom ain and all that it touches.

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Index

acceleration 15 accom panying 140 acetylcholine 62 activated m otivational systems 57 activity 35 affect 42 attunem ent 4 1 ,4 2 ,4 3 , 113-15 sharing 115,116 Albers, Josef 80 alertness 61 Alexander Nevsky 79 Alexander technique 53, 141 aliveness 8, 35, 104, 146-9 alternating narrative syntagm 95 amygdala 64, 65 m aturation o f 109 anger 23 arousal 9, 37, 58 in babies 107-8 definition o f 58 elicitation o f 65 general 59, 62 neurobiological developm ent 109-10 arousal systems 57-72 ascending arousal pathways 60, 62 fetus 69 fine-tuning o f signals 63 flexibility o f 59 infants 69-70 neurotransm itters 62-3 regulation o f 67-70 reticular activating system 60 specificity o f 70-1 tim ing 66 art form s correspondences between 78 "total” 7 8 ,7 9 ,8 0 see also cinema; dance; music; theater

artistic collaborations 76, 77-81 ballet 79 cinem a 79 poetry 78 ascending arousal pathways 60, 62 association areas 49 attention 9 authenticity 146-9 autistic shapes 46 awareness 142 babies early social life 106-9 see also infants background feelings 44, 45 ballet 79 ,8 4 -5 Ballets Russes 79 Ballets Suedois 79 basal ganglia 67 Bauhaus School 79-80 behavior, synchronization o f 51 being 10 Bellour, R aym ond 94 besetsung 143 binding 15 Birdwhistell, Ray 38 body tone 61 boredom 65 Boston Change Process Study G roup 111,124,126 brainstem 67 gating by 63 Brazelton’s N eonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale 105 breakfast interview 130-1 brightness 31 Cage, John 80 Cartesian theater 49 cathexis 143 chaos theory 5

170

INDEX

charged others 143, 144 choreographic therapy 53 choreography 85-9 cinem a 6, 93-8 collaborations in 79 frames 94 sequences 94 shots 94 vitality form s 94-8 close-ups 95 m ontage and editing 96 static shots 95 Clynes, M anfred 40 cognitive appraisal 68, 71 com a 59 comm unicative musicality 51, 52-3 complexity theory 5 consciousness 32, 42 containing 139 content recording o f 24 representation 25 unfolding o f 23-5 contingency 115 cortex 63-4 m aturation o f 109-10 sensory 64 countertransference 120,145,148 cross-m odal m erging 35 C unningham , Merce 80, 86 dance 6, 20, 46, 51, 80-1 ballet 79, 84-5 choreography 85-9 m odern 87 vitality forms 84-9 dance therapy 53, 89 D arwin, Charles 39 desires 22 developm ental aspects 101-17 fetus 101-5 neonate 106 prem ature infants 105 dialogue 125 dialoguing 139-40 directionality 4 dopam ine 62 Douglas D unn Dance Co. 81

drives 22, 57 D uncan, Isadora 86 dynamics 6-7 fluidity o f 14 m eaning o f 7 neuronal 29 physical 29 vitality 29 dynamic experience 30-1, 45 organizational level 30 dynamic indicators 76 dynamic m ovem ent signature 13 dynamic pentad 4, 6, 22 dynamic representation 25 dynamic stimuli 112 dynamic systems theory 5 dynamic vitality 19-32 Einstein, Albert 6 elan vital 3 em bodied m in d 10, 121 em bodim ent 10, 25 em ergent properties 5 em otions 9 ,2 7 -8 ,3 1 -2 ,4 2 and arousal 65 em otion dynamics 7, 44 em otion regulation 44 em pathic im provisation 139 em pathy 13,145 energy 22 Eshkol, N oa 81 evolution 19 experience 24, 34, 44,135 past 11 phenom enological 129-33 Facial Action Coding System 39,148 facial movem ents 39-40 lack o f 9-10 smiles 40 feelings 43 Feininger, Lyonel 80 Feldenkrais therapy 53, 89,141 felt experience 8, 34, 64 felt sense 53-4 fetal behavior 101-5 goal-directed 103

INDEX | 171

lack o f intentionality 103 m em ory recall 104 m ovem ent 101-2 force 4, 22, 57 felt experience o f 8 forms o f feeling 37,81 free association 130 Freud, Sigm und 33-4, 119-20 general arousal 59, 62 Georgi, Yvonne 86 Gestalt 4, 5,14, 49 Gestalt therapy 11,53-4, 135 gestures 9 goal direction 13 goal setting 23 Goodridge, Janet 88-9 G ordon, D avid 81 G raham , M artha 86 G rand U nion 80 Gropius, W alter 80 grounding 139 habituation 65 babies 108 Haag, Genevieve 46 happiness 23 hedonic appraisal 68 Heller, M ichael 53 histam ine 62 H itchcock, Alfred, The Birds 96-8 holding 139 holistic events 24 Hughlings Jackson, John 109 H um phrey, D oris 86 Husserl, E dm ond 34 identification 13, 141-6 ongoing perception 145 selection o f subject 143 taking in 145-6 im age-gesture process 126 im agined m ovem ent 133-5 im itation 43, 115 im plication 76 im plicit relational knowing 11, 110-11

im provisation m usic therapy 139 individual differences 30-1 infants color discrim ination 112 early learning 110-11 neurological developm ent of arousal 109-10 prem ature see prem ature infants sense o f smell 112 shaping of behavior 115 initial tendency 124 innateness 37 intensity 26 intention detection centers 137 intention emerging process 125 intention unfolding 123, 124 intentionality 4, 21, 22, 104 inter-psychic events 137-8 interactional synchrony 51 internalization 13, 141-6 intersubjectivity 43, 137-41 introspection 130 James, W illiam 34 Judson Dance Theater 80 Kandinsky, Vassily 80 Kendon, A dam 38 kinesics 38 Klee, Paul 80 Kreutzberg, H arald 86 Laban, R udolf 85 Labanotation 85-6 Lamb, W arren 87-8 Langer, Susanne 37 language 126 local level 135-7 Lyons-Ruth, Karlen 111 Macaulay, Alastair 77 McNeill, David 126 m anner 50 Marks, Lawrence 26 m atching 139 m eaning 127

172 | INDEX

m em ory 64, 120 present rem em bering 129 vitality form s as paths to 127-9 m ental m ovem ent 21-2 "m ental prim itive” 22 M erleau-Ponty, M aurice 34 m etam odality 26, 78 m icroanalytic interview 130-2 m irror neurons 13, 47-9, 137, 142 m irroring 139 Moholy-Nagy, Laszl6 80 m om ents o f m eeting 140 m other-in fan t interactions 41-2, 52, 106-7 affect attunem ent 41, 42, 43, 113-15 m otivation centers 57 motives 22 m otor program s 50 m ovem ent 4, 8-9 daughters of 4, 111 dynamic shaping 51 facial 39-40 lack o f 9-10 fetal 101-2 im agined 133-5 m ental 21-2 phantasied 134 role o f 19-21 soft assembly 14, 102,125 visualized 134 m ovem ent therapy 89,141 multisensoriality 15, 36,111-12 m ultisensory neurons 36 m usic 6, 20, 46 dynamic form s 20 dynamic indicators 83 vitality forms 82—4 changes in intensity 82 flow 83 intensity 82 rhythm 83 stress/accents 82-3 tem po 83 m usic therapy 89 m utual recognition 140 narrative 76, 131 narrative therapies 134

negotiation 146-7 N eonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) 106 neonates 106 sleep 104-5 nervous systems 5 neural exploitation 49 N eurodevelopm ental Individualized Care and Assessment Program (NICAP) 117 n euronal dynamics 29 neurotransm itters 62-3 Nichols, Kyra 77 non-verbal therapies 53 norepinephrine 62 novelty 65 "now ” 42 ongoing perception 145 ontology 101-17 over-attunem ent 114 past experience 11 Paxton, Steve 80-1, 86, 88 contact im provisation 88 perception 8 ongoing 145 physionom ic 37 theory o f 35 perform ance 23 peripheral vision 9 Pfaff, D onald 58 phantasied movem ents 134 phenom enological experience 129-33 phenom enology 33, 34 physical dynamics 29 physical tone 45 physionom ic perception 37 P ick U p Co. 81 pitch 31 poetry, collaborations in 78 polyrhythm icity 15 pow er 22 prem ature infants 105 “kangaroo care” 117 sleep 104—5 present m om ent 129,130 proprioception 8, 9, 104

INDEX

prosody 108 psychic energy 33, 57 psychoanalysis 33-4 ,1 1 9 -2 0 psychodynam ics 7 psychotherapy 121-49 authenticity and aliveness 146-9 focusing-oriented 53 identification 141-6 im agined m ovem ent 133-5 intersubjectivity 137-41 local level 135-7 m em ory 127-9 phenom enological experience 129-33 speech 121-7 qualia 23, 25 Rainer, Yvonne 80, 86 Rauschenberg, Robert 80 real tim e 76-7 recognition 5 recording o f content 24 dynamic 24 reflective-verbal processing 124 representations 25 reticular activating system 60 rhythm 83, 88 Robbins, Jerome 86 Scheflen, A1 38 selective inattention 107 self-reflection 137 sensations 9, 26-7 sensori-tonic field 112 sentics 40 serotonin 62 Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine, The Primacy o f M ovem ent 19-20 significance processing 54 sleep-wake cycles 116 smiles, false vs. real 40 social interaction 75 soft assembly o f m ovem ents 14, 102, 125 som ething in m ind 123 sound in m otion 20 space 4, 26

speech 121-7 intention unfolding 123,124 m otivation for 122 spontaneous 138 static m ental states 128, 129 static stim uli 112 stillness 9-10 symbolist collaborations 78 sym pathy 13 synesthesia 35 taking in 145-6 talking 125 talking therapies 127 tem poral continuum m odel 54 thalam us 63-4 theater 6, 89-93 thought, flow o f 9 tim e 4, 26 Tom pkins, Sylvan 37 transference 120,148 Trevarthen, Colwyn 51 Trisha Brown Dance Co. 81 Tustin, Francis 46 u n der-attunem ent 114 value 22, 144 verbalization 133-5 vigilance 9 vigor 22 visualized movem ents 134 vitalism 57 vitality definition o f 3 as m ental creation 4 vitality affects 41 vitality dynamics 29, 34, 46 vitality forms 10, 47-8, 61 anatom ical approach 39-40 coding for'in art form s 81-98 developm ent o f 101-17 dynamic 19-32 and em otions 27-8 exploration o f 10-15 level o f organization 29-31 m atching o f 41-2 as paths to m em ory 127-9

174

INDEX

vitality forms (continued) and sensations 26-7 and speech 121-7 tracking and encoding 48 and unfolding o f content 23-5 voice, characteristics o f 116 W agner, Richard 77-8 W erner, H einz 35

W igram, Tony 139 will 22 W ilson, R obert 81, 87, 89 wishes 22 Yvonne Rainer Dance Co. 80