What is "HeArt - psychosomatic counseling for artists"?

The work aims to identify one's psycho-physical limitations and release one's chronic bodily and emotional tensions

 

These tensions, called psychosomatic blocks, greatly limit the expressive power and quality, harmony and authenticity of any individual, but through specific body/psycho-dynamic practices they can also be identified, and subsequently dissolved, independently.

HeArt is a psychosomatic counseling service with a PNEI (psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology) approach dedicated to artists and entrepreneurs.

 

According to numerous researches, it is increasingly clear that our society does not put human psychophysical well-being at the center: the repression of our authenticity, vital energy and emotions are now "normalized" since our childhood, but they lead people to stiffen their identity, expression and inhibit their life force.

 

This type of approach has behind it a very large study and a decades-long history of experiments that have currently managed to win several IMRAD scientific publications; it is very present in international artistic and psycho-therapeutic realities, but still little known in Europe.

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The Basics of the NeuroPsychosomatic Model 

Modern psychosomatic psychotherapy, although approaches vary among different schools, is based on a common scientific and epistemological paradigm of the human being. 

1. At the scientific level, it is based on a consistent psychosomatic model validated by both international clinical research and the most recent contributions from neuroscience, psychophysiology and, in particular, PNEI, psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology, which in recent decades has definitively overcome the Cartesian dichotomy between mind and body and has favored a unified, systemic understanding of the human being in which all the major systems-nervous, cognitive, endocrine and immunological-are inseparable functional elements of a single network.

2. At the epistemological level, the body psychotherapy approach to the person follows the lines of the new holistic paradigm, which considers the individual as a whole, as a "unitary psychosomatic system" governed by Self-consciousness, in which mind, emotions and body are inseparable functional dimensions of the system itself. As we will elaborate in the following paragraphs, this principle implies that in every morbid or traumatic form the somatic factors reflect, in different ways and forms, the psychological and emotional factors and vice versa.

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The epistemological basis of the holistic paradigm and the WHO

Our psychosomatic PNEI model therefore, while very much related to scientific aspects, is nevertheless not reductionistic, but is holistic-systemic oriented. The holistic paradigm represents an advanced scientific epistemological formulation based on neuroscience, systems theory and theories of evolution, which has been developed internationally in recent decades by a large group of philosophers of science and scholars such as Laszlo, Capra, Maturana, Varela, Bohm, Prigogine and Del Giudice. 

The holistic psychosomatic model that emerges offers a unified and comprehensive view of the human being, understood as a complex bio-psycho-social system governed by a Self, understood as the deep and unified consciousness of the individual.

This synthesis gives rise to a new vision of psychotherapy and the model of human health that conforms to the international guidelines of the WHO, the World Health Organization, enshrined in the Declaration of Alma Ata (1978), the Ottawa Charter (1986) and especially in the report of the "Health Commission" of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies 2010, in which health is defined as "the emotional, mental, physical, social and spiritual state of well-being that enables people to achieve and maintain their personal potential in society."

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The contribution of neuroscience and PNEI to psychosomatics

International research over the past three decades has revolutionized medical and psychological views by contributing to a profoundly unified and psychosomatic understanding of the human being, and highlighting the intimate relationship between physical, emotional and psychological aspects. Candace Pert, the NIMH researcher who discovered endorphins and neuropeptides, argues that it is no longer possible to separate the physical aspect from the mental aspect, but that "we must speak of mind-body as a single integrated entity."

In our psychosomatic view, PNEI fits in as a link between medicine and psychology, with a mind-body model that encompasses the totality of physiological, emotional, psychological, and social behavioral processes understood as an organic, unified system.

Neuroscience currently represents one of the most important interdisciplinary scientific areas bringing together psychology, medicine, evolutionary biology, genetics, computer science, and philosophy of science. Neuroscience today studies the human nervous system and consciousness with entirely innovative tools and methodologies, thus transforming the old mind-body dichotomy into a unified psychosomatic understanding that allows for an increasingly articulate conception of the complexity of the human being.

Beginning with Reich, we then consider the major subsequent contributions of the mind-body model such as the psychophysiology of stress (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) by Selye and Cannon, the studies of Alexander and Dunbar on the relationships of psychodynamic models on the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, but above all, Pert's discoveries of neuropeptides and neurotransmitters, which enable the development of PNEI, psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology, and an understanding of the deep relationship connecting the psychic, nervous, endocrine, and immune systems: the "psychosomatic network."

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The psychosomatic self and global consciousness

We define Self-consciousness, experienced in meditation, as the "experience of psychosomatic wholeness," as a state of "global consciousness," of "cognitive and somatic presence" in which the unity of body, emotions and mind is perceived. We insistently use the adjective "global" to emphasize how much the experience of Self-consciousness is a very physical, somatic, sensory perception. When people in the state of "global consciousness" claim to be naturally "centered" and rooted in the body without the need for any control, they say they "feel themselves" without any effort or tension, that they perceive unity between bodily perceptions, emotions of the heart and thoughts of the mind. Based on the knowledge of neurophysiology and our own experiments, we put forward the hypothesis that "global self-consciousness" is first and foremost a systemic manifestation, that is, the effect of the coherence of the energies-information of the whole living organism, and that, at the neurophysiological level, increasing brain coherence synchronizes the areas of the brain, harmonizing and unifying the functions of the two hemispheres and especially the "three brains" (reptilian/histinctive, mammalian/emotional and human/mental).

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The psychosomatic self and global consciousness

We define Self-consciousness, experienced in meditation, as the "experience of psychosomatic wholeness," as a state of "global consciousness," of "cognitive and somatic presence" in which the unity of body, emotions and mind is perceived. We insistently use the adjective "global" to emphasize how much the experience of Self-consciousness is a very physical, somatic, sensory perception. When people in the state of "global consciousness" claim to be naturally "centered" and rooted in the body without the need for any control, they say they "feel themselves" without any effort or tension, that they perceive unity between bodily perceptions, emotions of the heart and thoughts of the mind. Based on the knowledge of neurophysiology and our own experiments, we put forward the hypothesis that "global self-consciousness" is first and foremost a systemic manifestation, that is, the effect of the coherence of the energies-information of the whole living organism, and that, at the neurophysiological level, increasing brain coherence synchronizes the areas of the brain, harmonizing and unifying the functions of the two hemispheres and especially the "three brains" (reptilian/histinctive, mammalian/emotional and human/mental).

Our hypothesis is that meditation techniques, by awakening self-awareness as the cognitive center of the system, produce (through increased eeg coherence) a process of neuronal reorganization and "centralization" or "neurocognitive reunification," which is the central element of personal growth and overall therapeutic activity. We hypothesize that this cognitive function of sensory and motor information occurs due to the synchronization function of the thalamus, the nerve center that reunifies information from different brain areas (Roy S.; Llinas R., 2007), (R.Llinas, 2008) (Fernández de Molina y Cañas A., 2000), and that seems to reflect the unifying and organizing activity of consciousness. 

We use the term "awakening" as we believe that "global self-consciousness" is the natural state of being, which we have lost due to a materialistic, unnatural and unhuman culture in which we were born and lived, and which, at a certain point in our existence we rediscover exists.

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The psychosomatic self: the PNEI map and neuropersonalities

One of the most important scientific-therapeutic achievements of our Institute is the creation of the PNEI Psychosomatic Map, which makes it possible to identify the neuropsychological and hormonal basis of human characters that we have called "Neuropersonalities" (see: PNEI Psychosomatic Map and Neuro Personality Test).

Reich, in 1933, wrote that there is a need for "a genetic-dynamic theory of character; well founded on the knowledge of the different genetic structures of the different types of character...and with a rigorous differentiation, both on the content side and on the formal side of resistances." Following these directions, our school has deepened the theoretical-scientific basis related to the different genetic types of emotions and functional behaviors related to them. Numerous experimental data in recent decades have shown that certain hormones and neurotransmitters, which Candace Pert called "emotion molecules," are the psycho-somatic mediators of personalities. Eisenck, Seaver and Davis, Esposito and Liguori, and more recently Cloninger have developed this medical, psychological, and psychiatric approach, highlighting the genetic-epigenetic basis that, by modulating the activity or imbalance of major hormones and neurotransmitters, generate temperaments and personalities.

From the synthesis of this extensive research, eight major hormone-neurotransmitters with obvious psychosomatic activity have been identified: serotonin, dopamine, testosterone, cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline, oxytocin, and endorphin. Each of these hormone-neurotransmitters expresses a specific and particular "functional system" of behaviors, emotions and psychological modalities that can be called basic patterns of "neuropersonality." This has enabled us to integrate the study of character with some elements of neuropersonalities that may open the door to the scientific study of personality in the future, without, however, falling into a possible scientific reductionism always lurking in the reading of the complexity of the human psyche. 

Reichian and Lowenian traits are thus complemented by neuropersonalities that have a more consistent scientific basis and allow for greater flexibility in interpreting the behaviors and manifestations, pathological and otherwise, of individuals. Neuropersonalities open the door to the scientific study of personality, advocated by Reich, while maintaining a flexible and functional approach, without labeling individuals in rigid or overly simplistic grids. The assessment of neuropersonalities allows us to more quickly identify the specific therapeutic path to follow.

It is a process of deep awareness that takes into account all the aspects of which we are made up and that connote our life experience: the physical and instinctive elements, traceable to the deepest part of our brain, the reptilian brain; the emotional aspects, traceable to the limbic brain; and, finally, the cognitive and mental aspects in the broadest sense traceable to the neo-cortex.

Awareness of these elements and their interaction brings us back to a unity of the human being that has been postulated and studied by many and which modern psychology calls the Self.

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The PNEI Psychosomatic Map

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The self, as systemic consciousness (area in yellow), manifests itself through neuro-psychic mechanisms, representing phylogenetically more recent cognitive processes (human brain, in blue), emotional-affective processes 

(mammalian brain, in green) and instinctive-physiological functions (reptilian brain, in red), through the epigenetic modulation of the cellular genetic heritage (phylogenetically older).

The Self manifests itself in life through specific functional processes (behavioral, emotional and cognitive) which are essentially mediated by specific hormones or neurotransmitters. If these instinctive, emotional and mental functional processes are kept fluid and natural, the Self remains permanently in "government" of the system, generating simplicity, spontaneity and functionality in life. When these functions of the Self are inhibited, conditioned, overstimulated or altered, the person (often a boy or girl) feels these inhibitions as an inhibition of the self and therefore, not being able to be himself, finds a family or cultural adaptation strategy, generating, over time, of the egos, of the personalities (from person, the mask that characterized the comedians) which in the PNEI map are represented by the intermediate sphere of the ego's identifications. These rigid and therefore not very functional structures can further worsen and degenerate into pathologies (external area of the map) in which the person is particularly "out of himself" and the behaviors are highly dysfunctional.

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Non-recognition of the Self and collective psychosomatic blocks

If Self-consciousness represents the main element that generates and maintains the sense of psychophysical unity, the inhibition of Self-consciousness is the central trauma that generates the three Collective Psychosomatic Blocks: the psychosomatic fragmentation between body, heart and mind. Let us describe them in functional chronological sequence: 1) The closure of the Self of the heart and of love: it is the main psychosomatic block as the heart in every culture is associated with the sense of identity and self-awareness (one touches one's heart to say I). The heart "closes" or inhibits its action due to strong pain, fear, disappointment, the impossibility of acting spontaneously. Its functional inhibition causes a lack of humanity and meaning in life, and difficulty in sharing feelings of love and empathy. 2) The hyperactivity of the mind: what cannot be experienced spontaneously with the heart must be immediately controlled and rationalized by the mind. The ego of the mind (the ego, the head), detached from the Self and the heart, replaces the self and controls the emotions and the body through the information-beliefs of the superego (the bank of memories on how one should behave to be socially accepted). 3) The control and inhibition of the body and the pleasure of living: excessive mental control and affective-emotional closure lead to the inhibition of the "body" understood as vitality, spontaneity, instinctivity and free sexuality. More information on this fundamental topic can be found in the latest edition of my book "Holistic Psychosomatics", Mediterranee (2010).

Meditation can help reverse this pathological orientation by restoring the centrality of Self-awareness and reintegrating awareness of the natural and functional state of the system.

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Self psychology, awakening therapy and the path of personal growth

The PNEI psychosomatic map places the Self at the center of the system, around the six main neuro-personalities of the ego, i.e. the identities that are created on the basis of family and social conditioning, mediated by specific neuroendocrine functions, while on the outside we structure the pathological evolution of these identification-conditioning axes.

We have based our entire clinical and human work on this scheme, transforming old therapy schemes into processes of personal, individual and group growth that tend to "awaken the conscience". Starting from this research we have structured a personal growth course of the Holistic Academy in which healing is profoundly oriented towards the "awakening of self-awareness" through a process of personal growth.

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Source: Villaggio Globale - IUP (Psychosomatic Humanistic Institute) 26.10.2023 - https://www.neuropsicosomatica.com/pnei/istituto-di-neuropsicosomatica-chi-siamo/

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