心智機器 Part J

心理機器

像
頭腦中的其他聯繫一樣，心理機器是我們進入並繼續前進的習慣性思維方式，因為這些聯繫是無意識的。它們通常在生命的前 5 年放在一起。它們是機械的，就像實際的機器一樣，為了達到特定的結果，它們會經歷特定的、重複的移動模式。

一種常見的心理機器形式是檢索記憶的。我們可能會要求某人記住一些東西，最後他們想出了一個記憶。但是他們實際上是怎麼做到的呢？我們中很少有人停下來考慮這個問題。如果問他們是如何做到的，他們一開始可能會畫一個空白。這似乎是一個愚蠢的問題。因此，可能需要一些工作才能真正看到。但最終，如果他們確實有一台喚醒記憶的心理機器，他們將開始能夠看到他們正在經歷什麼過程來回憶事情。

例如，他們可能會有一個用棍子在記憶中戳來戳去，最後戳出正確的東西的形象。伯納注意到一個人腦海中有一個看起來像擋風玻璃刮水器的東西;他們會有一個圖像，它以一種方式擦拭，然後以另一種方式擦拭。搜索正確的記憶體會出現，如果它是錯誤的，雨刮器會以一種方式“擦除”它，然後沿著另一個方向，呈現另一個記憶體以供考慮，直到出現正確的記憶體。15

心智機器可以用於任何事情，例如解決數學問題或制定邏輯論證。一個常見的方法是想像在板上寫下總和以進行算術。這是一台簡單的心理機器。

許多心理機器是由反映我們物理現實中發生的事情的圖像組成的，比如寫出總和或必須翻閱才能找到東西的歸檔系統。有些機器由不反映現實的圖像組成，但仍然以某種機械方式工作。

許多心理機器執行某種任務來解決問題和檢索數據，但其他機器則幫助我們忘記



事情。這些可能更難識別，因為它們是專門為讓我們忘記而設計的。很多人只是簡單地將記憶空白，但其他人則有一台精神機器;一個人有一台機器，可以擦掉記憶，就像一塊布擦拭黑板上的文字一樣。

人們使用其他機械方法來避免具有物理機械元素的不想要的想法，例如有人無意識地拉扯他們的夾克或傾斜肩膀以實現自己的某種目的。

茱莉亞有一種特別的方式暗示她說的話真的不重要。如果她對某件事不滿意，但認為這樣說是不可接受的，她就用聳聳肩的機械動作來隱瞞她所說的話的重要性，這樣一種方式就撤回了她交流的影響。她的聽眾通常，儘管通常是下意識的，接受她的退出衝擊力，並傾向於無視她在說什麼。這強化了裘莉婭的想法，即沒有人認真對待她的生活，也沒有人真正聽到她的聲音。
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要對付一台心理機器，一個人需要清楚地看到它：他們在做什麼，目的和效果是什麼。他們可能需要説明才能看到它。當他們看到它的目的時，它將立即停止自動。

如果沒有習慣性機制，這個人一開始可能會感到有點迷茫。可能是他們在年輕時就建立了一種在社交場合過日子的機制。他們可能會通過裝出某種傲慢的角色來做到這一點。當他們看到自己在做什麼時，他們必須選擇是否去做。它可能已經存在了40或50年。知道他們現在有選擇權通常意味著他們會選擇不這樣做，或者如果他們試圖使用它，它會失去它的力量，並對他們感到虛假。但是，即使他們暫時不太確定在社交場合該做什麼，他們也會開始更多地表現自己，而不是通過自動機制。這最終將幫助他們感到更自由。



機制和機器本身沒有問題。當一個人有意識地這樣做時，他們可以選擇很好地利用它們。例如，他們可能會有效地構建一個，以便更好地記住事物。當心理機器是自動的時，問題就出現了。這佔用了頭腦中的空間。找到心理機器的目的是阻止自動性的關鍵，因為這是將它結合在一起的原因。停止心理機器會給個人帶來更大的自由。

多重連接

頭腦中的聯繫通常相當簡單明瞭，但是當我們向下挖掘時，許多聯繫實際上是非常複雜的。我們發現，想法用於與它們存儲在頭腦中的原始原因不同的目的。大腦將使用其任何內容來構建敘事和複雜的心理機器，使其成為處理感知問題的新方法。

Berner舉了一個複雜連接組的例子：它涉及一個心理機器，其目的主要是阻止實際音樂的聲音。他不想聽音樂，原因會變得很清楚。為此，他無意識地使用了他腦海中的棉絮形象或想法。這與棉絮可以消除不需要的聲音的想法有關。他腦海中已經有了對棉絮的情感印象，因為他小時候討厭棉絮的感覺（它附著在創傷性的情感事件上），並且抵制棉絮的身體感覺的想法。因此，羅伯特的腦海中有一種預先存在的、充滿情感的棉絮體驗，以及對它的抵制和不喜歡的想法。他對音樂也有一種不喜歡的情緒。所以他也抵制特定音樂的體驗。

現在，潛意識裡，這種對棉絮的預先存在的印象被用於一個新的目的：抵制音樂。他將它們連接起來，儘管以前沒有連接。他下意識地將現實中的事物運作方式與不必要的噪音與棉絮可以掩蓋聲音的事實以及不喜歡的感覺聯繫起來。於是，一台心理機器應運而生，通過



潛意識的決定和不完整的理解，其中包括對棉絮的印象和將其放在自己和音樂之間以免聽到的想法。

對音樂的厭惡與對棉絮的厭惡是不同的敘事，但它們之所以聯繫在一起，是因為棉絮敘事被用來處理音樂敘事，並且因為它們之間有一些相似的意義。

這個人體驗到一些音樂，那種觸發心理機器的音樂，是美麗的。在他的內心敘事中，只有好人才能做出優美的音樂。因此，接受音樂並真正體驗它意味著也接受其他人是“好”的。根據他對世界和他自己的現有觀念，允許這是真的意味著他自己是“壞的”，因為他沒有創作出優美的音樂。他抗拒了身體中的情緒/感覺，這種關於他變壞的想法帶來了這種想法。由於這種複雜的、自動的、潛意識的思想和經驗的聯繫，他通過抵制音樂來抵制自己是壞的想法。16 他通過無意識地構建一個心理機器來實現這一點，該機器將音樂的體驗降低到他可以忍受的水準，在那裡他的想法和糟糕的感覺處於他可以操作的水準。

這種程度的複雜性需要時間來解開，但是一旦這個人理解了他構建的目的，複雜的心理機器就會屈服。然後他可以繼續解開他不好的態度，但這裡的重點是，他的腦海中將不再有一台心理機器在運行。他會在腦海中去除一層無意識的反應，因此他頭腦的這一特定方面將更容易處理。

在很多情況下，複雜程度至少與上面的例子一樣曲折。我們把自己深深地埋葬在一層層抵制和隨機連接的想法和經驗之下。我們深陷泥潭，似乎不可能找到出路。但慢慢地、有條不紊地採取，它開始清晰，我們可以從我們的反應中找到解脫，隨著隨機關聯的想法分開，我們更加清晰。



頭腦

中的態度聯繫 頭腦中的聯繫都是想法，但伯納稱某些想法為態度，因為它們的工作方式。簡而言之，如果你從小就有一種“生活不好”的態度，就像大多數深層態度一樣，當你有糟糕的經歷時，比如你的父母分手，頭腦就會將新的糟糕經歷與“生活很糟糕”的現有態度聯繫起來。新的體驗實際上與導致「生活不好」態度的原始體驗完全無關。然而，它牢牢地堅持著深刻的態度，因為它在某些重要方面與原始體驗相似。17 （關於態度的詳細討論，見第7章。

態度聯繫存在於思想的各個層面。它們是想法，所有的聯繫從根本上說，都是想法，這些想法也與作為情緒的身體感覺有關。



第二級：情緒l 創傷經歷

第一層次的頭腦中的連接相當容易處理，儘管它們交叉連接得越多，區分零件和放電自動連接就越困難。然而，一旦一個人可以看到他們在做什麼，以及為什麼，他們就會從那些特定的自動連接中獲得自由。

下一級是情感創傷體驗。這更難處理。許多人被困在這個水準上，因為他們在保持它方面投入了大量資金。他們無意識地利用它的想法來控制他人。

在情感創傷經歷中，有一種創傷當時沒有處理。當時被理解和接受的創傷實際上根本不會成為創傷，因為影響被處理和消散。它成為一個問題的地方是部分或全部情感創傷經歷無法忍受和抵制。18 結果，它留在腦海中並影響當前的行為。

在情感創傷體驗中，個人的頭腦中存在體驗的想法與身體中某些特定情感感覺之間的聯繫。因此，當一個人回憶起情感創傷經歷時，它通常會伴隨著那種不愉快的感覺或情緒，或者這個人已經徹底壓制了



它，以至於他們甚至沒有達到身體的感覺，而是通過使用某種無意識的分心來避開它，也許是一種心理機器。所以記憶被拒之門外，身體的感覺也被拒之門外。它通常表現為身體緊張和扭曲增加。當生活體驗被某事喚起時，人會進入對基於身體的情緒的身體抵抗狀態。沒有另一個，任何一方都無法充分體驗，即使這種“知道”被深深地壓制了。

使它成為創傷，而不僅僅是一種情感體驗的東西是對部分或全部創傷的抵抗。這種抵抗是由與另一個人或另一個人對部分或全部創傷經歷發生的不理解引起的。

當情感創傷與其他人有關時，在某種程度上他們都這樣做，因為我們將糟糕的經歷與他人聯繫起來，無論其他人是否以任何方式對事件負責，那麼這個人通常會以某種方式處理它，就像與他們不理解的人一樣。這種情況再次發生，無意識地發生。如果它是有意識的，它就不會發生。由於創傷，一個人可能會開始表現得像他們的父親或母親，或者他們認為他們有這種情感創傷的任何人。

這是因為，由於不理解沒有得到令人滿意的處理，與那個人在一起，他們成為自己頭腦中的那個人，以控制理解的過程。從根本上說，我們熱切地想要這種理解，並將盡我們所能來實現它，即使這意味著成為另一個人。

該人希望與發生創傷的個人解決問題，但他們找不到直接與該人本人解決問題的方法;他們不夠熟練。所以他們無意識地在他們的腦海中得到了這個人的形象，並與這個形象而不是真實的人聯繫起來。

其中一些可能是完全有意識的。他們可能會在腦海中一遍又一遍地重播發生的事情的某些部分，並與關鍵人物排練各種對話，以試圖解決發生的事情。但他們這樣做的原因大多是無意識的，他們採取的行為幾乎肯定是無意識的。他們有效地成為創傷

持續戲劇化的演員，
並在創傷戲劇中扮演另一個人的角色，以及他們自己的角色。在這樣做時，他們將採取相關人員的舉止。我們與父母的一些相似之處是良性的，也許是遺傳的，但其他方面是學習鏡像的，作為溝通解決不理解的嘗試。這是一種試圖通過扮演自己的角色和扮演對方的角色來控制創傷，以彌補不理解。但是，當然，這是行不通的，因為他們不是在與真實的人打交道，而是在與自己打交道;這是一個閉合電路。

為了解決這種內部情況，這個人必須在創傷中找到這種不理解，並將其帶入有意識的頭腦中。

通常，在説明下，這個人可以回憶起發生的事情，並在頭腦層面找到不理解的地方。他們可能還必須經歷身體的不適才能度過難關，並且，有意識地在支援下完成，這將帶來關於他們所做的事情以及他們為什麼這樣做的見解。但這不應該以這樣的方式進行，即該人再次受到創傷。成功實現，一個人將擺脫與發生不理解的人一樣的行為。

例如，如果不理解是和一個人的母親在一起，他們可能會發現自己表現得像她，說話像她，像她一樣批評，甚至可能像她一樣移動。其中一些可能是遺傳的，但如果他們釋放了對她的不理解，他們可能會發現這些行為消失了。在這種情況下，他們將開始更多地從自己身上採取行動，而不是從她的想法中採取行動。

情感創傷經歷比隨意的抗拒經歷更難處理，因為它們伴隨著巨大的衝鋒和阻力。但它們是可以處理的，因為幾乎總是有一些有意識的記憶附著在它們身上，所以有一些東西可以開始。當他們分開，不理解被清除時，就可以重新獲得大量的情感自由和能力。

MENTAL MACHINES

Like other connections in the mind, mental machines are habitual ways of thinking that we get into and keep going because those connections are unconscious. They are usually put together in the first 5 years of life. They are mechanical, like actual machines, and go through a particular, repetitive pattern of moves in order to achieve a particular outcome.

A common form of mental machine is one for retrieving memories. We might ask someone to remember something, and finally they come up with a memory. But how did they actually go about doing that? Few of us pause to consider this. If they are asked how they did it, they might draw a blank at first. It can seem like a stupid question. So it can take some work to really see. But eventually, if they do have a mental machine for bringing up memories, they will start to be able to see what process they are going through to recall things.

For instance, they might have an image of poking around in their memory with a stick and finally poking the right thing. Berner noted one person who had something that looked like a windscreen wiper in their mind; they would have an image of it wiping one way and then the other. Searching for the right memory one would come up and, if it was the wrong one, the wiper would ‘wipe’ it out going one way and, going the other, would present another memory for consideration until the right memory appeared.15

Mental machines can be used for anything, such as solving mathematical problems or working out logical arguments. A common one for this is to imagine writing up sums on a board in order to do the arithmetic. This is a simple mental machine.

Many mental machines are made up of images that reflect what happens in our physical reality, like the writing out of sums or a filing system one has to leaf through to find something. Some machines are made up of images that do not reflect reality but work in some mechanical way nonetheless.

Many mental machines perform some kind of task for working things out and retrieving data, but others work to help us forget



things. These can be more difficult to identify because they are specifically designed to make us forget. Plenty of people simply blank out memories, but others have a mental machine; one person had a machine that rubbed out memories like a cloth wiping out writing on a blackboard.

People use other mechanical ways of avoiding unwanted thoughts that have a physical mechanical element, such as someone tugging at their jacket unconsciously or angling a shoulder to achieve some purpose for themselves.

Julia had a particular way of suggesting that what she was saying was really of no importance. If she was not happy about something but thought it would be unacceptable to say so, she withheld the importance of what she said with a mechanical action of shrugging her shoulder in such a way that it withdrew the impact of her communication. Her listeners generally, though usually subconsciously, picked up her withdrawal of impact and tended to disregard what she was saying. This reinforced Julia’s idea that no one took her seriously in life and no one really heard her.



To deal with a mental machine a person needs to see it clearly: what they are doing and what the purpose and effect is. They will probably need help to see it. When they see its purpose, it will instantly stop being automatic.

Without the habitual mechanism, the person might feel a bit lost at first. It might be they have had a mechanism for getting by in social situations that they had put in place at a young age. They might do this by putting on a certain persona of being haughty. When they see what they are doing, they have to choose whether to do it or not to do it. It might have been in place for 40 or 50 years. Knowing they now have the choice usually means they will choose not to do it, or it will lose its power if they attempt to use it, and feel fake to them. But even if they are not quite sure what to do in social situations for a bit, they will begin to behave more from themselves instead of through an automatic mechanism. This will eventually help them feel freer.



Mechanisms and machines are not problematic in themselves. A person can choose to use them to good advantage when they do so consciously. For instance, they might usefully construct one in order to be better at remembering things. The problem arises when mental machines are automatic. This takes up space in the mind. Finding the purpose of a mental machine is the key to stopping the automaticity, because that is what holds it together. Stopping a mental machine results in greater freedom for the individual.

MULTIPLE CONNECTIONS

The connections in the mind are often fairly straightforward and obvious, but when we dig down, many of the connections are actually highly complex. We find that ideas are used for different purposes from the original reason they were stored in the mind. The mind will use any of its content to construct narratives and convoluted mental machines into new ways of handling a perceived problem.

Berner gave an example of a complicated group of connections as follows: it involved a mental machine, the purpose of which was primarily to block the sound of actual music. He did not want to hear the music for reasons that will become clear. To do this, he unconsciously used an image or idea of cotton wool that he had in his mind. This was connected to an idea that cotton wool could muffie unwanted sound. He already had an emotionally charged impression of cotton wool lodged in his mind because he hated the feel of it as a child (it was attached to a traumatic emotional event) and resisted the idea of the physical feeling of cotton wool. So there was a pre-existing, emotionally charged experience of cotton wool lodged in Robert’s mind along with resistance to it and an idea of dislike. He also had an emotional feeling of dislike about the music. So he resisted the experience of particular music too.

Now, subconsciously, this pre-existing impression of cotton wool was put to work for a new purpose: to resist the music. He connected them, though previously there was no connection. He subconsciously made a connection from the way things work in reality between unwanted noise and the fact that cotton wool can muffie sounds plus a feeling of dislike. So a mental machine came into being, through



subconscious decisions and incomplete understandings, which consisted of the impression of cotton wool and the idea of putting it between himself and the music in order not to hear it.

The dislike of music is a different narrative from the dislike of cotton wool, but they were associated because the cotton wool narrative was being used to deal with the music narrative and because there were some similarities of significance between them.

This person experiences some music, the kind of music that triggers the mental machine, as beautiful. In his internal narrative, only good people can make beautiful music. So accepting the music and really experiencing it would mean also accepting that other people are ‘good’. Allowing that to be true would, according to his existing ideas about the world and himself, mean that he, himself, was ‘bad’, because he was not making the beautiful music. He resisted the emotion/ feeling in his body that this idea of him being bad brought up. In consequence of this complex, automatic, subconscious connectivity of ideas and experiences, he resisted the idea that he was bad by resisting the music.16 He achieved this by unconsciously constructing a mental machine that toned down the experience of the music to a level he could tolerate, where his idea and feeling of being bad were at a level at which he could operate.

This degree of complexity will take time to unpick, but the complicated mental machine will yield as soon as this person understands the purpose of his construction. He can then go on and unpack the attitude that he is bad, but the point here is that he will no longer have a mental machine running in his mind about it. He will have taken off a layer of unconscious reactivity in his mind and this particular aspect of his mind will be easier to deal with as a result.

In a lot of cases the degree of complexity is at least as tortuous as the example above. We have got ourselves very buried under layers of resisted and randomly connected ideas and experiences. We are so deeply mired that it can seem impossible to find a way out. But taken slowly and methodically, it starts to clear and we can find relief from our reactivity and greater clarity as randomly associated ideas come apart.



ATTITUDE CONNECTIONS IN THE MIND

Connections in the mind are all ideas, but Berner calls some kinds of the ideas attitudes because of the way they work. In brief, if you have an attitude that ‘life is bad’ wired in at a deep level from a young age, as most deep attitudes are, and when you have a bad experience, such as your parents splitting up, the mind connects the new bad experience with the existing attitude that ‘life is bad’. The new experience actually had nothing at all to do with the original experience that led to the ‘life is bad’ attitude. However, it gets stuck firmly to the deep attitude because of the similarity it has to the original experience in some important ways.17 (For a detailed discussion on attitudes, see Chapter 7.)

Attitude connections are at every level of the mind. They are ideas and all the connections are, at base, ideas that are also connected to body sensations that are emotions.



Level II: emotional trauma experiences

The connections in the mind at level I are fairly easily dealt with, though the more cross-connected they are, the harder it can be to differentiate between the parts and discharge the automatic connections. However, once a person can see what they are doing, and why, they gain freedom from those particular automatic connections.

The next level down is the emotional trauma experience. This is more difficult to deal with. Many people get stuck at this level because of the big investment they have in keeping it going. They are using the idea of it, unconsciously, to control others.

In an emotional trauma experience there is a trauma that was not dealt with at the time. A trauma that was understood and accepted at the time does not in fact become a trauma at all as the effects are dealt with and dissipate. Where it becomes a problem is where some or all of an emotionally traumatic experience was intolerable and resisted.18 As a result, it stayed in the mind and affects current behaviour.

In an emotionally traumatic experience, there is a connection in the individual’s mind between the idea of an experience and some particular emotional sensation in the body. Consequently, when a person remembers the emotional trauma experience, it will often go along with that unpleasant sensation or emotion, or the person has



suppressed it so thoroughly that they do not even get as far as the body feeling but steer away from it by using some kind of unconscious distraction, perhaps a mental machine. So the memory is shut out and so is the feeling in the body. It will usually manifest as physical tension and increasing distortion. The person goes into a state of physical resistance to the body-based emotion when the life experience is evoked by something. Neither can be fully experienced without the other, even if this ‘knowing’ is deeply suppressed.

The thing that makes it a trauma, and not just an emotional experience, is the resistance to some or all of it. This resistance is caused by a non-understanding that took place with another person or persons about part or all of the traumatic experience.

When an emotional trauma has to do with someone else, and in some way they all do since we associate bad experiences with others whether others were in any way responsible for the events or not, then the person will often deal with it by acting in some way like the person with whom they had the non-understanding. This happens, once more, unconsciously. Were it conscious, it would not happen. As a result of traumas, a person may start behaving like their father or mother or whoever else they perceive they had that emotional trauma with.

This is because, since the non-understanding was not satisfactorily dealt with, with that person, they became that person in their own mind in order to control the process of understanding. Fundamentally we fervently want that understanding and will do what we can to achieve it, even if that means becoming the other person.

The person wanted to bring about resolution with the individual(s) with whom the trauma took place, but they could not find a way to do this with the person themselves, directly; they were not skilled enough. So they unconsciously got an image of the person in their minds and related to that image instead of to the actual person.

Some of that might have been perfectly conscious. They may replay some part of what happened over and over in their minds and rehearse various conversations with key people in order to try to resolve what happened. But the reason they are doing it is mostly unconscious and the behaviour they take on will almost certainly be unconscious. They effectively become an actor in the ongoing dramatisation of the trauma


and take on the role of the other person, as well as their own, in the trauma drama. In doing so, they will take on mannerisms of the person in question. Some of our likenesses to our parents are benign and maybe genetic, but other aspects are learned mirroring as an attempt at communication to resolve non-understanding. This is an attempt to take control of the trauma by acting their own part and acting the other person’s part as well, in order to mend the non-understanding. But of course, this does not work because they are not dealing with the real person, they are dealing with themselves; it is a closed circuit.

To tackle this internal situation, the person has to find that non- understanding in the trauma and bring it into the conscious mind.

Usually, with help, the person can recall what happened and find the non-understanding at the level of the mind. They may also have to experience the discomfort in the body in order to get through it, and, done consciously and with support, this will come with insights about what they did and why they did it. But this should not be done in such a way that the person is re-traumatised. Successfully achieved, a person would be released from acting like the person with whom the non-understanding took place.

For instance, if the non-understanding is with a person’s mother, they may find themselves acting like her, talking like her, being critical like her, maybe even moving a bit like her. Some of this may be genetic, but if they release the non-understanding they have had with her, they may find these behaviours vanish. In this case, they will start to act more from themselves and less from an idea of her.

Emotional trauma experiences are more difficult to deal with than casual resisted experiences because they come with huge charge and resistance. But they can be handled because there is almost always some conscious memory attached to them, so there is something with which to start. When they come apart and non-understandings are cleared up, then a great deal of emotional freedom and capacity can be regained.