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PubMed2001

Conscious mind--conscious body.

The incorporation of body awareness and touch techniques within analytic treatment is the main theme of this paper. Beginning with a personal experience of the oneness of body and psyche, the author considers Jung's observation of the physiological accompaniments of emotional reactions and his understanding of body as both shadow and ground. The author proposes a new model of analytic treatment that embraces both the verbal and imaginal as well as the non-verbal and somatic aspects of psyche. She describes the three elements of her approach: 1) reading what the body is saying about psyche; 2) using the body as an organ of perception; 3) using touch as a therapeutic tool. The effects of the taboo around touch are considered. Clinical examples throughout the paper demonstrate how somatic awareness and the use of touch promote the analytic process.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

An information integration theory of consciousness.

BACKGROUND: Consciousness poses two main problems. The first is understanding the conditions that determine to what extent a system has conscious experience. For instance, why is our consciousness generated by certain parts of our brain, such as the thalamocortical system, and not by other parts, such as the cerebellum? And why are we conscious during wakefulness and much less so during dreamless sleep? The second problem is understanding the conditions that determine what kind of consciousness a system has. For example, why do specific parts of the brain contribute specific qualities to our conscious experience, such as vision and audition? PRESENTATION OF THE HYPOTHESIS: This paper presents a theory about what consciousness is and how it can be measured. According to the theory, consciousness corresponds to the capacity of a system to integrate information. This claim is motivated by two key phenomenological properties of consciousness: differentiation - the availability of a very large number of conscious experiences; and integration - the unity of each such experience. The theory states that the quantity of consciousness available to a system can be measured as the Phi value of a complex of elements. Phi is the amount of causally effective information that can be integrated across the informational weakest link of a subset of elements. A complex is a subset of elements with Phi>0 that is not part of a subset of higher Phi. The theory also claims that the quality of consciousness is determined by the informational relationships among the elements of a complex, which are specified by the values of effective information among them. Finally, each particular conscious experience is specified by the value, at any given time, of the variables mediating informational interactions among the elements of a complex. TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS: The information integration theory accounts, in a principled manner, for several neurobiological observations concerning consciousness. As shown here, these include the association of consciousness with certain neural systems rather than with others; the fact that neural processes underlying consciousness can influence or be influenced by neural processes that remain unconscious; the reduction of consciousness during dreamless sleep and generalized seizures; and the time requirements on neural interactions that support consciousness. IMPLICATIONS OF THE HYPOTHESIS: The theory entails that consciousness is a fundamental quantity, that it is graded, that it is present in infants and animals, and that it should be possible to build conscious artifacts.

Afferent Pathways↗
PubMed2004

The emergence of consciousness.

Consciousness is the primary aspect of our lives. The true nature of consciousness (its subjectivity and intentionality) has resisted scientific explanation for centuries. This has important implications for scientific understanding and progress, as well as for the study and treatment of medical disorders, most of which involve some element of consciousness. In this paper, a basic nonlinear emergent mechanism (responsible for a large number of natural phenomena) is described. This mechanism produces nonlinear explicit states that have all the same properties as consciousness and hence the two may be identical. This mechanism might be applied to explain the generation of human consciousness. There is an intimate relation between consciousness and voluntary (by choice, free will) new or novel intentional (goal-directed) action-any action or action sequence (whether muscular movement, ocular movement, speech, thought, emotion) created anew by choice to achieve some goal. Consciousness always accompanies the production of such action (conscious action). Thus, a physical mechanism utilizing the basic type of nonlinear emergence (positive feedback between release and dissipation events, inhibition, formation of an explicit state, effects produced in other systems) was suggested for the production of voluntary new or novel intentional action from perception. This mechanism agrees with a large amount of research data for the production of such action. The nonlinear explicit states produced by the nonlinear mechanism from perception appear to have identical properties to human consciousness. Hence consciousness is natural, material, and functional; not something mysterious, nonmaterial, and epiphenomenal as has often been portrayed. It has evolved in humans for the creation of adaptive action. This means that consciousness can be explained and studied scientifically and medical disorders involving consciousness treatable by basic clinical treatment (psychiatric, medicinal, psychological). This theory also provides possibilities for the explanation of many puzzling questions: What brain structures are involved in producing consciousness. How these effects may be produced, manipulated, or complemented. That other animals may be conscious. That machines may be built to be conscious. That certain natural systems may have a degree of consciousness. That paranormal phenomena may be explained via these principles.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed1996

[The physiology of consciousness].

Since 1990, the number of papers on the biological basis of consciousness has increased sharply. Some aspects of consciousness, such as its localization in the brain structure, relation of conscious and unconscious processes, selective attention and the waking state may be analyzed by objective means. According to the model proposed by Dennett and Kinsbourne (1990) and called Multiple Drafts Model, there is no isolated module in the brain structure where consciousness is located. Conscious experience is a serial stream of activity integrating various sources of information. All conscious processes are generated in various parts of the central nervous system and the state of consciousness moves throughout the brain structure. Consciousness is therefore not identical with the global activity of the brain. Information may enter the consciousness or stay out of it in relation to the actual contents of the conscious process. Experimental data supporting this notion were obtained by electrophysiology, positron emission tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance, measuring of blood flow and other metabolic methods. These studies indicate that the state of consciousness is characterized by an increased neuronal activity and they may show which part of the brain is activated at any given moment. Of all brain areas involved in conscious processes, the role of the frontal lobe is widely documented in clinical and physiological papers. Entry of any information into consciousness requires about 350 to 500 ms of neuronal activity. Subjective timing of conscious recognition of events in the outside world is then retroactively returned to the moment when the information enters the neural processing. Recent research indicates that the gap between the humanistic and neurophysiological approach becomes gradually narrowed. Still, we have to keep in mind that the basic question about the ideal or materialistic character of consciousness remains open.

Brain↗
PubMed1979

Three types of consciousness.

It is useful to distinguish three senses of the word 'consciousness'. 'Minimal' consciousness is the occurrence of any mental activity, whether or not the subject is aware of this activity. 'Perceptual' consciousness is perceptual activity. Minimal and perceptual consciousness may be present, yet 'introspective' consciousness be lacking. Introspective consciousness is conceived as it was by Locke and Kant: as perception-like awareness of the subject's own current mental states and activities. It includes introspective consciousness of introspective consciousness itself. A useful model for demystifying and naturalizing introspective consciousness is the subject's proprioceptive awareness of bodily states and activities. Introspective consciousness may be further subdivided into 'reflex' introspective consciousness and 'introspection proper'. The distinction is one of degree: the degree of attention involved. We attach a quite special importance to introspective consciousness and are particularly unwilling to identify it with a purely physical process in the brain. It is suggested, however, that this springs from (a) the fact that what is introspected is taken to be a state or activity of a single thing, the self; and (b) the fact that event-memory is generally only possible if the event remembered was the object of introspective consciousness at the time. Without introspective consciousness, therefore, awareness of a self and the past history of that self is lacking.

Adolescent↗