Assessable e-Portfolio Work
For Dr Zoe Pearce’s PYB007: Interpersonal Processes and Skills
Personal REFLECTIONS on week six lecture material from Leith Harding
By Rebekah Copas

Near the start of this week’s lecture, Leith Harding was telling her story about meeting people whom work in the criminal justice system as mediators in situations of extreme immediate crisis. The point of the topic is that mediation is not about winning, and that we all need to put the need to win away, in order to resolve any crisis. My mind began immediately to apply the theory to the G20 summit of world leaders, but also how their decisions impact upon the environment. There is a clear and reasonable argument for putting the need to win economic victory away, so as to mediate the resolution which will enable the Earth to continue to sustain human life.

There is an idea I have been considering for some time now, about the economics of global environmental crisis, and have wondered how best to express the need, and this part of mediation theory is one example of a good way of talking about the current need for changes in the world. It might need for one nation among the strong global economies, to effectively “pull the plug” on their own economic gains internationally, and become the first nation to fix down enough legislative reform to enable a carbon neutral economy, and therefore reforestation. I believe Australia is best placed in the world to undertake that task, although I have noted that the economists here are not likely to want to agree. However, taking the theory of mediation further, if one single nation becomes whom is first to sacrifice their own international economic gains, that particular nation would also become whom all other nations are eventually indebted to, and perhaps could even “sell” the methodology used as a way of stabilising the position of being first to make the necessary sacrifices. This is a rather grand example of how to apply the theory of why sacrificing the need to win, resolves a crisis in everybody’s favour, (even the favour of whom sacrifices their need to win).

Another reflection from the lecture, is in respect of how human memories work, and that we are more likely to remember trauma than other aspects of our life story. My own experience of this, is that the clarity in the memories of trauma, ensure that recovery from trauma is possible. This topic is of immediate interest to me, and so I have to undertake a little further research within the psychology discipline to validate my current comprehension.

During the lecture, Leith Harding asked us all to assume the role of being a listener, while speaking to somebody sitting nearby. I found this task extremely difficult, to the extent that it gave me an instant headache, that took a good hour or so to dissipate afterwards. I had to wonder about that severity of my physical response, because my mind immediately associated the response with some reading I did quite a number of years ago now, which was about the qualitative difference between receptivity and activity of the mind. The reading I did was in a book by P.D. Ouspensky, (a biographical outline from the P.D. Ouspensky Memorial Collection at the Yale University Library, is at the url: http://www.gurdjieff.org/ouspensky2.htm ) and underlying what he has to say in one of his books, is another set of correlations into the indigenous religious traditions of the middle east, which Ouspensky learned parts of through involvement with a school of psychological discipline, that was established by G.I. Gurdjieff in Russia, (then later in France and the USA). (See: http://www.gurdjieff.org/index.en.htm )
That theory states that there are a number of discrete formulations in which religious texts define three basic qualities, or ways, through which the human mind and body function. The three distinct ways, are most commonly defined in our own culture, through the doctrine of holy trinity in Christian Churches, however these days, that doctrine has been somewhat tainted, and there are older formulations which are more readily comprehensible to scientific minds. The equations are like this:
Faith=Father=holy activity; Love=Son=holy reconciliation; Hope=holy ghost=holy receptive quality, or holy denying. And there is a connected lesson about how twice the quantity of hope, or denying quality, is required, as can be concentrated the energy of faith, which is the active mind. The activity of the mind is how we define in our own mind what is real, whereas we can be receptive to a vast quantity of data, through which much of what we believe in could be denied, and it is normal for us to qualify every belief, through first accessing twice as much denying information, as there is mental activity associated with our own witness of empirical evidence, which is the faith. The idea is that these religious concepts, (that perhaps have some place in among the Behaviouralists in psychology), are not tied into needing to believe in religion, but are compatible with every paradigm of human thought, and present whenever a phenomenon can be neatly distinguished to have three components.

P.D. Ouspensky, in a book called “In Search of the Miraculous”, which is no longer in print, (I first read it on loan, and it is normally a directive with reading it, that another book be read first, called: “Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson” by G.I. Gurdjieff, since the Gurdjieff literature establishes the mythological basis for normality of belief in the paradigm which Ouspensky wrote in), he correlates the concepts of faith love and hope, even further, into the periodic table of elements. However, going that far with the analysis, is normally held to be a bit too way out, even by those whom are students of that particular school of thought. In having read all the available literature of that particular school, so having had my unconscious mind deeply effected by it, I could not help but wonder whether it might be a root cause of my headache during the lecture. Thereafter in the lecture, I related the lecture material more overtly and consciously, to the Ouspensky work.

The lecture covered more of the theory of the human memory. A part of the Ouspensky and Gurdjieff literature deals with memory also, and is able to be related to the lecture. They write about a concept which they translated into English as “self-remembering”, which means to story your memory of your own mental function, within the conscious mind, rather than in the unconscious mind. It is the same concept as described in the Bible when human beings are called to awaken out of sleep.

My own understanding, from having read in the Gurdjieff tradition, is that the ideas in the lecture about memory, are compatible with that tradition. For example, that memory improves from repetition, is fully compatible with how the psychology of self-remembering works. The mind needs to reassess every idea that passes through it, and anybody involved in the Gurdjieff tradition is encouraged to spend as time and energy as possible in the mental work of reflection upon what has previously been going through the mind. This is perceived in that school of thought, as a function of hope in the mind.

The lecture also mentioned that memory is improved by use of cues, (eg mnemonic), and my understanding of how the mind relates to an allegory, (such as the book “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson” is), is that the allegory is what establishes the set of mental cues, and so the more times one reads the allegory, the more familiar one becomes with its cues, and the better one is able to remember.

My own set of mental cues are interlaced through different cultures in a complicated way, which makes it more involved for me when I engage in active reflection such as this writing. For example, my earliest set of cues, are from my family, with my father being an organic chemist by trade, and my mother a devout member of the local Anglican Church, and so the cues of modern science and Christianity, are significantly enabling of me in communication. However, when nineteen, I also received through Corroboree, a whole set of well prepared cues, to enable me to respond appropriately within indigenous contexts. (Attending the Garma festival can enable some if not all of the same cues to be received.) Then when I read the allegory “Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson” in my early thirties, I received another, third or fourth, distinct set of cues. Those cues enable me to relate effectively with people from the cultures of the regions which Gurdjieff himself came from, despite the translation into English. The cues are what enables information to position itself in either our conscious or unconscious mind, and so having a larger set of cues, is enabling more of the inputs of any moment, to be positioned in the conscious mind, (which can be a little difficult at times when everybody else around me is receiving less variety of input into their conscious mind, so at times my experience is similar to an attention deficit disorder). A further understanding I have, is that whenever any of us forget sensory input, (like forgetting what we have just been reading on the lecture slide, as in the example given in the lecture, of a memory exercise), it is from a factor of whom our mind has already forged a relationship with in respect of specific memory cues. If it is a person whom holds themselves in a more powerful position socially, then we tend to be less likely to remember, so when working to enable the memory, it is also effective to use reflection about the relationships we have in which we associate to the memory cues which we know are in place. In the theory of the Gurdjieff tradition, this part of the memory function, is a function of the mind within the qualities of love, or the reconciling processes.

The third thing mentioned in the same lecture slide, for improving the memory, is to involve oneself in the activity of note taking, and that is a function of involving the active, or faithful mind, in how we select what we chose to write down. I have anecdotal evidence that some people actively remember lectures more effectively from doodling in the lecture instead of writing words on the paper, (from a discussion with a mathematics lecturer), and it is because their mind is being active in discriminating how to decorate the paper in a way which defines their belief in the lecture, but through pictures rather than words.

The neat aspect of learning through an allegory, (a story which has active correlations to other important bodies of knowledge embedded in it), is that it shapes the way that the unconscious mind, is storing information, in a fashion that enables retrieval of memory out of the unconscious mind, and back into the conscious mind, from rereading the allegory. The way established in traditional cultures, through the telling of any story of significance, is the same. Listening to the song again re-engages the memory function. Reading the book again, lets us see how our experiences have become associated to the story in the book, subsequent to first reading it. The theory is that such stories are made more effective by a larger number of people becoming engaged in reading, or listening, to those stories. It is not necessarily the author of the story, or the story teller who has learned to sing it by rote, whom has the most social power and status within any given story, but rather, it is whom can remember all the details of the story best.
So that is some of what I know about memory, but it belongs to a different school of thought than any of the academic paradigms of psychology, and I have a general interest in finding parallels between the Gurdjieff and Ouspensky work, and modern psychology, (such as has already been happening at Berkley in California, since the early 1970’s). There is a group here in Brisbane, (connected with The Relaxation Centre somewhere near Newmarket or Ennogera) whom use a part of the information which Gurdjieff taught also, and many of those involved in the community around that work, are trained in counselling, but not all. (However such uses of the Gurdjieff material need be regarded within the following statement which is an editorial in the Gurdjieff International Review at url: http://www.gurdjieff.org/index.en.htm , as ought also my own comments about Gurdjieff be contextualised.) While much of the theory of modern scientific academia, leaves no place for the study of religious methodology, (because traditionally within religion, that study is not able to transcend the processes of religious belief, and so religious contexts do not divulge their knowledge about human psychology to those outside of their own schools of belief), I suspect that there is a vast body of knowledge already connected to modern psychology, which has its origins in religiosity, and the methodology by which religions have previously been the main form of social sanction. The interest in the psychology of religion is already a viable part of mainstream psychology, demonstrated in the example of a book review at the following url: http://proquest.umi.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=04-03-2014&FMT=7&DID=1637152651&RQT=309&cfc=1
And the article called “What American Psychological Association Leaders Have to Say about Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (a new journal)”, at the following url:
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/ehost/pdf?vid=1&hid=112&sid=b1fbc4ff-c679-47b8-8507-4d650fbd7547%40sessionmgr108
Also the following article from the journal named Pastoral Psychology, highlights that religious believers are concerned to be able to define the worth of their religious context, within modern secular academia, and in this example, the analysis of Foucault, is being applied to pastoral couselling:
http://www.springerlink.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/content/x752u5815166174l/fulltext.pdf
My own understanding of how memory function works, is intrinsically connected to the whole body of knowledge of the various religious disciplines I have come in contact with, and involved myself in, therefore it is almost impossible for me to reflect on the memory without entering into the discourse about the interplay between religion and psychology. Here is another url link to an abstract that shows evidence that the methodology of religious believers, is already observed to be in use by clinical practise in psychology and psychiatry:
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/ehost/results?vid=2&hid=9&sid=8acbefeb-65c1-4a9f-bbdd-ce89adb8a3df%40sessionmgr109&bquery=(AN+%222009-02556-000%22)&bdata=JmRiPXBzeWgmdHlwZT0xJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d

Another experience I have of working with my own memory, is from having started a community education degree at UCAN. The lecturer in the first education unit of that course, teaches a memory retention exercise that is often used by Business consultants. The exercise is to commit at least half an hour out of every twenty four, to writing down every fact you can remember from inside the previous twenty four hours, and to do that over the course of at least one month. I did it for a whole semester of that course, and it was tremendously effective. Eventually I had to stop because I could remember enough detail of each single day, that it needed me to spend about three hours writing it all down of an evening.

Further to everything I have already written here, perhaps I ought to tie it all together now, by reflection upon how essential it is to sustain a good memory in respect of integrating all our work with the needs of the environment. Whenever we fail to consider environmental outcomes in every decision we make, we are potentially not focussing our memory well enough, on what will sustain human life.

I believe that many people in today's world, are quite frightened by what we are all witnessing, in respect of environmental considerations. Perhaps most of us are at heart, more frightened of our witness of ourselves not yet having begun to acheive the work which the environment will need of us, than we are frightened about the potential for further global economic collapse. So in having put all these paragraphs into one piece of writing, I have to wonder what sort of influence it has had on my own memory, that I am in recovery from experiencing trauma, and whether the sort of focuss of memory that happens within the experience of a trauma, if it becomes habitual, is a way of encompassing the fear for the environment. With a memory recall which is accustomed to accomodating larger amounts of fear than most folk can, I find myself more often considering the implications of quite frightening ideas, such as those of the world economy and the Earth's atmosphere. Perhaps it is just that I am a "Big Picture" thinker, but perhaps also that capacity was increased through my response to trauma, having been to increase my memory capacity.