Dimensioning Psychology

The Psychological Basis for the Sense Machine

 

The structure of the Sense Machine is based on the psychology of childhood development. The processes of childhood development, when desires, behaviour options, initiative, skills and potential attention, form the basis of human behaviour and aspiration.

Dimensioning psychology  has the task of shedding light on and collecting data about these developmental processes with the dimensions of the Sense Machine matrix.
 
 
 

The Stages of Childhood Development from the Perspective of Dimensioning Psychology 

The (basic) instinctual goals develop in childhood concomitant with the child's physical and mental development.
 
In parallel, the corresponding options for realization for achieving these goals develop.

• An instinctual goal is to be understood in the most general sense as the satisfaction, realisation, attainment, achievement, happy result of a process that serves the goal. 

• These processes (again in the most general sense) are called here options for realization, material ways that a skill or certain means can be used to realise the instinctual goal.

  These options for realization are defined in dimensioning psychology by two dimensions, each with two polarities.

  The two dimensions are heteronomous/autonomous and concentric/ex-centric. [1]

  What we mean by this: 

• autonomous = self-determined, 

• heteronomous = determined by an external force (circumstance, person, etc.)

• concentric = focused on oneself and one's possessions 

• ex-centric = focused on others or other's possessions

• These two dimensions result in four dimensional aspects for the options for realization:

• 1. heteronomous/concentric (external determination/focus on me and mine)

  2. autonomous/concentric (self-determined/focus on me and mine)

  3. autonomous/ex-centric (self-determined/external focus)

  4. heteronomous/ex-centric (external determination/external focus)

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  These four dimensional aspects of the options for realization contain at their core:

• 1. My person/my possessions are the focus and what happens to them is determined by others.

  2. My person/my possessions are the focus and what happens to them is determined by me.

  3. Other people/others' possessions are the focus and I determine what happens to them.
     (I have agency.)

  4. Other people/others' possessions are the focus and others determine what happens to them.
     (I have agency.)

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   These four dimensional aspects correspond to the four stages of childhood development: oral, anal, genital, urethral (achievement phase).

• 1. In the oral phase, humans are nursing infants and are focused on their own sensations, while what happens to the child is determined by others. (heteronomous/concentric)

     At the same time, there develops the intentional ability to turn attention to someone or something (heteronomous/concentric-ex-centric).

  2. In the anal phase, the child primarily learns the difference between me and you, mine and yours. This becomes driven by the principle: I determine what happens to me and my possessions (autonomous/concentric); you determine what happens to you and your possessions.

     It often happens that parents treat the child's possessions as theirs and thus determine everything that happens to those things and to the child itself. In our culture, this parental right of control is enshrined in law, but there are cultures where the children are given more space of their own. [2]

     Because in this phase of development, the child develops the desire to determine what happens to itself and its things, this often collides   with the control that parents seek to exercise.

     In our society, we call this phase the "defiant phase".

     If the child does not do what it should or does something that it should not, the child is labelled as defiant. (From the child's perspective, the behaviour of the parents could be seen as just as defiant [3]).

     Normally, the question of who wants what and how things should be is argued between parent and child on a verbal level.

     But due to their physical superiority, parents can, of course, also rely on force or coercion. However, since the child is unable emotionally or physically to counter this coercion, all that is left to do is to raise a tantrum, albeit in vain.

  3. In the genital phase, the child learns how to make targeted appeals combined with the ability to move about more readily, which means it can now run fast and maybe faster than others. This appeal and running out into the world is focused externally (ex-centric) and self-determined (autonomous).

  4. In the urethral phase, the so-called achievement phase, the child learns to pursue activities that are desired by others. Particularly in school, the child learns to achieve those things that are determined by the teacher (heteronomous/ex-centric).

• The basic skills and behaviours that are learned in the phases of childhood development are the building blocks that the human will use again and again in adult life. So just like 1+1=2 is the first building block for all the mathematics that follows, these dimensional aspects are the basic building blocks of adult human behaviour.




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• Instinctual Goals and Options for Realization in the Phases of Childhood

• In the oral phase, the child develops the getting modality (receiving and taking what is given), where as Erikson points out, is getting does not mean "fetching." [4]

  Because an infant is not capable of performing complex actions, all that remains is for it to wait.

  The cry of a hungry infant is not yet the conscious expression of a will, but an instinctive reaction to hunger. Its crying is almost automatic and is not the product of a decision-making process. The feeling being expressed by the crying is its need sensation and the only option for realization available to the newborn is to wait. (Wait for someone to come and supply its need.)

  The massive inter-relationship between the need sensation and the necessity of waiting is easy to understand. Many grown-ups hate having to wait on someone or something to happen which is beyond their control.

  There develops in the oral phase

• basic instinctual goal  1:  getting basic realization option:  waiting – pre-conditioned on a need sensation

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• In the anal, the retentive modality develops [5] , where the child seeks to keep, own and control it s things .

• basic instinctual goal 2:    realising one's will basic realization option:  disposing of, determining, saying (what I want)   – pre-conditioned on having an idea of what one wants (I know what I want.)

   

   The infantile-genital (phallic) phase sees not only the development of the very first sexual interests, but also powerful movement, making/creating, approach [6] , as well as an interest in competition. (Who's faster, stronger, better?)

• basic instinctual goal 3:    achieving one's goals basic realization option:    striving (goal-oriented activity) – pre-conditioned on having a goal

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• In the achievement phase (urethral instinctual goals), the child seeks recognition. When the child empties its bladder in the potty instead of in the bed, when the child does certain things at its parents' request, when a child gets a good report card, then the child gets recognition [7]. 

basic instinctual goal 4:      recognition basic realization option:      performing (completing an achievement) – pre-conditioned on someone expressing a desire for a certain achievement

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• In the oral phase, something develops that is key for the entire development of the human being: intentional instinctual goals. These refers to external stimuli that draw the baby's attention,  that lead the baby to turn to that thing (or person) in the most general sense; this is a modality that becomes  curiosity in adults [8].

• basic instinctual goal 5:     focusing on something basic realization option:     turning (towards the stimulus) In adults, too: basic instinctual goal 5:     new information basic realization option:     seeking (information), curiosity – pre-conditioned by a stimulus that triggers the turning/curiosity.

    
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• In summary, what we have discussed above results in the following basic matrix from the perspective of fundamental material activities (as opposed to an basic matrix for interpersonal relationships, for example).

  	heteronomous / concentric	autonomous / concentric	autonomous / ex-centric	heteronomous / ex-centric
  1  oral    getting	wait
  2  anal  realising one's will		dispose of, determining, control, possess
  3  genital     achieving one's    goals			strive, move towards
  4  urethral   being recognised				perform, serve
  5   intentional    information	turning towards			seek, curiosity

   

  Based on the development phases in childhood, the options for realization develop as follows:

  	heteronomous / concentric	autonomous / concentric	autonomous / ex-centric	heteronomous / ex-centric
  Oral     basic instinctual goals	1	2	3	4
  Anal              basic instinctual goals	2	2	3	4
  Genital           basic instinctual goals	3	3	3	4
  Urethral       basic instinctual goals	4	4	4	4
  Intentional     basic instinctual goals	1	2	3	4

   
  Thus, in the first phase of childhood, the options for realization one's goals are marked with 1.

  In the second phase of childhood, the options for realization one's goals are marked with 2, and so forth.

  The development of intentional instinctual goals has its crucial beginning already in the earliest, oral phase and develops step-by-step with the development of the oral phase. (The structure of the Sense-Machine used here is based on  the cube model of structural functional psychology[9] and expands it with the options for realization and the urethral phase.) The fifth row should actually be before the first row, but the structure here is owing to the cube model.

  As can be seen from the chart, each new option for realization that becomes available with each new phase of development can be used not just for that phase's core instinctual goal, but also for the instinctual goals of prior phases of development.

  Skills (options for realization) from phase 2 can therefore be used to meet the instinctual goals of phase 1, the skills from phase 3 can be used to meet the goals for phases 1 and 2, and so forth.

  These skills are modified to the extent that they become adapted to the different instinctual goal:

  Activity Basic Matrix for All Five Areas

  	heteronomous / concentric	autonomous / concentric	autonomous / ex-centric	heteronomous / ex-centric
  1  oral    getting	wait	ask for	take	give and take, share
  2  anal  realising one's will	expect	dispose of, determining, control, possess	design, contrive	exchange, barter
  3  genital    achieving one's    goals	interrupt	prepare moving, strengthen	strive  move towards	synchronise strive (with others)
  4  urethral   being recognised	wait and see	advise, promise	execute	perform. serve
  5   intentional    information	turn towards	declare, explain	address, ask around	seek, curiosity

                    (Asking for and taking relate to their original oral instinct to obtain food to survive.)

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• Establishing the Parentela with the Overall Basic Matrix

• The  basic matrix comprises the entirety of human behaviour, therefore a massive amount of content. 

• See the Functioning Principle of the Sense Machine .

• By focusing on a specific context (here: fundamentally material behaviours), the content of each element can be reduced to those aspects which correspond to that context.

  Other contexts result in other actions (aspects) within the basic matrix. Even when focused on a specific context, the inter-relationships within the matrix (the Parentela) of behaviours and aspects remains the same. They always go back to the same basic instinctual needs.

   

  The large content of the Overall Basic Matrix shown below is represented with contexts A, B, C, D, that is, each element of the matrix contains the aspects of each context A, B, C, D.

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• Overall Basic Matrix    A              B    C              D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D     A             B     C            D    A             B    C             D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D    A             B    C             D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D    A             B    C             D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D    A             B    C             D     A            B     C             D     A            B     C            D     A            B     C            D                          Contains all the possible behaviors                                                                                                              Breakdown:       Partial Basic Matrix for Aspect                 Contextual                  Partial Basic Matrix for Aspect           A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A        A         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         B         Basic Matrix with context A                                                        Basic Matrix with context B And so on for C + D. The partial matrices for each aspect for each particular context contain   all of human behaviour

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• There are more than 1,000 basic object matrices derived from many different contexts, represented here only symbolically by the letters A, B, C and D. (Object here is based on the grammatical term meaning the recipient of the verb's action.)

  These viewpoints each engage a context and ignore the others. Each element of the Partial Basic Matrix for an aspect is, however, still in the same position as in the Overall Basic Matrix. It therefore has the same dimensioning as the Overall Basic Matrix as a whole.  - This is the Parentela - .

  The Partial Basic Matrix for each aspect is the default form of Basic Matrix; the Overall Basic Matrix only serves explanatory purposes.

  The Basic Matrix is so crucial because it reflects how behaviours develop in childhood. The skills, the behavioural options for achieving one's instinctual goals develop analogously to the distinctions drawn by dimensioning psychology.

• Childhood development is therefore illustrative of behaviours that evolved because, in every phase of childhood, new types of behaviours developed that were not previously available (for lack of ability). As a result, each behaviour (driven by each basic instinct) can be viewed singularly as if through a magnifying glass.

  There are of course various individual differences. These behaviours have different manifestations, formulations and are promoted differently, depending on the individual, but this does not mean that the dimensioning changes; only the available options change, depending on the skills and behaviours that the individual knows how to use more or less well.

  Nature dictates the phases of development, shaping the whole of each person's life. New skills, such as technical skills, get added to older, archaic skills, but they still remain within the old grid. Modern technology serve the human needs to be satisfied, to realise one's will, achieve a goal, be recognised and find happiness.

• All these can be categorised according to dimensioning psychology.

    

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  [1] cf. Lüscher-Test, p. 48

  [2] Jean Liedloff: Auf der Suche nach dem verlorenen Glück

  [3] Jesper Juul, Familientherapeut

  [4] Erik Erikson, Kindheit und Gesellschaft p. 70

  [5] Harald Schultz-Hencke, Lehrbuch der analytischen Psychotherapie p. 29

  [6] Erikson, Kindheit und Gesellschaft p. 84

  [7] Erikson, Kindheit und Gesellschaft p. 253

  [8] Schultz-Hencke, Lehrbuch der analytischen Psychotherapie p. 25

  [9] Lüscher-Test, p. 48