MEDIATED FEEDBACK
We are seldom aware of the numerous adjustments our system makes at any given moment. They happen during the slightest interaction with the outer world. Realizing that most of our inner organisation and decisions are carried out with very little input from our conscious ego could be somewhat paralyzing. Fortunately, this inner unconscious organisation is also ingeniously sensitive to the slightest meaningful influence. A smile or one teaspoon of sugar can start an inner revolution that reverberates throughout our whole being.
Close your eyes and smile softly. Now follow your thoughts, especially their feeling context – notice, for example, whether there is a sense of pleasure or discomfort when you think about going home after work. Even with wilful steering, you are seldom able to sustain negative thoughts, and should they become cynical or dark, there is always a glimmer of irony in the background – while thinking about your nasty neighbour, for instance, there might appear a somewhat sympathetic image of the way he and his bulldog often carry the same facial expression. Your face and even body muscles veer more and more towards a relaxed tone the longer you keep it up. Take the smile away and feel how your attitude and level of tension change.
We all are able to learn ways in which we could influence our ‘unconscious’ inner organisation in a conscious and wilful way. Amongst diverse therapy techniques for the treatment of modern stress related conditions, one mutual principle always emerges. Pharmaceutical medication, psychoanalysis, yoga and positive thinking are all effective because they have an impact on the coherent organisation inside our system. When we eat an apple, or choose a career, or meditate upon a dream image, we re-organise our system into a new coherent self. In other words, we survive any kind of adjustment because we are able to re-organise ourselves into a distinct self each time. This means we can also use the smallest of activities to influence our whole system, because even small changes are amplified throughout our whole being with the help of hundreds of interconnecting feedback loops.
Feedback loops are circular cycles which are able to form interconnected, dynamic patterns. They are sensitive to manipulation at any point within a specific cycle and anywhere in a dynamic network. When we feel uneasy our heart beats faster and sends more blood to our brain, which allows more connections between different brain cells to be made. In this way we can find novel ways out of the anxious situation. But the increased brain activity may also be channelled through cycles of habitual worrying. The outcome depends on other connected cycles, such as remembering the excitement of getting out of a tight spot during a computer game, or a learned association that unease and fear always follow physical punishment and the best way to reduce pain is physical inactivity. Feedback loops allow for a massive amount of possibilities when we need to manipulate the outcome of inner cycles. It is therefore more important to our health to understand how these cycles function, and what they are sensitive to, than to have statistical proof of the effect produced by some outer ‘treatment’.
Mediated feedback is a technique associated with bio-analysis that helps us to mediate or cut in during our natural biological and psychological feedback cycles. It teaches us to adapt our own conscious understanding and allow our system to be susceptible to the right kind of inner and outer encouragement in order to influence our system without endangering its coherent organisation. In other words, mediated feedback trains us to change certain dysfunctional feedback cycles through conscious observation of our inner feelings during interaction with the outer world. Any technique that helps us to analyse our feelings consciously can bring us in contact with the inner processes that maintain our distinct identity. In mediated feedback, we make sure, however, that all our functional dimensions are represented, namely, body, emotional experience, rational control, coherent self-definition and intuitive connection. This ensures that we define ourselves in the context of our total environment as well as our own past and future.
Only then are we able to compare potential gain and probable sacrifice during conscious choice, without excluding any part of our coherent identity. In other words, we select, change, maintain, relate and create according to what is best for the organisation of our whole system. Such a conscious trade-off between gain and sacrifice avoids erosion of parts of our system by preventing dysfunctional and habitual feedback cycles, and ultimately prevents physical damage and illness.
Read more about how mediated feedback could improve our everyday well-being:
Introduction to Mediated Feedback. View with Participating Observance. Move with Connecting Mobility. Plan with Comprehensive Understanding. Adapt with Expressive Flexibility. Respond with Negotiated Reform.