Space and Time Mental Considerations in Therapy

by Tim Brunson, PhD

Just about all mental pathologies involve some level of dysfunctional space/time perceptual orientation. In fact, an honest investigator would probably have considerable difficulty finding any mental condition listed in the current diagnostic and statistical manual that did not involve the client's or patient's space and time orientation. This is especially true of traumas, which include an overly intense past orientation, and fears, phobias, and anxieties, which normally primarily involve an excessive future orientation. Space/time perceptions are implicated even with bad habits, personality disorders, and delusions, which often are associated with bipolar and schizophrenia. Furthermore, these concepts also come to play when coaching a person for performance improvement. Therefore, any protocol must take into consideration the adjustment of the subject's orientation or perceptions.

When designing an intervention, such as used in a clinical hypnotherapy script or session, it is important to become aware of the subject's predominant space/time orientation. Is it in the past, present, or future? Once that is determined, qualitative aspects must be considered. Generally, this should involve four perceptual considerations, which are location, duration, speed, and direction.

Based upon the type of pathology, the clinician has three basic options. The subject's perception can be moved to an alternate perceptual position. For instance, for a trauma patient, who constantly triggers painful mental abreactions, due to a past perceptual orientation, the goal may be to move them to a present orientation. This approach can use one of many mindfulness approaches, which seek to establish here-and-now awareness. Secondly, the clinician may wish to deprogram the subject's perceptual considerations. In these cases, the intervention would alter their perception of one or more of the considerations. This could be changing their experience from associated to dissociated, have them visualize a past happening quickly or in rapid or slow motion, or have them imagine any directional quality being altered. (Tad James' Time Line Therapy training provides many examples of altering directional perception of space.) This is where Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques could be use to change various visual, auditory, or kinesthetic sub-modalities such as color vs. black and white, clarity vs. fuzziness, etc.

The third option can be a combination of the first two. This would entail finding the perceptual position in which the subject is stuck, having them move into the present space and time in order to achieve an increased feeling of being grounded, and then move them to a future position in which they project themselves into a situation where location, duration, speed, and direction are experienced quite differently. This can be summarized as deprogramming past dysfunction, gathering resources from the past, getting grounded in the present, and then empowering a more functional future.

The reason that this works is very basic. The human brain reacts more intensely to anything that is perceived to be within the subject's present space and time. This can be referred to as peripersonal. Objects or concepts thus experienced are more likely to trigger limbic responses such as fear, anger, lust, or hunger. Also, such numinous perceptions are more likely to create more rapid brain reorganization, the creation of new neurons through a process called neurogenesis, and even instigate gene expression, which results in sensory neurons developing more complex connections with associated motor neurons (i.e. making short term memory operational as long term memory). In layman's terminology, this means that a person's peripersonal perception may result in a fight/flight response or a feeling of desire or attraction, as well as providing an opportunity for more intense learning. Therefore, interventions should change unwanted conditions from peripersonal to extra-personal and desired conditions from extra-personal to peripersonal. So, to help the subject diffuse the initial sensitizing event related to a phobia or a botched performance on the third hole of a golf game, I would recommend the former. The latter would be used to help promote an increased sense of self-empowerment and efficacy, which would be helpful for any situation where the hope for a better future is desired.

Thus, when a hypnotic script is designed, the practitioner must consider where the subject would typically be for a given pathology. Suggestions and parallel communication, such as metaphors and imagery, should seek to install a subjective experience in which they feel empowered to alter their perceptions of the four considerations. Their confidence in this ability then should be used to change dysfunctional peripersonal memories into extra-personal ones. For instance, if during the intake they said that their memory of the negative event was very much associated, long-lasting, in slow motion, and contained movement in a particular direction, provided that safety is considered, they should be suggested to imagine the experience in opposite terms. Of course, their ability to be successful in the future should be imagined positively using the same considerations associated with the original negative state. Using a golf example, they should see the act of putting through their eyes. And, it should be experienced as taking a long time for the ball to slowly move along the right path to the hole. This imagined subjective experience aids in the rapid installation of the correct procedure within their brain.

Once a clinician – or coach for that matter – understands in what space/time perceptual position the person is stuck or the pathology is routed, by changing how the subject subjectively experiences the considerations of location, duration, speed, and direction, they then have powerful tools, which can be used in protocol design. Experienced– and properly licensed – clinicians can in one or even several sessions as appropriate then have the subject develop the appropriate relationship with each position.

The Space/Time-based Interventions course offered by the Institute gives students a chance to explore many of the implications of this topic while developing skills that they can immediately use. The course moves from theoretical concepts, which show how these principles are backed by advanced theoretical physics, to practical applications involving the enhancement of a person or organization's performance, as well as addressing applications involving physical health and resolving mental pathologies. Not stopping there, the course even gets you thinking about many creative future applications of these ideas.