The Psychologist As Systems Analyst

Troubleshooting and Maintenance

There are five general types of hypothesized problems interfering with effective functioning of the human biocontroller:

q       Malfunctions - these are hardware problems where the brain is damaged. An example is a head injury, such as might occur in an auto accident. Malfunctions also result from disease processes, such as strokes or epilepsy and illnesses such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

 q       Overloads - these are more subtle conditions where the chemistry of the brain is abnormal. Overloads may usually result from severe software problems interacting with inherent susceptibilities in the brain. Examples of overloads include schizophrenia, manic-depressive illness and other psychoses. They occur in susceptible individuals who experience severe software anomalies over time. For example, if a susceptible person becomes depressed, this can alter brain chemistry to the point where it prevents normal operations.

 q       Programming Errors - Most of the psychological problems people experience arise from the software of the mind, not the hardware of the brain. In this view, what have traditionally been called neuroses are error signals reflecting erroneous, unrealistic programs and metaprograms. The resulting symptoms are usually ego dystonic. Major programming errors include:

    o      False Alarms - these include anxiety conditions such as phobias, panic, stress reactions, worry           and generalized anxiety. These represent the erroneous activation of the Danger Alarm Control    Mode.

o       False Grief - this involves disturbances of mood such as depression that result from the erroneous activation of the Loss Reset Control Mode. This system is appropriately functioning in grief.

o       Leakage Errors - these include hypochondriasis, psychophysiologic disturbances and conversion symptoms. In all these, the cognitive errors produce physical symptoms, whether actual or imagined.  Leakage can also be expressed behaviorally.  For example, activation of the Attack Mode can lead to passive-aggressive behavior when direct expression of anger is suppressed. 

o       Read Errors - Examples of these include amnesias, fugues, depersonalization and multiple personalities. The principal difficulty in all these is dissociation or difficulty in reading certain information into conscious awareness.

q       Software Bugs - the emotional distress evident in Programming Errors often serves as a motivation for the development of escape and avoidance behaviors. For example, people often procrastinate on tasks they feel uptight, frustrated or angry about doing. When these avoidance behaviors become habitual patterns, they become personality disorders. Such behaviors are debilitating, but in a more subtle way than programming errors because they are ego syntonic. The person is typically unaware of the bugs and unmotivated to confront and change the upset feelings driving the behavior.

q       Disturbed Interlocks - when interlocks involve erroneously activated Control Modes, such as the Danger Alarm and Attack Modes, positive feedback loops result leading to an escalating and destructive pattern of reciprocal button pushing. Such patterns are common in a marriage and between parents and children. People who know each other well know what to say or do to hurt and anger the other person, who in return strikes back. Eventually the people can hardly talk without becoming upset, resulting in a failure of communication and a build up of dissatisfactions.

 It is hypothesized that the specific kinds of programming problems in human biocontroller operations are inherent susceptibilities, potentiated by but not directly caused by emotional traumas or early learning experiences. The heuristics used to generate linguistic structures can produce grammatically understandable but meaningless thoughts, that is, with referents that cannot be operationally defined. An example is, "I am a bad person." Such beliefs are also of good form. Further, they produce highly seductive or even addictive illusions. For example, the belief, "I am a good person," implies that one is morally superior to those who are seen as bad people. Human beings apparently find such comparisons to be highly pleasurable, probably because they tap into motivational processes associated with dominance hierarchies.  Another example is worrying, which is based on the idea that if one worries enough, he or she will have an ironclad, 100% guarantee of complete safety.

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