Williamson wrote an introduction explaining some of the research that drew Elaine’s attention, especially the work of Dr Paul D. MacLean, Chief of the NIMH Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior in Bethesda MD. [JP]
INTRO
MacLean said there are essentially three brains, each of which developed during a particular stage of evolutionary history. The earlier part of the brain, found in reptiles, could be called the reptilian brain, or R-complex. In mammals another structure appeared: the paleomammalian brain, with a new range of particularly mammalian behavior -- care of the young, affection, mutual grooming, etc.
The paleomammalian brain is the home of the limbic system which governs the capacity for feeling and emotion, for sexuality and (not surprisingly as the limbic system is located straight back from the nose) for the sense of smell. With the development of human beings came the most recent evolutionary structure, the neomammalian brain -- with a hugely expanded neocortex in the prefrontal lobes. The neomammalian or "thinking" brain brought with it the capacity for language, visualization, and symbolic skills unique to human beings. It has two hemispheres, left (generally) more sequential and linear in its processing than the right which is (generally) spatial, holistic, intuitive, and conceptual.
But evolution is economical, it didn’t cast off the reptilian and limbic brain structures. It added added each brain in layers one on top of the other. They are all intact in their evolutionary forms and functions.
Although many problems arise because of a lack of coordination between what were originally three different brain systems, MacLean stressed that these structures are not separate, but rather are three systems integrated into one -- hence, "triune."
MacLean argued that all the old structures are active in determining behavior, and that from these different-but-connected brains come not only different behaviors, but also many of the problems human beings face every day.
Human behavior is similar to behavior observed in animals because it arises from those parts of the brain system, like the reptilian brain, that humans and animals share. Human beings share primal patterns of behavior with other animals, just as they share those brain structures. MacLean provided a list of behaviors. Among his examples, #1 is selection and preparation of home site, #2 is establishment of territory, #6 is patrolling the territory.
Understanding that these tendencies arise from our older brain structures helps to explain seemingly irrational behavior, such as teenage territorial violence, that otherwise seems to make no sense. If one understands that the brain contains these older structures, Dr. de Beauport would say, you have a better chance of recognizing and dealing with them.
So, what Elaine and many others see is that while the older parts of the brain are necessary (they provide the drive for life and survival), they are not often integrated properly with the other brain structures. In Elaine’s view, MacLean’s physiological model of the brain has provided at least part of a psychological model or metaphor by which we can better understand our behavior.
.jpeg) |
| An alligator in the sun: Elaine loved this image, the way it evoked the deep restfulness of reptilian routines and the desire not to be disturbed (JP) |
THE INTERVIEW
What follows is an interview with Elaine de Beauport conducted by Steve Williamson in 1996:
SW: When you founded the Mead School, you began with a focus on working with children, but then you shifted to adults, why?
ED: Well, there is a really profound philosophy behind that. We did some extraordinary things at the Mead School in terms of expanding learning capacities and extending consciousness, but we noticed that our struggle was always with the parents . . . . The child wanted to be loved by the parents and please the parents. It became very evident that the limiting horizon was in the adult’s mind, because anything we did with the child’s mind was limited by what the parents would be able to grasp or appreciate and encourage -- all of the above. So I like to say the future of the world is not in changing the child's mind but in changing the adult mind.
SW: So at the same time you began presenting workshops, you were also going into MacLean’s work more deeply. What happened?
 |
| Elaine lecturing in Caracas |
ED: If we have these other two brain structures inside us as MacLean suggests, the educational game is about how you get in there. And even in terms of psychology, it would be much more dynamic to understand and communicate with the limbic (emotional, feeling) part of the brain as a learning structure. It offers a perspective that is much larger; it isn’t just about your relationship with your mother and father you have to get a grip on. It is really about developing your emotional quality of life. That is what interests me -- that people can be educated to know they have an emotional brain and know they have a behavioral (reptilian) brain that reacts and interacts and forms patterns.
SW: So whatever your upbringing, your family life, the background in which you are set, being human entails particular physiological structures as well as particular psychological problems?
ED: Let me put it this way: You know that you have a hand, you learn how you use your hand. Parents know you have a mind, so they send you to school. So you say, "Oh boy, I have a mind!" but they don’t tell you about the two other important parts of the mind, the older brain structures. You have a limbic brain structure and a basic reptilian brain structure. These have to go to school too.
I think the most original thing I did was to see the brain as energy. I think this is still the most important thing I am doing. All matter is energy. You and I are energy. Then I suppose you could say energy formed itself into a hand, an eye and nose and the three different brain systems. Once you see the brain is really energy, then you can propose processes and those processes can go from the thick and very evident, to the thin which can be invisible. Then I proposed ten different intelligences, each of which behaves in its own way and each of which can be educated. That’s what is set forth in the new book.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"You have a limbic brain structure and a
basic reptilian brain structure. These have
to go to school too."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SW: Your work struck me as very original. What convinced you to work in this way?
ED: I worked with individuals two or three years old for many years, then with individuals all the way through graduate school. When you do this, the dominating question becomes: how do people learn? I was also interested in violence and peace and this also drew me toward my current work.
SW: How does the physiology of the brain help you do your work?
ED: Just about everything in life becomes different when you view it through these three different structures. On the first basic reptilian level, if you take MacLean’s model of the brain stem and add the spinal column you get what could better be called the "nervous system brain." "Reptile" just doesn’t convey the significance of this basic brain. This basic brain permits me to look at the patterns of my own life in a more neutral way, with a kind of curiosity, to see this particular pattern of energy in the way this intelligence works in the oldest brain.
 |
Schematic view of patterns of reptilian motion "towards" and "away from," very simple, very basic. Rendering by JP based on Elaine's concepts, later used in Elaine's book, "Three Faces of the Mind." |
Another value is that it enables us to look at emotions without analyzing them. It’s so tremendous: you see emotions as energy, then you can enter the emotional energy without thinking you have to act on them or think you have to think about them; you just feel your feelings. Then you can get in touch with the symphony or jazz inside you. To free yourself from analyzing your emotions or . . . yourself.
I don’t know if I can get across how tremendous that is. To have the freedom to live your inner being without having to act it out, or analyze it, or intervene in it. I think this is the excitement . . . that emotions are really an energy scale from the subtlest and quietest to the most exuberant. I believe that’s the only answer to violence. Because there is violence in all of us. It’s impacted energy that’s in there. This triune view allows us to access that impacted energy so that it doesn’t have to express itself violently.
These three brains are multiple systems of complex chemistry and all of us have the chemistry that makes us hot. All of us get our power checked. For example, I want more cider, but there isn’t any. Well, that frustrates me. The basic reptilian brain is our "power brain" really and when it gets checked, it gets frustrated. And it happens as soon as we get up in the morning. It gets frustrated. If you don’t know you have a history of frustration, then you just level off at somebody, and then physically try to solve it. Well, I’ll just get rid of you, I’ll get you out of my way. Knowing that we’ve got three separate brain structures is going to let us look and say that intensity is part and parcel of the chemistry of the brain and we have ways to channel and educate it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SW: What do most people want to get from your book?
ED: That they don’t ever have to use the word "unconscious" again, that there are six ways into what they are now calling the unconscious, if they can learn them. That’s the most important thing I want to communicate. They can also learn from the other intelligences that they can develop their own intuitional ability. To never live their life again based on one intelligence. You can never be happy based on only one intelligence.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"We don’t ever have to use the word
'unconscious' again."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SW: There seems to be such chaos, political and cultural, in the US, if not over the world.
ED: It’s all over the world. My perception is that the world is falling in on itself. The world is being drawn together in all senses: visually, economically, culturally drawn in, and in that falling in on itself there is hurt, violence, refusal and resistance. "Yes, a little of this, no, none of that." It’s a very powerful time, everyone trying to protect themselves, and yet not being able to really get away from being in the process.
SW: But yet, you’re optimistic.
ED: Oh yes, yes. There are ten pathways out of this -- ten different intelligences we can develop. The kinks are coming from the human mind -- which happens to emanate from three brain systems, not just one. These three brains can be educated, although only one half of one, the linear, sequential left hemisphere of the neocortex, is now being educated. Hence we see something like the left brain’s specialty of technology going haywire. My work is toward a much fuller education of all our intelligences.
In the last chapter of my book I do two things: I focus on social philosophy and individual action. The section on social philosophy talks about what religion, government and education have to do. I think the most important thing religion has to do is to allow its values to be updated. And because of its tremendous impact, democracy has got to change.
It’s a talking brain, and now the talk can be seen on TV, and so the lack of action is very obvious. In terms of the three-brain system, there is a tremendous amount we have to say to government, particularly to democracy.
Living in Venezuela, one sees the impact the passionate limbic brain can have on democracy, with its long-time pattern of dictatorship. In education, until every school system has a multiple intelligence center, a how-do-people-learn center, I don’t think education will change.
SW: What are you going to do next? Your book "Three Faces of the Mind" will come out in December 1996, what then?
ED: The book is an introduction to the adult curriculum I’ve been working towards since I left the Mead School. What I’m playing with in my mind is that I’ve seen a way of creating an adult school on a "New School" model, to take the curriculum and set it out in a Club Mind format, instead of Club Med. A place people would come to for an extended experiential learning vacation.
A place where there is mastery, rather than just "a little of this, a little of that." You’d know there was something more involved. That’s what has me going now. #
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Even if you never knew Elaine, you've met her in this interview about as well as anyone could. You can continue the adventure in her book, "Three Faces of the Mind."
Order her book at this Amazon link and pass this website link for "Celebrating Elaine" to friends yet to discover her work (celebratingelaine.blogspot.com).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
LINK:
Elaine and Aura Sofia Diaz's website: The Infinite Human (El Humano Infinito). Go to this link for current info about activities at the Mead Institute in Caracas.
NEXT: Photo Gallery
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
