The ecobiopsychological vision of the Man-Nature-Universe relationship

The ecobiopsychological vision of the Man-Nature-Universe relationship
Diego Frigoli*

The emphasis of rational and causalistic thinking, typical of the scientific mentality, has resulted in a progressive fragmentation of the Man-Nature relationship, with enormous repercussions at all levels of humanity where, in the name of the most varied ideologies, an endless series of conflicts between peoples and nations has been brought about (Capra & Luisi, 2014).
To think today that there is a separation between all aspects of the bio-psycho-social universe is to re-propose the ancient dichotomy between matter and psyche, which has so troubled philosophical thought with devastating effects on our very identity. To regain our identity, we need to rebuild a more human relationship with Nature and the whole web of Life, so that human consciousness can harmonize with the laws of Nature's reality, highlighting its foundations.
It is well true that Science in its insights seems to be endowed with piercing eyes, firmly in its orbits, directed to let the intimate essence of Life and Nature speak, but in its one-sided and reductive proceeding this mentality is reminiscent of the metaphorical vision, described by the Taoist philosopher Chuang-Tze, there where he warned about the risk of a one-sided reading of the paradigms of life. Here is his metaphorical account: «There was a time when the friends of Chaos owed him many of their achievements and wished to compensate him; after consulting one another, they came to a conclusion: they observed that Chaos had no sense organs by means of which he could discern the external world. So one day they gave him eyes, another day a nose, and in a week they accomplished the work of transforming him into a being similar to themselves. While they were congratulating themselves on their success, however, Chaos died» (Fromm, Suzuki, & De Martino, 1968, p. 15).
Scientists, about Nature and the Universe, have often behaved like the friends of Chaos, forgetting that at the origin of life there is humus of in-formative qualities superimposed on each other to build a real energetic ocean that binds all existence into a unified code.
How was this conclusion arrived at? It was the studies derived from the epistemology of complexity that proposed in the last decades of the last century a new syncretistic vision of the Man-Nature-Universe relationship, through the identification of in-formation as an explanation of the unitary patterns that make up the manifest realms of reality, all the way down to the consciousness of man and his trans-personal relationships.
What is in-formation? In-formation is subtle, almost instantaneous, non-evanescent, non-energetic connections between things at different points in time and space. Such connections are called «non-local» in the natural sciences and «transpersonal» in consciousness research. In-formation connects things (elementary particles, atoms, molecules, organisms, ecological systems, solar systems, galaxies, as well as the mind and consciousness associated with one or more of these things) regardless of the distance between them and the time that has elapsed since the connections were made between them (Laszlo, 2009, p. 57).
How was this conclusion reached? Quantum explorations have shown that there is a Source in the universe from which in-formation springs. This Source consists of a matrix (quantum vacuum) in which continuously fermenting virtual particles give rise to the manifest universe. Today, in fact, the fundamental principles of the physical universe are thought to be describable in terms of vibrational excitations or in-formative waveforms that pervade the entire manifest universe.
To describe this source of «quantum vacuum», which is actually a fullness of fluctuating particles, we speak of the Akashic Field, deriving that term from the Sanskrit ?k??a, to define the «all-pervasive space» from which everything we perceive is derived, and to which everything returns. Understanding the Akashic Field or Field A reveals how the universe was in-formed, that is, how it took on its own (Laszlo, 2009, p. 57).
All material structures of the universe, all its concrete forms, are considered entangled excitations of the fundamental state of this cosmic matrix. An excited state is when an electron of an atom is on a higher energy level than it normally occupies. Systems that appear as objects composed of matter manifest locally in ordinary space-time, but are actually intrinsically entangled configurations within this matrix.
Thus, in-formation is a prominent factor in the appearance and persistence of structured energy configurations in specific forms. In the absence of in-formation, the energies in the universe would be an accidental set of excitations of the fundamental state of Field A. Field A behaves toward matter and the human psyche by creating waves of «excitation», just as a pebble or a boat creates waves in the sea. All these waves propagate outward from their point of origin and interact to form interference figures: the natural holograms. This means that each holographic figure carries with it in-formation that binds to each of the points in the field, and through in-formation all the «shapes» in the field are mutually informed by each other.
The in-formation that governs the configurations of structured energy in space and time, that is, the individual forms of the universe, is holographic in nature. Living systems in this perspective are higher-order autonomous configurations of in-formed energy that arise in the universe when favorable physicochemical environments are available.
The epistemological consequence of this unitary model is to admit a continuity among all the phenomena of existence, a kind of unique in-formative field, from which more or less vast, individually separate islets would emerge as from an ocean, consisting of the individual forms of material life up to human consciousness, which would represent the most subtle aspect of this materialization.
How to approach the study of this complex field of in-formation? Given this unified research perspective, the most useful way to understand complex phenomena is to build a network of theories that allows us to place them as appropriate, within or between viewpoints, depending on the phenomenon to be investigated.
To define the network of theories today we speak of consilience (Wilson, 1988). Consilience refers to the convergence of evidence generated from independent sources and different disciplines in explaining a given phenomenon. It is an «orchestration of sciences» through which it becomes possible to link different knowledge, making it relational and interconnected with the human domain. This orchestration of the sciences is the basis of the reflections described by complexity.
Complexity considers Nature-Man-Universe phenomena not as closed theoretical models, governed by precise laws, but as open models that require «thinking without ever closing concepts, breaking closed spheres, re-establishing articulations between what is disjointed, and striving to understand multidimensionality, to think with singularity, to never forget integrating totalities» (Morin, 1988, p. 196).
We can understand then, from these brief reflections, how the challenge of complexity entails the ability to tolerate doubt, ambiguity, the coexistence of opposing terms such as: matter-psyche, body-mind, conscious-unconscious, etc., with a view to a unified vision that includes in the study of living organisms, not only their being «living systems», that is, endowed with a specific organization, but above all the condition of «living beings», characterized by their specific individuality. To achieve this, it is necessary for the latest scientific discoveries of cosmology, quantum physics, evolutionary biology, genetics, psychology and phenomenology to find an integration of their knowledge derived from different fields of knowledge.
Psychodynamic psychology, after Sigmund Freud's discovery of the personal unconscious, is seeing the need for confrontation with different scientific positions, such as:
- Infant Research, which considers «mentalization» to be the product of attunement between the child and his caregiver (Stern, 1998);
-- neuroscience, of which neuropsychoanalysis represents the most recent achievement
- analytical psychology and the study of archetypes.
Despite these efforts, it is argued by several critical voices that psychoanalysis, based on the model of the personal unconscious (Freud), is incapable of confronting the conclusions that have emerged from evolutionary biology and quantum physics, because its model of the unconscious is too reductive to be able to integrate the confrontation with these sciences of complexity, resulting in considering it more as a set of metaphors than as a science of the psyche (Wittgenstein, 1987). In light of these reflections today, two principles are considered as basic stones, indispensable for building the edifice of a new psychodynamic psychology:

• The principle of Man-Psychic-Universe relational totality.
• The principle of in-formative energetics (Frigoli, 2020, pp. 339-355).

These theoretical foundations are the same as those substantiated in the studies of quantum mechanics (Bohm, 2002), which argues how there is an «implicate order» in the universe, a kind of «intelligent energy» that as an in-formative flux would give body to all that exists («explicate order»). Reality would be nothing more than a gigantic hologram that is constantly changing through a «holomovement» to which our Central Nervous System is connected through the ability to decode the in-formative «frequency beams« from the five senses, which collapse in the process of quantum gravitation of the tubulins in the neurons. Evolutionary biology, then, in considering that every living form exhibits an identical pattern, that of responding to the laws of «autopoiesis» and «cognition» specifies a most important theoretical-practical consequence, that mind is inherent in matter at every level in which life manifests itself, and in the case of man even in his cells, organs and apparatuses, beyond the Central Nervous System.
These processes of peripheral cognition could be likened to the concept of the collective unconscious studied by Jungian analytical psychology (Frigoli, 2013, p. 39), so much so that a well-known scientist such as Joseph Le Doux does not hesitate to state: «What are unconscious processes? They actually include everything the brain does, from maintaining heart rate, breathing rhythm, stomach contractions, and posture, to controlling the various aspects of seeing, smelling, acting, hearing, speaking, evaluating, judging, seeing, and imagining» (Le Doux, 2002, p. 17).
At this point a further question arises: to what extent do human experiences depend on genetic activity? Today it is known that genes have two basic functions: The transmission of DNA information to subsequent generations and «transcription», in which they determine which proteins will be synthesized at the cellular level (Kandel, 1998, p. 103). «Our experiences can directly influence transcription and thus gene expression through protein synthesis» (Siegel, 2001, p. 8), with an ultimate effect on the development of neuronal circuits through the formation of new synaptic connections or a modification of pre-existing ones. Based on these general considerations, if there is no separation in the individual between interpersonal relationships in their ability to modulate the development of brain structures (Ego axis) and the complex influence of the environment in conditioning gene expressivity, it is necessary to postulate the presence of an entirely new «in-formative field», capable of integrating mentalization as a subjective experience of mutual «attunement» between parent and child, with the trans-personal in-formative code, expressed by genes on the bodily plane and by the collective unconscious on the psychic plane (archetypal Self axis).
The plane of the collective unconscious and the genetic system have a history older than the Ego, which does not depend on the primary relationships studied by Infant Research and attachment models, as they refer to a phylogenetic history, linked to the processes of evolution of the organism. This complex field cannot be described in linear terms, because it simultaneously involves multiple levels of information, from the individual to the trans-individual level of the collective unconscious, the body and its relations with the internal environment (the physiological processes of DNA) and with the external environment and its dynamisms (Frigoli, 2013, pp. 34-39). In the perspective of the relativistic space-time continuum explored by modern physics, the collective unconscious would correspond to that reality that Jungian analytical psychology introspectively explores as the «psychic field», while quantum physics describes it from the outside as «material reality». Jung in this regard did not hesitate to reiterate «that he has no objection if one wants to understand psyche as a quality of matter and matter as a concrete aspect of psyche, provided that by psyche one means the collective unconscious» (Von Franz, 1992, p. 34). From these brief reflections we can state that the relationship between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious is related to a difference in information fields; in the case of the personal unconscious the field is determined by a classical, three-dimensional space-time responsible for the construction of ordinary consciousness, while in the case of the collective unconscious the field concerns the synchronic dimension of human experience in relation to the archetypal Self.

The archetypical dimension of the human experience
In the Jungian perspective, the collective unconscious is essentially formed by archetypes, which are innate dispositions or psychic structures that are reproduced in representations, thoughts, emotions, and fantastic motifs present always and everywhere, in all spheres of humanity. Jungian archetypes have often been compared to Platonic ideas, but while the Platonic idea is a pure act of thought, the archetype is also expressed as a feeling, emotion or mythological fantasy, and thus as a concept is broader than the Platonic idea. Jung considers the collective unconscious as a kind of «atmosphere» in which we are immersed rather than an entity that is only «inside us», and it represents the most unknown part of our personality that is condensed into certain archetypal images rich in symbols, as it appears in the history of myths and religion, but also in the dreams and fantasies of normal or psychically suffering people.
The Jungian approach regarding this scheme that defines the scope of the search for the archetype in the «infrared» pole, where psychic life is translated into general instinctual processes, and in the «ultraviolet» pole, where images and representations are located, still suffers from a separation related to the culture of his time, unable to conceive of psychic life closely intertwined with matter.

Today, however, thanks to evolutionary biology we recognize the concept of «cognition» as a primordial psychic state pertaining to the matter of living forms, and thanks to quantum physics in archetypal images we recognize their in-formative material basis related to the prerogative of their origin in the body. Quite rightly, this new field can be called an ecobiopsychological field. These reflections introduce the hypothesis that the archetype is not only an ordering factor of psychic images - as Jung wanted - but that it possesses its own organizing capacity with regard to corporeality, such that an in-formative continuum specific to this contemporaneity is structured between physical events and the corresponding psychic images.
The search for this continuum can be represented by resorting to the analogy of the light spectrum, but amplifying its meaning. In this example, the visible light band would correspond to the Ego complex and the domain of its relations; the infrared pole to strictly bodily relations (the instincts and dynamisms of evolutionary phylogeny); the ultraviolet pole to the world of archetypal imagery. The possibility of dynamically and coherently integrating the correspondence between IR and UV will result in the emergence of a psychic field in which the awareness obtained will consist of a circular thought process capable of moving consciousness from the imaginal to the instinctual level and vice versa.
Here then is the innovative proposal of Ecobiopsychology (Frigoli, 2016). This term is intended to emphasize the substantial in-formative unity that exists between Nature and Man, in obedience to the epistemology of complexity. The nature and evolution of living forms (eco) is sedimented in the DNA of man's body (bios) and awakens to consciousness in the psychic images of the same as phenomena interconnected with the body. The psychic field of relationship between man's body and his evolutionary history, when confronted with the psychic images consistent with the phenomena investigated, designates an organizational centrality that has been called the psychosomatic Self, to indicate the archetypal dimension acting on both the plane of the body and the plane of the psyche. Given these theoretical premises, the human body, its physiology and pathology, as well as its somatizations, are studied by ecobiopsychology not only in their prerogative of a subjectively different corporeity for each human being (Leib), but especially in their role as an archetypal dimension that is more or less altered with respect to the relationship with the Self.
The personal unconscious, as Matte Blanco (1981) reminds us, is governed by the principles of generalization and symmetry, while the collective unconscious responds to the criteria of analogical and symbolic thinking, embedded in the logic of synchronicity. Thus, the relationship between personal and collective unconscious will be what exists between the logic of the principle of generalization and symmetry and the logic of symbol and analogy.
Since symbol and analogy indicate the ability to «hold together» both the conscious sense (Sinn), which gives precise prominence to designated objects, and its raw material (Bild = image), which springs from the ancestral depths of the unconscious, it can be said that they integrate and complete in a more precise conceptual framework the informational logic of the unconscious, described by the principle of generalization and symmetry.
Analogical and symbolic thinking, being able to combine the most diverse elements into a unified description, fulfills the function of mediating between the irrational power of the unconscious and the manifest sense of it, as understood by consciousness. In this perspective, when it is applied to the somatizations present in a clinical history, it contributes to integrating the sub-symbolic universe, so dear to neuroscience, with the non-verbal symbolic of psychic images, up to the verbal symbolic of language, transforming the clinical history into a true «lived novel» as an existential synthesis determined by the axis of the Self and the principle of synchronicity.
J. Mc Gilchrist (2004) and A. Schore (2022) assert that the right hemisphere tends to see things as whole, and sees them embedded in contexts with other things, through the construction of total gestalt or information networks based on the use of analogy and symbol. The right hemisphere is thus more interested in non-literal and «connotative» meaning than the left hemisphere, which specializes in the «denotative» language proper to science.
The ecobiopsychological therapist by addressing with analogy and symbol the patients' clinical history, traumatic vicissitudes, somatizations, events of existence, dreams, behaviours and habits, will be able to build a coherent field among all these aspects, making concrete and visible the work of the archetypal Self as an ordering factor of both bodily events and corresponding psychic images.
On the plane of in-formation, analogy and symbol enable the human mind, through analogical chains, to «read» the holograms of nature's networks, which, when they resonate with the holograms of the body, will give rise to a particular psychosomatic field in which knowledge will no longer occur through the mediation of concepts but directly through intuition, In fact, if analogy and symbol will be able to reflect the holograms of the forms of evolution, they can be considered «vital», in the sense that they will express the correlation of the systemic networks of life processes as perceived by the ego's awareness.
Through the knowledge of these passages it may be possible for psychotherapy to lay the foundations of a new epistemological framework, in which mind, body and nature are part of a single in-formative field, which quantum physics defines as the Akashic Field. In therapy it will therefore be necessary for communication between patient and therapist to take place from right brain to right brain, for it is only through the meeting of the analogies present in each other's minds that the dismantling of the anti-totality defenses determined by the dissociated states of the Self can take place.

*Dr. Diego Frigoli - Founder and promoter of the ecobiopsychological thought. Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist and Director of the ANEB Institute – School of Specialization in Psychotherapy. Innovator in the study of the imaginary focusing on the symbol in relation to its dynamics between the individual and the collective knowledge.

Translated by Dr.ssa Raffaella Restelli – Psychologist, member of the British Psychological Society (UK), Ecobiopsychological Counselor and expert in ANEB Psychosomatic Medicine. Linguist in ANEB Editorial area.

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