- Session 7 focuses on the integrative process and character development
- The role of the integrative process in aggression is discussed
- The session also explores impediments to the integrative process
- The concept of a mature temperament is introduced, emphasizing the importance of reflective consciousness and the ability to consider context
- Examples are given to illustrate the attributes of a mature temperament, such as cooperation, fairness, and forgiveness
- The role of the prefrontal cortex in integrative functioning and moral development is highlighted
- The key to becoming a balanced individual lies in adding in the tempering element, rather than cutting out undesirable impulses.

The key to human potential is not in cutting out inappropriate or undesirable impulses, but in adding in a tempering element.
Children are often told to "cut it out" when they display undesirable behavior, but this approach ignores the fact that it is natural to have certain impulses.
The goal is to add in other emotions and experiences alongside the undesirable ones, such as love and compassion.
The movies "Fiddler on the Roof" and "A Beautiful Mind" illustrate the concept of embracing the "on the other hand" perspective.
Being a well-tempered person means being able to navigate the complexities of emotions and experiences.
There is a loss of purity in experience when we become aware of opposing perspectives, but there is also a profound gain in maturity and balance.
Alarm and desire are two important aspects of human experience that should be integrated, but often remain separate in the minds of children.
A child's ability to integrate different emotions and experiences is a sign of maturity.

- The speaker discusses the concept of desire and alarm, explaining that the closer one is to something, the more alarmed they feel, while the further away they are, the more desire they feel.
- Courage is described as the ability to experience both desire and alarm simultaneously.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of allowing children to feel both their alarm and desires, as this is necessary for the development of courage.
- Conflicting emotions and values are seen as the motor for the development of virtues.
- The speaker suggests that the ultimate answer to aggression is for attacking impulses to be tempered by conflicting feelings, impulses, and values.
- The lack of cognitive support for futility and integrative functioning are cited as reasons for young children's aggression.

- Children should not be placed in highly demanding social situations before they are developmentally ready
- The ability to handle attacking impulses comes with the development of mixed feelings and the ability to express love alongside frustration
- The key to self-control is being able to experience and express both frustration and affection simultaneously
- It is natural for children to have the impulse to attack, especially towards siblings, and this does not make them bad children
- The development of mixed feelings is a milestone and a sign of nature's resolution to impulsiveness
- The answer to not screaming or hitting a child is to make room for frustration and find the answer simultaneously
- The ability to feel both frustration and affection is the key to impulse control and character development
- Children need to be allowed to express their mixed feelings in order to develop self-control and handle their impulses

- The speaker discusses the importance of experiencing both positive and negative emotions simultaneously
- They share a story about a child who struggles to mix his feelings of hitting and hugging towards his sister
- The speaker emphasizes the need for patience in allowing these mixed feelings to develop
- They mention the importance of caring and how it is essential for empathy and character development
- The speaker criticizes using what children care about against them and emphasizes the need to value and treasure caring
- They discuss the importance of fear and caring in developing courage, consideration, and forgiveness
- The speaker highlights that these virtues cannot be taught but must be developed over time.

- The husband and wife in the video discuss forgiveness and anger in their relationship
- Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but rather not seeking revenge
- Caring is an important emotion that should be valued and treasured
- Lack of development in cognitive and sensory integration can hinder emotional integration
- The tempering elements, such as alarm, are important for balanced behavior
- Appropriate attachments, like with teachers, can prevent aggression
- Lack of differentiation of emotions can hinder their mixing
- The orthogenetic principle states that all development begins with a movement towards togetherness and contact.

- The movement of life begins with the union of sperm and egg, leading to differentiation and separation
- Integration occurs after differentiation and separation
- The orthogenetic principle emphasizes the importance of allowing for natural development and not rushing the process
- Premature pressure for social integration can hinder individuality and lead to fusion
- Adolescents may exhibit fusion due to lack of individuality
- Trust in the developmental process and allow time and space for it to unfold
- Patience is necessary for the integrative process to occur
- There is an answer to impulsiveness and uncivilized behavior, but it requires patience and allowing for the underlying process
- The next sessions will focus on human vulnerability.

- Session 7 focuses on integrative process and character development
- The concept of a mature temperament is introduced, emphasizing reflective consciousness and considering context
- The role of the prefrontal cortex in integrative functioning and moral development is highlighted
- Being well-tempered means navigating emotions and experiences
- Courage is the ability to experience desire and alarm simultaneously
- Conflicting emotions and values drive the development of virtues
- Lack of cognitive support and social readiness can contribute to aggression in children
- The ability to handle attacking impulses comes with the development of mixed feelings
- The key to self-control is experiencing and expressing both frustration and affection
- Children need to be allowed to express mixed feelings to develop self-control
- Caring is important for empathy and character development
- Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but not seeking revenge
- Lack of cognitive and sensory integration can hinder emotional integration
- Appropriate attachments can prevent aggression
- The orthogenetic principle emphasizes natural development and not rushing the process
- Fusion in adolescents may result from lack of individuality
- Trust in the developmental process and allow time and space for it to unfold
- Patience is necessary for the integrative process to occur.

This is our second session on the integrative process.

And in this session, I want to look a little bit more into the role of the integrative process and character development in what we traditionally used to call virtues.

Also, I want to look in its role, the integrative process, in the problem of aggression.

Remember, we had a second insight and the puzzle piece is not finished yet.

The riddle of Gresham is not complete yet.

Adaptive was the main piece, but there's a second piece that is absolutely critical, that has to do with integrative functioning.

And then towards the end of the session, we're going to look at the impediments to the integrative process.

Why is it that not all children are developing uniformly in this?

Do not burst forth with mixed feelings between 5 and 7 years of age are not characterized by integrative functioning as adolescents and adults and so that's our that's our plan for this session and I'll start with with going back over the fruit of the integrative process.

This time I'm calling it a mature temperament.

The characteristics of a mature temperament.

You can see how temper is being used here.

And correctly, last time we introduced the construct of temper as meaning mix.

And a temperament would be a mix of attributes or characteristics.

This is an appropriate use of the word temper, but we lost that intuition when temper, at least in the English language, when temper came into Old English as mix, there was, they lost the intuitive understanding that the real issue of aggression, and we'll talk about later on in terms of aggression, the second issue, is to lose one's temper, to lose the mix, and it became synonymous with rage itself.

And that was a loss of intuitive understanding.

And that already happened in Middle English and Old English, actually, it already happened very quickly when it drifted into the language, it lost the main understanding.

We'll go back over it in terms of the role of the integrative process in aggression.

And so the attributes again, a reflective consciousness, when you find yourself in the middle of your thoughts and your feelings and conflicting feelings, It pushes forward the separation of the self from what we see.

As soon as there is dissonance in the sea of our experience and we find ourselves seeing both this and that, It forwards the separation of the self, and that is how the self is born out of that integrative process.

A part of me feels this way, part of me feels that way.

I am of this mind, I am also of this mind, and so on, and as that separation happens, I become more capable of reflecting on this.

And so, I have feelings, I have thoughts, I can reflect on them, but the young child is synonymous with his ideas and with his thoughts, and the immature adult is synonymous with them.

There is no differentiation, there is no relationship with them, there is no reflective upon them.

Their journals are reports of what happened, not a relationship with the thoughts and feelings that they had as a result of this.

And so this is all a result of the integrative process, a reflective consciousness, an ability to consider context.

You've got to be able to get a sense of conflicting information.

Shay loved playing soccer and was on a premium league and his league went to Europe to play and he was the captain of the team, the midfielder, played midfield, the playmaker.

And he was a playmaker because he could see the field.

He could see the field, he could see a number of things happen at the same time, where individuals would be and so on and so that he could move the ball around.

And that's exactly what a coach desires for that kind of thing.

White came back from Europe and he didn't have a chance for a sleep.

They had a playoffs the next day and so there was severe jet lag.

And so Shay comes onto the field and he's absolutely exhausted.

There's another 2 players that come onto this field too, they've also been on the European trip and the coach who is a Russian coach, a very exotic coach of this soccer or football team, says to them, what time is it?

Now he's doing this with his watch, so obviously he understands what time is it.

He's there in the playoffs, he's there for, you know, if you take context into consideration, you don't give him the time of the day, it's quarter to 9, what you have to do is register immediately, okay, he's asking what time is it, but he's pointing to his watch, it is, you know, 10 minutes towards playoff time, he obviously knows what time it is, so he means something else.

This all happens in an instant, so what could he mean?

Ah, just been to Europe, what time is it there?

And so, you know, Shea answers with the time it is in Europe, the others answer with the time it is in front of them.

And so he says, OK, you guys sit on the bench and say you go in to play.

And so immediately, I thought, oh my goodness, this guy understands context.

He understands what is required to play the game.

Now I'm sure if I drilled him on integrative functioning he would have got 0 on the exam.

He absolutely knew what he was looking for.

He was looking for the ability to deal with conflicting signals to take context into consideration and that's exactly what it is.

That's something that scans immediately says, oh this must not mean that, that must not mean that, she said this but if she meant this then it would have led to that and you're busy scanning and it's going through this process and you come out with an outcome but your prefrontal cortex is going to work, it's the immediate editor that does this and you all know individuals who don't have an operational prefrontal cortex.

The capacity to cooperate and to be considerate, a mature sense of fairness, an intrinsic understanding of work, the capacity for courage, patience, and forgiveness, and I'll develop that a bit, spontaneous moral development, and again, this is not an acquired sense.

This is the ability, and 1 of the favorite examples, it's an example that comes from Colbert's work with moral development, is that the child or the adult is given a problem.

Now Heinz says cares for his wife, his wife is sick with a deathly illness, they don't have much money, the the druggist in the village has a drug that could cure or help the sick person, but he can't afford it, the druggist is charging too much for this, what should he do?

And it's not the answer the child comes up with.

He should steal the drug if he loves his wife.

That is 1 particular understanding, that love trumps all.

He should not go against the rules, he'll get into trouble.

And it's not that, it is how many different kinds of answers can that child have and understand the conflict between those answers.

And if they do, then it is a level of their moral development.

And this, this you need, an operational prefrontal cortex.

You need to be able to sense immediately on the other hand.

And that's where that kinds of moral development comes from.

Balance and stability, perspective and wisdom.

Again, you can think of wisdom as being able to see with both your eyes or your inner eye, being able to see multiple perspectives at the same time, seeing context at the same time.

So you're processing this, it's all at the same time.

Your brain is going through these various monitors and they're simultaneously registering.

And so you get the benefit of that fairly complex field of signals that you can, then you can solve a problem or be able to understand something.

And the key then to this human potential as a civilized, considerate, balanced, stable individual, the key to this is not in the cutting out of inappropriate impulses, not in the cutting out of undesirable impulses, but rather in the adding in of the tempering element.

This goes completely contrary to our work with children.

When we're in 1 way or another saying cut it out.

When we say, for instance, don't hit your sister, they hear don't be frustrated with your sister.

It's not saying it's absolutely natural to be frustrated with your sister, but it's not the only feeling you have.

That would be the idea of an adding in thing.

That you are looking to add in the answer to it but you love your sister too would be the answer to but your sisters can be very frustrating and so but you have to experience that answer so we're full of cut it out we're full of trying to trying to cut out these emotional impulses when the brain's answer to this is to add it in.

That opening kind of scene where you have the fiddler on the roof playing counterpoint with 1 foot on 1 slope and the other foot on the other slope, introducing us of course through music, through visual, through this predisposed here, predisposed here, on the roof, playing counterpoint, and we're introduced to the theme of the whole movie, which is simply Tavius on the other hand.

On the other hand, and there's an on the other hand to everything, except 1 of the things that he runs out of on the other hand.

But there's on the other hand, and that is the experience of it.

Tavi is not, it has not got to do with learning.

It has not got to do with anything else, but he's the fully developed figure in this, and it has everything to do with the essential maturity and the wisdom and stability he carries in this.

I love the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash.

Because here's another incredible movie that presents something that has a huge complex problem that has bothered us and a brilliant mind, brilliant mathematician.

And when we first come, if you didn't read the book, you come to him in the movie, you get involved right on the inside of his mind, and you get involved in his hallucinations, only to find out later they indeed were hallucinations.

And then we go through the movie and we see he forms a touchstone to his wife to anchor him, and various ways to anchor him to another reality, because he's been living in his hallucinations.

And then in the last frame, last frames of the movie, in the last frames of the movie when the writer intuitively brings us to the very nature of what the beautiful mind is.

After he wins the Nobel Prize he gives this incredible tribute to his wife, who has been his touchstone, and whose love has grounded him, and so on.

And we all want his hallucinations to be over somehow.

We all want this to have resolved the ultimate issue in schizophrenia, that he would not depart from reality.

He goes out of those great oak doors in the Nobel Theater, and the first thing he meets is his hallucinations.

And then his eyes, and the camera is in his eyes and he goes to as soon as he goes there his now integrative mind goes to on the other hand and the camera spins over to his wife and he realizes of course his wife is his touchstone he realizes his hallucinations are not aging.

Now the camera goes back, forth, back, forth, and then pans, and we see them both at the same time, and oh my goodness, all of a sudden there's the intuitive thing, is that he can live with these if he's not defined by them because he can take up a relationship and know that they're not true.

And so is the answer to not have hallucinations?

No, in this intuitive understanding It is to not be determined by them.

There is an on the other hand, and if you can live with the on the other hand, this too is the answer.

It's not cut it out Not cut out these things.

It's add this to We add this to and experience it Simultaneously, and we have the answer It's not the cutting out of frustration, but the adding in at the same time of love, compassion, caring, of alarm.

It's not the cutting out of undesirable impulses.

It's the adding in at the same time of the thing that would bring us stability and to balance.

The goal is to be a well-tempered person, a well-tempered teacher, a well-tempered parent, a well-tempered grandparent, is to be able to be in the middle of this.

And again, as I mentioned before, the cost of this is a loss of the purity of the experience.

You're no longer all in 1 place in your feelings.

I remember Braden, we were in Provence on our sabbatical and he just loved birthday parties.

And he was so excited it was coming to be his birthday and we were celebrating it there in the village we were near Aix-en-Provence.

And he wasn't coming to our feast table, our celebration, and I went to his room, and he was weeping.

I said, oh my goodness, Brayden, I thought you loved birthdays.

Oh my goodness you see his brain said this too there's on the other hand and away went the purity of that absolute experience that joy but now there was greater stability, greater balance, less impulsiveness, now we had the mark of the mature temperament.

So there is a loss, but there is a profound gain.

And many people don't understand that this is part of the deal.

We come, and now as soon as we have an idea, we become aware of its opposite.

Oh my goodness, I wish I could just stay in 1 place.

So this is, the key to human potential is in this.

Now I want to go to some mixes here, just to take a look at some mixes.

There is a huge part of our brain and our whole physiology and our neurochemistry that creates an alarm system.

I just touch on it in this course a bit later on, but the primary function of alarm is to send separation.

When we face separation, because as we're going to look at shortly, attachment is our preeminent need.

And in alarm it's meant to move us to caution.

That's what it's meant to do, like any alarm system.

And part of living, and part of the whole emergent desire, emergent process, is to be filled with desires, filled with wants and wishes and hopes and all passions and all of these kinds of things.

So we have these 2 things, except never the twain meet.

When a child is not integrative, they simply don't meet.

I remember 1 set of parents coming to me and their child was 4 years of age, and I didn't get that right away because they came to me, the presenting concern was their child was a pathological liar.

So I thought, well you don't call 4 year olds that because every 4 year old is.

And so it's, so I thought it was an older child that they were representing here, but no, it was a four-year-old.

And so then I said, well, give me an example.

This four-year-old, for his birthday, they were treating him to, he wanted a ride on the hot air balloons.

There was a hot air balloon ride in town and he was so excited about it.

And so there was a huge line up, 2 hours, and so he was so excited.

But when he got to his turn, according to him, to his parents, he decided he didn't want to go, and there was no way that he could get him to go on this.

And so they went away, went to, you know, to go out of the park, and all of a sudden he wanted to go again.

And so they stood in the two-hour line up, and he was all excited about it.

When they got to the front, he didn't want to go again.

Well, so they thought that he was playing with them because he didn't understand that, oh no, the further you are away from something like that the more exciting it is It's actually called the Levine's principle the closer you are when both alarm and desire are present The further you're away from it the more attractive, the more the desire comes out.

The closer you are, the more alarmed you are.

Now if the 2 can't mix, you see, somewhere along the line, it went from desire to alarm, and he was scared, he wanted out, He was absolutely moved to caution.

As soon as he moved away from it, he was excited about it.

So the further I'm away from an engagement, and fortunately enough, most of my engagements are booked about a year ahead, I'm filled with engagement and desire for this.

The closer it is, the more I look for an excuse not to have to do this.

And that's what the issue is, is these need to mix.

The issue of courage is not the absence of alarm, not the absence of fear, but when we don't let alarm get in the way, when it mixes with desire so we can experience, You never actually feel courageous.

Courage is something you do when you feel alarmed.

If you did not feel alarmed, you would not need courage.

No, If you did not feel alarmed, you would not need courage.

It's impossible for a three-year-old to be courageous.

It may look like it, but they just forgot they were afraid, that's all.

And there's many adults who look courageous because they cannot feel desire and alarm simultaneously.

They may look courageous, but in actual fact, they're not feeling their alarm.

So I have here the Nordic dragon, the Nordic dragon is around the tree of life on the treasure.

The fact is, and this is the way Rollo May presented it, wonderfully presented it, he said The issue, most of our treasures in life, most of our desires, our real treasures, have dragons sitting on them.

And most of the dragons in our life have treasures underneath them.

The real issue is to be able to see the dragon and the treasure at the same time.

Because if we only see the dragon, we run away from that which would give us great pleasure, our treasures.

If we only see the treasure, we're foolhardy and we're not appropriately moved to caution.

So this is an issue here of being able to experience both simultaneously.

And you can see that this must be grown because it needs prefrontal cortex support.

But a child, first of all, must get, we must make it, make room for a child to feel both his alarm and his desires, because that will be the ultimate answer that they will mix.

To be away from home, to be laughed at, to appear stupid, to lose popularity, to be seen as different, to not be interesting, to meet disapproval, to have to let go, to not measure up, to be alone.

You can think of a young child, and there's so many alarms that are there.

And we're so impatient with them sometimes.

We tell them to cut it out, we try to reason with them logically.

When there's dragons in the life, the issue is to be able to see the treasure at the same time.

So we want to keep their desires alive, to engage in some activity, to take part in some fun, to ask one's question, to stand up for a friend, to wear what 1 prefers, all of these things, what I've done here on the 1 side, and you can read it in the handout, I'm not gonna go over each 1, but there's an answer to this.

There is the dragon and there is the treasure and and the answer is is to be able to experience both simultaneously that is the birth of courage courage is not where your courage again is not the absence of alarm.

It is when you experience alarm, but you don't let alarm get in the way of life.

And if you look at the virtues, this all virtues, the development of virtue is all around this theme of conflicting feelings.

There needs, there has to be conflicting emotions.

Is there an ultimate answer to the attacking impulses?

So you haven't had, we haven't had our tears, we haven't been able to in fact change, we've encountered futility but we don't feel it.

And so we're full of impulses to bite somebody's head off, we're in a foul mood, maybe there's some foul language in us and so on, we can feel the foul frustration in us.

And again, yes, that's exactly when our prefrontal cortex is supposed to command our attention system and give us the reason why not.

Why it is that we shouldn't simply indulge our attacking impulses.

And so the ultimate answer to aggression is for the attacking impulses to be tempered by conflicting feelings, impulses, and values.

There was a time I remember, my kid sister was very, very, very pretty in those days.

They all wore skirts and she was 2 years behind me and the little boys in school liked to look up at her skirt.

I had to teach them a lesson that they would never forget.

I had to give them an external attitude change.

And so I was just doing my job as a brother, being loyal to my sister and so on and then it suddenly occurred to me, I can remember it suddenly occurred to me and I was about 6 years of age that they might have a bigger brother yet.

That changed my approach, totally changed my approach.

It's the last time I ever remember hitting anybody out of frustration is because my brain had an answer.

There is a good reason not to indulge this, but I had to get there.

And so the ultimate answer here is if we have not had our tears about the things we cannot change, if we have not had our tears about the things we cannot change, if we have not had our sadness and disappointment, if the attacking impulses have formed and we feel like putting somebody down, we feel like hurting ourselves, hurting somebody else, we're filled with suicidal impulses, but is there on the other hand?

Does it call forth and on the other hand?

If it does call forth on the other hand, then the attacking impulses are tempered and the energy is moved around to be able to look for another release.

Again, another chance to try to effect change, another chance to find one's tears.

And so the energy is moved around, the door is closed.

And the research supports this, that 80% of children grow out of aggression, at least the physical aggression, between 5 and 7 years of age.

Aggression problems after that are primarily a problem of not having grown out of it.

The reason that young children are so full of aggression is because, 1, they have no cognitive support for futility.

If you say to a child it can't happen, they still think it can.

If you say to them there's no more juice, they still think there is.

There's no cognitive support for futility at all, and so they simply can't do this.

And the second reason is there's no integrative functioning.

So there's no answer to the attacking impulses.

It doesn't matter how much they love their sister, if right now there's hits in them for their sister, the hits come out.

And so it doesn't matter how much they're going to get in trouble for hitting their sister.

As soon as they have hits in their sister, their non-integrative mind loses the other information that would be very important to bear on the problem.

And so the fact is, is the attacking impulses are untempered.

The idea is obviously if we take our cues from natural development is that children were not meant to be placed in highly demanding social situations until they were ready developmentally to do this.

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Intensive I - session 7