Dr. Robert
Weissfeld
Chiropractic
Acupuncture
Neural Therapy
Nutrition
QRA
Denver
Holistic
Chiropractic
Acupuncture
Kinesiology
2557 S. Broadway
@ yale
Englewood, CO
1/2 block outside of Denver
As humans, we have eight areas of function that we need to look at in order to understand maladaptation. These areas include the following, presented here in roughly hierarchical order. They are hierarchical because of the dependence of each on one or more of those below it. This hierarchical view is not quite as linear as presented - postural and muscular changes, for instance will be present in most of those below it as well.
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Cognitive, emotional and motor skills
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Though in fact maladaptations will generally occur in combination at multiple levels of function, and and the distinctions may not always be clear, it is still helpful to dissect these levels to foster better understanding.
Maladaptation is a kind of habituation. While some habits remain useful learning which helps ease and success in repeated situations, others, developed for a particular situation or time of life, are problematic when applied to new situations.
Maladaptation covers over functions that are inherently better because they are clearer in their expression, more efficient and responsive.
These areas of function operate on three levels, foundational, mutable and learned skills.
1. Foundational levels of function, are immutable and unchanging. The basic inherent foundational functions are the spiritual, instinctive and physiological functions. It is the needs of these levels of function that drive the human organism. Spiritual qualities and possibly instinctive drives are immutable; they are root states that gain their expression through other functions. Physiological expression is both foundational and mutable, with certain aspects fixed in what they can do. The adrenal cortex for instance, can only produce certain hormones but the levels of those hormones are mutable.
2. Mutable levels of function are changeable and will obscure expression of foundational levels of function when they become habituated. While mental, emotional, energetic and postural/muscular functions arise from and are an expression of the foundational functions, for the most part they are mutable, being called upon and altered in their expression to meet the needs of the organism.
3. Learned skills we may think of as adaptations that continue to be useful beyond the situation where they were learned, thus never becoming maladaptive. They may however be recruited for maladaptive purposes. Examples of this might be using psychological knowledge and skill as a means of manipulation, obscuring a more foundational emotion such as fear which itself may be obscuring an even more foundational spiritual quality.
Math skill, for example, may be obscured by an emotion of fear related to previous embarrassment or stress around doing math. A more fundamental emotion of sadness may be obscured by another emotion - anger, for instance, or it may be obscured by mental activity - e.g. worry, self judgment, intellectualization.
Eight levels of function