Active Symbolism
Adam Guss, MSS,LCSW
The Anger Cycle
• Expectation
• Symbolism
• Ideal
• Real
The use of Active Symbolism in Anger
Reduction
•
Active Symbolism is my term referring to the interactive process of
recognizing the instinctual response when confronted with the
emotional fields of affiliation and rank. The human speed in
symbolic interpretation is a factor in relational anger.
• Understanding one's own symbolic language both unconscious and
conscious suspends the competitive variable and allows for a
reduction in the anger presentation.
• The human ability to transform a feeling into a symbol as well as to
respond to a symbol with intense feeling is the key to anger
reduction.
• Active Symbolism utilizes the five senses. The five senses; see hear,
smell, taste and touch provide the stimulus as well as the antidote.
• Active Symbolism is an approach to increasing
the symbolic awareness in the individual to
stimulate the natural healing function.
• The five senses are used as lenses to inquire
about the symbolic input.
• SEE
• HEAR
• SMELL
• TASTE
• TOUCH
The process is to identify
• SUBJECTIVITY,
• OBJECTIVITY
• USE
What is the Input?
Example: Anger
What does anger look like?
What does anger taste like?
What does anger sound like?
What does anger smell like?
What does anger physically feel like?
• The process is then repeated from objective
vantage point of self.
• What do I look, sound, smell, taste, and touch
when angry?
• The final step is the question of use.
• The development of purpose.
• What do I want my output to accomplish?
INPUT
OUTPUT
• SEE
• HEAR
• SMELL
• TASTE
• TOUCH
• Symbolic Awareness is activated in two
dynamic fields of human consciousness.
• AFFILIATION
• RANKING
• AFFILIATION= connection
• RANKING= importance
• Competition is a symbolic ideal
The use of Active Symbolism guides the
individual to the benefits of the real.
What is behind the imagined?
What are the facts?
Alternative Modalities
•
•
•
•
•
See
Hear
Smell
Taste
Touch
Art, Mandalas, windows
Music, Drumming, talking
Aroma, oils, candles, Deep Exhale
Foods, Liquids
Exercise, Drumming, Massage
Application in Couple Work
Acknowledge individual differences
• Ranking the five senses per self importance
• Comparing the level of interaction
Theme of symbolic expectations
• The process of listening is not acceptance, but
sets sets the stage for communication about
self definition.
• The less reactive the couple becomes to the
symbolic material, the more the couple can
maturely interact.
Theory of Self Choice
•
• Heal thy self,
• Know thy symbols.
•
• The unifying theory of Active Symbolism is the action of
defining self through the five human senses. What the
human decides has symbolic value in the effort to heal
emotional wounds comes from an intuitive voice of
attraction. The internal self knows better than anyone else
but to hear, it maybe necessary to get very quiet and reflect
on the mirror of objectivity. Definition of the antidote and
then consistent application with time promotes healing of
the emotional state.
TwoheadedMandalas.com