Start learning psychotopology fieldwork by giving it a try. This audio will give you an overview of how to prepare for the mapping process.
Here are the posts with audio for mapping and moving:
Transcript:
(In case you prefer to read instead of listen)
Hi, I'm Joe Shirley, and I'd like to give you an opportunity to try out psychotopology fieldwork and get a sense of what this mapping feeling states is all about. Before you start, get yourself set up for taking some notes. You'll want to capture your answers to the questions I ask in a way that is easiest and least likely to get in your way, whether that is pen and paper, or your notebook computer, whatever works for you.
The first thing that you'll want to do is take some time on your own before you get started here, and think about whatever it is that you're curious about exploring inside yourself. What are you wanting to have a little bit more insight and freedom and resourcefulness around?
If this is your first time trying this, I recommend you go for simple. Don't try curing your lifetime anxiety in your first mapping. Choose some part of your life that might be maybe a minor annoyance, an occasional reactivity about something, or just an ongoing little thing that bothers you and you don't feel like you have your full self available to respond to it. You want something that's recurring, that is familiar to you, and that you feel distinctly, that there is a distinct feeling that shows up in your experience of this, in this context.
So then, Take a few minutes and review your current experience of that, or your recent experience of it. Pay attention in particular to specific feeling states that stand out to you. Notice the dominant feeling state, but also notice secondary states that also show up. either at the same time or pretty predictably before or after the main one.
Make a list of maybe three to five feeling states that seem to you to be central to this experience and give them names that are meaningful to you. It doesn't really matter what you call them. You don't have to go from the official handbook of proper names for emotions. Use whatever works for you. It's your label for something that only you can experience, so let yourself be creative.
So make a list, and then review it, and choose one to work with. Pick the one that feels like, if it were to shift, it might make a bit of a difference for you, if things opened up in that feeling. What we're going to be doing is actually mapping it and then moving it, shifting, opening, releasing it, so that you get more of a repertoire of what you're able to feel in that context where you experience this issue.
One tip I have for you is in looking at your list, in reviewing those three to five feeling states that you've named, think about primary and secondary. Let's say, for example, there's one you call anger, but the anger is coming because you feel hurt or insecure or anxious, and the anger is a way of covering that up or reacting to what's causing it.
The deeper feeling is more primary, and the anger is a secondary response to the primary one. So if the insecure or the anxious feeling was different, for example, the anger wouldn't have to be there. You want to go for the deeper one. Go for whatever is at the center. If you can, see if you can find what I call the pivot, around which the other states revolve, and start there.
All right? So, in the next section, I'll lead you through the mapping process. I'll see you there.
Mapping
When you’re ready, move on to Try It #2: Fieldwork Mapping.
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