Daniel N.

Stern MD
Honorary Professor of Psychology,
University of Geneva, Switzerland
Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry,
College of Medicine,
Cornell University, New York, USA
Lecturer, Columbia Center for Psychoanalysis,
Columbia University, New York, USA

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Dedication
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dares Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi The inspiration, support and ideas given by my wife,
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, have made the writing of this
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
book possible. I thank her warmly for the qualities of vitality
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore she has brought to the book.
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Oxford University Press, 2010
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2010
AH rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Stern, Daniel N.
Forms of vitality: exploring dynamic experience in psychology, the arts,
psychotherapy,and development / Daniel N. Stem,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-958606-6 (acid-frec paper) 1. Self-actualization
(Psychology) 2. Vitality. 3. Experience. 1. Title.
BF637.S4S814 2010
155—dc22 •
Typeset by Glyph International Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
ISBN 978-0-19-958606-6
10
Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that
the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always
check the product information and clinical procedures with the most
up-to-date published product information and data sheets provided by
the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety
regulations. The authors and publishers do not accept responsibility or
legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication
of material in this work.
 Contents
*

Part I Introduction and Background 1

1 Introducing Dynamic “Forms of Vitality” 3

2 The Nature and Theoretical Framework of Dynamic
“Forms of Vitality” 19
3 Ideas from Psychology and Behavioral Science Leading to
Dynamic Forms of Vitality 33
4 A Possible Neuroscientific Basis for Vitality Forms: the
Arousal Systems 57

Part II The Role of the Arousal Systems, and the

Examples of Music, Dance, Theater, and
Cinema 73
5 Vitality Forms in Music, Dance, Theater, and Cinema 75

Part III Developmental and Clinical

Implications 99
6 When do Vitality Forms Begin? A Developmental
View 101
7 What Implications do Forms of Vitality Have for Clinical
Theory and Practice? 119

References 151

Index 169
 Chapter 2
♦

The Nature and Theoretical

'

%
• » r

Framework of Dynamic
"Forms of Vitality"

This chapter explores the basic concepts essential to forms of

vitality, namely the primacy of movement, the nature of the
forces involved, the temporal contouring of movements, space
and directionality/intentionality, the emergent property of
aliveness, the separation of form from content, and the disen
tangling of vitality forms from emotions and sensations.

The primary role of movement in creating forms

of vitality
As dynamic experience arises from forces in movement, the
place of movement becomes crucial. Movement is our most
primitive and fundamental experience. Many thinkers have
long argued that besides the fact that movement comes first in
-V .

animate evolution and in development, it has a primacy in

experience throughout life.
During evolution, approach and withdrawal emerged from
the general capacity to move. The different emotions then dif
ferentiated out from approach and withdrawal. Bodily concepts
and then, progressively, language evolved from this movement
base (Panksepp, 1998). The philosopher Sheets-Johnstone (1999)
has written a book entitled The Primacy of Movement which
also proposes that movement, comes first in both phylogeny
 FORMS OF VITALITY
and ontology. Langer (1953,1969/72) gave movement a foun
dational role in feeling. Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999) and
*
McNeil (2005) give it a fundamental role in thinking and lan
guage. Gallese & Lakoff (2005) suggest that images, concepts,
and language itself are born in the integrative activity of the
sensory motor cortex. Husserl (1962, 1964), from the perspec
tive of philosophy, considered movement to be the mother of
cognition. Similarly, Polanyi (1962) stated that thoughts come
*
out of bodily experiences, from the tacit knowledge embedded
in the body. (Einstein also said that, for him, thinking in math
ematics involved sensations of bodily movement.)
Movement is almost everywhere. When we hear music, we
experience “sound in motion” (Kurth, 1925). We often imagine
specific sounds (from one source) moving in different direc
tions. When we watch dance, but are not moving ourselves, we
have the feel of our own bodies in virtual motion because of
mirror system activity (see Chapter 6). When we hear or read
language, or let free the imagination, we can experience virtual
worlds of forces in motion.
The mind is indeed embodied, and motion is key. However,
we cannot fully understand movement without knowing how it
is deployed. Knowing the "what” and “why” of a movement is
incomplete without knowledge of the "how.” Dynamics con
cern the "how.”
I am interested in how different movements with different
dynamic forms are grasped by the mind and felt as vitality
a
forms. It does not matter what modality the dynamic move
ment arises from. It is recruited by the emotion system but also
by other systems. It can arise from inside or outside, from emo
tion or cognition, from nature or art. In fact, concerning art, it
is obvious that vitality dynamics is a fundamental aspect of per
formance in the time-based arts. Dynamic forms of a piece of
music are written into the musical score. Moreover, beyond
NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" 21
that, the difference between a technically adequate perform
ance and a transporting interpretation lies in the unique vitality
dynamics that a great artist can bring to the work and transmit
to an audience. The power of dance and cinema lies beyond the
storyline and resides in the dynamic experience of the story’s
enactment. The different forms of art could never talk to each
other and collaborate without vitality dynamics. It is their
"esperanto.” I shall return to this point in Chapter 5.
Mental movement
Dynamic forms of vitality include mental movement as well as
physical action. However, what is a "mental movement”? As we
think of something or feel emotion or sensation, the mental
experience is not static. Subjectively, a thought can rush onto
the mental stage and swell, or it can quietly just appear and then
fade. It has a beginning, middle, and ending. The experience of
movement (physical or mental) traces a small journey. It takes
time. Mental movement, while it is happening, traces a profile
of its rising and falling strength as it is contoured in time. This
is its dynamic form of vitality.
Mental movement also includes imagined movements such
as preparing to execute a physical movement or forming an
image. As Brentano (1874/1973) pointed out, the mind can
intend (i.e. reach out for) a word or image. If someone says
"Think of the moon,” your mind will “stretch” for an image,
subjectively. ("Intend” is translated from the Latin for "to
stretch out” toward, to "aim.”) Intentions are mental expres
sions of directional forces getting ready, even straining to
"move,” or already started but still unfolding. Like a musical
phrase, they lean forward subjectively.
In addition, we now know that imagining the performance
of a particular action generates a pattern of brain activity that
22 FORMS OF VITALITY
is similar to that generated when the activity is actually
performed. There is virtual movement (e.g. Jeannerod &
Frak, 1999).
Force
Most mental and physical movements are subjectively experi
enced as caused and guided by forces. Different fields of inquiry
* » * *»
use different concepts and terms for these forces. Psychology, in
general, speaks of “motives” and “intentions,” cognitive psy
chology and neurosciences of “values” that attract, psycho
analysis of “desires,” “wishes,” and “drives,” ethology of
triggering activation or releasing fixed action patterns, and phi
losophers speak of “will” (Haggard, 2008).
As forms of vitality are subjective phenomena, they arise from
how the mind processes dynamic experience from any source
(“real” or imagined). The experience contains an inferred, sub
jectively felt force that is experienced as acting “behind” or
“within” the event and throughout its course.
Although we know that movement, as a purely physical phe
nomenon, is explicable in terms of anatomy, biochemistry, and
physiology, we nonetheless have a tendency to attach the
feeling-perception of force, energy, power, and vigor to human
movement. We read these attributes into the actions of others,
and experience them emanating from our own actions. This
fundamental tendency appears to be a “mental primitive” (how
the mind evolved to process certain events) that continues to
act alongside what we call scientific knowledge. It does not mat
ter if we call these forces the products of animistic thinking or
folk psychology. As holistic events, they will not disappear from
our daily psychological world. The pairing of force with motion
is indissoluble as direct experience ~ it is part of the “funda-
• . • s '
mental dynamic pentad” for experiencing dynamic events.
NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" 23
Separating vitality forms from the unfolding
of content
Vitality forms are associated with a content. More accurately,
they carry a content along with them. Vitality forms are not
V
empty forms. They give a temporal and intensity contour to the
content, and with it a sense of an alive “performance.” The
content can be an emotion or shifts in emotion, a train of
* thoughts, physical or mental movements, a memoiy, a phantasy,
a means-end action, a sequence of dance steps, or a shot in a
film. The vitality dynamic gives the content its form as a dynam
ic experience. The contents, by themselves, need not conform
to any particular dynamic experience. Anger can appear on the
scene explosively, or build progressively, or arrive sneakily,
or coldly, and so on. So could happiness and its smile. The
arousal systems provide a good part of the dynamic force and
form.
The content material provides the goal, the specific behavio
ral patterns to reach the goal, and the qualia. However, only
when the contents are yoked to arousal do they take on a
dynamic form of vitality. This is what gives them the feel of
flowing and aliveness - of being human.
Vitality forms color the experience of the content and are
colored by it as well. Vitality forms rarely exist alone without
some content (although they can do so). Throughout, we shall
maintain this distinction between the vitality form of an experi
ence and the contents of the same experienced event, even when
they can have various degrees of merger. In addition, even when
the contents are sculpted into phenomenal shape by the dynamic
form of vitality.
(The general issue of form versus content has a long history
in many fields. I shall not take it up, as it would lead us too far
afield.)
24 FORMS OF VITALITY
Although we often merge the vitality form with the experi
ence of its content to create a holistic event, they remain sepa
rable. Usually it is the experience of the contents (the thought,
act, emotion, etc.) that attracts our human interest, but not
always. For instance, suppose that someone reaches for an
object (the goal-directed reach is the content of the act, the
“what”) but they do so violently (the dynamic form, the “how”).
We can focus on the reach-to-goal or the explosion of the act,
or back and forth, or merge them.
The only time when we could experience a pure vitality form
devoid of content would be in the first milliseconds after a stim-
/
ulus, when the arousal system has already fired, but before the
emotions and cognitions have had time to kick in, or perhaps in
the earliest phases of life, as we shall see in Chapter 6.
However, not all experiences have a perceived duration. Some
act instantaneously, or else they arise from static stimuli, such
as paintings or photography.1
The problem of separating vitality forms from the experience
of the content has not yet been resolved here, and requires fur
ther discussion. Experience must be multiply encoded in the
brain, presumably in separate but overlapping neural networks.
There must be a “content recording” that registers what hap
pened, and in what modality it was received, another recording
that registers why it happened (the intention), and a third,
a “dynamic recording” that registers the dynamic form of the
event while unfolding how it happened. There must also be
other separate but related recordings, such as a real time and
place recording that places the experience in personal-historic
time and place, and others. I shall focus only on the distinction
between the content and the dynamic form encodings.
Suppose the brain (not the mind) did not care as much as we
usually imagine how stimuli got inside to activate neural circuits.
NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" 25
Once inside, the neural circuitry is so interconnected and mul-
tisensory that the original source or modality of entry is impor
tant but not necessarily controlling or over-restrictive. Whether
a sound was heard or a movement visually perceived, the brain
will deal with it, to some extent, as a multisensory event (e.g.
Calvert etal> 1999; Pourtois etal, 2000; Ghazanfar & Schroeder,
2006; Zatorre et al, 2007; Karns & Knight, 2009).
, Once an experience activates the brain, it will leave a purely
vitality dynamic representation and a content representation.
The dynamic representation must encode the speed and its
changes, the intensity (force) and its changes, and the duration,
and the temporal stresses, rhythm, and directionality. The con
tent representation must encode the modality from which the
stimulus emanated, sound, sight, touch, etc., the qualia of the
experience (redness, harmonious, etc.), the means and goals,
and the meaning. Let us call the two records strands of represen
tations (i.e. “dynamic vitality strand” and “content-modality
strand”). (These strands would metaphorically be at the level of
psychology. In neural terms, these would be overlapping neural
networks.)
The suggestion of this book is that the dynamic vitality strand
is the most fundamental and primary. The content modality
strand must be encoded along or around (so to speak) the
dynamic vitality strand. The content strand takes on its phenom
enal form and appears to us only when it is twisted around the
dynamic vitality strand. This is more than just “embodiment.”
Without the dynamic vitality strand, the content modality
record would be digital and would never take on the analogic,
dynamic flow of human activity. There would be no flow, no
vitality, and no aliveness. (All of this is at times easier to imagine
when thinking in strands and at other times easier to envisage
when thinking in overlapping and reentering neural networks.)
26 FORMS OF VITALITY NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" 27

Disentangling vitality forms from sensations
Vitality forms are modality non-specific. They belong to no one
sensory modality but to all (vision, audition, touch, etc.). One
question is to consider it from the phenomenological view
point. Subjectively, there seems to be a “super-Gestalt” of force,
motion, time, space, and intentionality all combined to make
* %

emerge a dynamic form of vitality - a basic pan-modal phe

could even imagine that in addition to the usual five sensory
nomenon in the form of a fundamental dynamic pentad.
modalities there is a sixth - a modality of “dynamics vitality
Kurth’s (1925) notion of music as a state of motion (psycho-
forms” that senses the duration, speed, and time-shape of the s

logically) is pertinent. For him, harmonic progressions are seen

force making up felt events. I shall not go so far because it would
,as the “constant surging up of energy into the phenomenal
require that an amodal sensory modality join the other sensory
world in terms of felt motion” (Hsu, 1966). And likewise for
modalities, which does not quite make sense. Nonetheless, this »

rhythms. This is obviously true for dance and for “motion”

rejected idea captures the situation, and will reappear.
pictures (see Chapter 5). The fundamental role of movement
Traditionally, sensations are modality specific. They originate
for living organisms becomes more and more evident.
from specific sense organs in the body and are treated in known
Ultimately, we shall need a more elaborated categorization, a
loci in the brain. Vitality forms have no specific sense organ or
typology of the many different types of forms of vitality that
brain locus. They would appear to arise from many parts of the
arise in our subjective life. To advance, we may need a multiple
brain simultaneously.
approach combining neuroscience, phenomenology, and some
However, are vitality forms truly meta-modal? The question
ideas from the world of the arts with its particular perspective
brings up the ancient problem of whether there are universal
on dynamic forms and vitality dynamics.
senses that are evident in all modalities. Lawrence Marks (1978)
has written an overview of this issue. His review from Aristotle
through Galileo to contemporary thinkers lists the supra- Disentangling vitality forms from emotions
sensoiy attributes from all of these philosophical sources. The
Vitality forms are not the same as emotions. Emotion is only
lists contain several spatial items (shape, space, extension in
one of the possible contents that can be shaped into the dynamic
space, form), several temporal elements (mostly duration), plus
experience of a form of vitality. We usually think of emotions
intensity (magnitude), motion, rest, number, unity, brightness,
as containing at least three aspects: first, a felt quality such as
and hedonic tone. The most frequently mentioned are intensity
angry(ness) or joyful(ness); secondly, characteristic action ten
(on all lists), temporal features, and spatial features (on almost
dencies and specific motor patterns (including facial expres
all lists). The attributes that we ascribe to vitality forms accord
sion); and thirdly, the dynamic aspects of its arising and
with these traditional lists.
enactment. In other words, what we usually mean by an emo
Marks also asks whether supra-modal forms arising from
tion consists of the coming together of a vitality form (which
corresponding senses can be interpreted as manifestations of a
provides the force and the temporal shape) with a specific emo
general, perhaps more “primitive sensibility.” However, what
tion (which provides the direction, goal, felt quality, and action
might such a primitive sensibility be? One way to tackle this
tendencies). There is much confusion on this point because we
 FORMS OF VITALITY NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY"

usually feel the quality and action tendencies of an emotion and
the dynamic vitality form together as if they were one unitary
experience, but not always.2
Thompson (1994) grasps this situation as follows: "We call
these response features (the temporal and intensive features)
Levels of organization of the concept "forms of
vitality"
How do we go about reorganizing fragmented pieces of
knowledge so that they become holistic perceptions? At times
* _

the reductive sciences can take apart a wristwatch to better

emotion dynamics because, while the discrete emotion (e.g.
understand its workings, but then cannot put it back together
joy) may ‘play the tune5 of an individual's response, emotion
again so that it works. Are we there with some questions?
dynamics (like the dynamic markings on a musical score)
* ’ At one pole of thought it is suggested that, when needed,
significantly influence quality, intensity, timing, and modula
we put together our perceived world by bringing and fitting
tion and thus significantly color emotionality55 (p. 48).
together the many diverse pieces of what we know separately,
Although emotions must be shaped into dynamic vitality
(e.g. recognizing a familiar face by assembling the many known
forms to give emotions their final expression, the dynamics are
elements that constitute it). At the extreme this would be a
not a feature belonging to a particular emotion. I return to the
constructivist model.
example that anger can “explode,55 “ooze out,55 “sneak up,55 or be
At the other extreme, a strict holistic view would suggest that
“cold.55 These four different vitality forms do not belong to
some pieces of separate diverse knowledge are innately assem
anger alone. Most often we feel the amalgam of a type of emo
bled for direct immediate use together as a unit. If so, there
tion plus a vitality form as if they were one event, even though
must be some form of pre-construction of parts of our world
they result from the coupling of separate phenomena that use
directly perceived as wholes. Gestalt phenomena work in this
different neural pathways.
way so that illusions of a whole new larger integrated pattern
Nonetheless, everyone agrees that a dynamic dimension is
appear while only two unrelated discrete perceptions have been
present in emotions and emotional feelings. A full concept of
put in relation.
emotions cannot do without physiological arousal and neuro
Earlier thinkers relied on notions of innate ideas and primal
logical activation arising from subcortical areas of the brain.
(original) phantasies to explain different complex constella
Accordingly, emotions necessarily also become dynamically
tions of behavior and thought.
enacted. However, emotions are not vitality forms.
The great advantage of holistic experience is its directness,
As a piece of communication to others, a smile or baring the
which implies greater speed and efficiency. The disadvantages
teeth, if performed without a vitality form, would only be a con
are a loss of flexibility and size of possible patterns.
ventional sign. It would lack the full signature of its force and
What would a more holistically endowed world be like?
nuanced temporal enactment for it to be a real-life communica
How complex can these Gestalts be? How many parts can they
tive act fashioned for that moment and containing aliveness. It
integrate? We do not know.
would not be embodied in the richest sense of that term. In
The idea of forms of vitality is a sort of compromise solution.
short, vitality forms are different from emotions in their nature,
We know of many Gestalt-like events even on the first day
feel, non-specificity, omnipresence, and neurobiology.
30 FORMS OF VITALITY NATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF DYNAMIC "FORMS OF VITALITY" 31

Table 2.1 Organizational level of dynamic experience Motes

Level of organization Dynamic terms 1. Take, for example, brightness. You walk into a dark room and all of a sudden
....'LJ",'lU1"'.......... 1 J *-■
1. Physical stimuli Physical dynamics all the lights go on and flood the space. The stimulus is instantaneous, but the
2. Neuronal Neuronal dynamics arousal shifts will take a second dr more to play out, so a dynamic form
3. Psychological/subjective Vitality dynamics emerges afterward. The same would be true for color, or for a static picture or
4. Elaborated psychological (e.g. emotions, perceptions, etc.) photograph. The narrative of what one sees in a static visual display takes time
to create. The eyes have to travel over the static picture to take it in. That takes
time, and the eye-tracking voyage is not likely to be even and smooth from the
point of view of micro-shifts in arousal. Also static visual forms, colors in
particular, imply motion. Warm colors (like red) come forward, and cool
of life. When a newborn hears a sound, he turns his head towards colors (like blue) recede. Next to each other, they pull apart in the third
dimension. Paul Klee said that “color has always had something secretive
the source so that he can see it, thus integrating two patterns about it that is difficult to grasp. This mysterious quality penetrates the mind.
that are not tied together reflexively. A larger, more complex The colors are the most irrational elements in painting, They possess
perceptual field emerges for him. something suggestive, ‘a suggestive power-” (Petitpierre, 1957, p. 19). They are
like a force that acts on you. Curves “move” smoothly and gracefully, whereas
The idea of vitality forms is an extension of holistic thinking. sharp angles “move” jaggedly. Vertical and horizontal lines “hold” the
It posits that four different components are directly integrated observer in virtual space differently than diagonals, and so on (see Werner in
Chapter 3).
into one whole, a form of vitality. Further, such vitality forms
2. There is disagreement about what emotions are to begin with. Many
provide the basis of our most daily encounters with human definitions abound (e.g. Panksepp, 1998; Frijda & Zeelenberg, 2001). In any
behavior.3 event, the discreet emotions have been far more studied than the dynamic
Vitality forms accomplish two other functions. They unite features of experience. Rather than put vitality forms into ah over-enlarged
categoiy of “emotion” as most thinkers have, I would opt for creating a field
the elements that put flesh on experience so that it is felt and of study devoted to feelings in the largest sense of the word. This would
seen as coming from a living person existing in our real daily include affective feelings, and background feelings, and dynamic forms of
vitality, plus possible others.
world - someone who moves in time and space, and with force
3. I shall not take up the issue of the role of consciousness. Damasio (1999) has
and direction. * written extensively on the leap from emotion to feeling, a leap that both
Forms ofvitality are not directly based on physical nature. Yet requires and creates consciousness, This could happen for some vitality forms,
but need not.
they correspond with realities in nature that may not exist
independent of the mind. This is because our minds tend to see
dynamic events in terms of vitality forms whether they come
from nature, self, or other humans. The dialogue between exter
nal and subjective reality never stops (Merleau-Ponty, 1962).
*

Chapter 3

Ideas from Psychology and

Behavioral Science Leading
to Dynamic Forms of Vitality

I
*

Psychology and the behavioral sciences have made repeated

I

attempts to understand vitality forms. This book is another

!
such effort. I shall jump into the historical flow late, at the begin
ning of the twentieth century. Two cardinal ideas were coming
into their own at that time, namely psychoanalysis and phe
nomenology. These will be briefly discussed as their influence
and insights have trailed from the end of the nineteenth centuiy
into the beginning of the twenty-first centuiy. I shall then pick
up the story from the 1940s to the present.
This highly selective account is not meant to be comprehen
sive, but rather it follows the main influences on this book. Also
this account focuses as tightly as possible on the issues of the
dynamic features of subjective experience involving vitality
forms, leaving accounts of other work incomplete or absent.
Psychoanalysis plays a crucial role because of Freud’s basic
assumption that “psychic energy” drove the psychic apparatus.
With just that, we are immediately plunged into the dynamics
of experience. Freud saw psychic energy as a kind of transfor
mation of somatic energy, not totally different from the vital
force of the earlier doctrine of vitalism. Once Freud postulated
psychic energy, he had to deal with the dynamic aspects of
experiences that were energy driven. He thus spoke of forces -
the “pressure” of the drives, of being “impelled,” of the push
 FORMS OF VITALITY
and pull of motivations, of forces being countered, blocked,
displaced, pushed down, rising back up, and leaking out.
All of these notions are in the prevailing metaphoric language
of hydrodynamics. At times, this hydrodynamic model was
only metaphoric, while at other times it was reified and used as
explanatory.
Dynamic terminology became the currency for psycho
dynamic theorizing. It was all about energy and forces. The
language of defenses, conflicts, symptom formation, and drives
was the clinical language of vitality dynamics. It captured,
at least in metaphoric terms, what many experiences felt like,
(the “rising up” of emotions, etc.). It was both experience—
near and abstract. This language is still with us as metaphors,
but no longer as a scientific explanation.
The relative decline of interest in psychoanalysis over the past
few decades, along with the rise of the neurosciences and the
cognitive revolution, has left a partial vacuum. The dynamic
features of experience have stopped being so active an area of
study. We are left only with the metaphors for felt experience,
but that is still important.
Another major idea taking form at the turn of the twentieth
century was phenomenology, which provides an account of the
subjective world experienced as it is lived, pre-theoretically and
pre-reflectively. The subjective, phenomenal world is whatever
is passing across the ‘‘mental stage” right now. It does not con
cern itself with how the scene got on to the mental stage, nor
why it got there, nor when, nor whether it is “real” in any objec
tive sense. This current of philosophy is relevant because it cir
cumscribes what subjective experience is, and what it is not. It
provides a starting place to look for vitality forms or the feel of
being alive. William James (1890), Edmond Husserl (1964),
and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962) are the most influential
thinkers on phenomenology in this present work.
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
James states that the sense of “activity” is synonymous with
the sense of “life,” in the “broadest and vaguest way.” By “activ
ity,” he means that the word “activity” has no imaginable con
tent except the experiences of process, of obstruction, striving,
strain, or release. He also finds that these processes are in con
stant change. They are operating all the time to maintain a level
of vitality that fluctuates. Within this framework, vitality
dynamics are crucial for a sense of being alive. Put more
strongly, the dynamic aspects of experience are what “aliveness”
is about.
Jumping from these classic texts to the mid-twentieth centu
ry, Heinz Werner with his collaborators began in the 1940s to
explore a “sensory-tonic field theory of perception” (Werner,
1940; Werner 8c Wapner, 1949; Werner 8c Kaplan, 1963). They
suggested that the different senses are undifferentiated at the
* •
beginning of life, when a more general and primitive sensibility
prevails. Cross-modal merging and synesthesias (e.g. feeling
different types of touch when hearing different notes, or seeing
the color red when hearing the sound of a trumpet) are initially
more common in infancy, and in fact are the norm (in any case
these mergings are phenomenally “real”). Developmentally, the
modalities first cross over, mix, and merge more freely. Only
later are the separate modalities sharply differentiated from one
another.
More recent research by many has repeatedly demonstrated
the cross-modal capacities of infants, in particular neonates
(e.g. Meltzoff 8c Moore, 1977; Meltzoff 8c Borton, 1979;
Kumgiumutzakis, 1985; Meltzoff 8c Gopnik, 1993; Kaye 8c
Bower, 1994; Nadel 8c Butterworth, 1999; Rochat, 1999). Such
findings are suggestive of Werner’s views but not proof. This
research has not yet singled out the problem of the dynamic
features in imitation, although they must be there at some
developmental point.
36 FORMS OF VITALITY
Werner and colleagues further postulated that there was a
general bodily response to stimuli, including changes in muscu
lar tonus and arousal/activation. These global responses taken
together comprise the “sensory-tonic” dynamic field of experi
ence. For instance, a jagged, saw-toothed line is associated with
or apprehended as anger, strength, vigor, and impatience,
whereas a progressively curved line is associated with gentle
ness, grace, and smoothness (Lundholm, 1921, quoted in
Werner & Kaplan, 1963, p. 338). They are essentially describing
arousal profiles and vitality forms without naming them as
these. They placed the dynamics of arousal into an essential
position in felt experience.
Apropos the notions of Werner, it is noteworthy that, very
recently, neuroscientists have found evidence suggesting
that many neurons throughout the brain are multisensory.
They respond to stimuli from more than a single sense. Such
multisensory neurons exist even in brain areas thought to be
devoted to only one sensory modality (Ghazanfar 8c Schroeder,
2006; Stein 8c Stanford, 2008). These findings suggest that
there is multisensory integration veiy early in cortical process
ing. They also throw into question the prevailing view that some
cortical areas are exclusively devoted to one sensory modal
ity. This might lead to a fairly radical rethinking of functional
neuroanatomy.
Stein and Stanford state that, at least in neonatal kittens,
multisensory neurons exist that are incapable of integrating
senses until later when they have had more cross-modal experi
ence. It is not unusual in development for capacities to operate
very early on, and then disappear, only to reappear later, but
organized differently. This appears to be the case for early imita
tion (Maratos, 1973; Kumgiumutzakis, 1985,1998). The devel
opmental story of multisensory integration in humans is not yet
known. In any event, these recent findings are in line with some
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 37
of Werner’s ideas and may help to clarify the “multimodality”
of dynamic forms of vitality.
Werner and Kaplan went further and suggested linking these
%
dynamic holistic responses to the emergence of symbols. They
called this “physiognomic perception.” It was an attempt to
bring symbol formation and language into relation with the
dynamics of felt experience. It was also an attempt to put felt
experience at the interface of neuroscience and language, as
Langer had done.
In a different vein, the philosopher Susanne Langer (1953,
1969-1972) described what she called “forms of feeling.” She
coined this term to capture the many feelings evoked by music
(and life), such as “fading, exulting, easiness, rushing,” that do
not fall into the usual categories of emotions, nor belong to any
particular act or action. The basic notion of vitality dynamics
has long been inspired by her work. She placed feelings and
their dynamic forms at the interface between the narrative and
the physiological. I am avoiding the term “feelings” because of
its close association with emotions. Instead, I am placing vital
ity forms at that interface.
Sylvan Tompkins.(1962,1995) approached the same general
problem addressed by Werner and Kaplan (1963) and Langer
(1953, 1969-1972) from a different perspective. He suggested
that interest and excitement (arousal functions) are separate
states from the positive emotions, at least. This separating out of
arousal from emotional experience is exactly the point we are
re-emphasizing. This aspect of his work is less quoted than his
ideas on the pre-programming of a linkage between specific
stimuli and specific basic emotions.
Even when discussing innateness, his major concern was the
pre-programmed relationship of stimulus intensity and timing
to arousal and then to emotion. Tompkins linked the evocation
of surprise to a particular intensity and rise time of arousal.
38 FORMS OF VITALITY
A rapid increase in the amplitude of a sound (a “physical
dynamic”) will produce a rapid increase in the patterns of neu
ral firing (our neuronal dynamics), which will produce surprise
(a specific emotion for Tompkins, rather than a form of vitality
plus an emotion). It is this that he saw as innate.
Tompkins’ work gives arousal a central role in the emergence
of the dynamic features of experience. He did not take into
account arousal-related dynamic experiences except under the
rubric of emotion. We extend them to include almost all kinds
of experience.
Werner, Langer, and Tompkins are perhaps the modem pio
neers who explored the dynamic feel of experience.
Ray Birdwhistell (1970), A1 Scheflen (1973), and Adam
Kendon (1994) have been among the leading pioneers in the
field of kinesics, beginning in the 1950s. They have given us the
9 4
concepts and language to deal with the social acts of everyday
life (e.g. movements at the dinner table and around the house,
greetings, kissings, birthday parties), all in ordinary, non-
experimental, unscripted settings. Their work paved the way for
microanalytic description, which included dynamic features.
It revealed the huge variety of experiences seen in spontaneous
interactions (so many of them unnameable). In addition, they
made it clear that dynamic features had to be taken into account to
describe the almost unlimited nuances of expression in everyday
life. This reinforced the idea that, ultimately, research has to
take into account events that arise in spontaneous, natural set
tings, even when experimental procedures are compromised
and where many events are not categorizable in the prevailing
academic lexicon.
This kind of free-range observation revealed to what extent
these expressions were socially and culturally composed, and in
so doing, informed fields of cross-cultural studies. Their work
also brought attention to the domain of movement and action,
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 39
which at the time had been largely left by the wayside in
the enthusiasm for linguistically carried psychoanalytic
meanings.
During the decade of the 1970s, Ekman, Friesen, and their
collaborators revisited Darwin’s works 100 years after their
publication. In a sense, they ushered in the modern epoch of
the behavioral study of emotions, particularly with Ekman and
Friesen’s studies on the coding of facial expressions (1976,
1978). Their initial task was to describe systematically the facial
expressions of the Darwinian emotions. They chose to focus on
the movements of the facial muscles, thus providing an ana
tomical base for a scoring system (the Facial Action Coding
System, FACS). While focusing on the anatomical they paid far
less attention to the dynamic, but were fully aware of its ongo
ing presence. Their reason for focusing on anatomy was that it
was where Darwin focused. In addition, as they state, system
atic studies of dynamic features are enormously time consum
ing and costly. Therefore their coding system looked for each
unit of movement of the separate muscle groups involved in
facial expression, and then treated them as a series of photo
graphs where they could score the anatomical changes.
Frequency and time of onset were all that was needed to fix a
given change in anatomy. A description of the entire contour
was not needed for that. The choice of privileging categorical
anatomic forms over dynamic forms was appropriate for the
creation of a coding system.
However, that is not the end of the story. They also turned to
examine dynamic features. One of the five aspects of facial
movements they scored for was timing.
Onset time, the span between the start of each action unit and when it
reaches apex, apex time, the period of maximum excursion, and offset
time, the span between the end of apex and the disappearance of an
action unit, can all be measured. Additionally, whether the onset, the
apex and the offset are smooth or irregular can be scored. All of the
40 FORMS OF VITALITY
action units that appear to make up a single expression do not always
have the same onset, apex and offset timing.
Ekman & Friesen (1982, p. 242)
These parameters, when translated into subjective terms, come
close to describing dynamic vitality forms. However, they only
give a skeletal description and only describe events that have
one up-down, crescendo-decrescendo movement.
With this in mind, they went on to show that false versus
authentic smiles could be distinguished by their dynamic
features, namely duration (longer for false smiles), time to onset
(either shorter or longer), apex duration (too long), and offset
time (too short and abrupt or irregular, not smooth).
The success of the anatomical approach and the FACS set the
field off in a direction where the dynamic, analogic features
were either left behind or played a secondary role, even though
Ekman and Friesen themselves explored the dynamics of facial
expression in several studies (Ekman & Friesen, 1982; Ekman,
Freisen, & O’Sullivan, 1988; Ekman, Friesen, & Davidson,
1990).
Manfred Clynes, a professional pianist and psychologist,
described a field of “sentics” (Clynes, 1973; Clynes &Nettheim,
1982). Among other things, he differentiated the different ways
that a finger can touch the key of a piano, and how the emotion
in the pianist and listener were affected by the form of touch
and the corresponding sound released. In essence, he was
describing something very like vitality forms, but classed them
under the rubric of emotions.
My own preoccupation with the dynamic forms of vitality
began with observations of mother-infant interactions, where
the dynamic features of early human exchanges jump out in
high relief because there is little going on linguistically to dis
tract focus from the non-verbal (Stem, 1971, 1977). The term
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 41
“vitality affects” was first coined in this context (Stern, 1985).
An important observation was what mothers do when they
want to show the baby they understand or share what the baby
is felling. Here is an example.
i . •
A ten-month-old girl is seated on the floor facing her mother. She is
trying to get a piece of puzzle into its right place. After many failures
she finally gels it. She then looks up into her mother’s face with delight
and an explosion of enthusiasm. She “opens up her face” [her mouth
• ’ opens, her eyes widen, her eyebrows rise] and then closes back down.
The time contour of these changes can be described as a smooth arch
[a crescendo, high point, decrescendo]. At the same time her arms rise
and fall at her sides. Mother responds by intoning, “Yeah” with a pitch
line that rises and falls as the volume crescendos and decrescendos:
“yeeAAAaahh ” The mother’s prosodic contour matches the child’s
facial-kinetic contour. They also have the exact same duration.
Stem (1985, p. 140)
What else could the mother have done to let her daughter know
that she understood and shared the baby’s excitement and joy
at that moment? The mother cannot just say, “Oh I know how
you felt. I do know how that feels.” After all, the girl is only
10 months old and would not understand. Alternatively, the
mother could imitate what the girl did, i.e. open up her own
face and then close it down in a fairly faithful imitation of what
the girl did. However, there is a different problem with this. The
girl could say to herself (so to speak) “OK, you know what
I did, physically. But how can I know that you know what it felt
like to do what I did? You could be a mirror, or a Martian. Flow
do I know you even have a mind?” The mother resolved this by
doing a selective imitation, an “affect attunement.” She switched
to a different modality (from seen action to heard sound), but
she kept the dynamic features faithfully, i.e. there was a match
ing of the vitality form. She shared the dynamics of the form but
not the modality. The girl then understood that her mother
was not just imitating, but that something similar was in the
42 FORMS OF VITALITY
mother’s known experience and was sharable between the two.
The match thus becomes a match of internal feeling states, not
overt behaviors. Some sense of mutual understanding has been
established.
‘‘Affect attunement” is based on matching and sharing *
dynamic forms of vitality, but across different modalities.
Its frequent use permits a mother to create a degree of intersub
jectivity higher than faithful imitation. At that point in the
research, I was primarily interested in the development of inter
subjectivity and its clinical role in development. Because the
phenomenon first appeared to us in the mother-infant dyads,
it made me aware of the parallel between the vitality dynamics
• t
and the “vital” functions in babies. Despite this, vitality dynam
ics were never meant to have their conceptual roots in early life
support vital functions. Moreover, they do not.
Later, vitality dynamics were revisited, but within the context
of examining the “present moment” of experience, the “now”
(Stern, 2004). This leads to a greater emphasis on temporal
dynamic features. It was suggested that dynamic events were
the subjective backbone of the feeling of being in a present
moment. In addition, present moments were designated as the
unit in which many varied sequential events were grasped into
one global “take” of consciousness. In this way, dynamic events
play a part in the creation of consciousness. These shifts in con
text have entailed relatively minor remodeling of concepts.
Now, however, the introduction of the term “dynamic forms of
vitality” signals a conceptual enlargement. Vitality forms are seen
more clearly as a Gestalt, a subjective phenomenon. Force, motion,
aliveness, space, and content have been added to temporal con
tour and intensity (force). Vitality forms are the overarching con
cepts for the previous terms. It is a more global, holistic grasp.
A word about terms. Traditionally, emotions are designated
as emotions or affects, except when they become reflectively
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 43
conscious and usually linked with language, at which point they
become feelings. This distinction is from Damasio (1999). I shall
not, however, enter into the discussion of the role of conscious
ness in vitality forms, as it would take us elsewhere.
• .1 shall continue to use the term “affect attunement.” This is
meant to be the same as matching of vitality forms. However, as
“affect attunement” is now widely used, we shall keep it.
Intersubjectivity has become a topic of great interest and
activity, in particular its developmental course and value for
clinical practice (e.g. Trevarthen & Hubley, 1978; Reddy, 1991;
Whiten, 1991; Tomasello, Savage-Rumbaugh, & Kruger, 1993;
Nadel 8c Butterworth, 1999; Hobson, 2002; Rochat, 2009). By
intersubjectivity, I mean the sharing of another’s experience.
There are different degrees of sharing, namely “one-way” shar
ing (e.g. “I know (or feel) that you know (or feel) ...”), and
“two-way” sharing (e.g. “I know that you know that I know...”).
In addition, there are different subject matters that can be
shared, such as the content of language communications,
emotions, and vitality forms. Among the three, the sharing of
another’s vitality forms is probably the earliest, easiest, and
most direct path into another’s subjective experience.
Three different researchers, selected among many, have adopted
slightly different approaches to the developmental problem of
intersubjectivity, namely Colwyn Trevarthen (1998), Andrew
Meltzoff (Meltzoff 8c Gopnik, 1993), and myself (Stern, 1985).
Beatrice Beebe (Beebe et ah, 2005a) has reviewed the differences
among these three in detail. Meltzoff has focused largely on imi
tation and Trevarthen on synchrony, and I have focused largely
on the “affect attunement” of dynamic forms. Any act has
parameters of all these - shape (or form), timing, and intensity.
One could say that Meltzoff has entered the problem mainly
through shape and goal, Trevarthen through timing, and myself
through time-intensity matching. Despite these differences, all
44 FORMS OF VITALITY
three consider the dynamic features as central for intersubjec
tivity, as does the work of Braten (1998,2007) and others.
The concept of dynamic vitality forms brings together four
converging lines of thought, namely intersubjectivity, cross-
and meta-modality, the dynamic features of experience, and a
phenomenological focus on subjectivity.
The work ofThompson (1994) considers the dynamic features
of emotional experience in the light of “emotion regulation.” In
this context he includes intensity, persistence, modulation,
onset, rise time, range, and recovery time (i.e. most of the basic
parameters of forms of vitality). It is important to bear in mind
that Thompson is speaking of general arousal as seen during emo
tional states. This permits him to speak of “emotion dynamics.”
It is clear that the qualitative and dynamic aspects of emotions
v
are tightly bound together: the subcortical and cortical sys
tems influencing emotional arousal are mutually intercon
nected and are intimately linked with other neurophysiological
systems, including those governing cognition and vegetative
regulation ...” (1994, p. 30).
Thompson advances our appreciation of vitality dynamics.
However, two questions remain largely unresolved. Does not
specific and general arousal also occur outside of emotional
experience, and what shall we call such experience, if not some
thing like dynamic forms ofvitality? Secondly, can appraisal proc
esses apply to the regulation ofvitality dynamics that are unrelated
to emotions? Thompson suggests that they can, as we do.
More recently, Damasio (1999) has described “background
feelings” and the “feeling of what is happening. ” These feelings
largely concern emotions and sensations from changes and per
turbations in the inner state of the organism, including changes in
functioning of smooth muscle and that of the striated muscles of
the heart and chest, the chemical profile of the internal milieu as
it concerns homeostasis, drives, and motivations. Damasio (1999)
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 45
also includes dynamic experiences (e.g. going from slow to fast,
or from a sharp focus to a vague one), but ultimately considers
these changes to be “an integral part of emotions” (p. 282). He
conceives background feelings as an extension of emotions or
sensations.
Sensations from the viscera, muscles, entire body, and mind
together form background feelings that report on the organ
ism’s internal state at that time ~ on “the general physical tone
of our being” (Damasio, 1999, p. 286), be it contentment,
tension, feeling “not quite right,” etc. These sensings most often
remain out of conscious awareness, but can also be brought
into consciousness, where they become feelings and are verbal-
0
izable (but only approximately), Damasio (1999) gives the fol
lowing examples: “fatigue; energy; excitement; wellness; sickness;
tension; relaxation; surging; dragging; stability; instability; bal
ance; imbalance; harmony; discord” (p. 286). (I have italicized
the feeling states that could have been included on the list of
vitality dynamics that opens Chapter 1.)
Background feelings are co-extensive with vitality dynamics.
Both track ongoing processes, or flows, where a “piece of the
flow” can, but need not be, isolated for special treatment.
However, there are important differences. Damasio conceives
of background feelings as belonging to the domains of emotion
and sensation. I conceive of vitality dynamics as belonging to
no one domain, but present in all domains, which also means
they can be independent of emotion and sensation. Background
feelings refer more to the overall feel of the well functioning and
changes in the inner state of the system at a given moment.
Vitality dynamics refer mainly to the shifts in forces felt to be
acting during an event in motion, and thus focus more on the
dynamic qualities of the experience, in particular the profile of
the fluctuations in excitement, interest, and aliveness.
Background feelings are about the “feeling of what happens.”
46 FORMS OF VITALITY
Vitality dynamics are about the “feel” of being alive and full of
vitality. Clearly, both are needed. The distinction, however,
■
is worthwhile, as the neural mechanisms subserving each are
likely to be different.
Psychoanalytically oriented thinkers have also described
dynamic forms in their work. The ideas of Genevieve Haag
(1991,2G06) on the “representation offorms” are highly pertinent,
as are those of Francis Tustin’s (1990) notion of “autistic shapes,”
Ideas and findings from the field of music perception have
come unexpectedly close to the concerns of this book. Recent
studies have looked at the association between musical parame
ters and images of physical space and bodily motion (see Eitan &
Granot, 2006, for a review). There is one major question. Are
musical changes (in amplitude, pitch contour, pitch intervals,
attack rate, articulation, and tempo) associated with human
movements in space (type of movement, direction, pace, etc.)?
Indeed they are. For instance, “a crescendo both approaches
and accelerates motion; a pitch fall moves downwards, leftward
and closer;... listeners rate tempo curves derived from human
motion profiles as more musical and expressive than simple
tempo change” (Eitan & Granot, p. 242). These results are dis
cussed in terms of “intensity contours” and other amodal or
pan-modal notions that include motion in time and space. In
effect, they are describing vitality dynamics from a different
starting point.
Similarly, there are studies on the interaction of music with
visual and kinesthetic stimuli in the perception of dance
(KrumhansI 8c Schenck, 1997) and film (Bolivar, Cohen, 8c
Fentress, 1994; Lipscomb 8c Kendall, 1994). A recent confer
ence on “Dance, timing, and musical gesture” chaired by
Dr Katie Overy (Edinburgh, 13—15 June 2008) made apparent
the long interdigitation and even substitutability of one for the
other, e.g. as seen in north Indian Tihal (Walker, 2008).
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 47
Less than two decades ago, the “mirror neuron system” was
described. It was a major discovery (Rizzolatti et al, 1996;
• •
Gallese, 2001, 2003). The mirror neurons are part of the pre-
* ^
frontal motor cortex. The basic finding was that when an
observer watches someone execute a goal-directed action, the
mirror neurons in the observer will fire in the same pattern as if
the observer himself had performed the same action. In other
.words, the observer has a virtual experience of the actor’s experi
ence. The implications for understanding empathy and identifi-
cation and our reactions to artistic performances were evident.
These researchers then found that mirror neurons also worked
for stimuli in other modalities. Therefore if the listener heard,
but did not see, a sound characteristic of a specific action
(e.g. tearing paper), the listener’s motor neurons would fire as
if he had made the same tearing action. Furthermore, they
showed that when asked to imagine an action, the subject’s mir
ror neurons fired as if he were executing that action (Gallese,
2001; Rizzolatti et al, 2001). Mirror neuron activity is strongly
influenced by local context. In fact, lacoboni et al. (1999) sug
gest that it is logically related to motor acts given by context.
However, do mirror neurons apply to the dynamics of move
ment, and if so, how? Hobson 8c Lee (1999) have asked whether
autistic children imitate the “style,” the “expressive quality,”
with which an action is performed (i.e. the vitality form of the
action). It is already known that they can imitate means-ends
actions. Four different situations were created where the
children (autistic and controls) could perform either a delayed
imitation of a means-ends action, or the exact vitality form of
the action, or both. For example, in one of the situations the
children watched an experimenter take a pipe rack with ridges
separating compartments for each pipe, and run a wooden stick
across the ridges, making a vibrating sound. The experimenter
did this in two different ways (“styles”), either rapidly and
 FORMS OF VITALITY
forcefully or more slowly and gently. These were the two vitality
forms. After a delay, the children were given the two objects that
they had only seen and heard being used. The non-autistic
children imitated both the action and its exact dynamic vitality
form. The autistic children imitated the means and goal of the
action, but rarely imitated its vitality form. The authors conclud
ed that the imitation of “style” requires an interpersonal engage
ment that is impaired in autistic children. The same overall results
are found with other experimental tasks (Hobson, 2002).
How does the central nervous system track and encode vital
ity forms? This problem can be approached in each specific
domain, e.g. a musical phrase as heard, a physical movement as
seen or propriocepted, a skin pressure pattern as felt, etc.
t •
However, cross-modal transfer ofvitality forms presents a more
intriguing problem (synesthesias representing an extreme
example). Clearly, different parts of the brain, anatomically and
functionally, must talk to each other and exchange informa
tion. Hobson’s work suggests that action (the what) and the
specific “style” (the how) of the action can be separated.
Somehow information about the vitality form is “extractable”
and can be treated by different brain loci. The exact form
remains a challenge to the neurosciences.
The same problem is seen when examining the role of the
mirror neuron system. We know that actions as means-ends
%
operations are well handled by the mirror neurons. But what
about the vitality forms of those actions? The vitality forms
present a different anatomical problem from means-ends action
in mapping another’s action to virtual action in the self.1
Only part of the mirror neuron system is understood. Could
some of the unknown part be responsible for dealing with the
dynamic experiences of vitality? The full role of the mirror neu
ron system remains to be seen, and is likely to be larger than we
originally thought.
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
Gallese & Lalcoff (2005) partially answer the question and
take the situation to another theoretical level. This jump is
based on their previous work (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999;
Gallese, 2003). They suggest that the sensory motor system,
including the mirror neuron system, is phylogenetically an
ancient system. It has multimodal capacities to receive input
from the other modalities (hearing, vision, and touch), which
are then integrated with the original sensory and motor func
tions. Thus there is no need for a “Cartesian theater” (Damasio,
1994), a sort of “third place” (e.g. “association area”) in the
brain where the information from the separate modules is
replayed and integrated. Instead, this integration occurs in the
sensorimotor system. This suggestion has similarities to the
idea of a vitality form arising as an emergent property or Gestalt
from different sources, except that they suggest where this
emergence may occur. In any event, a dynamic representation
of all stimuli is the primary and fundamental layer of experi
ence. In addition, those stimuli belonging to content-modality
aspects of experience are layered on top of the fundamental
dynamic layer.
Gallese and Lakoff take a next step. Through a process of
“neural exploitation,” sensoiy motor mechanisms have, during
evolution, taken on new roles in imagining, concept construc
tion, and language. This upsets the traditional view that con
cepts and language are abstract, symbolic, amodal and arbitrary,
and are assembled in another “third place” (e.g. a language
center). This notion is in line with the ideas of Lakoff and
Johnson. These functions, too, are assembled in the sensori
motor system, and in this way become “embodied.”
Where then are the vitality forms in these proposals? Gallese
and Lakoff ask how the various conceptual relationships are
realized neuraliy. The authors suggest that for any kind of pur
poseful action there are three different requirements that are
 FORMS OF VITALITY
met by three different clusters of neurons. The first indicates
the general purpose of the action (grasp, push, pull, etc.).
►
A second cluster specifies the “manner” in which the action is to
be executed (e.g. index finger and thumb, or whole hand, etc.).
It is here that vitality dynamics should come up. However, vitality
s
forms are not included in “manner.” A third cluster specifies the
temporal phases in which the action is sequenced. These sequenc
es are treated as distinct phases rather than as analogic wholes.
All of the above concerns purposeful action, but also applies to
the images produced in simulating another's behavior. Real
motion and imagined motion follow the same descriptive rules.
An opening for vitality forms seems to appear when Gallese
and Lakoff (2005) describe the “parameters” that influence
motor programs. The first parameter concerns the level of force
(one of the major concerns for vitality). Neurally, force is deter
mined by the level of activation of the neurons or the number
of neurons activated. The system as they describe it works like
the shifting gears in a car. The example is the gait of a cat. When
the neurons fire at low frequency (a low value), the cat will
strut. When the frequency increases above a certain value, the
cat will break into a trot. When the frequency becomes even
higher, the cat will gallop. These are discontinuous shifts in
motor programs, based on defined thresholds of frequency.
However, there are many kinds of struts and many possible
vitality forms within the same frequency range for strutting.
The above system could account for various vitality forms while
remaining within the frequency range of strutting, such as
accelerating (only up to a certain point without trotting), decel
erating, a slow progression in speed, or a measured slowing as
in “sneaking up,” or a burst that quickly becomes a trot.
Another parameter concerns whether an action is dynamically
and contextually adapted to the current context. This opens
the door wider to the domain of vitality dynamics.
IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 51
Gallese and Lakoff often refer to the dynamic shaping of
movement (real or imagined) as a detail that takes care of itself.
0 i
This is not a criticism. They set out on the task of describing the
• %
role of the sensorimotor system in a variety of basic mind/body
tasks, which is an impressive undertaking. By analogy to dance,
they describe the workings of the basic units of ballet, the posi
tions, steps, leaps, etc., “the classroom steps.” We, on the other
hand, are describing the dynamic variations on these basic units
that can be subjectively felt and reflect the psychological “forces”
and creative impulses behind the actions.
At this point in the advance of the neurosciences, vitality
forms are not the first order of business. However, in the longer
term, it cannot be forgotten that without vitality forms there
could not be the exquisite fine-tuning of interpersonal inter
actions, nor creative artistic interpretations. We would also
lose part of what makes us feel alive and vital.
There is another fascinating line of research that bears on the
*
centrality of dynamic vitality forms in human interaction.
Colwyn Trevarthen has coined the term “communicative musi-
cality” (Trevarthen, 2000; Trevarthen & Malloch, 2002; Malloch
& Trevarthen, 2008a and b). “Musicality” does not refer to
music as usually thought about, but rather to the duet of move
ments and sounds between two people expressing motives and
intentional states - a synchronizing of two people's behaviors.
This coupling occurs on a scale of milliseconds and seconds.
This research on synchronizing people’s behavior has a rela
tively short history.
In 1967, Condon and Ogston published a paper describing
“interactional synchrony” between two adults. Using frame-by-
frame film analysis, they observed that split-second changes in
the movements of a listener (when the movement stopped,
started, or changed direction or speed) were synchronized
with split-second changes in the sounds made by a speaker.
52 FORMS OF VITALITY
The movement changes in the listener lined up with the speaker's
changes of phonemes, syllables, words, stresses, and beats. It
was as if one were seeing the “vibes” between people.
Condon & Sander (1974) then reported the same phenomena
in neonates listening to the vocalizations of their mothers. These
findings created a stir, as mechanisms explaining such a tight
coupling were not evident and no theory was in place to address
it. These findings proved difficult to replicate, and the phenom
ena remained outside mainstream research for several decades.
Nonetheless, some researchers picked up the basic notion and
used frame-by-frame methods of microanalysis to study “pri
mary intersubjectivity” between mothers and infants (Stern,
1971,1977,1985;Trevarthen, 1977,1985;Trevarthen8cHubley,
1978; Beebe, 1982; Beebe et aU 2005b). They found that inter
actional synchrony did indeed seem to apply to some stretches
of the interaction, but not to all. Such synchrony was not an
obligatory continuous event.
More recently, with the advent of more advanced methodologi
cal and mathematical tools (Lee, 2005), interest in the phenomena
has revived. Trevarthen and colleagues have thus introduced the
idea of “communicative musicality” as the basis of sympathy (i.e.
feeling “with,” not empathy, which is feeling “in”).
One of the basic ideas underlying intersubjectivity has been
the long held philosophical notion that we are bom with an
“open mind” and see others as “like me” (Meltzoff 8c Gopnik,
1993; Braten, 1998, 2007; Hobson, 2002). Communicative
musicality changes the “like me” to “with me.” A greater empha
sis is placed on the role of the intersubjective matrix as the
material from which the mind is created (not from an individ
ual mind's encounter with the (social) environment as another,
separate context).
More immediately for our purposes here, communicative
musicality is largely based on the coupling of vitality dynamics
IDEAS FROM PSYCFIOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 53
between people. “Musicality” is composed of pulses that are
formed by timing, in the rhythmic sense, and its temporal con
touring, and the deployment of force in time. This is the back-
bone of vitality dynamics where “being with another” is
accomplished by sharing the vitality dynamic flow.2
Various “non-verbal” therapies have had to deal directly with
what I am calling vitality forms, or at least brush up closely
against them. These would include, as examples, “focusing-
oriented psychotherapy” (Gendlin, 1996), Gestalt therapies
(Peris, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951) and the work of many
other Gestaltists over the last 60 years, psychomotor therapy
(Pesso & Crandell, 1991), and music therapies (Wigram, 2004).
Michael Heller (2001) provides an excellent overview of the
development of many of these body-oriented therapies from
the 1970s through the 1990s, including dance therapy, choreo
graphic therapy, Alexander method, Feldenkrais, and the work
of Downing with infants and parents, and others.
We have benefited from the challenges that these approaches
have taken on, especially their focus on the “feel,” the sense of
experience and its unique occurrence at a precise moment.
Nonetheless, overall, vitality dynamics per se are not directly
identified and conceptualized in these works. The work of
Gendlin (1996) well illustrates the situation. Gendlin writes of a
“felt sense,” a “felt gesture” and “felt shifts.” At first glance, this
appears to be confluent with vitality dynamics. However, what
Gendlin means by a “felt sense” is larger and more complex
than a dynamic form of vitality. It includes the “felt sense” of a
whole situation, including the emotion(s), and there may be
many, the sensations, movements, local physical context, social
context, etc. Indeed, vitality dynamics are an important part of
the whole.
In contradistinction, we are tiying to tease out from this com
plexity one of its elements (vitality forms) that we believe can be
54 FORMS OF VITALITY IDEAS FROM PSYCHOLOGY AMD BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE 55

fruitfully examined in the light of recent thinking. However, Notes

such an effort on our part is contrary to the rightful insistence
of Gestaltists that the “felt sense” of the experience should not
be fragmented. The same would apply for Gestalt therapies.
We would agree that the “felt sense” of Gendlin should be *
maintained as a whole. It is at a different level of complexity.
* the fester version, at least at the organizational level of visually perceived
However, equally we need to understand the elements of the
whole, in and of themselves, some of which are lower-level
Gestalts. After all, we do have a field of knowledge about emo
tions, movement, or sensation. We need such a field of knowl
edge about vitality dynamics that need not take away from even
higher holistic views.
Recent findings in the neurosciences have revealed a new pic
ture of arousal as regulated from the brainstem. The work of
Pfaff (2006) and others emphasizes the need to bring the arous-
4
1. At what level of organization might the distinction-between “what” and “how”
collapse? If we wanted to see whether children (normal compared with
autistic) tell the difference between an act with its goal (the “what”) and the
style or dynamic manner in which the act is performed (the “how”), we could
perform the same act (e.g. a reach) in two versions, fast and slow. When the
movement is performed slower, the movement appears to be the same act as
action patterns. However, at the neuromuscular level, the activation of the
, antagonistic muscle groups is different. The balance between activations and
inhibitions overall, i.e. the neuronal firing pattern, is different. Does that
make it a different act ~ a different “what” - at the organizational level of
neuronal firing and arousal profiles? In other words, at the level of seen
behavior (and presumably vitality dynamics), the difference between the
“what” and the “how” is clear. However, on passing to the level of neuronal
firing patterns, the difference may collapse. The “how” could become
absorbed by the "what,”
2. Communicative musicality adds elements that are not dynamic per se, such as
pitch, although sequences of pitch changes are.

al system into the dialogue on dynamic experience of vitality.

The integrative neuroscience model of “significance process
ing” is a good example of this renewed interest in arousal and its
integration with other mental functions (Gordon, 2000;
Williams, 2006). These researchers have added time in the form
of a “temporal continuum model” in which the known brain
processes underlying arousal, perception, emotions, motiva
tions, and cognition are placed in a sequential fashion on a time
dimension measured in milliseconds. In doing so they stress that
“Much of brain science is focused on the location of structures
and functions, yet effective neural processing relies as much, if
not more, on its temporal organization” (Williams, 2006, p. 2).
Keeping in mind the key role of arousal and the brainstem for
vitality forms, I shall now turn to the studies which suggest that
the arousal systems may provide a neuroscientific underpin
ning for the emergence of vitality forms.
With this review in place, we can now examine a possible
neuroscientific domain with relevance for vitality forms.