7 ate 9:

The Upper FEDL Levels

ICDL Southern California
DIR®/Floortime™ Regional
Institute
October 3, 2009
Josh Feder, MD
 Assistant Clinical Professor,
Dept of Psychiatry, University of
California at San Diego School of
Medicine

Faculty, Interdisciplinary Council on

Developmental and Learning
Disorders
 Acknowledgements
The ideas in the talk are from the
podcasts and writings of Drs. Stanley
Greenspan and Serena Wieder. Any
and all errors of omission, comission,
or misinterpretation are mine and
mine alone. Please refer to the
various podcasts, videos, books and
other resources available at
ICDL.com for more information.
ICDL Faculty – minimal - review of clinical write ups, travel and
room for meetings, token honorarium for co-writing and
running Southern California Institute

NIMH/ Duke University – minimal – administrative time for

pharmacogenetic research

NIH R21 grant/ San Diego BRIDGE Collaborative – minimal –

token honorarium for ongoing consultation and participation
 How I Spend My (clinical)
Time..
• 90 % on I, II, and ‘the rest of them’
• 10% detailing ‘the rest of them’
• Circlestretch.com process is set up to
get people to get started at the most
important foundational places…
 circlestretch
Help the child be…
• Calm enough to interact
• Truly connected to others
• In a continuous expanding balanced
back and forth flow of interaction
“Go for that gleam in the eye!”
http://www.circlestretch.com
In Books and Lectures We Usually Talk About
Functional Emotional Developmental
Levels I-VI
I – co-regulation, ability to attend
II – engagement, gleam in the eye, warmth
III – circles of interaction
IV – flow/ behavioral organization in social
problem solving
V – symbolic thinking (critical to tolerating
affect)
VI – logical connections between ideas
Functional Developmental Growth Chart
(Now Part of the Bayley Scales)
 Functional Emotional Developmental
Levels I-VI
I – co-regulation, ability to attend
II – engagement, gleam in the eye, warmth
III – circles of interaction
IV – flow/ behavioral organization in social
problem solving
V – symbolic thinking (critical to tolerating
affect)
VI – logical connections between ideas
 Sample FEDL
1 (not there) 2 (barely) 3 (islands) 4 (ok w/ 5 (comes back) 6 (ok unless 7 (ok)
support) stress)

Regulate 11/05 11/06 11/07 11/08

Engage 11/05 11/06 11/07 11/08

Circles 11/05, 11/06 11/07 11/08

Flow 11/05 11/06, 11/07 11/08

Symbols 11/05 11/06, 11/07 11/08

Logic 11/05, 11/06 11/07, 11/08

 Now Let’s Look at the Expanded Model:
Functional Emotional Developmental
Levels I-IX
I – co-regulation, ability to attend
II – engagement, gleam in the eye, warmth
III – circles of interaction
IV – flow/ behavioral organization in social
problem solving
V – symbolic thinking (critical to tolerating
affect)
VI – logical connections between ideas
VII – multicausal thinking
VIII – grey area thinking
IX – reflective thinking, stable sense of
self, and an internal standard
 Charlie’s FEDL over time:
social problem solving, from managing vigilance
to stepping back, and then critical thinking
Not there Barely Islands Expand Comes Ok if Ok
s back not for
stresse age
d
Co- 5/05, 3/07 3/08 3/09
regulate 3/06

Engage 5/05 3/06 3/07 3/08 3/09

Circles 5/05 3/06, 3/07 3/08 3/09

Flow 5/05, 3/06 3/07 3/08, 3/09

Symbolic 5/05, 3/06 3/07, 3/08 3/09

Logical 5/05, 3/06 3/07, 3/08 3/09

Multicaus 5/05, 3/06, 3/07 3/08 3/09

al
Grey area 5/05, 3/06, 3/07, 3/08, 3/09

Reflective 5/05, 3/06, 3/07 3/08, 3/09

 7 ate 9:
FEDL LEVELS VII, VIII, and IX

VII: Multicausal thinking: there is more than

one reason, more than one feeling.
VIII: Grey area thinking: there are different
intensities of emotion.
IX: Reflective thinking: we can compare
situations to each other, and we can
compare ourselves to who we want to be
 What We Are Doing with these FEDL’s:
Solving the
Social Problem of the Moment

• Every moment is a social situation

• Think about the ‘here and now’
• FEDC’s are the capacities we use and
need to address the current situation
and solve the social problem of the
moment
 Putting it all together:
FEDL I-VI
Example:
Assertiveness at a Glance
(tell the other person what you are feeling, why you
are feeling that way, and what you want the
person to do)

“I’m mad at you.”

“I’m mad at you because you didn’t listen to me.”

“I want you to listen when to me when we talk to

each other.”
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
I – co-regulation:

Are you settled enough to do this?

(you can’t if you are too stirred up or too

fuming mad)
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
II – engagement:

Are you connecting with the other

person? (doesn’t work if there is no
emotional connection at that
moment)
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
III – circles of interaction:

Is there a response (gestural or verbal)

from the other person? And do you use
that as a way to continue the interaction?

If you merely say the words and are done

with it, you have no idea whether the
message (affective/ cognitive) was
received and accepted.
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
IV – flow/ behavioral organization in
social problem solving:

Are there enough circles to be able to

work toward an average
expectancy of the emotional tone
for the situation, one that gives you
the sense that what the other person
says or means is reasonably reliable?
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
V – symbolic thinking:

Do you have shared meanings of the words,

such as ‘mad’, ‘want’, and ‘listen’?
This is critical to tolerating affect because it
gives you both a space to resolve the
problem of the moment where you can work
with emotional ideas without having to be
stuck reacting to each other in isolation.
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
VI – logical connections between ideas

Do we both understand ‘because’?

Order of difficulty responding:
why>> how come>> if/then>>
when [this happens..that happens]
 Functional Emotional
Developmental Levels I-VI
in the Assertiveness example
Results:
• Mutual Recognition of the Problem
• Mutual Resolution of the Problem
• Avoids either person stewing alone and/
or ‘acting out’ : hitting, sulking,
withdrawal, revenge, etc.
• Promotes a sense of self competence,
confidence, and builds a stronger
relationship
 FEDL VII: Multicausal Thinking
(beginning ages 4-6)
So what’s the problem now?

Most, if not all situations in life are, in

fact, far more complex.
They are multicausal and
multidimensional.
 Example: ‘Masked
Depression’
Angry on the outside
Sad on the inside
“You are so angry, but underneath that
I think you are very sad”
Patient cries, talks of loss, is less
angry,
case closed.
(a therapist’s fantasy…)
 There is Always a ‘Back
Story’
Past experiences create expectancies
that shape our responses in the
moment and lead to trouble tolerating
affects and repairing rifts in
communication.
On the positive side, we bring a lot with
us into any situation that allows a
complexity that can contribute to a
solution too.
“Superman knew that Lex Luthor had lost his
mother at an early age.
Luthor was understandably enraged when
Superman found his fortress (womb).
Superman respected, to a point, Luthor’s need for
a place to hide and hold himself.
But Superman couldn’t have Luthor coming out
of with blast rays and destroying cities and then
running back to hide in his lair.
Motives in Human Experience:
(Murder, She Wrote)
The Seven Sins and Virtues
Sins Virtues
Lust Self-control
Pride Humility
Greed Generosity
Envy Love
Anger Kindness
Sloth Zeal
Gluttony Temperence
Emotions and Motives
Combine
In Infinite Varieties
 Ideas on
Understanding Multicausal
•
Thinking
Now a child can understand that mom is mad because she
had a bad day at work but wonders if there are other
reasons too.
• Remember that there are infinite combinations of
emotionally grounded motives
• Differential Calculus: infinite slopes to a curve
• Every situation is different
• We adjust to each one because of past experiences creating
expectancies
• When it isn’t there, people have more rigid, discrete
emotional tones and reactions
• Our job is to elucidate and help expand the range of these
emotional motivations
• This is about solving the emotional problem of the moment
FEDL VIII: Grey Area Thinking
(beginning ages 6-10)
 By the way, why comic
books?
• Age when people start to think in
multicausal fashion
• Beginnings of sorting intensities of
emotion – hierarchies!
 Back to Peter - uh, I mean
Spiderman
• He nearly always has to choose between going
after the bad guy and saving Mary Jane
• The relative intensity of his fear for Mary Jane’s
safety often over-rides his anger at the bad guy.
Fear > anger.
• Parker, among superheroes, is ambivalent,
conflicted, always weighing and brooding (Level
VII back story: remember his guilt at not saving
his uncle?)
• Conflicting emotions require a lot of sorting out –
hence all the sitting on rooftops and pondering.
Ambivalence is a hallmark of
Level VIII
Intensities of Affect:
Sadness
Intensities…for Every affect
 How Sad? How Scared? How
Angry?How Happy?
• No longer all or nothing. Sublety is
everything, nuance is possible
• DIR works to expand and add nuance,
because EVERY situation is different, every
time.
• Makes all the difference in appreciating,
enjoying and resolving the everyday,
continuous flow of social problems of the
moment (think Integral Calculus)
 The ‘Real’ Picture: We are moving about, in a generally
continuous fashion, on a
Field of Infintesimal Variations of Quality and Intensity of
Emotion and Motive
Characteristics of Level VIII:
• Hierarchies, playground politics
• The best time for disappointment – better to lose
now and have mom’s support than to lose as an
adult and have no experience to fall back on.
• Emotional experiences define, expand, and
deepen the boundaries for the self. Without
anger we don’t know what annoys us, without
joy we don’t know what makes us happy.
• Refining the gradations of these emotions
• This expanded and deepened appreciation for
emotional experience makes us more able to
appreciate it in others. 
 Ideas about Level VIII:
• Look at the picture of mixed motives
and emotions
• Think about all the nuances
• Try to help the other person
experience and appreciate the
nuances in the context of your
interactions
• Enjoy the ride
 Renoir:
Take a minute…think about nuance
and intensity
 Renoir
Two Girls at the Piano

Notice the implication in the picture of

the presence of shared attention
(FEDL I) all the way through nuanced
flow of interaction (FEDL VIII)
 What Comes Next?
FEDL IX: Intermittent Reflective Thinking, A
Stable Sense of Self, and an Internal Standard (9-
12 yr and beyond)
• We can compare situations to each other: “In this kind
of situation I can usually figure it out”
• We can compare ourselves to who we want to be (ego
ideal): “I want to be able to sort out this new kind of
problem.”
• Concrete Ex: College student knows how to study but
needs to learn how to develop a schedule for
managing day to day life away from home.
• More abstract Ex: Middle schooler who can assert
himself in class but is sort of lonely and wants to be
able to hang out with people at lunch
 Characteristics of FEDL IX:
• Really adolescence and beyond…
• the ability to empathize in a truly reflective manner
• able to understand a range of feeling in others and
compare it to your stable sense of self, retaining
who you are
• helps you to be truly a great friend or partner.
• Reflecting on yourself and others w/o taking over
nor removing yourself
• Expanding sense of empathy, more and more
inclusive: other kids, groups, school, country, … the
world (other races, religions, etc.).
 Example at Level IX:
Novice’s Guide to Modern Dance
• The pieces all contain motions and rhythms, music and
colors that bring up all kinds of feelings and ideas, some
pretty straightforward, some a little more complex
• At times these pieces send me off, thinking about
something in my life that resonates with what I’m
seeing and hearing, and I let that happen and often I
learn something from it.
• Other times these pieces pull me into their own story,
which, to me - it might be different to you - might be
about friendship or about competition or about just a
really fun day. If that’s what’s happening, I just it them
pull me in and share the experience.
Levels of Defense Mechanisms
from Psych 101
• Very Primitive: Denial, Delusional Projection
• Primitive: Defensive Projection,
Somatization, Passive Aggression
• Neurotic: Repression, Intellectualization,
Reaction Formation, Fantasy escape
• Higher Level: Altruism, Sublimation, Humor,
Creating Meaning- Possible with FEDL IX
 Managing the toughest
Affects
• Spats, Love, War
• Humor: Tom Lehrer on Pollution
• Mel Brooks on The Spanish
Inquisition
• Levels of Defense Mechanisms
 Example FEDL over the years:
Rigid and Rocking to
Problem Solving the Job Hunt (and still rocking)
Not there Barely Islands Expand Comes Ok if Ok
s back not for
stresse age
d
Co- 5/97 6/09
regulate
Engage 5/97 6/09

Circles 5/97 6/09

Flow 5/97 6/09

Symbolic 5/97 6/09

Logical 5/97 6/09

Multicaus 5/97 6/09

al
Grey area 5/97 6/09

Reflective 5/97 6/09

 How I Spend My (tutoring) Time:
DIR as a REFLECTIVE Enterprise
• 10% supporting people to get settled to be
reflective, i.e., I-VIII, (coffee, readings, talking
together)
• 90% Reflective Process
• DIR® demands reflective process
• Everyone, from parents to faculty and everyone
in between, needs to be engaged in an ongoing
reflective group or set of relationships to think
about our work together
• ‘Level IX’ is our life blood.
 Beyond IX…
• The Spinal Tap made it to “11”
• Dr. Greenspan has an anthropologist
helping on a project to explore for
FEDL Level X and beyond.
• Stay tuned!