In A User’s Guide to the Brain psychiatrist John Ratey offers a model of the human neuropsychological forces that give each individual their own “personality signature” and how a problem in one “upstream” area may not become obvious until it impacts another area “downstream.”
This, of course, is certainly not a new observation in any sense. One need only look to the works of Freud, William James, Jung, and others for confirmation of the importance of how the conscious mind is shaped by subconscious events and memories.
Ratey, however, discards the classic Id-Ego-Superego model in favor of a more holistically-oriented model which he describes as the “Four Theaters of the Mind.”
The Four Theaters
I. The Theater of Perception
Ratey believes that a significant number of psychological problems are due to disorders of perception. While it cannot be denied that perceptual difficulties are often a major contributor to disturbances in socialization or intellectual compromise, this writer feels that practically all disorders of perception can be attributed to alterations in either brain architecture or at the molecular level.
II. The Theater of Attention, Consciousness, and Cognition
It is indisputable that Theater II is probably the most interconnected and interdependent of Ratey’s theaters. This interdependence is undoubtedly part of the reason behind the failure of analytic and behaviorist interventions in many psychological conditions.
III. The Theater of Brain Function
This theater is almost intuitive. That structural and/or chemical change within the brain proper can be made manifest in disorders of personality and consciousness has been known since the days of Broca and Wernicke. While many factors, such as brain injury or infection can affect the brain, much recent work in neurophysiology has been devoted to the belief that a genetic basis or a genetic predisposition is at the root of abnormal brain function.
IV. The Theater of Behavior and Identity
This theater is where individual identity and personality arise as a product of the other theaters. Ratey gives two case studies demonstrating how disorders affecting perception, as an example, can adversely impact cognition which in turn could exert a strong influence on both behavior and identity.
This is not to say that I agree with Ratey on all topics. Since this writer is inclined to view mind and personality from a physicalist perspective (holding that the mind and personality do not exist independently of the brain), I would have listed Theater III as the first theater and Theater I as second. Such disagreements are only trivial however, as Ratey’s concept is quite useful in understanding these topics.
Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind (TOM) is not a “theory” in the strictest sense, such as in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. Theory of Mind instead represents a completed stage of cognitive development (most authorities agree that this stage should be completed by age 11) that allows the child to understand and interpret their surroundings.
The concept of the theory of mind is an outgrowth of Jean Piaget’s work in the field of cognitive development in children. Piaget held that an infant begins life with no idea of a world that exists beyond that which the infant can immediately understand via their own senses. As the infant matures he or she will learn that objects can exist, even though they may not visible, and to then anticipate future events.
It was first proposed in the early 1980s that children with autism seemed to have an incomplete or even arrested cognitive development, which would impair their ability to understand sensory input and to anticipate the responses of others. This definition of the pathophysiologic disturbances most frequently encountered in the autism spectrum disorders seems to fit in quite well with Ratey’s Theaters of Mind model.
The above, of course, is only the briefest of introductions to what is a very complex subject. Future postings on this site will address these issues in more detail.
Notes
Ratey, John: A User’s Guide to the Brain. ISBN 0-375—70107-9 New York: Vintage (2002).
Leslie, A. M. Theory of mind impairment in autism, In A. Whiten, Ed., Natural theories of mind: Evolution, development, and simulation of everyday mindreading. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell (1991)
