Perception is how you observe (seeing, feeling, insight, awareness, opinion, understanding) the world through your eyes only. 

Perception often becomes a person’s reality; a distorted view may exist. What some people perceive can be the only reality they comprehend - unless they adopt flexibility in changing their lifestyle or way of being. 

Many incongruent humans struggle with their perceptions of other people’s perceptions of them, while congruent people are more balanced.

See also: phenomenological field of perception

Personal constructs theory suggests that each person’s emotional practices are guided by the way they predict events. George Kelly (1991) wrote:

“Every man is, in his own particular way, a scientist. People are constantly building up and refining theories and models about how the world works so that they can anticipate future events.”

This process begins at birth (for example, when a child cries and learns their mother will come) and continues to evolve throughout life.

See also: conditioning

Pharmacology is the study and understanding of how medication affects physiological and psychological functioning.

See also: cortisol, dopamine, drives, emotional knowledge, felt sense, frontal cortex, genes, hippocampus, limbic system, neuroscience, psychobiology

Your phenomenological field of perception is your subjective experience and understanding of your whole environment coming directly from within you, from your unique perception of the world. Everyone else has their own distinctive way of seeing the world, their own phenomenological field of perception. 

This perception may or may not be influenced by biased external influences or conditioning, dependent upon if you are fixed or flexible in your acceptance.

An illustration: in human interaction, a difficulty is often not based or perceived strictly upon what actually happened but, instead, based around the perceptions and feelings of each individual relating to the interaction, the recipient has a sort of filter they incorporate.

Most people do not absorb exactly what is said, they filter what is said through their locus of evaluation or their frame of reference, which has been established by their historical conditioning and experiences reorganised by that conditioning. 

The phenomenological field focuses on "how one feels in the moment." The unique phenomenological field of perception is where your exclusive idiosyncratic world is the way you see the world. No one else sees it in quite the same way. Your perception is often undistinguishable from your reality or at least reality you perceive at that moment in time.

See also: frame of reference, internal frame of reference, external frame of reference

Related session(s): 37, 40

Positive Ei is where someone with enhanced emotional intelligence or Ei develops a positive way of being by utilising reconditioning and reframing their frame of reference and locus of evaluation. 

People who possess positive Ei have nurtured positive habits via neurological readaptation (Wendy Wood 2019), so they have an automatic inclination to move situations and circumstances from negatives to positives. By developing a positive mental attitude people can, to a degree, enhance qualities and features of their life such as determination, resilience, love, confidence, empathy, appreciation, compassion, happiness, understanding and even recognising the positives in total relaxation. 

Positive emotional intelligence is about positives in work, learning, relationships, fulfilment, optimism, humility, courage, and strength, it is about becoming abundantly congruent. 

Having an all-round positive emotional outlook can be infectious with people around someone with positive Ei.

See also: emotional intelligence

Related session(s): 34, 44

Positive regard from others is linked to the enhancement of the self or self-actualisation and deeply connected with the belonging drive. 

As social animals, virtually all human beings have a desire to be valued, accepted, respected, liked, and loved and have these thoughts and feelings communicated to them from others, especially from significant others. Positive regard from others, especially significant others can nurture and develop positive self regard, balance, and congruence. 

Too much unfounded or unrealistic positive regard is rare, but when it occurs it can give the recipient a false sense of confidence, an engorged positive self regard and an unauthentic view of their abilities and the workings of the world. In very rare cases this can result in the Dunning–Kruger effect which suggests that some people may overestimate their own authentic innate ability.

See also: actualising tendency, unconditional positive regard

This is when a person can praise themselves authentically. Someone with a grounded and authentic positive self regard is able to live independently, making their own decisions with autonomy offering themselves empathy, acceptance and respect.

They like and love themselves in a measured and realistic way and trust in and value their own balance and way of being. Inaccurate or exaggerated positive regard from a significant other can in very rare cases result in the Dunning–Kruger effect which suggests that some people may overestimate their own authentic innate ability.

See also: actualising tendency, negative regard, positive regard

Related session(s): 11

The pre-conditioned self is the true self or organismic self before conditioning.

See also: conditioning, organismic valuing process

The cocktail that is your undeniable self as it is today. Your true self or organismic self, joining together with your self-concept (distorted or otherwise) alongside the varied conditioning (learnt behaviours) you have received making you think, feel, and behave in certain ways (way of being, lifestyle).

This all mixed with how certain experiences have affected you based upon that specific conditioning.

See also: organismic self, pre-conditioned self, self-concept, true self

Related session(s): 25

Psychobiology is the process by which the genetically inherited part of your physical brain (neurological platform) and nervous system works and impacts upon and reacts to the combination which is your conditioning and experiences.

See also: amygdala, cortisol, dopamine, drives, emotional knowledge, felt sense, frontal cortex, genes, hippocampus, limbic system, neuroscience, pharmacology, psychobiology

Generally, this is the medicalisation and diagnostic process of psychological tension.

See also: cortisol, dopamine, drives, emotional knowledge, felt sense, frontal cortex, genes, hippocampus, limbic system, neuroscience, pharmacology, psychobiology

Psychological tension (a term used by Rogers CR 1951) is the specific style of presentation of a particular person’s incongruence, that manifestation within you that makes you feel, think, and operate in a muddled, unsure, and troubled manner and usually giving you some unwelcome unease or stress.

It could present as stress, low esteem, anxiety, depression, anger, and any other psychological issue that is unwanted and uncomfortable within a specific person.

See also: anger, anxiety, depression

Related session(s): 7

A term used for people suffering with severe psychological tension. Throughout a psychotic experience, a person's thoughts, feelings and perceptions are dislocated and disordered to the extent they might develop a struggle in understanding and recognising what is real and what is not real.

This may or may not be connected to a neurological inheritance.

See also: cortisol, dopamine, drives, emotional knowledge, felt sense, frontal cortex, genes, hippocampus, limbic system, neuroscience, pharmacology, psychobiology

There are several psychological / physiological zones.

The green zone is where one might feel contented, relaxed, calm, and able to rejuvenate one’s energies. You may feel safe or experience kindness in the green zone. A good restful sleep and someone’s empathic support probably exists in the green zone. The green zone allows us to rest, recuperate, relax, and regenerate, there will be a release of oxytocin and the green zone will engage our parasympathetic nervous system which inhibits our body's production of stress hormones and stimulates feel-good hormones.

The red zone is the primaeval ancient threat and self-protection brain zone that still loiters within us. It is connected to the flight fight or freeze reactions that are activated when we are threatened and frightened. The red zone stirs up our cortisol and adrenaline along with a raised heart rate and sometimes heart palpitations and increased breathing. The sympathetic nervous system is activated, the sympathetic nervous system is concerned in organising the body for stress-related activities, and it reduces bodily processes that are less important in a crisis, and we can experience poor sleep, poor digestion, loss of libido and other close down presentations. We sometimes need the red zone to function at a higher level if we are working hard at something or under pressure.

There are ancillary zones to the red zone and spending too much time in the red zone we may then enter a grey zone, sometimes referred to as ‘burnout’, of gradual cognitive slowdown, lessening motivation, self-doubt, and some disassociation where a person becomes insular, distant and one dimensional. If we neglect to enter the green zone and persist in the red zone and grey zone, we may experience increased psychological tension of some description and enter the black zone which represents psychological collapse and probably depression, sometimes referred to as mental breakdown or psychological collapse.

The blue zone is where we allow ourselves to access and stimulate all our positive qualities and resources, our innate talents are allowed to develop and be confidently utilised. The blue zone activities will release positive hormones such as endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine.

We should strive to reduce the negative red zone and place as many elements of the positive green zone into our life as is workably possible, this will automatically allow the optimising blue zone to grow and flourish.

See also: psychological tension