The Basis for the Installation of Distress Patterns
At some stage in the evolution of mammals (and possibly in the evolution of some strains of mollusks [octopi and some large squids]) a capacity developed to “learn” from tense situations by making a recording of the tense experience and replacing the inherited rigid pattern of response with a new rigid pattern of response consisting of how the tense experience was handled.
This was pro-survival enough of the time that it persisted as the operating characteristic for mammals. And when our mammal ancestors acquired the ability to think intelligently (to create a brand-new response for every new situation), the old mammalian response continued to operate for our species as a ”fail-safe” emergency functioning. This apparently is the basis for the installation of rigid distress patterns on humans, which reduces our human functioning a whole qualitative step when it takes place, and which is recoverable from only through the complexities of discharge and re-evaluation.
These discharge and re-evaluation processes have persisted but have in general not been understood, cherished sufficiently, or deliberately sought out and used in a systemic group way until very recently in our history.
From page 197 of The List
(Present Time 209, October 2022)