Dialogue in the Median Group 1 : Inter-subjectivity that helps to reclaim the fused,confused,obsessed Mind 2 . Part I: Theory

Abstract

After a short review of the development of the concept of inter-subjectivity in psychoanalysis, drive theory, infant research and phenomenology, I discuss the primary function of dialogue as it expresses the functioning of the ‘Mind’ itself while it works towards disentangling dualities amongst pluralities. The human mind is defined and its existence firmly asserted. Finally, I suggest introducing dialogic communication in every encounter, especially in a therapeutic one, with some guidelines from the psychotherapy of psychosis.

I describe the Median Group as Patrick de Maré (1990) developed in its clinical application as socio-therapy. It is a suitable setting where inter-subjectivity is fostered through dialogue by meeting minds at a level that promotes lateralization (both brain hemispheres simultaneously) in the here and now. I explain that using the mind to synthesize dualities makes it possible to transform the counter-reaction of the hatred of being together into koinonia or non-personal fellowship. Reference is made to the Theory of Mind in Part I (de Maré and Schöllberger 2002–08) and clinical experiences in Part II (Schöllberger, 2023).

homo sum: nihil humani a me alienum puto

I am a man: nothing human is alien to me. (Publius Terentius Afer 195/185 – c. 159 BC)

Psychoanalysis and intersubjectivity

Group analysis has developed on the one side with models which refer to the different psychoanalytic schools, including self psychology, object relations theory, Jacques Lacan, Carl Gustav Jung, and phenomenology. On the other side, Foulkes was adamant about underlining the differences between them. For instance, although Klein proposed that projection was a determinant, for Foulkes, introjection was the decisive factor (Foulkes, 1937) in his first paper to enter the British Psychanalytic Institute.

The following paragraphs summarise some significant psychoanalytic contributions that focus on the overall concepts of relationship and intersubjectivity, providing a foundation for reviewing de Maré’s further contributions through Median Groups, the dialogic process, and his suggestion for a philosophy of Mind and related theory.

Psychoanalytic theory has a strong tradition of interrelation, mainly seen as interdependence (Montefoschi, 1977) between the inner and outer world. Melanie Klein (1975), with her theory of aggressive (social) drive towards the split internal object, opened the door to Fairbairn (2003), who gave primacy to the reality principal over the pleasure principle. Kohut (1977), in his ‘Restoration of the Self’, stated that destructive drives occur when the infant experiences repeated failure to connect emotionally with a self-object. And Winnicott (1984: 99) added, ‘There is no single baby; I only see a nursing couple’, suggesting that the relationship precedes the individual. They all illustrated the primacy of social relations over instinctual drives.

The quality of this mirroring process is a central issue, but why do human beings crave recognition? Ogden (1982) argues that in addition to hunger and thirst, human beings depend on love and belonging (intersubjectivity with projective identification).

Stern’s (1985) infant research introduced new evidence for the importance of interrelation. He observed steps in developing the sense of the Self: Self-with-other where others regulate the Self, Self-with-a-Self-regulating-other through a regulating resonance or a Self-in-the-presence-of-the-other with the other.

There is a significant development in psychoanalysis based on phenomenology and the related psychotherapy of schizophrenia. On the basis of the philosophical thought of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber, Ludwig Binswanger introduced existential philosophy and founded daseinanalysis, a synthesis of psychoanalysis and existential philosophy. He was followed by satellite groups in North and South America and in Europe, including Gaetano Benedetti (Benedetti, 1979, 1997), Norman Elrod and Martti Siirala, to name a few. He had studied and worked as an assistant with Eugen Bleuler at Burghölzli, the Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Zürich, and worked with patients sent by Freud. Freud visited his Bellevue psychiatric clinic in Keuzlingen (CH) after CG Jung had organized a meeting of the two men in 1907.

As the following pages will show, the reflections of Binswanger and Elrod cover the same ground as the ‘Theory of Mind’ developed by Patrick de Maré (de Maré and Schöllberger, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008) with dialogue rather than free association as the main rule in the Median Group—that a human mind sits in between other minds in a process that disentangles dualities in personal and social meanings.

Binswanger entered into a lifelong friendship with Buber, who made the subject of intersubjectivity central to his entire philosophy. Buber believed that I–Thou and I–It relations are dialectically related. The I–Thou word can only be spoken with one’s whole being. It is characterized by mutuality between two subjects and is open and direct. The I–It relation bends back towards oneself, away from the Other that is considered a mere object for one’s use.

Binswanger (2004) theorizes the importance of mutuality, or being-with, as fundamental to human existence. Recalling Martin Buber’s (1936) philosophy of relationships that entails dialogue, we can restore ourselves and others through the authentic encounters that result from a loving mode of being, which therapists should aim for with their patients. The emphasis is on mutual recognition, where the patient emerges from a relationship that is an antidote to counter-dependency, e.g., narcissism as a defence against separateness. Rosenfeld (1987) describes this in the theory of destructive narcissism characterized by rugged individualism in both personal and social relationships, which fosters reliance on omnipotence and eschews collective dialogue.

Binswanger follows Buber in arguing that human relationships are, by their very nature, dialogical, not simply referring to a linguistic mode but instead to a basic structure of human existence and meaning: an encounter rather than an information exchange. For Binswanger, the human Dasein (Being) is an irreducible duality. In its original form, Dasein is a ‘we-hood’, against which the expanse of existence, selfhood and individuality appear secondary (Binswanger, 1942–1993, 1963).

For Buber, individuals are stuck in this ‘in-between’. The dialogical context cannot be understood as two individual existences but only as its being between them. Similarly, Roger Frie noted that Buber thought that ‘the character of a relation is determined by which of the basic words are spoken when I–Thou is said, the I is different from the I that speaks the primary word I–It’ (Frie, 1997: 89). Again, Frie says: ‘The between exists only in relation, and is not continuous, but is reconstituted with each new human encounter. The between essentially denotes the reality of relation’ (Frie, 1997e: 91).

Binswanger’s concepts of duality and intersubjectivity are evident in Elrod’s work (2002) and in his understanding of clients in the ‘schizophrenic situation’, which stresses relationships with others instead of locating the disease in an individual’s symptoms. He considers schizophrenia as a case of need, which is characterized by a patient who behaves as if only s/he is entangled (in trouble) and not others in the shared situation to which they all belong (Elrod, 2002).

Elrod (1989) based reciprocity on a dynamic balance between separateness and relatedness, as a ‘mensch-zu-mensch-beziehung’, (human-to-human-relationship). Since clarity is essential about which part you decide to take in the therapy contract, he suggests an ‘identification with the oppressed’ as an empathic, emotional bond with the patient, a non-hierarchic relationship level that provides a significant and solid ground for therapy. It involves personal conscious/unconscious, social conscious/unconscious (being with others) and ethics at the same time—factors that can bridge the inner and outer world.

Indeed de Maré used to name his clients ‘friend,’ (as opposite to enemy).

Furthermore, Elrod was interested in the phenomenon of humour in the schizophrenic situation (Elrod and Willeford, 1962). De Maré understood this to be a sure sign of the presence of the mind, especially in the joyfulness that comes from an ephemeral, fleeting wish to be alive—the serendipity that makes life liveable with a joyful and graceful association, where one accidentally discovers something fortunate.

Patrick de Maré’s contribution to intersubjectivity

Buber and Binswanger’s concept of dialogue and the shared ‘in-between state’ characterized by human-to-human-relationship, give support to the concept on Mind and koinonia of de Maré.

What is there in this transpersonal ‘in-between’ position? It appears to be located in meaning, something meaningful and abstract, something that processes cultures, something relational and shared like the unrepressed unconscious. Or, on a meta-level, that which reflects the reflected. In de Maré’s words:

As a rose is a rose, so a Mind is a Mind. It is not proven but indubitable! It introduces a unique mini-philosophy crucial to all philosophies for which psychotherapy is responsible. Every personal human mind can share its reflection with the reflections of others and disentangle them. The capacity to do so allows for the ontic Mind (meaning the real or factual existence) to remain intact to carry out this function (of disentanglement) . . .

So much more is going on than a simple encounter, namely mutual thinking. Experience is passive, whilst thinking is active. We have the temerity to suggest that the mind be similarly regarded as having an ultimate priority specific to therapy since it is characteristically antiphobic and antidepressant . . . (de Maré and Schöllberger, 2003)

The factual Mind differs from her own properties, freed from identification with the object of observation or fixation, freed from the symptom.

While Binswanger and Elrod applied their theoretical foundations of intersubjectivity mainly in the practice of individual analyses, de Maré linked his Theory of Mind to the dialectic process that originated in free-floating group discussion, i.e., in the dialogue of the Median Group.

He thought that problems posed by the unconscious could best be handled by the Mind operating in a Median Group where it deliberates, chooses, decides, raises consciousness and humanizes, and creates the bond known as ‘koinonia’, that is non-personal fellowship. The unconscious is a cauldron of recapitulated social history, good, bad and indifferent. The function of the Mind is to sort out, to disentangle, it. When the Mind represses, it frequently ‘overheats’ and melts (is soft-centred) unless it can broaden out and cool in the expanse of cosmic intelligence, which is an aspect of mind referred to as the soul (de Maré and Schöllberger, 2003).

For Foulkes (1965) intersubjectivity was also always there as his concept of foundation and dynamic matrix (Foulkes and Anthony, 1965).

For him, psychic disturbances and their origins are no longer psychologically located in a person but rather basically in-between persons, in the ‘shared situation’ (Foulkes 1948: 127). He regards a disturbed function as the disturbance of a whole social situation (Foulkes 1948 [1983]: 2). In his Introduction to Group Analytic Psychotherapy (1948), Foulkes cites Goldstein’s idea of a ‘system in a dynamic balance’ that defines the individual as a whole in a whole situation (Foulkes, 1957). Goldstein (1878–1965) was a neurobiologist from whom Foulkes took his ideas of location and network. This is also discussed by Dieter Nitzgen (2009).

Location is a term that Donald Winnicott (1967) uses for cultural experiences as a third area—i.e., transitional space of meanings. For him, cultural experience is located in the potential space between the individual and the environment (originally the object).

‘Location’ of the matrix of communication for de Maré becomes cultural transposition and is mediated by the transactions due to the dialogue in the meeting of minds in the Median Group.

Transposition is similar to the psychodrama technique, where the group acts out a set scene of the past and works through it. We can say that transposition is transference from the stand point of the Theory of Mind or, a concept that involves the individual, social, cultural and ethical dynamics occurring in the here and now of the group matrix.

In the Median Group, the scene emerges through dialogue carried out in the social dimension of the group.

In our case, we help the group members find their voice and meaning in what has been transposed, which is always a lively interaction of memories, emotions and views—a dramatic performance, open to consciousness-raising and growth where personal and sociocultural meanings are acted out.

The etymological origin of the word dialogue—in Greek ‘diá’ through, and ‘logos’, word or speech—creates concepts such as flowing through meaning (Webster). What is implied is a free and honest communication on the same, non-hierarchical level; thus, to get mindful growth between conscious subjects, there can at best only be dialogic communication—as opposed to strategy. In Buber’s definition: I–Thou, is the means to dialogue, or I–It the means to monologue or self-centred communication (Buber, 1947).

The suggestion is to introduce dialogic communication into psychotherapy with adaptations derived from the clinical treatment of persons with psychotic experiences (Elrod, 2002); this evolved from the unidirectional asymmetry that has been abandoned as a psychotherapy setting in the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis.

Median Group humanization process

For de Maré, dialogue is ethical, affiliative, on the level, non-hierarchical, lateralizing, multi-personal, multi-polar and egalitarian. It is thus multi-dimensional. Furthermore, following the linguistic concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure and Martin Buber, dialogue is a process that synthezises the dialectic between sign and symbol and their meaning. It introduces meaning as a third principle beyond the reality and pleasure of Freud: ‘From the dialogue emerges a third dimension, neither of reality nor of pleasure, but of meaning, which links personal values to their equivalent cultural consensus in the social structure’ (de Maré, 1991: 27).

Meaning cannot be cut into pieces; it cannot be measured or quantified. Sign, symbol, and meaning are co-relative concepts. What appears as a sign or symbol on the objective scale is experienced in subjective reality as ‘meaning’. Meaning is rooted in the subjective life experience of reality. (de Maré (1991: 55)

It is not only an information exchange but rather a creative evolution of significance that is going on: reflecting on the meaning of the reflected meaning involves care, creativity, and ethics.

The theoretical physicist David Bohm, a patient and later a friend of de Maré, who contributed ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind, concurred with the importance of meaning, both at a personal and at a group or cultural level. ‘Meanings—at any level—may be coherent or incoherent, and whatever is going on around us is a manifestation of the deep layer of consciousness at which the meaning is held. Change, then, requires touching that deep layer’ (Bohm, 1980).

For Bohm, dialogue is a significant way in which a group of individuals can touch that deep layer and its potential for change. He promoted the Bohm ‘Dialogue Group’ where participants attempt to reach a common understanding in a free-flowing group conversation; they can fully experience everyone’s point of view, equally and non-judgmentally.

Dialogue has to be learned and cultivated. As it proceeds, it develops an emotional bond called koinonia (de Maré, 1991: 47), a non-personal fellowship, and communion (cum panis: the shared bread). It refers to developing impersonal fellowship rather than personal friendship, a culture of togetherness and amity, which transforms the chaos of mindlessness and hate into more a human communion (Kreeger, 2000: 15). It potentially creates a new construct of reality that continues to develop for the individual and the group towards a conclusion that emerges in the future. It moves in the exact opposite direction to any propositions or arguments that start from a predefined conclusion.

Fundamentally dialogue is a humanizing process, where ‘humanity’ derives from a Latin and Greek word that means ‘kindness, graciousness, politeness; consideration for others’ (etymonline,com). Its origin is found in some form of the Golden Rule in almost every ethical or religious tradition: ‘Treat others as you would like others to treat you.’ It dates back to the early Confucian times (551–479 BCE) and to the ideals of benevolent care among the ancient Greeks (philanthropy) and Latin stoics (humanitas). But even earlier (since at least 2449 BCE), concern for fellow human beings is a particularly important criterion of Hindu Dharma: the Mahabharata postulates, for example: Compassion and kindness is the highest Dharma of the good (chapter 13.5–23).

Dialogue is also a process analogous to Benedetti’s (1961) ‘menschlicher präsenz’, human presence, and to Elrod’s (1960) gegenseitigkeit, reciprocity in psychotherapy. In his presentation of a case of psychotherapy of schizophrenia, Elrod (1960) presents a recovery that he calls a ‘de-Nazifying’ process; that is, a recognition of the relevance of the sociocultural context to the individual mind. Here Elrod suggests a ‘bridge interpretation’ (between inner and outer world) on the basis of ‘gegenseitigen, grundsätzlichen gleichberechtigten Austausch in dem Nehmen und Geben’ (Elrod, 1959, 1987, 2001), a mutual, fundamental, equalizing exchange of give and take.

To put this in de Maré’s words, this represents a therapeutic dialogic relationship on the same level: ‘The schizophrenic creates magic not imagination since he is uprooted from actuality which becomes replanted in the case of dialogue with other minds e.g. the therapist or group’ (de Maré and Schöllberger, 2008).

Foulkes’ version of humanization is the small group of six, seven or eight members in a multi-personal and multi-dimensional setting. It represents the family by proxy and is concerned with the transference level of the group matrix: how to feel and how to work through the Oedipal complex. The Median Group® is a further development of Foulkes’ thinking. It is a transitional space moving beyond the narcissistic family of kinship towards kithship, citizenship and society.

Considering the development of the human mind from primary to secondary socialization, from the family to the social, the myth of Oedipus leads us to a tragic conclusion where he is left blind, lonely, wandering and cared for only by his daughters. Despite his acting unconsciously, the tribal community could not acknowledge his protestations of innocence. In the scenario of the Median Group, exile is not so much a socialization step away from the family as it is a process of humanization, which is a crucial development of the mind. Without this step, says de Maré, humanity cannot survive.

He invites us to look at the social scene of the post-oedipal exile which involves equality, sexuality and freedom from family taboos (not forgetting the little-discussed sibling taboos), where the mind will discover its voice. The Median Group helps group members escape from this troublesome exile through koinonia, a non-personal fellowship. It is a form of sociotherapy. It is an opportunity to reclaim the mind from its massified, isolated, fused, confused state through the addition of out-sight, which influences insight. It develops autonomy and reality testing, and increases creativity in the search for meaning. It involves the need for mirroring and acceptance: the dawning of an authentic self through an individuation process that is self-created and results in an expansion of consciousness.

This is a mind that thinks rather than obsesses, that moves from the initial frustration-hate response in the group to koinonia, which is fellowship: it is a process of humanization.

Initially, the focus is on helping group members realize that they have a voice of their own, and by expressing that voice they come to recognize that they have a mind—a thinking mind, a reflecting mind. And that they develop trust as they cultivate their minds.

Psychoanalysis started as a two-person relationship, interested in developing and analysing the transference/counter-transference phenomena. Group analysis is based on the relationship between the individual unconscious and the social unconscious, continually interacting in a dynamic, reciprocal, influencing group matrix in the ‘here and now’. De Maré’s Median Group of 12 to 30 members is paradigmatically a micro-society that concerns society and citizenship and is interested in developing and analysing cultural transposition rather than transference. The group culture has been misnamed a group mind—misnamed because it is the single mind that takes decisions and choices. It involves learning mindfully, to think through consciousness-raising and awareness, because what is unconscious to one person is conscious to the other, a duality of sense perception and meaning; of body, mind and minds to be synthesized. As agriculture is to the cultivation of soil, so science, art, philosophy and religion are to humanity’s cultivation of the universe, says de Maré.

For him, dialogue is a Via Regia to the unconscious meanings, like the interpretation of dreams (de Maré, 1991). He strives for a philosophy of mind and psychotherapy as a research field for truth and wisdom—even more than knowledge or just communication: the Median Group can be regarded as a living anthropology. ‘You don’t need to go to Africa!’ he joked.

The first and deepest insight, the initial, unique and major contribution that Foulkes ever made, was that of the simple but quintessential significance of free-floating group discussion, or dialogue: the honest, authentic communication as equals which is not instinctual but cultural and has to be learned and cultivated in the Median Group . . .

When the social and the individual unconscious meet one another, consciousness begins to emerge in a mutual relationship and as an aspect of the developing mind. A state of consciousness in which mutual minding occurs with a corresponding appearance of the Mind itself with which to mind.

When this meeting does not have an opportunity of occurring, the two unconsciousnesses (personal and social) remain locked in a manner that finally results in mental disturbances, such as constant, compulsive obsessing since it is mindless and incapable of thinking (de Maré and Schöllberger, 2004).

In the Median Group, the synthesis of the individual-social duality stands for an ethical humanization process.

In a letter to David Parsons (Parsons, 2013), who introduced the Median Group into prisons, de Maré explains the essence of working with a theory of mind.

Dear Dave,

. . . One point I wish to make—which could be helpful. And that is by getting people to talk, whatever they talk about, is the main object—putting the awful reality into words—into the symbolic order, which can then be handled by the Mind. This is the only object of the exercise—so that the more controlling and punishment that goes on makes no difference, so the symbols are not reality but a reflection of a defused reality so that whatever people do, (other than stopping you from meeting and talking regularly) is simply more grist to grind. Fortunately, the powers that be don’t realize this—whatever structure is imposed, the true freedom is of the Mind—the clients don’t have to realize this either—it will happen provided they have the opportunity to talk—which seems harmless enough to the powers that be. Reality and trauma are one thing, reflection of reality is another, which of course brings about ‘growth, development and humanizing’ but such words may be experienced by the ‘authority’ as threatening to their control and their trend towards infantilization. The mind cannot cope with ‘reality’ itself only the reflections, their reflectiveness the power to think. Traumatic events of the past and the present (out-sight) become memories by talking—otherwise, they remain an intolerable reality, and they remain traumatic . . . Money is not wealth but an abstract symbol of wealth. People don’t think abstractly so we starve amid plenty, money being treated like a concrete tangible commodity, as if it were wealth itself—a mode of thinking characteristic of schizophrenic thinking—‘concretization’. . .

Best wishes

Pat

For de Maré, the human mind is, as it were, mindful, meaningful, and full of care; mainly through double-bind frustration does it becomes fused, confused and obsessed. Consciousness—a reflection of the Mind—is a constant and immediate aggregation of sense and meaning.

Quoting from his unpublished notes some on loos papers:

- consciousness is far a mysterious concept than the unconscious; it is uneasy, uncomfortable, it is a scandal.

- consciousness is related to life, atman and it is needed to make the unconscious conscious.

-consciousness is the synthesis between personal and social conscious and unconscious and it is the mind that disentangles them.

- synthetising is consciousness

The unconscious is a mental state under continuous aggregation and desegregation—information in flux which organizes mainly through images and metaphors, outside of space and time. The unconscious must be given meaning and a conscious structuring by the Mind—it is not a container from which you draw.

Interestingly enough, this structuring happens in the social ‘here and now’ and is different from the tribal, family-centric process: there is an opportunity for all spectrums to be represented in the whole context of group, body and mind, which can be gradually humanized.

Through dialogue, we enter the symbolic world, where the mind can grapple with double-binding dilemmas that are distinct from the materially and physically traumatic experiences of the linear dimension of cause and effect. Painful experiences of the innate mind in the form of memories push them back into the body, producing the pain, e.g., irritable bowel or ‘cystitis’, distinct from the suffering of the mind. The word ‘cystitis’ derives from ‘unbearable’ (de Maré, 2002).

Dealing with pain through dialogue by ‘minding and caring’ for others in the above sense, profoundly changes the meaning of suffering; it seems something different—and it is. It relieves the body from having to carry it through symptoms: one thing is the symptom, while another is its meaning. And yet another is the synthesis of them both: reflecting the reflected, a dialectic process. In the example cited above, the first reflection could be the pain called cystitis, the second the meaning of unbearable, and the third possible reflection that it is a thing of the past (i.e. I do not need it anymore).

For him, behaviourists and cognitive psychologists deny mind; whereas, if we should as psychotherapists mind about our clients, care for them and mind what they say—enabling them to help and heal themselves—then, he argues, we do have minds, that self-evidently we do mind (de Maré and Schöllberger, 2008).

Conclusion

De Maré explains how and why it is imperative to formulate a Theory of Mind, as outlined in the Addendum. Studying the synthesizing dialectic of dialogue in the Median Group, he understands the Mind as a relational phenomenon where its main function is to disentangle dualities of meanings in a dual world e.g., the Mind itself with which to mind.

The mini philosophy for psychotherapy proposed is a suggestion for a Theory of Mind which takes into account Body, Mind and Soul altogether. It opens a dimension suggested by recent metaphysics, quantum physics, the concept of a shared consciousness studied by science and a cosmic consciousness examined by philosophy and spirituality.

What makes the difference here seems to be an emotional bond in the here and now of koinonia i.e., of friendship, humanity, love, the meta level of consciousness, which is shared non-hierarchically in the group. It is a creative containment that leads to the pleasure of the mind, distinct from the pleasure of the body, away from the identification with the symptom.

Addendum: The concept of Mind: A mini philosophy for psychotherapy

There follows a summary of the concept of Mind and its functions as defined by de Maré, presented as a series of assertions extracted from his published papers on the Theory of Mind (De Maré and Schöllberger 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008).

As a psychiatrist it is challenging to enter the field of metaphysics and philosophy of mind which makes de Maré and his vast cultural background unique. This is what he is trying to explore with his Theory of Mind, i.e., that which thinks. Because he has been criticized as anti-scientific, I mention the passionate comment of Dick Blackwell in Anti-science or revolutionary consciousness? A response to Henry Luiker on Pat de Maré:

One might characterize it, as I read him, as sort of ‘post-enlightenment’ position that valorizes rationality, scientific reasoning, logic etc., against the more ‘primitive’ thinking of the pre-enlightenment. Nevertheless, his work remains as a basic template for group analytic engagement with such discourses through a fundamentally democratic conversation. What is somewhat inconsistent with the reality, is for Pat de Maré to be set up as a religious leader. In fact, the central thrust of his work was the lateralization of hierarchical systems of thought and status. Moreover, when one of the very few group analysts and indeed psychotherapists of any persuasion, to have read Chomsky, Levi Strauss, Sartre, Plato, Lacan, Marx and Lenin, along with numerous others, to be accused of believing literally in magic and superstition is somewhat bizarre. (Blackwell, 2021)

Indeed, it is not so much about spirituality, as it is about reflection on ordinary and clinical experiences.

Statements about the Mind, out of a mini philosophy for psychotherapy

• - The human Mind is of an elemental nature, not reducible, and not analysable by science.

• - The human Mind, the whole of which is its content and activity, is an active relational phenomenon, as are awareness, conscience and knowledge described as res cogitans by Descartes (1960).

• - The Mind is not only the product of brain activity and relationships (evolutionistic cognitivism): it gets its distinct dimension (res cogitans) in interdependent relationship to the body (res extensa) and, through the dialectic of the dualism of mind and body, allows at the same time both a synthesis and a creative totalization, which is self-healing (unio substantialis, Descartes, substantial union of substances).

• - The individual Mind is constantly in intersubjective reflection to other minds, to the culture of the group, to the minds of the human species, to the cosmic consciousness, and through the bond with the body-matter, to the environment and the universal reality.

• - The Mind functions and organizes not only by the pleasure/reality principle (Freud) but also by the principle of meaning, which has primacy.

• - The disposition of the human Mind is reflexive: the mind reflects matter, and the reflected content is no more matter; it is not the same thing. On the contrary, it is an abstract substance that becomes distinct and takes pre-eminence on the meta-level in the primacy of Mind over Matter.

• - The Mind is non-material and abstract; it does not passively reflect as a mirror, but it plays an active role in establishing meaning, thought, care, choice, decision, healing and vision, aided by freedom of space and time.

• - Through dialogue, the meaningful, on equal terms communication, the duality mind/matter-body constitutes a meaningful synthesis which increases, reaffirms, and modifies the individual, collective, social, and cultural consciousness.

• - The Mind is the self-generative part of the person and can disentangle, confuse or create boundaries of meaning through the discrimination ability between dualities.

• - The function of the Mind is to clarify between logic (reasoning, calculation, digital language) and logos (words, meaning/sense, intuition, analogical language) through the deductive process of rational sciences and the inductive of humanities.

• - The main activity of the Mind is minding. Minding includes care, attention, diligence and responsibility and refers not to how but to why.

• - The minder, through thoughts, i.e. the meaning of perception and feeling of the body, reflects the circumference of the mind (the universal reality of space and time), whose fulfilment generates a deep sensation of meaning and whose centre is the Mind.

• - The minder registers choice, makes decisions, focuses, analyses, totalizes, is wilful (as distinct from want) and has decision power; it is the individual who takes decisions and has visions, not the so-called group mind.

• - The Mind is central, as it establishes the context and its circumference which requires a centre; on one side is the Mind which reflects the circumference and on the other, the soul, which reflects, in a totalization process, the universal cosmic intelligence, united and single, sometimes called God or referred to as God.

• - The Mind is bifocal; it is the humanization of social relationships, the koinonic Self on one side and the totalization of a unified cosmic consciousness on the other (including the humanization of the divine), the soul.

• - The Self (which is what is reflected by the mind) is the thesis, and the antithesis is the context of the circumference; the final synthesis is a totalized shape of the universe, and this is the germ of the new thesis.

• - The Self is able to analyse; what has been called the soul is able to totalize.

• - The Self concerning the circumference produces meaning.

• - Thinking is the reflection of/on meanings.

• - Thinking, as a result of the meaning of perception and feeling of the body, can be enhanced in meditation, contemplation, reflection, prayer and in language—the use of words.

• - The Mind is the thesis and the body the antithesis; the thesis is primary and is essentially the Mind which appears first, whereas the antithesis is secondary, and the third is the synthesis through dialogue, a reflection about reflection: the meta-level, i.e. metaphysics, to mean the science of what is beyond the physical as meanings are.

• - Thesis means to put down, positioning, alike localizing is, therefore, related to meaning, to a duality of things and social.

• - Reflecting on the reflections of other minds and the reflection of the universal consciousness has a clarifying effect: like breath, it assumes an inspirational, joyous exhilaration.

• -  In tribute to Patrick de Maré there is a 19-section series available to view one by one.or all in sequence: see: https://www.youtube.com/@PatrickdeMareMedianGroup