The worlds we live in

There are four worlds in which we live which provide a framework for working through clients problems. They are a framework, that can help make sense of life, they are:

1. The physical
2. The social
3. The internal
4. The spiritual

The Physical
The physical world is the world of physics, the motivations of instinct. It is our engagement with the physical world of trees and mountains and our engagement with our physical bodies. It's the world of sex, sport and mountaineering. In terms of neurosis we can see eating disorders, body image problems as well as agoraphobia and claustrophobia.

We need a good relationship with our physical world to build the other worlds on; we must take our body through the physical world to do anything. You need to have a good feeling, an at ease feeling, a sense of home of your body in the world, through sex, sport, outdoor pursuits you can get this feeling. You can also see peoples values in this world played out through these activities.

It’s funny here think of the parallels between two aspects of our physical world, sport and sex. The base line is enjoyment of both and the feeling of enjoyment that it is me doing this with you, a worthy adversary or beautiful companion. If you can't find anyone to do it you can either grab a hand held ps2 or a porn magazine and get off from pretending to do it. If you need to boost your performance then take some chemical enhancements. When you're really good you can turn pro and then get loads of people to watch you, I do look forward to when sex becomes a show for the arena although not to when it becomes competitive.

I do think we do have a potential psychological time bomb where children don’t go out and play as parents are scared of them getting eaten by paedophiles. Then they play on computer games to get the interaction with the external world they want, but a computer game never satisfies, or provides a true picture of the physical world.

The Social
The next world which builds on the physical world is the social world. This is your interaction with the other and it’s more seen from a structural position. So this is the arena of group membership be it race or class or gender, the interaction is one around morality. In this arena again the art is to feel good within the groups that you are members of and for your membership of multiple groups to find either the movement from one group perspective to another is fluid or the synthesized perspective from all of them is suitable.

In terms of neurosis then the things that can get in the way are to not feel at home in your groups. This can mean either feeling excluded or just at odds enough with the group that you are a member of. In the case of membership of multiple groups, there can be a problems where you have contradictions that lead to paralysis in action as opposed to a creative tension.

There are four relations that you can have with the other who emerges to you. Not everyone emerges indeed most stay as unindifferentiated lumps of people that are passed daily without our awareness but who form a backdrop to our lives and would be sorely missed if they were absent. These relations to others are group relations not intimate relations which will invoke the internal world which is described later. The first is master to slave; the second slave to master, the third is of partnership the last is of indifference.

A partnership is fine whilst there is a common cause. You will also see competition with groups with opposing values. So power relations and utility are all that you will see in these relations, and it’s not even brute power but one that you can get the person you subjugate to accept and welcome your power, the willing slave.
So again to be successful here is to feel good about the roles that you are in which will probably be a mix between slave roles master roles and roles of participation. Again neurosis here would be that relationships here are anything else but at the power level, so that you can idealise these social relations as being ones of love and care, but be traumatised to find that they are usurious.

The Internal World
The internal world is the world of I and We. It is the place of intimacy towards yourself and with others. This place is where you consider being yourself; it is your character, your being with your character. It is your home.

This is your rock when all else fails this is where you come back to. When starting any new adventure this is the first mover. When you have a strong personal world then you feel like you could face anything and the world is a comfortable place.

Whilst it is in the modern era rare. The personal world of one can be merged with that of another when people are in love. It is rare today as individualism is to the fore and the deep notion of We is one that is eschewed.

It does seem though a paradoxical concept. To talk of this core world where everything starts and finishes with. It is a common idea to talk about being untrue to yourself or to be in bad faith as Sartre would talk about. So this personal self can be hidden or obscured from yourself. I suppose this is the same as with other worlds where you can fantasise about the nature of the physical world or indeed be deluded about it.


The Spiritual World
The fourth world is the spiritual world which encompasses the world of ideology, our values in life. It is often that these values are those that give life meaning and that provide a purpose for the other worlds.
The meaning, the values, the ideology of person are a motivation that can mean that problems in other worlds can be accepted. Changing these values can also see a reordering of the other worlds, so you can to some level see the spiritual world as being that which orders the other worlds, although paradoxically it is the world that is built on the other worlds



References

Existential Counselling and Psyhotherapy in Practice, Chapter 3, by Danny Van Deurzen