Part 2: The LSPM™ Model

The Life Scripts & Parts Matrix Model: When we get triggered into survival mode a whole range of reactive responses become activated. These are the actors in our life scripts.

Life Scripts & Parts Matrix Model

The phrase "Getting Triggered" is almost a household word these days. A milder form of the same thing is "Getting My Buttons Pushed." What does it mean?

Essentially, being "triggered" means I become reactive. I am proactive when I choose my behaviors, and I am reactive when my behaviors choose me! When I act in a way that I do not like, it is a part-of-self that reacts to a cue internally or externally. Only one part-of-self can "drive the bus of my life" at a time. All the other parts are on board, but not driving. Reactivity is the hallmark characteristic of survival mode.

I must be able to react to a threat almost instantly. Imagine that you just stepped off a curb and instantly jumped back because a car was coming too close. In a case like this, you don't have time to consider all the options before choosing to jump back on the curb!

Growing up in a less-than-nurturing-family can provide ample opportunities to have these kinds of experiences. As a result, we develop many reactive parts-of-self to help us survive. The LSPM Card is a general picture of how the emotional wound of abandonment, the infection of shame, and the scab of contempt forms the filter or lens through which we get triggered.

The fight, flight, freeze, submit, and attachment responses are NOT the problem. We need to be able to react quickly to a danger or threat. It is when our nervous system gets conditioned to be hypersensitive to anything associated with the original experiences of abandonment, shame, and contempt that causes problems, triggers, or our buttons that “get pushed” in our present-day life.

Transcript

Hi, this is Don Carter. Welcome to this presentation on my Life Scripts and Parts Matrix Model (LSPM). in this presentation, and I'd like to go over all the elements of the LSPM. I'd also like to show how the model  integrates with my Iceberg Model of addiction codependency and the attachment wounds caused by adult child syndrome. Both of these models are central to my practice as an integrative psychotherapist. As such, I integrate several complementary approaches to create something new.

These include Ego State Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Parts Integration Therapy, Inner Family Systems Therapy, EMDR Somatic, therapies, and many other complementary models and approaches. One of the newest is the integration of all that we are learning about the clinical application of polyvagal theory to trauma therapy, such as the structural dissociation model and the autonomic ladder.

In my counseling and coaching sessions, I use a therapy card with my LSPM on one side and this image of the Iceberg model on the other. The card is great for self-discovery in therapy sessions as well as in between sessions. I asked my clients to refer to the card whenever they feel triggered because doing so takes them out of their triggered reactivity while simultaneously regulating that emotional state by initiating Proactive thought and decision making. I'll go over this in more detail later on in the presentation. If you've not already done so go back and watch the Iceberg presentation.  

So to begin, notice the top tier of the LSPM has two boxes, one representing growth mode and the other representing survival mode, also known as self-actualization and self-preservation, respectively. A major difference between these two elements of the diagram is the flowchart connected to the self-preservation box but not to the self-actualization box. In my video, the Fragment Self, found in the first lesson in the Golden Key program, I use the ceramic baseball analogy to explain the fragment itself.

To briefly summarize, if you think of the self as a ceramic baseball that comes into the world and gets hit by a bat, what happens to the baseball? That's right, it shatters.Growth mode would be the core chunk of the baseball that continues to grow and self-actualize, while survival mode is represented by the shards or fragments of self, orbiting like little satellites disconnected from that core of the baseball.

The clinical term for fragmentation is dissociation. Many of the elements in this diagram are adapted from the structural dissociation diagram and integrated with the Iceberg model, Ego State Therapy, Attachment Theory, and Internal Family Systems Therapy. The flowchart accomplishments the goal of describing this integration in a way that's understandable and extremely useful to therapist and client.

Remember, though, learning anything new requires repetition, most of us weren't very skillful riding a bike for the first time, but later on we could do so with no hands [Mastery]. So, watch this video as many times as necessary. Like anything else, it will eventually become natural and useful to you.

Before we take a look at the filter of abandonment, shame, and contempt, let's jump down here to this row in the Matrix. The fight, flight, freeze, submit, and attachment parts are not the problem by themselves. In fact, they are all healthy elements of an integrated, fully functioning personality. By integrated, I mean that whenever one of these parts of self are triggered, it is appropriate to the context that triggered it.

Fritz Pearls, the father of default therapy, was fond of saying that only one thing should be in control the circumstances or context one finds themselves in. An appropriate context for the fight response might be that you are in a dark alley carrying a baseball bat and someone tries to mug you. The fight part will help you start swinging the bat in self-defense. Likewise, if you are in that same dark alley and someone pulls a gun on you, you may take off running, which would be an appropriate response.

Or maybe you've been under some pressure at work for quite some period of time, so you set everything aside and go down to the beach for the day just to get away from it all. An example of an appropriate freeze response would be when you have the flu and you just collapse into bed, submitting to the flu, eating chicken soup and giving your body time to come through that virus. And finally, at work, there may be times when you put your own ideas aside and submit to those of your boss. So these are all examples of adaptive, appropriate responses to stress or threats to your safety.

Reactive behaviors that are not appropriate to the context, not in your best interest and harmful to you or others are maladaptive survival skills that flow from the wounded, fragmented parts of self. These wounded, fragmented parts are disconnected from the actualized adult part of self. Being disconnected, they do not have access to our adult resources in the actualized adult ego state. They are stuck in the past and used survival skills instead of coping skills.

Survival skills may have been appropriate to the context in childhood, and they were likely to have been the best that the child could do under their circumstances. However, survival skills do not necessarily serve them well in adulthood. Abandonment is an emotional wound that triggers the emotional infection called shame, which is covered by an emotional scab of contempt.

The contempt can be turned inward in the form of self-contempt, or outward as contempt for others or the world in general. Contempt is all those crusty feelings of anger, bitterness, and resentment. There's a lot of energy that goes with those feelings, and it has to go somewhere.

Notice here in the diagram that the “fight” part is directly under the scab of contempt. The collapse and submit “freeze” part, directly under the infection of shame, and the attachment drive that is the most vulnerable part of our personality is directly under the wound of abandonment wound. As I just mentioned, shame is an infection, and infections spread throughout the entire system in which they live, making it a central element to this whole diagram. It infects everything. We'll look closer at that shortly.

The emotional wound of abandonment typically begins early in childhood and continues to grow throughout the child's experience in a lesson nurturing family. The attachment drive is the most vulnerable part of our personality. When we are born into the world, we have a primal need for connection to a caretaker. If we have no caretaker, no emotional surface to connect to, then we would die. The primal need for connection is also accompanied by a primal fear of abandonment.

All of that is wired into our central nervous system at birth, and since we don't have verbal skills or cognitive abilities to make sense of any of it, it's just a primal, raw instinct to connect. When we are not connected, the alarms go off and flood the central nervous system. This results in a cry for help. That cry can grow stronger and stronger when the attachment needs are not met and eventually loud enough to be a cry for rescue. This is the only defense that an infant has.

They need a caretaker who is present and tuned in enough to interpret the needs of the child. In the ideal situation, when an infant gets wet, it gets changed. When it's tired, it gets a nap, when it's fussy, it gets nurturing. When it's hungry, it gets fed pretty much every single time. When this happens consistently, almost every time the child grows up with a healthy attachment style that is carried with him or her into adulthood.

To the extent the attachment needs go unmet, the child will likely develop an insecure attachment style of some sort directly resulting from the abandonment of their attachment needs. This will create and trigger that infection of shame, which will be covered over by the scab of contempt, all those crusty feelings of anger, bitterness, and resentment. To learn more about the unmet attachment needs and unmet childhood dependency needs, review the Iceberg lecture again.

We can see the wound of abandonment, infection, and shame and the scab of contempt floating just beneath the surface of our awareness, creating inside of a child a false sense of self. And remember, like any other wound, the infection will spread and become a bigger problem than the wound itself. Toxic shame plays the central role in this picture.

Here we can see that when the abandonment gets triggered, it triggers the toxic shame. This experience is something I refer to as a shame attack. A shame attack can trigger one or more of the following responses.

• I can fight the shame,

• I can avoid the shame by escape strategies,

• I can become frozen and collapse into the shame.

• I can submit to the shame, accepting that I'm not good enough, not lovable, not worthwhile, and I have to work very hard to make sure everyone is happy so they won't abandon me.

Since I have all that free-floating mass of pain referred to in the iceberg as the False Self, I cannot generate any good feelings inside. All I can do is keep an external focus and put on a mask, also known as a public image, or what I like to call the invent itself. This gives me the illusion that I am managing the pain when I'm only covering it up and stuffing it down inside.

Here we can see that there are two groups of managers. The submit part involves various strategies and behaviors designed to manage the impressions of those who are most important to me, to make sure they think the right things about me and that they are happy. When I make a mistake, though, the second group of managers gets triggered. Those fight parts are a group of managers that manage the submit part.

When I am in the submit role and perceive that I've made a mistake, it activates one or more of the managers in the fight part, usually the inner critic that triggers contempt, which in turn triggers a shame attack directed at the submit part for making a mistake. The positive intention of the inner critic is usually to motivate the submit part to not make any mistakes, because that could risk more abandonment.

When things are difficult or stress is chronic, the natural thing to do is try to escape. So frequently, we developed some escape strategies, possibly leading to addictive behaviors in order to get away from the shame and avoid it altogether. Of course, this usually causes more abandonment, shame, and contempt, so it's only a short-term fix, if anything at all. The escape strategies in the flight part are often referred to as firefighters. This name comes from the role they play when the managers fail to manage the pain of the wounded child ego state.

In other words, when the iceberg becomes a volcano and begins to erupt, the firefighters are called in to douse the flames. We can become dependent on the firefighters, some of which can be highly addictive and become a problem all of their own. The term firefighters come from the internal family systems therapy approach.

The firefighters are the last resort and defense against shame. When nothing else seems to work, we can collapse into that infection of shame and abandonment wounds. Internal family systems therapy would call what we collapse into an exile in. Ifs this is a wounded inner child that has been disowned and sent into hiding, these are what the managers protect. Another term for this collapse is hitting bottom.

Many addicts face those moments from time to time. Some hit bottom and go to treatment. Others seem to bounce on the bottom until they can reach out and get help.

Here in the LSPM diagram, we can see the parts involved in hitting bottom, also known as the freeze response. When managers and firefighters have been unsuccessful in controlling or managing the pain, we collapse into it. In internal family systems, they would call this blending with the exile in polyvagal theory, this would be referred to as the dorsal vagal response. In severe cases, this might lead to a mobilization, shutting down, feeling frozen and paralyzed, and maybe even too terrified of being seen to leave the house. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists might call this total collapse of psychological defense mechanisms.

In short, this is not a fun place to be.

Whenever we find ourselves in the fight, flight, freeze, submit, and attach parts, we can know that we are triggered into a reactive response. In a reactive response, our behaviors seem to choose us. We don't choose them. As soon as they notice they've been triggered, I ask my clients to pull out this therapy card and begin to study what just happened, looking for what parts were involved. This activates our self-actualizing growth mode, which is a centering technique that helps with emotional regulation.

When we are in the growth mode, we are Proactive, not reactive. In other words, we choose our behaviors. They don't choose us. We are free from life scripts and triggered parts. When we are in this mode, this is the best position to begin learning emotional regulation when we struggle with significant trauma and frequent triggers.

It is from growth mode that we can attend to the emotional wounds of abandonment, the infection of shame, and the scab of contempt just beneath the surface. Developing a dual awareness of our self-actualized growth mode when we are being triggered into survival mode is a critical skill to learn for the healing process.

This dual awareness opens the door to therapy and recovery processes. It is from this position that we can begin our healing journey. When we create a safe place in our inner world of experience, connecting to the adult and self-actualized resources already there, we can begin to attend to the wounds of those reactive parts.

We can develop those resources, learn re-parenting techniques, integrative journaling, and use many other complementary therapies such as inner child work, re imprinting processes, ego state therapy, Castle therapy, inner family systems therapy, EMDR, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnotherapy, guided imagery, mindfulness, and many other integrative therapies.

However, it is important to note that implementing any of these therapies before doing the preliminary work of self-discovery, resource development, and creating a safe container internally and externally can lead to processing blocks and other forms of resistance to the therapeutic process.

This can be very frustrating and lead someone to believe that counseling won't work for them, so they drop out of treatment. So, when we begin any therapy or recovery process, it's important to be patient and give it a chance to work. As the healing continues, we eventually come to a fuller, richer contact with our true self. This will improve our relationships and our functioning in most, if not all, areas of our life.

Remember that true intimacy comes when I'm able to share who I really am with another human being who is also able to share who they really are with me. That would be our True Self. Thanks for watching, If you have any questions or feedback you can leave those comments or send us an email.