Why Create a Relational Metaphor of the Psyche?

My innate curiosity has me integrating similar concepts for clarity and deepened understanding while taking guidance from nature, which seems to be reminding me of the wholeness from which we originated. My prior explorations into the practice of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC) [1], it’s congruence with Jung’s Cognitive Functions, along with Bill Plotkin’s Nature-Based Model of the Human Psyche helped to awaken these images of how the various models might be integrated. The intention of the metaphor is to bring these various models together, making it easier for humanity to cultivate wholeness, heal and to re-energize conversations toward mutually supportive connections.

The resulting relational metaphor contains the NVC components and modalities for connection, while preserving the integrity of Plotkin’s Nature-Based Map of the Human Psyche introduced in his book Wild Mind [2].

Prior Works

Carl Jung’s and Marshall Rosenberg’s relevant models are summarized in a prior essay [3]. This prior essay extends Inbal Kashtan’s NVC Tree of Life by considering the roots of the tree as explorations of the unconscious archetypes of the Self [4]. This prior essay extends the NVC Wheel of Knowing with Plotkin’s Wild Mind [5].

The remainder of this essay lays out the elements of the relational metaphor of the human psyche, referenced to the picture below.

Canopy

The canopy of the forest and the air that surrounds the trees represents the Collective Consciousness of the Village. There’s a center of gravity in the canopy that points to the needs served by this psyche, transcending from the psyche’s unique place while fulfilling its ecological niche. The canopy is the consciousness that results from all of the trees of the forest.

Crown

The tree’s crown has the elements for conversational connection through the Empathy and Self-Expression branches. The crown is the place where all verbal and nonverbal interactions are visible, and is often given credit for connection taking place. However, the healthy functioning of the crown is dependent on the health of the trunk, the root system, the soil surrounding it and the environment that supports and nourishes the forest.

Trunk (Tree Center)

The tree’s center in the trunk is shown with a compass rose representing the four directions [6]. In Wild Mind, Bill Plotkin maps the four windows of knowing to the four directions, each of which also contains an NVC component (contained in a parenthesis). Furthermore, each of the windows of knowing is associated with commonly used metaphors of the human experience.

East: Full-Presence Sensing (Observation) is a guide to Spirit
South: Embodied Feeling (Feeling) is a guide to the Body and the Earth from which it came
West: Deep Imagination (Need) is a guide to Soul
North: Heart-Centered Thinking (Request) is a guide to the integrated wild Mind

Above the center, the conscious self-awareness (i.e. the Ego) has an outward focus toward other beings and the more-than-human world, whereas below the center there’s an inward focus toward oneself (i.e. an intrapersonal focus).

The tree’s center of gravity can also be seen as the location of the Heart, the intersection of the Venn Diagram of Mind, Earthen Body, Spirit and Soul as shown below[8].

Spirit (see Mystery) - "The universal consciousness, intelligence, psyche, or vast imagination that animates the cosmos and everything in it, including us, and in which the psyche of each person participates. Common synonyms include Spirit, God, and the nondual."
Soul - "A person or thing’s unique, innate niche in the Earth community."

I enhanced the traditionally used term “Body” to highlight its origin and dependence on the Earth.

Intrapersonal View of the Self's Facets of Wholeness

The following diagrams add the archetypes of wholeness and the subpersonalities from Plotkin's Nature-based Map of the Human Psyche respectively [9]

It should be noted that Plotkin also includes a second map which he calls "Interpersonal View of the Self and Subpersonalities" which is how others might see us; this diagram is not included for simplicity, though it can also be used as part of the metaphor introduced.

“Oikos Gap”

The word “oikos" is Greek for house or home. The “Oikos Gap” is the space between the trunk’s tree center and the topsoil humus, as an indication of the level of the psyche's intimacy and connection with the Earth. As the psyche becomes more and more aligned and connected with nature, the gap decreases to the point at which an “eco-awakening” happens, and the gap disappears. After eco-awakening, the compass rose is at the same level as the top soil humus, representing the heart as belonging to the Earth, with one’s body being an extension of it, and the tree’s center of gravity slowly shifts toward the top soil, where there’s the same amount of tree mass above, as there is below ground. In short, the psyche is finally home in the Mind-Body dimensions.

Place

The place or location of the tree on the land in which it finds itself planted, represents the ecological niche of the tree (the unique role that it plays in the ecosystem). Inscendence, a human need [10] which motivates the search for the psyche's unique ecological niche, points to the location of the first sprout of the tree in the topsoil, transcending toward a unique center of gravity of the canopy – to serve the village in a unique way. The human needs of Inscendence and Transcendence form the basis of a transpersonal axis pointing toward Soul and Spirit respectively.

Originally, transcendence and inscendence were seen as a vertical axis following the center of the tree, as in this essay[11]. However, when considering a relational model of the psyche, it is clear that the transpersonal axis must be pointed from the unique niche transcending toward the needs of the village that it serves, symbolically located somewhere within the canopy of the forest.

Finding the psyche's metaphorical ecological niche is a mysterious journey of self-discovery (more aptly, a deep remembering), that involves a letting go of well-established successful strategies for living, including the dissolution of one’s highly developed ego-identity to allow for the quiet internal voice often called “soul” to express itself to an ego willing to listen and follow its guidance. The search for one's ecological niche is best described by Bill Plotkin’s book Journey of Soul Initiation [12]. The psyche that has remembered its place and is living congruently through its ecological niche can be seen as finding its home in the Soul-Spirit dimensions, thus finding a place of psycho-spiritual rest, harmony and natural resonance while simultaneously living energized, on-purpose, and wholistically fully alive within the village in which it serves.

Topsoil Humus

The topsoil humus is the uppermost layer of soil in nature, a boundary between what is visible (in air) representing conscious self-awareness (Ego), and the soil below beyond sight representing the unconscious.

Roots

The roots of the tree represent the personal unconscious, with two lateral roots for archetypal expression (speaking from the perspective of a given archetype), and archetypal empathy (a listening curiosity of an archetype for other archetypes present in the personal unconscious [13]). And roots are an underground connection point to other nearby trees, through mycelial and microbial networks representative of an association with the collective unconscious – though perhaps, these underground networks are more conscious than we know or are able to understand.

Earth

The Earth below the tree is the soil and rock connecting all other trees and beings on the planet – representing the collective unconscious, and potentially a mysterious consciousness, made up of buried human and more-than-human ancestors – i.e. the ancestral compost.

In Closing

A relational metaphor of the human psyche has been presented which incorporates Carl Jung’s cognitive functions, Marshall Rosenberg’s NVC components, and Bill Plotkin’s Nature Based Model of the Human Psyche. The intention of the metaphor is to bring these various models together, making it easier for humanity to cultivate wholeness, heal and to re-energize conversations toward mutually supportive connections. This essay may be part of a book project.

The map is not the territory [14]. The reality of the human psyche is much more dreamlike than certain, and every interaction is uniquely mysterious. As Bill Plotkin wrote in Wild Mind: “may we always be astounded and humbled by the mystery of our human selves and our animate world.[15]”

Change Log

9/15/2024 Added Section "Intrapersonal View of the Self's Facets of Wholeness"
9/16/2024 Modified the windows of knowing as being guides to Mind, Body, Spirit and Soul respectively.

Endnotes and References

Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, 3rd Edition, PuddleDancer Press, Encinitas, CA, 2015
Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind – Field Guide to the Human Psyche, New World Library, Novato, California, 2013, pp. 11-30
Fusion of Jung's Cognitive Functions with Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication (NVC) by Jaime L. Prieto, Jr. https://www.compassionateconnecting.com/blog/jung-rosenberg
Earth-Rooted NVC Tree of Life by Jaime L. Prieto, Jr. https://www.compassionateconnecting.com/blog/nvc-tree-of-life
Extending the NVC Wheel of Knowing with Plotkin’s Wild Mind https://www.compassionateconnecting.com/blog/wheel-of-knowing-extensions
The four directions of the compass rose result from the rotation of liquid metals in the center of the Earth resulting in a magnetic field around the planet. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field
For a deeper exploration of the Venn diagram, see this essay https://www.compassionateconnecting.com/blog/wild-heart
Animas Valley Institute’s glossary of terms is available at https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/
Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind, pp. 22-23
Inscendence as a Human Need https://www.compassionateconnecting.com/blog/inscendence
Transcendence and Inscendence Are Part of The Same Tree https://www.compassionateconnecting.com/blog/transcendence-inscendence
Bill Plotkin, Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries https://www.animas.org/books/journey-of-soul-initiation/
“Archetypal Empathy”, a curiosity of an archetype toward other archetypes is hypothesized by the author; its existence is an active area of research.
Concept by Alfred Korzybski. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
Bill Plotkin, Wind Mind, p. 16.