Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 2021 Jul 1;209(7):474-480. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000001321.
Throughout life, individuals are bombarded by countless emotion-generating messages. Certain of these messages, for example, some insults, admonitions, rejections, challenges, or insightful declarations, can be viewed as "infective." Infective messages shock, puncture, adhere, disturb, and generate discernable host responses that assimilate, accommodate, or repel the intruding messages. Messages originating in one's own mind can stimulate psychological equivalents of autoimmune responses. Sometimes, these messages produce enduring psychological changes. Infective messages may traumatize, organize, or therapize. The aims of this article are to consider how infective messages a) relate to their messengers (vectors), structural characteristics, and recipient (host) factors; b) might contribute to trauma, personal identity formation, psychological conflicts, and emotional self-regulatory and cognitive heuristics; c) might inform the conduct of psychotherapy; and d) suggest future research.
Clinical observations were augmented with selective literature reviews. These sources contributed to perspectives regarding how certain messages might become infective; contribute to trauma, complex aspects of identity formation, and inner conflict; and inform the conduct of psychotherapy.
Infective messages are commonly characterized by short, cogent communications emanating from credible sources that fall on vulnerable recipients' receptive, dispositional feeling states. These infective stimuli trigger reactive and defensive emotions and associated behaviors reflecting responses to significant threats or benefits relative to the individual's deepest needs, motivations, and values. Defensive overreactions may occur in response to messages to which individuals have been previously sensitized. Infective message contents appear to assimilate into constantly evolving, dynamic autobiographical brain maps consisting of highly specific neuronal networks that range from the brainstem through limbic structures to multiple cortical areas. Autobiographical maps built from message-injected contents may transform, akin to the incorporation of retroviruses or prions, to encode personal identities as aspects of the self. Contrasting maps may exist semi-independently of one another, continuously evolving, interacting, combining, dividing, conflicting, and contending with one another for attention. Achieving attentional awareness, such maps help structure how individuals conceptualize and communicate about their encoded traumas, diverse identities, and the conflicts among them.
During psychotherapy, aftereffects of traumatizing infective messages might be detoxified by deconstructing, desensitizing, and processing messages' precise words and emotional envelopes in relation to contexts in which they were delivered, and the individual's inner dispositions at moments of impact. Carefully crafted, timely interpretations can be therapeutically infective, generating enduring positive impacts. Future studies using an assortment of approaches can test these perspectives.
在人的一生当中，人们会受到无数产生情绪的信息的冲击。其中某些信息，例如某些侮辱、告诫、拒绝、挑战或富有洞察力的宣言，可以被视为“感染性的”。感染性的信息会让人感到震惊、刺痛、附着、扰乱，并产生可识别的宿主反应，这些反应会同化、适应或排斥入侵的信息。源自自己内心的信息会引发类似自身免疫反应的心理等同物。有时，这些信息会导致持久的心理变化。感染性的信息可能会造成创伤、组织或治疗。本文的目的是探讨感染性信息：a）与它们的发送者（载体）、结构特征和接收者（宿主）因素的关系；b）如何导致创伤、个人身份形成、心理冲突以及情绪自我调节和认知启发；c）如何为心理治疗提供信息；d）提出未来的研究方向。
临床观察结果辅以选择性文献综述。这些资料有助于了解某些信息如何变得具有感染力；如何导致创伤、复杂的身份形成和内心冲突；以及如何为心理治疗提供信息。
感染性信息通常具有以下特点：来自可靠来源的简短而有力的信息，传达给易感的接收者，易感的接收者处于接受的、易于产生情绪的状态。这些感染性刺激会引发反应性和防御性情绪以及相关行为，反映出个体对其最深层次的需求、动机和价值观的重大威胁或利益的反应。个体之前曾对某些信息产生过敏感反应，可能会对此类信息做出过度的防御性反应。感染性信息的内容似乎融入到不断演变的、动态的自传体大脑图谱中，这些图谱由从脑干到边缘结构再到多个皮质区域的高度特异性神经网络组成。从注入信息的内容构建的自传体图谱可能会发生转变，类似于逆转录病毒或朊病毒的感染，从而将个人身份编码为自我的一部分。相互对立的图谱可能彼此独立存在，不断演变、相互作用、结合、分裂、冲突，并争夺个体的注意力。这些图谱有助于结构个体对其编码的创伤、多样化的身份以及它们之间的冲突的概念化和交流，从而实现注意力的意识。
在心理治疗中，通过解构、脱敏和处理与信息传递背景以及个体受影响时刻的内在倾向相关的信息的精确词语和情感包，可以减轻创伤性感染性信息的后续影响。精心设计、及时的解释可以具有治疗感染力，产生持久的积极影响。未来可以使用各种方法的研究可以检验这些观点。
