Proxima psychology is about processing and operating.  It is a psychology which believes that people are unique in the way each one of us processes internal (proximal) information.

This includes what people habitually pay attention to, or ignore, and also the internal dialogue and language used in this processing, and also how strongly or diffusely people focus on what they are thinking about (distal), in order to include or exclude distractions, and whether they tend to magnify (exaggerate) or reduce (minimize) many other things in the perceptual field.

In fact most people never really notice the way they think – it is as subconscious a process as breathing.  Proxima psychology is based around three basic processing dialogues and languages which occur in three major sensory (proximal) modalities:

The diagram represents the proxima operating system, and is the operating system built into Visual Analog Therapy.

 

 

 

 

Try this out:

VISUALISE:    the friend or partner you said goodbye to this morning and see the scene of this departure
HEAR: the sound of their voice and the words they used at this parting and the other sounds around at this departure
FEEL: the hug, kiss, texture of their hair or clothing, and your own sense of being touched and what you tasted and smelled at this departure.  How did you feel?

Which sensory modality worked best for you: visualizing, hearing or feeling?  Did you experience all of these?
Visualising – how did you check things out in your mind’s eye?
Hearing – how did you go speaking and listening to yourself and others?
Feeling – how did you feel, who did you feel, and how did you react?

Proxima psychology is about events in the perception of field (distal events or external world events) and how they are sensed and processed through mind – body – brain (proximal or internal world) systems.

A person we notice entering a room represents a distal stimulus.  The sense we have of this event and the interpretations we make are proximal processes.  This confirms to the psychological laws of proximity.  A proximal response to the person noticed entering the room is a behavioural response.

Perceptions and behaviours relate to dominant or active sensory modalities in people, the modality in which they are accustomed to working – this is sometimes called a personal or learning style.

Now think back to the scene of departure this morning and saying goodbye – how do you feel – what is going through your mind, going on in your brain, and being experienced in your body?  Were you happy or sad at this time?  Did other events, past, present, or future, interfere with your response to this person or event?  Are you running on a track that effectively bypasses the phenomenon of saying goodbye almost entirely?

A key aspect of Proxima Psychology involves the different modes of processing information, and how we call on the different modes to gain resilience or remember, or reflect, or response, or become resourceful, around events which we construct reactions.  Proxima psychology uses tactics and strategies to encourage people to develop all three processing styles.  The relative strengths of different modes of processing within an individual is called a profile.

Profiles in Proxima Psychology allow us to examine individual:
WILL (Intention and Energy), WORK (conscious effort), and WAY (what is emergent and developing).
Proxima Psychology encourages people to look at the structure of experience and the resultant profile of reaction in a similar triangular fashion.

Proxima Psychology contains a number of concepts or properties:

Look again at a favourite movie or video.  The stories move the individual actor playing a role from one processing mode, or internal world language to another according to the response most useful at the time depending upon the external world context.  You might like to spot these and some of the other proxima concepts or properties.

You can also do it for yourself.  Just think of a happy life event, and do your best to see it all in detail.  See the action, the people, the colours etc., and listen for the associated sounds, then feel the sensations and emotions and experience the reactions of anything that is in contact with you.  Utilise the Proxima concepts and properties of the state you have created.