A new adaptive and evolutionary conceptualization of the Personal Meaning Organization (P.M.O.) framework

Reciprocity with the primary caregivers drives individual adaptive abilities towards the development of the most useful Personal Meaning Organization (P.M.O.) with respect to one’s developmental environment. Predictable and invariable caregiver behavior allows an inward focus and a physical view of reciprocity: when reciprocity is high, an inward “controller” P.M.O. develops; when it is low, an inward “detached” P.M.O. is generated. The “controller” P.M.O. is focused on the need of protection/exploration; the “detached” P.M.O. is focused on the need of expression during isolation. Non-predictable and variable caregiver behavior allows an outward focus and a semantic view of reciprocity: when reciprocity is high, an outward “contextualized” P.M.O. develops; when it is low, an outward “principle-oriented” P.M.O. is generated. The “contextualized” P.M.O. reads the changes of the relational environment one by one; the “principle-oriented” P.M.O. is centered on the classification of antithetical aspects of reality. In psychotherapy, by focusing on the P.M.O., it is possible to recognize and promote individual adaptive resources, thus improving skills regarding the control of perturbing emotions and the development of new and more flexible behavior strategies. Thanks to modern biotechnology (i.e. in the field of functional neuroimaging and genetic single nucleotide polymorphism) a scientific live study of P.M.O. is possible, providing biological correlates to the P.M.O. post-rationalist paradigm. Key words: post-rationalist cognitive therapy, Personal Meaning Organizations (P.M.O.), functional NeuroImaging (fNI), Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP).