EMPATHIC CONNECTEDNESS PUSHES THE LIMITS OF DISABILITY
(Cerebral palsy case. Blind sight vision case. Mental disability case)
1. PPS AS THE PROTECTION SYSTEM - HABITUALLY
All of us have around our body 1 miter space which is called PPS, or comfort, intimate zone, which protects habitual state of sensory-motor balance, which is rooted to homeostatic balance. People with disabilities are very sensitive to any kind of invasion into the PPS. Even normal people are very sensitive, conservative concerning comfort zone to say nothing of disabled people. What is the way of empathic connectedness, which is feeling the another person without internal censorship?
2. PPS AS THE ORIENTING RESPONSE SYSTEM
PPS has C-tactile receptors all over the body, face and lips, in particular sensitive to the same C-tactile receptors of another person. That is the biological starting point of the empathic connectedness. Actually, couples in love spontaneously sometimes fall into this receptors connectedness.
That kind of connectedness may provide voluntary direct incomplete (100 ms) unconditional impact upon ACC (Limbic cortex), may cause actual affective perception-action coupling, predictable, intended, wanted sense of another person and comfortable effector jointness with other PPS. Both experience feelings without internal censorship.
Critically, researchers demonstrated, that the neural representation of the visual-tactile-auditory PPS can be dynamically modified through experience, even on short timescales as multisensory effector attentional system. In our cases we demonstrate the way it can be done through experience of another person within empathic connectedness even in severe cases of disability.
In such a way PPS starts working not as spontaneous, unconscious system which protects habitual isolation of a disabled person, but as voluntary socially orienting response system within empathic relations.
3. NOVEL INCLUSIVE PRACTICES FOR DISABLED WITH MODIFIED PPS
The cases we show (cerebral palsy, mental disability, blind sight vision) prove the biological need of the empathic PPS-connectedness. We are moving to train disabled individuals as freelancers within our virtual inclusive practices community to contribute in case of the same kind of disability as a partner of our professionals via zoom.
REAL TOUCHING EMPATHY IS THE KEY TO DISABILITY
We consider empathic connectedness as the key to push the limits of community development and disability. The most remarkable quality of empathy is the ability to perceive another person without habitual internal censorship, without mixing with your own feelings. But each of us has a censor and the name of the censor is peri-personal space, or comfort, a comfortable, intimate zone, which protects the sensory-motor balance, which is rooted to homeostatic balance. That is biologically determined frontier of self and impact prediction.
Any invasion into the PPS cases internal censorship and defensive response. In fact, PPS spontaneously, unconsciously protects our habitual state, protects frontier of self. The question arises - how is empathic connectedness possible and for people with disabilities, in particular, who are very sensitive to any kind of potential invasion into PPS?
You can look at our experience that we get in everyday inclusive practice on our case study page.
