Concepts

Felt sense

a pre-verbal, bodily expression of information from internal drives that precedes conscious verbal articulation and requires patient, non-judgmental attention to become accessible and meaningful

Mediator

the position of awareness that can observe all competing drives simultaneously without being identified with any single one, characterized by curiosity, calm, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness, and functioning to facilitate understanding between drives rather than impose dominance of any one drive

Integration

a new solution is found that satisfies both parties' real interests without either making a sacrifice

Interest: why a drive wants what it wants

Drive tyranny

the state in which one motivational drive has accumulated so much power within your internal system that it effectively governs all decisions, suppresses competing drives, and redirects the resources of the entire organism toward its singular agenda

Workaholism

the achievement drive operating in tyranny mode, characterized by compulsive working, inability to stop, and distress when not working, not because the work is fulfilling multiple drives but because the achievement drive has suppressed the others so thoroughly that not-working feels existentially threatening

Internal colonialism

when a dominant region or group within a state exploits the others while maintaining the fiction of a unified polity, applied to the psyche where one drive captures decision-making apparatus and runs the whole system for its own benefit, extracting resources from every other drive to fuel its singular agenda

Wanting-liking distinction

the neurobiological distinction between the 'wanting' system (mediated primarily by dopamine, generating intense motivational pull and craving) and the 'liking' system (mediated by opioid and endocannabinoid signaling, generating actual hedonic pleasure and satisfaction), where in addiction the wanting system decouples from the liking system

Suppressed drives

psychological forces that continue operating unconsciously after being denied conscious acknowledgment, finding indirect and often destructive outlets through somatic symptoms, behavioral patterns, projection, and enantiodromic reversals rather than disappearing entirely

Ironic process theory

the cognitive mechanism by which attempts to suppress thoughts or drives result in increased frequency and intensity of those suppressed elements due to simultaneous activation of intentional suppression and unconscious monitoring processes

Rumination

the repetitive, passive focus on symptoms of distress and their causes and consequences that produces no resolution while consuming attentional bandwidth needed for adaptive problem-solving and functioning as the cognitive signature of unresolved internal conflicts

Allostatic load

the cumulative biological wear and measurable physiological costs that the body incurs from chronic, unresolvable stress including elevated cortisol, disrupted sleep architecture, immune suppression, cardiovascular strain, and impaired hippocampal function

Temporal conflict

the ongoing argument between present self and future self over resource allocation, where each stakeholder represents the same values at different time scales and operates with different leverage due to temporal discounting and cognitive depletion.

Values-based arbitration

the process of using a pre-established, ranked hierarchy of personal values as the constitutional mechanism to resolve internal conflicts between competing drives when integration has genuinely failed, where the arbitration mechanism determines which drive takes precedence based on the relative foundational importance of the values served by each drive

Compromise

a conflict resolution strategy where both parties concede something and receive partial satisfaction, resulting in a middle-ground solution that divides finite resources rather than satisfying underlying interests.

Integration test

a binary evaluation method to distinguish genuine integration from disguised compromise, where each drive's residual frustration indicates whether true integration has been achieved or if the result is still a partial satisfaction strategy.

Internal contract

a formal, written agreement between competing drives or internal stakeholders within the self that specifies what each drive gets, when and where each drive operates, what counts as a violation, and what happens when circumstances change, with explicit enforcement mechanisms and renegotiation clauses

Renegotiation

the structured process of updating or revising internal agreements when life circumstances have changed sufficiently to make the original terms no longer serve the underlying interests they were designed to protect

Emotional validation

the process of acknowledging and accepting the emotional reality of internal drives without dismissing, minimizing, or contradicting those emotions, thereby creating conditions for genuine negotiation and cooperation among drives rather than covert sabotage

Veto power

the constitutional authority of a specific internal drive to permanently block any decision within a defined domain, preventing that decision from entering negotiation and overriding all other drives' arguments, when the decision would result in irreversible, catastrophic, or identity-destroying consequences

Bright-line rule

a clear, unambiguous boundary that admits no exceptions, no interpretation, and no in-the-moment negotiation, designed to eliminate the structural unfairness of momentary decision-making where immediate drives have disproportionate access to emotional activation and rationalization

Internal peace through negotiation

a state of internal coherence and calm that emerges when multiple competing drives in the mind learn to communicate honestly, hear each other's interests, broker agreements, and honor those agreements over time, resulting in a reliable process for handling tension rather than the absence of conflict

Internal coherence

the condition where all parts of the mind have evidence through consistent practice that the system works, that speaking up leads to being heard, that agreements get honored, and that no drive will be permanently exiled, creating trust that produces quiet and peace

Self-led system

a governance structure where drives activate but turn to Self (the mediator, awareness, compassionate facilitator) to address concerns rather than seizing control, with the activated drive saying 'what should we do?' indicating trust that Self will hear, take concern seriously, and factor it into decisions