When the Triune Brain model puts you INTO drama . . .

Conventional iconography for waves does not accurately capture the movement of water, but it does have the advantage of being simple. Most people in the world can remember and reproduce a set of lines to represent waves.

Some conventions are more culturally specific, and imagining how to reproduce them can be difficult or they have been abstracted to the point that they have become symbols with meaning that has to be memorized.

和波 “Japanese waves”

I have been interested in the iconography of the Clean community and of Systemic Modelling in particular, and so when I joined a #DramaFree course in Tokyo this past summer, I took note of the color order for Triune Brain representation. I memorized it, and whenever I represented the model to myself in my notes, this is the order that I used.

So you can imagine the drama that I found myself in when I attended a training in the fall, and a fellow member taught us the model with a different order!

Afterward, checked my Clean for Teams materials, and noticed that I had first learned the model in black & white.

And this summer, in that same #DramaFree course, I had received materials in Japanese that kept the red, but used varieties of desaturated, tinted viridian for the other two layers.

The nested ellipses shape and the evolutionary brain type labels seemed to be more important than the colors. But this made me feel a bit crazy. Definitely in drama. WHY did we have Reptilian . . . Mammalian . . . and then not Human or Advanced Mammalian or something else that would stick with the category of living things theme? OR, if attached to Neo-Cortex, why not Brain Stem & Cerebellum . . . Limbic System . . . Neo-Cortex? OR, if attached to Learning Brain, why not Survival Brain . . . Social Brain . . . Learning Brain? Without some sort of consistency like this, the model is definitely lacking simplicity. The labels seem to be piling on as the model drifts further from the latest science. For example, “Reptilian” alone no longer says what it is intended to say to anyone who is up-to-date in their knowledge of reptiles.

Problems with the idea of the “reptilian brain”

MacLean’s concept of the “reptilian brain” also has its share of problems. First of all, we now know that the brains of current reptiles contain a cortex organized into layers, just like the brains of mammals. Reptiles were long thought to have a very small cortex and a large striatum (a structure more primitive than the cortex), but this idea was based on an erroneous anatomical interpretation that has since been corrected. The error was that the dorsal ventricular ridge in reptiles—a mass of neurons in their anterior brain—was thought to be analogous to the striatum in mammals, which lies in a similar position. And because the mammalian striatum is involved in executing movements in potential reward situations, a primitive, “reptilian” role was erroneously ascribed to this dorsal ventricular ridge. But subsequently, neurochemical data and the nature of this structure’s connections have shown that it is actually part of the reptile’s cortex.

Now that we know that the brains of current reptiles have such a well developed cortex, it is hard to speak in terms of a “reptilian brain” whose functions are purely visceral. And equally hard to sustain MacLean’s theory that the human brain has been built up in successive layers, the oldest of which resembles the brain of current reptiles.

Today’s mammals and reptiles do indeed have a common, “reptilian” ancestor, but we know almost nothing about the structure of its brain. It was probably simpler, somewhat like an amphibian brain today. From this common ancestor, the brains of reptiles and mammals took divergent paths of differentiation. This means that the cortex of current mammals is not “more recent” than that of current reptiles; the two evolved according to the differing constraints to which they were subjected, thus resulting in the two different forms of cortex that we see in mammals and reptiles today.

What if we simply let the brain words and evolutionary labels go? What if we said that this model is not about science at all? It’s about establishing a shared model with shared vocabulary for talking about what is going on for us internally. We can use it for self-talk and for communicating with others. The more conventional (widely used and accepted) the words and visual representation are, the better.

We can take a hint from Conscious Discipline, a “self-regulation program that integrates social-emotional learning and discipline.” Conscious Discipline’s goals in using the Triune Brain model is similar to those of Systemic Modelling:

“The goal of this model is not to turn [ourselves] into neuroscientists, but to provide a simplified brain model as a means for increasing our self-awareness so we can respond consciously to the needs of the moment.”

https://consciousdiscipline.com/methodology/brain-state-model/

The color associations here are clear: red for brain stem; blue for limbic system; green for prefrontal lobes (neo-cortex). Let’s go with these associations, simplify further, and drop all pretense of relationship with scientific knowledge of the brain. Simple, memorable, communicable … and useful — this is all that we need from this model.

What we really care about is “state” more than brain parts or when they evolved, so let’s think that through so that our labels will reflect this “state” focus.

Really we’re probably talking about whole body states rather than “brain,” but “brain states” is easier to remember than “nervous system states” or something similarly long or technical.

Two of the states seem to be about self-protection, and then the learning state happens when the self-protection is not the priority. So instead of parts of the brain or evolutionary stages, we could imagine

• Physical Protection State

• Social Protection State

• Learning State

These are a mouthful to say, and so color is still useful. The key is that the colors have to have a stable association. They can’t be changed in order to create a nicer graphic design palette. Red is already in a stable relationship with the Physical Protection State. Usage of blue and green has not been stable, but let’s say here and now that Green is always for the Learning State. Think of Green and Growth. Green and Go. Blue, admittedly, must be forced into association with the Social Protection State. Depending upon your background, thinking about “blue bloods” as people of a superior social category and the anxieties that hierarchy can induce might help to strengthen the association. I also think about the letter “b” and associate “blue” and “busy.” When I am in a Social Protection State, my mind is very busy: Who’s that? What is my position here? What is that person thinking of me? How am I going to protect my reputation?

With this level of consistency, conventionalization, and honesty about the heuristic nature of the model, I would finally be able to agree with the most common reason that the Triune Brain model is still being used:

[T]here have never really been any other models of the brain that were so simple to understand and so easy to teach.

History Module: The Triune Brain/Limbic System Model—What To Keep, What To Discard

I would be able to embrace it and teach it without drama.

What do you think, fellow SysMod-ers? Are you up for shedding the brain and evolutionary words, too, and aiming for conventionalization of color use?