ABSTRACT
The person is the integrated experience of four different psychological systems. They are the “I,” psychological selves, feelings, and personal reality. The person regulates prefrontal/limbic systems, primarily the NS, to maintain their normative operating conditions. Because the “normative operating condition” operates automatically and nonconsciously, it has been frequently construed to be a static state system. It is a constantly moving neurological process. The “I” of the person was described in Chapter 5 as the experience of the biological orienting function of the person. Psychologically, it is used as a cursor, locating the person to whatever the brain is unable to automatically process. In its stable state condition, the NS is classified as the psychological self. When it is disequilibrated and is in the process of homeostatically restoring itself to its stable state condition, it is experienced as feelings. And finally, when the NS is engaged in the external environment, both social and physical, it is experienced as personal reality, which is a set of rules about how to behave and experience itself in different interpersonal interactions and to solicit validational feedback to feed the affect hunger of the NS and associated orientation nervous systems.
