Psycho-Symbolic Identity, Cognitive Maps and Cultural Models

Gestalt patterning of the human mind, of human behavior and cultural patterning, is tied critically to certain important psychological symbolic mechanisms that serve to condition and define who and what we are, both as distinct individuals, and as members of some group or other in the world. Various dimensions of this process may be identified, for instance, processes of internalization and externalization of reference or objectivation or subjectivation of knowledge and experience, but whatever the discrete processes or their general direction, it is the cumulative consequence of all these for the individual in society that is of paramount importance. Symbolisms have the capacity not only for unifying the external world of "object" experience with the internal world of subjective "experience," and of reifying meaning and information as if this were a part of the natural order, still symbolism also serves to unite the individual identity with its status-role identity as a significant member of a group. Symbolic structures cohere internally in the mind to constitute a cognitive map of the world, not just a map of the external world, but a set of reference points that serve to locate the sense of self in that world. At the same time, cultural consonance and integration depends primarily upon similar cultural models that are externalized in symbolic behavior, largely through ritual process, to foster an orientation and framework for consensus and reinforcement of internalized cognitive orientations. Religions, whether Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or even modern day Communism, are great examples of such a shared cultural model that is symbolic in structure and that serves to situate the individual in the larger world.

Understanding the important function of symbolic process in individual and cultural orientation is an important step to understanding how symbolisms can be manipulated and reconfigured in ways that permit the individual a reasonable level of alternation to assume new identities and make possible new relations in the world, while at the same time overcoming those symbolisms that serve to impede such growth and development.

It is the deliberate purpose of the Bridge to foster enriched symbolic contexts in alternative cultural settings and, at the same time, to foster enhanced understanding, participation and identification of the individual in such contexts.

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