At the top, though cut off, is the term "shared intentionality", which I place at the top, beyond the 'sphere', to signify it's transpersonal nature. Shared Intentionality is the state that human nervous systems are genetically programmed to 'drift towards', hence, it is the overarching organizing principle referred to in evolutionary sciences as "group selection".
Within the sphere is the way shared intentionality is operationalized within individual human nervous systems - and the minds they give rise to. The shame-pride continuum is derived from the work of Colwyn Treverathen, as I think it covers the general "flux", or dynamics of our human phenomenology. I don't have any interest in Eckmans, Panksepps or any other theory of "basic emotions" as the only RELEVANT functional terms with regard to the complex social-dynamics of human functioning is shame and pride. All other emotions find their place within this general continuum, and indeed, many are largely derivative from them (happiness, joy, laughter = pride states; depression, anxiety, fear = shame states). Furthermore, the shame-pride continuum speaks to the social processes that maintain "shared-intentionality", and as such, deserve pride of place in any overarching theory of human functioning.
These two poles of self-experience are organized by an unconscious process that does two things at once; it is best to think about this process as occurring within a 3 dimensional space, with a stressor acting upon the organism, leading to a state of cognitive dissonance. When the dissonance is registered, a "turn" happens; the turn is both towards something as well as away from something. The "away" part is dissociation; whereas the "toward" part is idealization. In order to maintain self-coherency (and thus remove cognitive dissonance), unconscious processes deemphasize the content that induces the affect dysregulation (the cognitive dissonance) by "finding" something good to think about and believe. It is important to bear in mind that these actions of the mind are all about maintaining a certain sense of the self as 'powerful', 'strong', and perhaps most saliently, 'invulnerable'. Dissociation and idealization operate to keep the "self" as a functionally useful mechanism that can effectively navigate the complexities of social life.
I place mirror neurons in the center based upon the mainstream belief that the nervous system is fundamentally organized around motor programs. Mirror neurons in the pre-motor areas of the parietal lobe contain information that then 'reverberates; outward to more complex social, relational and cognitive parts of consciousness; the amygdala as well is intimately connected to this process, as intentions picked up in the perceived behaviors of others which "speak" to the personal experiences of the actor, activate defense responses EVEN WHEN there is no phenomenological indication of feeling threatened. Developmental processes are such that when adaptations are made to complex social experiences, what remains 'conscious' is only the idealizations, or thoughts of self and identity, that the actor will more or less describe as being "their personality". What was dissociated at 2, 3 or later on in life, that is, the dysregulating experience which threatened the "self-system" of the organism, only speaks through the idealizations made in the present.
With respect to systems theory, understanding these shame-pride dynamics, and understanding that our species evolved under the pressure of these two ways of being in the world, I cannot think of anything more important than conventionalizing knowledge of dissociative processes in the organization of consciousness. Inasmuch as human beings act upon one another, and thus provoke one another into assuming particular self-states (that is, dissociate negative experience of self, pursue positive "images" of self), and writ-large, a species which forms a "super-system" based upon these individual, dyadic communicative dynamics, our individual dissociations, or lack of awareness of our own 'system-like behavior', ineluctably leads to what we now see in today's world: the destabilization of our planetary atmosphere, as a result of an UNRESTRAINED economic and cultural hunger for more, and more, and more. Materialism, it needs to be noted, is being used as a way too ward off the dissociated feelings of shame, anxiety, enervation and the general day to day vulnerabilities that comes with being a finite, mortal, and energy dependent creature. Our present inability to accept certain realities at the individual level (the abuse of our own "system" - both bodily and psychologically) and our obligations to others (the abuse of the relational system) will inevitably reach (because of our unfettered growth in numbers) a stage where the planet can no longer harbor our existence.
How sad!
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