Motor Conflict

A motor conflict belongs to the ectoderm germ layer and is relayed through the cerebral cortex (specifically the motor cortex). This means that, even though it involves the muscles, the conflict is actually about sensing and responding to the environment or hierarchy and one's position in it.

It's part of an organism's fight-flight-freeze function: when a biological conflict around movement originates in the psyche, the brain and nervous system relay that as a functional change in the voluntary muscle system that feels "trapped."

Unlike new mesoderm muscle programs, which involve self-devaluation and cell loss in muscle tissue, motor conflicts involve functional loss of motor control. The muscle itself is not the primary issue. The conflict content concerns the movement the organism cannot make, must not make, cannot complete, or cannot stop.

A motor conflict may involve conflict content such as:

• "I am rooted to the floor."
• "My way forward is totally blocked."
• "It is slipping through my fingers."
• "This won't get out of the way."
• "I'm stuck."
• "I can neither fight nor flee."
• "I'm trapped."

"Paralysis"

During the conflict-active phase, the affected motor function diminishes. This produces paralysis to a greater or lesser degree, from low muscle tone to weakness or impaired coordination, partial loss of voluntary control to complete paralysis. This is a functional loss, not a physical force acting on the tissue.

The biological purpose of "paralysis" is the freeze or "play-dead" reflex: the organism becomes still, slack, or unable to complete the movement as part of the meaningful response to the biological conflict in the psyche.

Because motor conflicts are ectodermal and cerebral-cortex-controlled, laterality and crossover apply. A motor conflict involving someone perceived as mother-child will affect the non-dominant side of the body. A motor conflict involving someone perceived as partner will affect the dominant side. The precise muscle group involved corresponds to the movement contained in the conflict content.

When the biological conflict resolves in the psyche, the motor program enters the healing phase. Function begins to return, but motor programs are one of the special biological programs in which the functional loss can temporarily worsen during healing. The epi-crisis of a motor conflict may appear as twitching, spasms, tremors, cramps, convulsions, or an epileptic seizure, depending on the conflict mass, tissue involved, and intensity of the program.

Complications of the Motor Program

A motor conflict is not a muscle-strength issue, not a self-devaluation conflict, and not a mechanical defect. It is a cerebral-cortex functional-loss program in which the psyche, brain, and voluntary muscle system coordinate a meaningful response to a conflict about being trapped or cornered and unable to voluntarily move in a way that is needed (to fight or to flee).

Like all special biological programs, the biological conflict is meant as a temporary process to solve a survival threat. But if the biological conflict continues without resolution, several complications begin to form:

Self-devaluation. It is nearly impossible with any ongoing motor conflict to not experience self-devaluation about the inability to use the affected muscles. When the self-devaluation conflict resolves, this produces pain and stiffness in the affected muscles, which can trigger a relapse of the the motor conflict because of feeling "trapped by my body not working."

Degeneration. Because the healing phase of a motor program is actually a temporary worsening of the functional loss, humans are prone to making new motor conflicts about feeling trapped by the healing phase symptoms. Diagnosis shock (being diagnosed with MS, ALS, Parkinson's, etc) can also trigger a motor conflict of being trapped by the disease.