Separation Conflict

A separation conflict belongs to the ectoderm and is relayed through the cerebral cortex. It arises from one's experience of an unexpected, serious problem with sensory contact - either the loss of desired contact, or the presence of unwanted contact - which one interprets as proof of one's existential isolation from life source.

"Contact" means relating with something or someone in physical reality, through the five senses, but especially through touch. (The other senses are variants of touch: "touching the sound," "touching the visual," "touching the smell," etc)

A separation conflict is rooted in one of the most fundamental biological needs: the need to locate ourselves in time and space and to locate "morsels" (or dangers) through our sensory apparatus. (The sensory functions arose from the archaic sensory function of the digestive tract, analyzing morsels entering the gullet) The cerebral cortex evolved to manage these sensory functions, and the ectodermal tissues it relays — including the epidermis, corneas, sensory epithelia, and the mucosal linings of body passages — are the biological substrates of contact and connection.

Separation conflicts relay through the pre-motor sensory cortex, the sensory cortex, and the post-sensory cortex. Crossover applies, so that relays in the right-side sensory cortices govern sensory tissues on the left side of the body, and vice versa.

Separation conflicts can involve any of the five senses:

• Auditory contact — a problem with hearing (involving the vestibulocochlear nerve)
• Smell/scent contact — a "stink" conflict or scent separation, involving the lining of the nose, sinuses, and the very back of the throat
• Taste — the conflict will involve the tastebuds
• Visual contact — when thwarted, leads to visual separation conflicts (involving the cornea) or conflicts related to trying to see a means of escape (involving the retina). In humans, over 90% of our sensory information comes through the visual cortex.
• Touch — the largest sensory organ is the skin. When there is a separation conflict involving touch, it affects:
  • the epidermis, either in a localized area or, if it is a general (whole-body) separation (such as separation from or a desired separation from a place), it will appear as points (pocks) all over the body.
  • the periosteum, when the touch-separation is severe ("brutal") and carries a self-devaluation quality: its sensitive nerve plexus produces stinging, radiating "rheuma" pain (or "cold burning") during the active conflict and again at the epi-crisis.

Conflict-Active Phase Patterns

Two ectodermal patterns of squamous epithelium run opposite sensitivity courses. Both ulcerate during the active conflict and replenish in the healing phase, but the sensation is reversed.

• Outer Skin Pattern — the epidermis and the squamous linings that evolved outward from the outer skin (e.g. laryngeal and bronchial mucosa, nasal membrane, milk ducts, bladder, ureter, urethra, vagina, cervix, rectal mucosa). Sensitivity drops during the active conflict: the surface thins, dries, and goes numb in the area corresponding to the lost or unwanted contact. The biological purpose of that numbness is to dull the registering of the very contact whose loss (or unwanted presence) is the conflict — the same self-protective "forgetting" seen, at the level of memory, in a separation constellation (below). In the healing phase the tissue replenishes with inflammation, itching, and pain or heightened sensitivity — what conventional medicine often diagnoses as eczema, psoriasis, shingles, chicken pox, or other dermatological conditions — with a further spike of sensitivity around the epi-crisis.
• Gullet Mucosa Pattern — the squamous mucosa that migrated inward from the gullet (e.g. mouth and pharynx, esophagus, the small curvature of the stomach, bile and pancreatic ducts, coronary arteries and veins, paranasal sinuses), together with the sensitive nerve plexus of the periosteum and periodontium. Here the course reverses: ulceration with pain and heightened sensitivity during the active conflict — stinging, radiating "rheumatism" in the periosteum, colic or heartburn in the mucosa — then numbness through the healing phase, with pain returning sharply at the epi-crisis (e.g. angina or heart attack, stomach or esophageal colic).

(The periosteum is wired both ways: its underside belongs to the cerebral medulla, its sensitive upper surface to the cerebral cortex. That upper surface is why it can carry the separation pattern's "rheuma" here — and also why it supplies the borrowed healing-phase pain of new-mesoderm self-devaluation programs; see Self-Devaluation Conflict)

The side of the body affected depends on laterality and the relationship type (if any): a separation involving a mother-child type relationship will affect the non-dominant side; a partner-type separation will affect the dominant side. Or, the separation may not involve someone with whom there's a relationship. In this instance, the specific area of skin or epithelium affected corresponds to the area of the body associated with the missing or unwanted sensory contact.

Psychological Effects

When there is a constellation of two (or more) active separation or brutal separation conflicts in both hemispheres, there are memory problems (especially short-term memory) and there can be sensory hallucinations (manufactured sensory information). The biological purpose of memory loss is to "forget" the separation, which provides relief from the biological conflict in the psyche. The purpose of sensory hallucinations is to "warn" the individual.