The “conflict” referred to in the term “conflict content” is the biological conflict to which the special biological program is a response.
As long as this biological conflict remains active in the psyche, we will remain obsessed with the conflict content. This conflict content includes:
- feelings that we are trying not to feel,
- the image of reality that we are not accepting, and
- the “problem” that we are obsessing about.
Two people who experience the same event or circumstance can develop completely different conflict content (or no conflict content at all) because the meaning of a DHS and biological conflict is internal, not situational. It is created within the psyche.
The conflict content governs which special biological program comes into effect:
- if the conflict content has to do with getting or getting rid of a “morsel,” the special biological program will be endodermal
- if the conflict content has to do with protecting the body from “attack” or loss of integrity, the special biological program will be old-mesodermal
- if the conflict content has to do with “self-devaluation,” the special biological program will involve new mesoderm tissue
- if the conflict has to do with sensing and responding to the environment (including “territory”), the special biological program will involve ectodermal tissue.