BEYOND DIAGNOSIS — THE ANOIKSIS MAP
HOW TO USE IT
NB This article was updated on January 15th 2022. And again on Sept 28th 2022 with images, clarifications and slight adjustments.
‘The Anoiksis Manifesto’ and ‘The Anoiksis Map’ are elements of The Anoiksis Experiment. A synaptic artwork by Roomforthoughts that aims to install the word ‘Anoiksis’ into society as an experiment for the benefit of our mutual well-being.
HOW TO BEGIN?
This is for anyone seeking to hold space for their well-being, to have a method to explore when things are not as they should be. In this it moves beyond diagnosis. Seeing our struggles not as separate labels, but different manifestations of the same mechanism that we describe as: Anoiksis.
For this method to be understood, we thus first need to add the word ‘Anoiksis’ to our vocabulary and manifest the meaning of this spectrum. With nothing new, yet radically new by it’s placement of subjectivity as its central inspiration.
We all know experiences of Anoiksis and can learn how our inner Anoiksis works. So how to begin? To understand how to get to know and map our inner Anoiksis, we begin by grasping the meaning of the word by studying its manifesto:
THE ANOIKSIS MANIFESTO (under construction)
Summarized The Anoiksis Manifesto is this:
- (Deep)Anoiksis is an altered state of experience in which sense-perceptions, forms of thought, connections and emotions may be experienced on a hyper or hypo spectrum (more of or less of).
- (Deep)Anoiksis is the creative survival mechanism of the mind/body/heart/spirit in reaction to high-impact life events. These may be positive or negative, short-term or long-term, leaving physical, mental, emotional or spiritual ‘wounds’.
- There are internal and external bio-factors that may influence our (Deep)Anoiksis.
- (Deep)Anoiksis influences our stories. How we tell them and how we act upon them. A story we experience as really real. The stories that are born in this state may help us to understand and build new physical/mental/emotional/spiritual realities (for better or worse).
- An exploration of our (Deep)Anoiksis experiences may help us to better understand our physical/mental/emotional/spiritual needs.
Learn more about The Anoiksis Manifesto HERE
Trauma
Inspired by Gabor Matè trauma is not what happens to us but how we hold space for what happens to us. Trauma can be big, small, slow, fast. Instant, or like a death by a thousand cuts. The Anoiksis Theory postulates that when something is not well, we enter a state of Anoiksis, and if things are really not well, we may enter a state of Deep Anoiksis.
The Anokisis Manifesto helps to build a model or method that uses the metaphor of an inner eye to explore ourselves and others through five lenses that hold space for the complexity of life. Everybody’s Anoiksis is unique, yet there are patterns that bind us.
THE ANOIKSIS MAP AND HOW TO USE IT
The Anoiksis Map consists of five exploration themes, five questions, or five pillars of consideration. These questions are born from The Anoiksis Manifesto inspired by the meaning of the word Anoiksis as ‘open mind’ (as described by the Anoiksis organisation). By identifying these five themes and how they are related, we can recognize and shift our inner systems: be it mental, physical, emotional or spiritual.
Five questions to investigate a journey of (Deep) Anoiksis:
- What high impact life-events have happened on a positive and or negative spectrum that may be contributing to our wellbeing? Summarized as: ‘ What Happened?’
- Which sense-perception experiences have been altered and are potentially being experienced as hyper or hypo? Summarized as: ‘What Sense-perceptions?’ or ‘What Experiences?’
- Which meaning is made privately and socially in this altered state and how does this affect our behaviour? Summarized as: ‘What Story?’ or What Meaning?’
- What catalysing or triggering biological elements are influencing our wellbeing? Summarized as: ‘What Bio-Triggers?’ or ‘What Catalysts?’ or perhaps better: What ‘Bio-Factors?’
- What is needed? Summarized as: ‘What Needs?’
When we learn to navigate our Anoiksis, the state of our Anoiksis may provide us with clues for a deeper understanding of our fundamental (unmet)needs. By identifying and serving those needs, it’s possible to move through this potentially disruptive and transformative state. To help us gain perspective, we can make an Anoiksis Map to navigate our Anoiksis.
FOR WHO IS THIS MAP?
Anyone can make an Anoiksis Map. We can make one about ourselves, or about another. We can make one about a fight between friends, a traumatic memory, or a birds-eye view of a period of psychosis or depression. We can also make one of experiences of autism, the loss of a loved one, or an operation. We can even make one about a period of society and how we could be considered as being in Anoiksis. Think about the state of Anoiksis in society before, during, and or after WW-II.
Deep Dive into understanding psychosis with Anoiksis HERE
HOW TO MAKE A MAP?
Just explore the five themes, the five questions. Place the questions on a piece of paper and begin mapping with the theory in mind. There is no set process or specific order in which to explore these themes. Depending on the situation, it may be more relevant to first look at: ‘what is needed’ or ‘what has happened?’
MAP PILLAR: WHAT EXPERIENCES?
In (Deep) Anoiksis our sense-perceptions alter more extremely — they can become hyper-sensitive or hypo-sensitive
The key: Identify how sense-perceptions are altered in an/your experience of (Deep) Anoiksis.
Example: Early recognition may be in experiences of colours changing. They may become more vivid or they may seem dull and off. Background noises may come to the foreground. We may experience time running faster or slower. We may become thin-skinned. Emotions or words may hit us very hard.
Tip: Think of it as suddenly being sensitive to sunlight. The light of the sun has not changed, the sensitivity to the light has changed.
MAP PILLAR: WHAT MEANING IS MADE — WHAT STORY?
We rely so heavily on our senses that it does not occur to us to question them. Instead, we create stories, even if that story seems unusual because it supports our experience. In this stage, we can learn to distinguish metaphorical significance from what may feel like a literal truth.
The key: Discover the link between sensory experience and the story created and distinguish metaphorical significance from literal sense-making.
Example: Early recognition can be found in understanding the play between the senses and the metaphorical and literal (underlying) meaning that is created. See a literal thought that ‘someone is poisoning me’ as potentially born from a heightened sense of taste. Or a thought of worthlessness that becomes so real that we become afraid to go outside.
Tip: Think of it as ‘waking dreaming’ in which associations can be experienced as actual realities. If you have no hope- you may literally not be able to see a way out. If you associate red with blood- you may literally see real blood. Take experiences seriously. Observe them. Embrace them. Let them go. Investigate personal significance. Recognize the underlying (hidden) need and act on it. Your own truth matters in this. Be open to the truth of others.
MAP PILLAR: WHAT HAPPENED?
In a model of Anoiksis, we enter the altered sense state of ‘waking-dreaming’ or ‘Deep Anoiksis’ in reaction to a high-impact life-events, both short-term and long-term, positive and negative, that disrupt our physical/mental/physical/emotional/spiritual systems.
The key: Identify high impact life events and discover links between these events, sensory experiences, and meaning created.
Example: Being in love. Deep loneliness. Significant loss or death. Not fitting in. A broken heart, love-sickness, a messy divorce. Moving away from loved ones, forced migration, moving to a strange city, or a trip abroad.
Tip: Positive high-impact life events can be just as stressful.
MAP PILLAR: WHAT TRIGGERS WERE PRESENT?
In our Anoiksis model, there are several major risk factors that (speculatively) influence the effects of high-impact life events pushing us over the edge into systemic (di)stress.
The key: Identify how certain internal and external bio-triggers influence altered sense-perception and meaning-making. Discover links between triggers and high-impact events.
Example: Sleep disruption, chronic stress, hormonal disruptions (puberty, menopause, pregnancy) nutritional disruption (vitamin deficiency), epigenetic intergenerational trauma (engrained ‘fight or flight’ response), fetus development, medicine, recreational drugs, poor nutrition, vitamin deficiency, etc
Tip: Think of Anoiksis as a system, imagine a knot of string. Pull-on one loop and all the others may follow…they are interconnected and often feedback on each other. Focus on the system, on the phenomena, and how they relate. Don’t focus solely on symptoms.
MAP PILLAR: WHAT IS NEEDED?
Deeply ingrained in the stories of our minds, bodies, and spirits lay our cultural metaphorical influences in relation to our needs. The clues we have gathered from the previous themes — how our senses change, the stories we create, what disruption events happened, and our triggers — can help us discover what we need.
The key: Identify the deeper, core needs by piecing together information from the other 4 themes. Create ways to practically serve those needs.
Example: Needs can be basic such as financial security, healthy nutrition, safe shelter, or loving connections. How to help a person feel safe? Needs are diverse. Some need to suppress the phenomena. Some need to make art. It is the job of ourselves, and our carers to listen to those needs and act.
Tip: Engage in authentic Deep Listening. Under a symbolic need is a need, is a need. Ask the same question five times and you will get a different answer.
THE ANOIKSIS MAP VALUE
The Anoiksis Map is based on nothing new. It says nothing new, but its storytelling structure, its premise, is refreshingly perhaps even radically new: Everything is story and a state of (Deep)Anoiksis influences how we build and experience our stories, how real these stories are for us and how we act on these stories.
Adding the concept of Anoiksis to our vocabulary, allows us to be more patient, to listen more. It allows us to recognise our own vulnerabilities as well as understand where value is to be had in exploring our needs and the needs of others. But most importantly, it allows us to make space for our stories. See them and shift them.
This is because in the space of a (Deep)Anoiksis investigation it matters less how ‘factual’ the story is, what matters is how the subjectivity of the story influences how we treat ourselves and others. If we know that the state of Anoiksis shifts our stories into hyperbolic states of enemy and ally, safe and unsafe, heroes and villains, we may think twice about manifesting and defining our legacy by these moments.
Did Will Smith hit Chris Rock in a state of (Deep)Anoiksis? If yes, what was the story that he created in the moment? What bio-factors may have played a roll? What life-events influenced this behaviour? What sense-perceptions were hyper or hypo? How will this life-event influence the Anoiksis of Chris Rock? How will it influence other stories?
If we have a feeling that we can understand something — that we can do something to shift the unknown— we have less stress. If we have less stress, we feel better, and we are better able to help others and ourselves. It’s not about making excuses, but about holding space for curiosity. If we have a method to investigate together. To depart from together, we can learn and continue together.
Art Therapy or Therapeutic Art?
The making of an Anoiksis Map can be a vulnerable journey. In essence it forms an alternative (self)portrait. It requires a certain set of ability and skills to do this. It requires deep listening skills as well as an ability to see and set aside ones own story and observe and hold space without judgment. It requires a creative and flexible mindset to be curious. To see what is not being seen, and ask open questions authentically. It also requires a daring to be vulnerable and open. To give expression to experiences no matter what level of artistic techniques you hold. An Anoiksis Map can be made through dance, though music, through words or no words. Most importantly it is made in a moment of time, holding temporary space for an ephemeral moment of our well-being.
UNDERSTANDING THE ANOIKSIS SPECTRUM HELPS US TO MOVE FROM PAINS TO GAINS
From: I don’t know what’s happening — I have no frame.
To: I recognize what is happening — I sense early signs of stress and see what I can do to manage.
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From: When things get worse and I finally reach out to people, no one knows what’s going on including me! My friends and family are confused.
To: I feel empowered to reach out to people in my network — friends, and family.
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From: I have to wait for professionals to get any help.
To: People in my life recognize what I’m experiencing and have a frame to help me uncover what lies beneath my experience.
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From: I am given a frame by professionals that doesn’t help me understand my experience…I have to wait for them to give me advice on what to do.
To: People in my life recognize what I’m experiencing and have a frame to help me uncover what lies beneath my experience.
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From: The story professionals tell me makes me feel hopeless and scared of my own experience.
To: If I decide I want professional help, professionals also help me make sense of what is happening and I steer my own journey, while they support me along the way.
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From: The professionals tell me not to pay attention to any of my experiences, that it’s not real and I should ignore it.
To: Professionals are curious about what I experience and how that has value and meaning for me.
From: I am all alone. I am shunned and stigmatised.I feel I am fighting my own senses, trying to make myself normal again. I am all alone in my journey — I only speak to professionals and don’t know anyone else with this experience. I have to do this by myself
To: I have a community of people who can relate to my experience and also have the frame to help me navigate my day to day experience. They are compassionate about my struggle and know that I have the strength and wisdom to navigate this. I am not alone.
THE DARKNESS OF ANOIKSIS
In The Anoiksis Manifesto we speak of Anoiksis as a landscape we carry within all of us, in which we all move around in. Our Anoiksis connects us, but can also divide us. In (Deep)Anoiksis we are not broken, we are fragmenting in the constant process of changing physical, mental, emotional or spiritual stories. But sometimes stories do not fit. Or they contradict. We speak of Deep Anoiksis if we move in depths that become beyond our control.
There is always a dark side to experiences, to our stories. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So what is the dark side of Anoiksis? Perhaps the ultimate darkness of Anoiksis is gaslighting. Gaslighting as the attempt to reject the reality and experience of the other and impose our own. Deciding what is true based on one side of a story.
Gratitude
Much thanks to all the courageous people, with or without lived experiences, who shared their stories in the public domain. Without these stories, it would not be possible to weave these patterns.
A special thanks to Meg Mateer for helping with this summary — your work on this has been invaluable!
We are curious about your reaction to ‘The Anoiksis Map’. Can you relate? Let us know what you think using the following hashtags: #AnoiksisMap, #AnoiksisManifesto, #Roomforthoughts #LabyrinthPsychotica.
Or submit your own story of Anoiksis for publication in the Beyond Diagnosis — The Anoiksis Chronicles series!
Thank you,
Jennifer Kanary
This project was born from the art project Labyrinth Psychotica. An artistic research PhD on simulating the subjective experiences of psychosis by Roomforthoughts.
