Biocognetic Education™

The Scientific Study of Human Conflict Created by Conditioned Thinking

The fundamental intent of Youth Peace Literacy is to address what prevents peace, that is, what creates conflict, individually and globbally.

BioCognetic Education™ is a completely original approach to understanding the nature and structure of human conflict at all levels – by avoiding, resolving and managing it. BioCognetic Education™ has been expressly designed to reflect the nature and structure of bullying that creates conflict – from the playground to the battlefield – in the way we have been conditioned to think and act.

Our pioneering program benefits society in two ways.

1. It helps young people cope with a growing social problem - the bullying/victim cycle.
2. As these young people grow up, it helps them avoid and reduce adult violence.

How does BioCognetic Education™ address conflict that leads to war?

By understanding the basic factors the create conflict one can address it at the primary level in the way we have been conditioned to think, starting with individual bullying that young people face everyday. Bullying not addressed in early childhood development can lead to bullying into adulthood, in domestic violence and war. In other words, the basic structure and nature of conditioned thinking that goes into creating a playground bully is essentially the same as the bully on the battlefield. Understanding the one you've understood the other.

Why don't the conventional approaches to resolving conflict work?

Understanding human conflict is conventionally addressed in a remedial, reactive way at the secondary level of “resolution” through therapeutic or moralistic means, as in the case of individual conflict, or through diplomatic or political intervention, as in the case of social conflict - or it is addressed at the tertiary level of managing conflict through judicial or military intervention. These remedial, reactive approaches do not address conflict at the primary prevention level in understanding and avoiding the fundamental psychological factors that create conflict in the conditioned way we think and act and are therefore essentially ineffective because they do not prevent conflict from happening in the first place.

How can BioCognetic Education™ help young people?

BioCognetic Education™ resources are designed to help people to understand the roots of human conflict and prevent it from happening before it escalates to a more serious level. It also gives young people the skills to find alternative humane, nonviolent means to resolve conflict when it happens. Using a unique M.A.P.S.T.A.R.S. psycho-physical martial arts component this program gives one the confidence to avoid reacting in a flight or flight manner to aggression.

More about BioCognetic Education™
The Scientific Study of Human Conflict Created by Conditioned Thinking

In order to clarify how conditioned thinking creates conflict, we have created a context for understanding the whole of psychological conditioning: how it impacts the human brain mentally, emotionally and physically, and how it extends from the playground to the battlefield. We are calling this context BioCognetic Education™ – The Scientific Study of Human Conflict Created by Conditioned Thinking.  This pioneering field is based on the initial insights of quantum physicist Dr. David Bohm, philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti and authors Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Our further enquiries enabled us to expand awareness of the nature, structure and implications of conditioned thinking that lead to human conflict at all levels. As a result, we have developed an all-inclusive multi-level conflict education framework of avoidance, resolution and management that is radically innovative.

BioCognetic Education™ is not only a comprehensive process for educating children and adults about the basic factors of conditioning that creates multi-level conflict but also more importantly it addresses the root cause of conflict so that we can learn at the primary prevention level to stop conflict before it escalates into a serious problem. From the individual to the group, conflict begins with conditioned pre-judgment. An unexamined thought can initiate a domino effect creating an array of fearful emotions, in turn triggering the biological fight-or-flight system. Although this may be necessary when there is real danger, it is inappropriate when prompted by an unverified, imagined threat. This cognitive, emotive, bio-reactive sequence produces a powerful psychosomatic reaction of conflict internally and hence externally.  As soon as we become cognizant of this process, we have the opportunity to prevent conflict created by conditioned thinking from happening.

Biocognetic Education™ uses the context of bullying to demonstrate the structure and nature of conditioning because all ages can relate to it. Young people can most easily understand psychological conditioning if it is grounded in their real life daily experiences. From the concrete rather than the abstract, they grow to understand what conditioning is, how if affects them, and how it impacts the world. The crucial key to prevention is learning the source of all bullying: prejudicial, conditioned thinking.

BioCognetic Education™ Bullying and Self-Defence Skills

BioCognetic Education™ uniquely addresses all three levels of biological conditioning – mental, emotional and physical.  While young people are learning about the fundamental structure and nature of bullying at the mental and emotional levels they are also learning a specially designed program of physical self-defence skills called S.O.S. (Safe Options Self-defence). The special set of physical self-defence skills taught gives the young person the confidence not to react unnecessarily in a freeze, fight or flight manner to a potential threat thus creating a “space” in the biologically reactive fight or flight system so it does not come into play with a conditioned reaction.  It is also more importantly designed to inhibit the reinforcement of the psychological and emotional impulsive reaction of a supposed threat.  The fight or flight system is necessary when there is a real threat but when the fight or flight system gets triggered by an image of a threat – a supposed threat – this is not an appropriate response but rather a conditioned one to what one thinks is a threat.  In other worlds since the old brain cannot tell the difference between a real or imaginary threat it reacts to both as if they were a real, immediate one.  Conversely when the old brain it taught to “fight” it not only feels the confidence to deal with a real threat but also a supposed one. In so doing one is inhibiting the reinforcement of old, psychological and emotional impulses, thereby creating a space in the biologically reactive system for fresh, new actions.

When an event occurs that disturbs us, automatic thoughts enter our brain so fast and so mechanically that we don’t notice them. And if we don’t notice them, we certainly won’t question them. Still, they affect our attitude, our body and our ability to function clearly in relationship with others. These thoughts, based on either false information or a misperception of reality, are often referred to as “cognitive distortions.”

When a conditioned thought triggers one of these distortions, it typically stimulates the bio-reactive, fight or flight survival system in the old brain. If we can counteract this with an observational viewpoint, we can see how a conditioned image (say, of a bully) can jump in and tell untruths to us about a need to protect ourselves.

But the problem occurs when we can’t see through the falsehood and the brain is reacting to it as if it were true.  Whether in bullying situations or in regular daily life, recurring cognitive distortions cause us unnecessary conflict. Even when the outer stimulus of a bully, for example, is removed, this triggering process can get internalized. This is called “looping” or “Biocognosis” as the stimulus whirls around and around, with the old brain constantly sending messages of a threat to the cognitive and emotive parts of the system, and conversely the cognitive/emotive centers reinforcing this false notion by looping back around the threat to the old brain and on it goes in an endless circuitous Mobius Strip effect.  But the fact is there is no real threat at all.

To disrupt this looping pattern, we create a safe, controlled environment where we teach young people the special set of self-protection techniques mentioned above, thus purposely triggering the flight or fight mechanism while simultaneously instilling the confidence to be able to “fight”.  In this paradoxical way the old brain fight or flight hardwired survival mechanism is being stimulated to act in an appropriate manner to a “real” threat and therefore to close down after that threat is gone so one does not carry over the image of a potential or supposed threat.  Where as in the “looping” or BioCognosis pattern stimulated by a supposed threat the pattern continues as if had a life of its own.  It creates an internal bully that constantly harasses us in self-punishing ways.  All the old brain really desires is to feel able to protect itself from harm, whether real or imaginary so we give it what it wants – to feel confident. We have found that this process has worked especially well with youth-at-risk, although it is applicable to everyone, whether they have been a victim of serious bullying or not. As the participants integrate the insights they have about conditioned thinking and the physical ability to handle hostile situations, whether real or imaginary, conditioned ideas of imagined enemies fade and automatic triggers are extinguished.

In the same way that homeopathy works through a program of “like curing like”, developing mental and physical self-protection skills cures the need to use those self-preservation skills.  The primitive brain acknowledges with confidence the newly acquired abilities, and relaxes. At the same time, the conscious brain applies its newfound insights about conditioned patterns of behaviour, and becomes aware of its potential to be creative in each fresh, new moment. Thus, BioCognetic Education™ both mentally and physically brings an enhanced proprioception, a heightened sense of awareness, to the very foundation of conflict.  The effect of this innovative educational process is profound as it not only applies to the playground bulling situation with youth but also addresses the conditioned view adults have about “enemies” which is the basis for large scale bullying called war.