Psychobiological attunement and interactive entrainment of physiological rhythms mediate attachment which regulates biological synchronicity between and within organisms (Schore, 2012). Polyrhythmic body movements carry emotional messages that make it possible for minds to be affectively ‘in sync’. The human body is innately co-ordinated in rhythmic ways adapted to communicate (Dissanayake, 2015). ‘Rhythm’ comes from the Greek Rhein, meaning ‘to flow’. It can be defined as an “ordered, recurrent alternation of strong and weak elements…a movement of fluctuation marked by the regular recurrence or natural flow of related elements…a regularly recurrent quantitative change in a variable biological process” (Dissanayake, 2015, p.6). There is a sense of movement in time and forward flow of sound and nonsound. Rhythm has to do with an ‘unfolding in time’; it is ‘the patterned course of an experience’.
Flow refers to the change or movement of something across time (Siegel, 2012). It also refers to a state of being immersed in an activity and losing self-consciousness, becoming one with the activity as the boundaries of the self become permeable. Siegel (2012) describes health as the optimal functioning of an organism that allows it to live a full and free life. Optimal functioning involves being flexible, adaptive, coherent, energised and stable (FACES) – what Siegel refers to as a FACES flow across time. Integration is a central concept underlying well-being and the river of integration is a metaphor in which the central flow of the river is harmonious while at either bank we enter states of chaos and rigidity. Chaos generally describes something that is highly unpredictable and random in a complex system. Rigidity refers to inflexible states that are predictable and unchanging. Both chaos and rigidity can be thought of as the loss of rhythm. When chaotic and rigid states become engrained, they become pathological traits. Interpersonal neurobiology sees health as emerging from optimally regulated systems that are integrated as they co-ordinate and balance the different parts into a linked whole that functions well. The health of a system emerges when a person is integrated internally and relationally in their connections with other people and the environment. In chaos and rigidity there is a lack of integration. When a system cannot differentiate and link its different components the flow of the system is not integrated and the elements are not co-ordinated and balanced. The system has lost its rhythm.
References
Dissanayake, E. (2015). Art and intimacy: How the arts began. University of Washington Press.
Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.
Siegel, D. J. (2012). Pocket guide to interpersonal neurobiology: An integrative handbook of the mind (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.