Article: An Autopoietic Conflict Model (English)
How can we get out of the pit?
Because we seem to act instinctively, and behaviour is mainly based on feeling and intuition, it is questionable whether there is a way out of this maze, so that when something happens and there is a conflict on the point breaking out, you can determine what is really going on. A solution to begin with seems to lie in our own consciousness. It is self-consciousness, the phenomenon that you can observe yourself and make critical descriptions of the private (internal) state.[18] This course helps only if you are willing and able to admit that all observation is entirely subjective. If I’m utterly convinced in a conflict of the wickedness and evil intentions of the other party and I can only see in all his words and actions that I really am right, there is not much hope.[19] But through the knowledge that my structure is unique, in fact there is no other like me in this world and knowing that it is my structure, the way I became “I” that determines the shape of the lens through which I perceive the environment, it is possible to come to yourself and see what you perceive and how you appreciate all that is highly subjective and has no connection with any objective truth. If this is achieved entirely, a person may be more modest in the awarding of the stamp of truth in what he observes. This also tells us that there is no objective external world, and that the idea of certainty about what we perceive is very dangerous. We can only find our way out of this pit, if we accept this and are willing to accept that we create the world only in cooperation with others.
So in the case of the couple the husband can investigate in himself why he is jealous and come to the realization that he is still in the grip of the vice of jealousy/envy and he can work from there to do something about it. In the other examples such practices are possible.[20]
You are the only one who can try to look at the inner workings of your own system and with the knowledge of some basic ideas, it is possible to trace your own behaviour in conflict. But for this only awareness is not enough. A human being is endowed with self-awareness that enables him, as if he were an outside observer, to make critical descriptions in language of his own internal processes. In autopoiesis, long before in modern psychological research showed that the unconscious appears to be sitting at the steering wheel, the consciousness was not seen as the core, but only as an interface between the system and the environment.[21] Self-consciousness allows to observe yourself and the outcome serves as reinvigorating the system to compensate for pertubations and learn from them. In fact it seems that self-consciousness is the turbo on our learning, or the turbo awareness of ourselves and the states in which the system operates. In the case of the just married couple the husband can only heal himself by observing his inner process of becoming jealous by asking himself why he has produced these feelings and thoughts and by feeding back the response he will heal himself..
Personally, I can say that the consciousness of the process alone is very useful to get a critical view at the own behaviour, which greatly helps in examining and changing the behaviour itself. The real results, however, come in handy when you can cut the link with the elements of the human deficiencies.