About 45 years ago while driving my car; I noticed that, as I drove around a curve, the curved edge of a guard rail seemed to have a blip in it.  In fact, if I looked with my right eye, any continuous straight or curved line appeared to have a little blip in it.  For example, to me it looked like this.

This type of distortion of vision is pathognomonic of retinal disease.

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Cognitive-Motivational Structure theory is a way to integrate clinical findings with Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. Our theory is that the child adapts to her experience of caregiving by adopting one of three types of Cognitive-Motivational Structure (CMS) [i]^{, [ii], [iii]}.  Each CMS type—our idea of character structure—is composed of a social cognitive style and its related motivational focus.

Although we first recognized the CMS types in psychiatric patients, by our criteria, one CMS type is not more normal than another.  We regard persons as normal if it is likely that they will continue to function adequately in the community, with minimal personal discomfort, and without causing significant discomfort in others.

Although one CMS type is not more normal than another, the types differ from one another in their primitiveness.  Our idea, that a more primitive type is as normal as a less primitive one, differs from the common idea that primitive is abnormal. 

The social cognitive style, which distinguishes each CMS type, corresponds to one of three cognitive stages that were described by Piaget.  For that reason, the types were named for his stages.

The Operational, whose motivational focus is function and control of function, uses graded and bounded social cognition—cognition, typical of the Concrete-Operational Period, Age 8-11.

The Intuitive, whose motivational focus is getting and having, uses end-stage social cognition—cognition, typical of the Intuitive Phase, Age 5-7.

The Symbolic, whose motivational focus is identity and attachment, uses particle to particle social cognition—cognition typical of the Symbolic or Preconceptual Phase, Age 2-4.

Two things complicate this picture of CMS types.

One, Symbolics have subtypes.  Some Symbolics may have an Operational or Intuitive cast or some combination of the two—that is, Symbolics may be Pure, Intuitive, Operational, or Mixed.

The second complication is: Some individuals can employ the cognitive style of one of the others, under certain circumstances.  For example, An Intuitive may be able to do Operational in order to serve his basic motivational focus—i.e., an Intuitive may take into account an Operational customer’s point of view in order to close a deal.

Because of these two complications, categorizing a person’s CMS is not always easy.

Based on our reconstruction of patients’ early histories, we proposed that the Symbolic patient’s early care-receiving had been a bit out of tune with her, or her world; that the Intuitive patient’s care-receiving was deficient; and that the Operational patient’s care-receiving served her long-term interests. We thought that, sometime during the Concrete Operational Period, the child adopts the CMS type that adapts to her care-receiving setting.[iv]

To categorize CMS types, it is useful to think of them as syndromes—clusters of signs and symptoms that tend to appear together, and that point to an underlying or more fundamental condition—that is, the person’s motivational focus and her social cognitive style.

The Operational has an autonomous superego—judgment is internal.  She tends to prefer thinking to action, and uses defenses such as compartmentalization, undoing, isolation of affect, and intellectualization.  She is not readily influenced by momentary affect and situation.  All of these characteristics are consistent with a motivational focus on function and control of function, and reasoning that takes into account exceptions, gradations and points of view, while maintaining boundaries between social attributes.  For instance, if the social attribute is friendship, then a long-time friend, although on one occasion was inconsiderate, is still a trusted friend.  The pathological prototype of the Operational is obsessive or phobic.

In contrast to the Operational, the Intuitive has a heteronomous superego—judgments come from the outside the self—that is, one gets what one deserves, And one deserves what one gets.  The Intuitive exhibits a preference for action, ease of decision making, a tendency to mistrust, and use of acting out, externalization, denial, and rationalization.  Current momentary affects or situations often govern her assessments.  These characteristics are consistent with a motivational focus on external supplies such as acquisitions and being desired, and to end-stage reasoning—what looks good at the moment is good.  An Intuitive—the antithesis of the Operational—might totally condemn a long-time friend who, on one occasion, was inconsiderate.  The Intuitive’s pathological prototype is impulsive or narcissistic.

Symbolics, tend toward fixity or shifts, may be very controlled or impulsive or either, at different times, and may be uncompromising in their ideals and convictions, or greatly influenced by affect and situation.  Accordingly, superego function may be heteronomous or autonomous.  A Symbolic may use reversal, identification, and projection along with the other defenses.  His defenses may be strong, brittle, or transparent.  Attachment or connection to a cause or to a person may define him.  A single change may redefine him or another person.  When ignored by a clerk, one Symbolic wondered if he was invisible.  When the taxi cab driver talked to him, he no longer felt like a lost child.  The pathological prototype of the Symbolic may be overly-attached or shun attachments, and/or be thought-disordered.

Testing

Because none of the three CMS types were thought to be intrinsically abnormal, CMS theory was tested in two non-clinical populations at the Institute of Human Development at UC, Berkeley—the Oakland Growth Study for testing reliability,[v] and the Family Socialization Project for prediction of CMS types from caregiving.[vi]^{, [vii]}

To give you a taste of the kind of data we worked with, and how we made our assessments, I chose the following excerpts from prediction data.

A mother of a 9-year-old said, “One of the mothers, she never gets involved in the kid’s problems at all.  You know, she lets them figure it out for themselves.  And I, you know, still have a tendency to be a mediator and peacemaker and maybe have a tendency to get too involved in all of the kids…but…I’m a little critical of that family, BECAUSE the kids get hurt. And, uh…I just think there are times when you have to give a little direction, you know, rather than let them slug it out or fend for themselves.”

She appears to have an internalized set of values that are modulated.  She is interested in the children’s wellbeing. We categorized her as an Operational, and predicted that her adolescent would be an Operational.

Another mother, when asked if there were any universal ethical principals said, “No, I don’t think so, because people change, you know.  You may have done something in one situation, and it’s not necessarily the same thing you’d do in another situation, assuming they were exactly the same situation, six months later.  Because you’re in a different place yourself.”

She does not seem to have an internalized set of values.  They appear to change with the situation and time. We thought that she was an Intuitive, possibly an Intuitive Symbolic.  And we predicted that her adolescent would be an Intuitive, because his caregiving would be erratic.

Another mother said, “I seem to need to live through other people.  And that is how I define myself as another person. And so I don’t have another person to live through at the moment. So you know, I’m feeling like a non-person.”

Clearly, this mother is a Symbolic, who has identity issues. If all we knew about the caregiving setting was this statement, we would predict that, “if she lives through her child,” the child would become a Symbolic.  However, the interviews were rich with information about who the primary caregiver was, the father’s role, others in the household, and so on.  From the rest of mother’s interviews, we knew that caregiving was erratic, and that mother was largely absent.  So, we predicted that her adolescent would be an Intuitive.

Often, a mother’s type is the same as her adolescent’s, but as in this instance, not always.

In our reliability study, two raters, independently, agreed 76% of the time on CMS types of the subjects. In the prediction study, raters independently agreed 71% of the time on the mothers’ types, and to a lesser, but significant extent, on their adolescents’ types (56%).  Additionally in the reliability study, Four of 11 scales of the MMPI differentiated one or two CMS types from the other(s). And, Barron’s Ego Scale differentiated the three types from one another.  So, the types appear to be normal character divisions—recognized, both by raters and by some scales on the personality inventory.

In our clinical experience, Symbolic CMS types are more frequent than Intuitives, and Intuitives are more frequent than Operationals. Because of this, we were not surprised that, the most primitive CMS type—the Symbolic–was the most frequent type in normals.  In the reliability study, fifty of 74 were Symbolic, and 20 were Operational. In the prediction study, 49 of 68 mothers were Symbolic, and 17 were Operational. There were very few Intuitives, in either study ⁱⁱⁱ

We think the reason that there were very few Intuitives in either study is, because Intuitives would not be inclined to participate in longitudinal studies.

In addition to reliably categorizing CMS types in normals, and confirming that Symbolics are more frequent than Operationals, we were able to predict the CMS types of 15-year-old’s from caregiving, when they were 9, but not from caregiving, when they were 4.   Caregiving, at about 9, appears to play a role in CMS formation.

Further, a child’s CMS type from his mother’s descriptions of his behavior when he was 4 or 9 did not agree with his type from his own interviews, when he was 15.  However her descriptions of his behavior when he was 15 did agree with his type from his own interviews.  CMS type is not distinct, until some time after 9.

Our theory and findings are consistent with three developmental paths that begin to diverge during the Concrete Operational Period.

Finally, if one CMS type is not more normal than another, then changes in treatment approaches and goals should follow.[viii]

Cognitive-Motivational Structure Bibliography

The social cognition of each of three Cognitive Motivational Structures (CMSs) corresponds to one of Piaget’s stages of cognition—Symbolic, Intuitive or Operational. CMSs were first recognized in psychiatric patients. Nonetheless, although they differ in primitiveness of social cognition and motivational focus, they were not thought to be inherently abnormal. Hence, CMS theory was tested in non-clinical populations. Symbolic CMS type, whose social cognition and motivational focus are the most primitive of the three, was most frequent in two studies.  Raters were able to reliably differentiate the CMS types.  Also, one or two types differed from the other(s) in four out of 11 scales of the MMPI, while all three types differed from one another on Barron’s Ego Strength scale.  Clearly in a non-clinical population, CMS types are distinguishable entities.  Such divisions of normal populations have significant implications for treatment approaches and goals.  Caregiving setting from the interviews of the mother of a 9-year-old predicted the CMS type of that child at Age 15.  Three developmental paths, which begin to diverge during the Concrete Operational Period, are not necessarily abnormal.

ABSTRACT
The psychotherapeutic context, the abiding stance of the therapist, is singularly important in treatment embracing an understanding of character structure. The model of character structure used here is derived from an adaptation of Piaget’s work.

SUMMARY
Previously we presented our understanding of the three types of character structure. 1,2 A modified Piagetian framework provided the theoretical base for understanding the development and organization of character structure. In this paper we discuss how this organization impacts treatment.
Two clinical vignettes illustrate the need for a therapist to provide a psychotherapeutic context that is appropriate for a given character structure. We contend that the psychotherapeutic context. The abiding stance taken by the therapist should be consonant with the character structure of the patient since the patient processes all interventions, including the psychotherapeutic context, in accordance with his character structure.
Our Piagetian-based model of character structure which dissects basic abiding character types is significant for psychotherapy insofar as it helps therapists to distinguish different types of patients and to understand why different types of patients experience a given psychotherapeutic context differently.
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