The Shape of Healing: Internal Topographies of the Psyche

This paper proposes a cross-disciplinary model for understanding the organization of the psychological system, offering a structure for the dynamic terrain of consciousness and adaptation that underlies human experience. Through the lens of an auto-ethnographical study rooted in Whole Body Knowing, the work draws upon Internal Family Systems (IFS), structural dissociation, somatic therapies, and complex-systems theory, it proposes a metaphysical home for the constellation of parts that make up the psyche. This home takes shape in the Cohesion Network Topology (CONEKT) model which details the fabric of an internal living landscape governed by laws of energy, form, and adaptation, thereby contributing a missing layer of richness and insight to psychological systems of meaning, regulation, and transformation. This knowledge is crucial to conceptualizing and realizing internal systems change in practice. The model integrates metaphors from physics (gravitational fields), ecology (resilience and phase-shifts), and physiology (homeostasis and self-healing) to illuminate how systems of consciousness naturally reorganize following trauma and again, towards healing.