The 'animal' in Hodges' model ii

The two pairs of eyes in Hodges' model are provided through the model's two axes

HORIZONTALLY: the humanistic and mechanistic.

VERTICALLY: the individual and the group.

Hodges' model: Axes & Domains
Structure AND Content :: Fight OR Flight

Before delving into this though, let's revisit the model as a template.

Structure aside, Hodges' model acts as a conceptual blank sheet. Overall, the model is also an aide-mémoire. It can prompt us to 'where' we've been, where we need to go in our data gathering, assessment, planning, interventions, evaluations: personal history, family, work and leisure. In an interview how does the patient, client, carer, student ... negotiate the domains of Hodges' model? The model can guide us in what is said, what is omitted - for whatever reason, what is significant within all this; AI-assisted or not.

These two 'horizontal' eyes prompt us to attend to safety, your own, the patient / client and other people in the vicinity. In terms of responding to 'fight', obviously this does not mean you are looking for a fight, but of course you have to be able to defend yourself. Metaphorically, Hodges' model can represent the sword and shield. We are in a fight for justice to secure health services for individuals, families, and the population.

On the side - vision for flight, what is humanistic and mechanistic.

Then, in the vertical axis, there is vision for fighting, for the individual, and the group - population.

In this interplay of person and collective, I'm reminded of Odysseus and the shout "Nobody did it!" (with other sources). It never ceases to amaze, the frequency of this conclusion throughout local, national and global politics?

The individual nightmare of Cyclops; and collective nightmare of the Panopticon.

In mental health nursing you quickly learn about the anatomy^, physiology and psychology of anxiety. Not necessarily simultaneously, but the jig-saw is there to be completed, at least as far as you can as a 1st year student - whatever your health discipline. The pieces that matter (literal keys to action) are provided by the patient, client, carer. ...

In a way it is too late when people are referred to mental health services. Too late for prevention, but given the incoherence between:

• health systems (as usually found & founded)
• government policy -
• state of nutrition - food
• advertising of foods, beverages
• life style choices
• education - health literacy
• individual
• family
• community
• national (curricula)
• NHS? National Health Illness/Disease Service

- this isn't a surprise.

Whatever an individual's sensory capacities and abilities we need to do better. With tools to facilitate situational awareness, and realise an individual's and community's potential to learn and prosper.

^Anatomy? How many of us take for granted our limbs are 'there': ready to react?

Previously: The 'animal' in Hodges' model i

Original source - prompt:
Doniger, Wendy. The Rise and Fall of Warhorses. The New York Review of Books. April 10, 2025. Volume LXXII, Number 6. pp.17-19.

The 'animal' in Hodges' model i

The New York Review of Books

'The fact that a horse has his eyes on the sides of his head identifies horses as animals of flight rather than fight, in contrast with animals like tigers, who have their eyes in the front.' p.17.

Hodges' model has two pairs of 'eyes'.

Can you see them?

Hodges' model: Axes & Domains
Structure AND Content :: Fight OR Flight

Doniger, Wendy. The Rise and Fall of Warhorses. The New York Review of Books. April 10, 2025. Volume LXXII, Number 6. pp.17-19. https://www.nybooks.com/issues/2025/04/10/

Last Word by Ann Williams

LAST WORD

In Africa, one word for now,

Another word for tomorrow,

But forty words for the past.

The elephants do not forget.

They stand close in a circle,

Turn the heaped pile of bones

This way and that, stroke

Leg-bone, thigh and skull,

Rub dust into their faces.

Sighing, they understand

The weight of grief,

How memory is carried.

by Ann Williams

Poetry, edited by Peter Abbs (RIP 2020), Small Epiphanies, Resurgence & Ecologist, Sept/Oct 2013, Issue 280: p.52-53. I cannot locate a web presence for Ann Williams, if anyone can assist please get in touch. Resurgence & Ecologist is a marvellous read. I do not subscribe but enjoy a copy when visiting a city.

P.S. I feel bad not subscribing, but you have to 'cut your cloth'. That's not the only pain factor. An online subscription may be greener, and cheaper? As with book reviews (Ethics and AI - to follow), I need a physical copy, spending enough time on-screen already. The publication is much more than a magazine. The magazine represents a change of mindset and ironically reflects former and for many 'new' ways of life.

'System 1 and 2 Modes of Thinking' in Hodges' model

 System 1 - 

"operates automatically and quickly,
with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. 

 System 2 - 

allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration." pp. 20-21.

"When we think of ourselves, we identify with System 2, the conscious, reasoning self that has beliefs, makes choices, and decides what to think about and what to do. Although System 2 believes itself to be where the action is, the automatic System 1 is the hero of the book. I describe System 1 as effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. The automatic operations of System 1 generate surprisingly complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System 2 can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps. I also describe circumstances in which System 2 takes over, overruling the freewheeling impulses and associations of System 1. You will be invited to think of the two systems as agents with their individual abilities, limitations and functions." p.21.

 

INDIVIDUAL

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

System 2: Brace for the starter gun in a race. Focus attention on the clowns in the circus. Focus on the voice of a particular person in a crowded and noisy room. Look for a woman with white hair. Search memory to identify a surprising sound. Maintain a faster walking speed than is natural for you. Monitor the appropriateness of your behavior in a social situation. Count the occurrences of the letter a in a page of text. Tell someone your phone number. Park in a narrow space (for most people except garage attendants). Compare two washing machines for overall value. Fill out a tax form. Check the validity of a complex logical argument. p.22.

System 1: Detect that one object is more distant than another. Orientate to the source of a sudden sound. Complete the phrase "bread and . . .". Make a "disgust face" when shown a horrible picture. Detect hostility in a voice. Answer to 2 + 2 = ? Read words on large billboards. Drive a car on an empty road. Find a strong move in chess (if you are a chess master). Understand simple sentences. Recognize that a "meek and tidy soul with a passion for detail" resembles an occupational stereotype. p.21.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. London: Penguin Books.

See also:

https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/philosophy/system-1-and-system-2-thinking