That brings us to the fourth important word in the structure process. Following and during the experience, the client is in a position to internalize that new experience via words, symbols and sensations. The PS therapist can assist the client in constructing a new synthetic, symbolic map of his childhood. That new map can later be called forth in contrast and opposition to the existing maps of the world created by his childhood experiences. Those earlier maps are organizers and predictors of how a person will respond to the world in the future.
Negative history creates negatives maps of the world.
Positive history creates positive maps of the world. Synthetic symbolic maps created in structures can be used to offset the effects of earlier maps. When a client, in his present reality reacts to a situation as if it were a realization of an old negative map, he can now be in a position to consciously and unconsciously call forth the images internalized in the structure and react to that reality situation in terms of the new, more positive map. He does not have to simply replicate over and over again, the old conditionings created by the old negative events. His new maps can give him an alternative way of responding and reacting to the events in his life.