Synergology

Synergology is a recent science of the body language that has developed new concepts in the field of the non-verbal. It rests on recent brain discoveries that have revealed that every physical gesture prompts some activity in the brain and conversely, any thought will create a targeted physical response from the body. Synergology has founded new concepts that so far, had not yet been described: micro-itching, micro-fixations and micro-caresses. When a contradiction between verbal information and feelings (not openly expressed) is experienced, these micro-movements will manifest themselves. This allows non-verbal communication to be observed in a new semantic field.

Synergology was invented by Philippe Turchet in 1987. It differs from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as it does not try to change the behavior of the individual and learn in what way he has been programmed. It simply tries to analyze body language using specific keys. In short, synergology is a specific discipline of body language, but has had for goal from the start to build a full dictionary of the human body, its gestures and postures. Unlike what one may think, synergology is a science, just like body language. It relies on neurology and systematic scientific experiments in the field. Through an important corpus of videos and interviews, the synergologists have been able to build a complete dictionary of gestures associated with their semantics. As a consequence, the synergology is solidly grounded and one who takes an interest and uses it daily has thousands of ways to check its validity.

Philippe Turchet, father of synergology

In every individual two faces exist: the instinctive one, ruled by impulses and sensual stimulations and desires, and the other one that is educated and conditioned. These two faces protect each other from the world in order to let the human being act and think rather freely by allowing him to say something and do another, and vice versa.

Most of the time, in order to cope with the world and one's contradictory desires, one has the choice between two different paths:

• Lie to himself: this is bad faith
• Lie to others by dressing up one's its actions

However, is that to say that we are horrible liers? No, we are simply bound bond to lie in order to live with our insolvable contradictions. OurThe words are indeed always controlled, but ourthe body, the first channel of expression of our desires, reveals what we really want. Let us listen to what the body has to say...

To better understand human beings and their gestures, the synergologists consider some basic lies, part of our everyday life, that are the consequences of our socialsociety nature. At their birth, babies show us by their cries that they are sincere, spontaneous and natural. These three qualities are a natural part of human nature. The goal of education is to lessen the strength of those qualities to let the adult function efficiently.

We can thus mention the three filters of sincerity, of spontaneity and of naturalness:

1. The sincerity filter:
   
   - Overvaluation: we lie every time our weaknesses prevent us from fitting to the image of perfection we built of ourselves. Example: during a job interview, an honest answer to the question: "Do you think you fit the job?" would be "No, I have never been in this company in this role so I cannot know that." Instead, you answer that you perfectly do, and the recruiter also prefers to hear that overvaluation lie rather than your doubts, even if he is perfectly conscious of the nature of your declaration.
   
   - Lie of agreement: This lie consists in not saying that we do not agree with our interlocutor, simply because we estimate that what we have to gain from saying so does not repay for all we have to lose by saying it. This situation happens everyday, for example with your relatives.
   
   - Lie of omission: Again, this simply consists in consciously hiding part of the truth in order to show to others a more fitting image of what one wants to be.
2. The spontaneity filter:
   
   The spontaneity could bring a certain truth in the human relationships, but to that end one has to believe in the impact of his own conscience and trust in his feelings. However, the education dissuades us from that. The feelings have since our younger age been shown as weaknesses. The child first learns to get dressed and hide his body, he will then learn how to conceal his private life from others. The homo erectus has to quickly become an homo oeconomicus when important decisions have to be taken.
   The most respectable persons are finally the one that have managed to smooth all their primitive instincts. Proof of that is the fact that our society worships the "strong silent type" and the "contemptuous woman". Just like James Bond, that conquers without failing, they are the symbol of a sanitized society.
3. The naturalness filter:
   
   Preconceived ideas are part of our everyday life. They are necessary as they enable us to survive, to adapt to our environment and to be efficient. But from these natural and necessary preconceived ideas, the human beings have shifted to a different kind of a priori. Because we have a powerful mind, we build judgments all the time and have always, when we meet somebody we do not know, a biased vision of that person.

That is to say that whatever one's honesty, one will always be lying in one's relationships with others. 

But body gestures come first and cannot be controlled. The role of synergology is to decrypt the expressions of the body in order to find the truth hidden behind the words.

One may doubt the relationship between hidden and spoken thoughts, and the body gestures: micro-itching, micro-fixations and micro-caresses. But neuroscience has brought a determining factor to synergology concerning the association of behavioral reactions and cerebral hemispheres in everyday communication. It shows clearly how spoken and hidden thoughts relate to each other and makes it possible to understand the criteria upon which emotions can be read.

According to the synergologists, there are three criteria which one can use to decrypt the emotional state of a person.

• The statue: first, one has to pay attention to what they call the statue: the global life led by the individual let traces on his body. This accumulation of traces forms the statue. This statue is what allows us to recognize someone in a glance at his gait or at his hair. For people that knows this person, the statue is loaded with affects that perspire when they accidentally cross the way of that person. One good way to evaluate how someone feels about you is to capture his first reaction when he meets you, it never lies.
• The general mindset: one has to pay attention to the general posture of the person. Is this person in a good mood, is he in a positive mindset or a negative one? The signs revealing the mindset are for example the shoulders, that can be really tensed or on the contrary relaxed - the color of the skin - the spreading of the arms alongside the body:  "are the inner part of the arms oriented toward the outside or defensively oriented backward"?
  
  

  

  In the example, the mindset of the woman is extremely positive. Her
  arms are completely open to the outside: she does not protect herself at all.

  Are the eyes of the person wide opened or rather shut? It has been proven that the more intense the brain activity the more open the eyes. For example, it has been repeatedly observed that depressive people have their right eye narrower than the left one. In some way, depressive people have stopped to reasonably digest reality so that their left brain (the more logical one) activity is low, resulting in the right eye to be narrow. In a same way, it has been observed that the body language of depressive people is less expressive. We will see later on the basic rules to understand in order to capture the mindset and the emotions hidden behind body language.
• The instantaneous emotion: the basic emotion can appear following a vision, a smell, a sound or a thought. Thus, the decrypting of one isolated emotion cannot be interpreted as itself. The observer, after having grasped the statue and the general mindset of its interlocutor, has to collect numerous (about ten) instantaneous emotions in order to know what the person thinks and how he or she feels.
  The instantaneous emotion can be read through micro-movements. As we explained earlier, there are three different types of micro-movements: micro-itching, micro-caresses and micro-fixation. These micro-movements are very different according to the position of the interlocutor: is he standing or sitting? Indeed, when an interlocutor is standing, his body moves more freely and gains importance in his mind. The micro-movements will thus be distributed throughout the body. While sitting, the body loses its importance and is replaced by the face. The micro-movements will be very different and will depend on the region concerned with the micro-movement. Let us give some quick examples. When standing, one individual feels an itching at the back of his legs: somehow he or she wants to flee from the situation. Conversely, an itching at the front of the leg indicates the need to run forward to meet the situation. It has indeed been proven that one associates the back of one's body with one's past, while the front of the body represents one's future. An itching at the legs indicates the urge to run.
  When sitting, an individual that caresses his ear feels the need to caress his interlocutor. What he is hearing pleases him and he feels an urge of sympathy towards the interlocutor and sometimes simply to himself. Whether he strokes the top or the bottom of the ear reveals whether the charming thought is of a material or a more abstract nature.
  
  

  

  Micro-caress on the top of the left ear. What the man ears pleases him.
  The thought is of material nature and more related to his logic.

Finally, we give very general rules to remember in order to efficiently catch the emotional mindset of our interlocutor:

1. The folding of the limbs on the inner part of the body indicates that somehow the person is not comfortable with the situation (however the position of the hands is the determinant point, open hands always indicate an open mind) and try to protect herself. Indeed, the natural reflex under stress is to cover our vital organs (torso and sex, crossing of the legs). Conversely, an open posture indicates an open mind.
2. The left brain is the brain of logic, the right one is the one of affectivity. The part of the body controlled by the brain is the opposite one, so that when the left hand is very active, it means the person who speaks is more dealing with affects than reason.
3. An Itching or caress of the inner part of the face always indicates that the person is really affected by the situation, whereas an itching or caress on the sides of the face rather indicates something of less importance.
4. The thumb is the finger of leadership. A hidden thumb indicates that the person is afraid to step out and take control over the situation. Likewise, each different finger has its own interpretation.