tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86409377937221322562024-02-20T07:02:52.379-05:00Transcendental ProgressionsMarc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-85145815790365473852014-10-06T07:23:00.000-04:002014-10-06T07:23:40.255-04:00Inquiry and AcknowledgmentIn my own experience with therapy, both for myself and for others and as a collaborative effort I've found that there are only a few central methods which I'm drawn to over and over. These include hypnotherapy and provocative therapy, which help to externalize defenses and make them more voluntary, internal family systems, which helps in identifying parts or roles and the burdens they carry, and for most of the 'grunt work' I use 'inquiry' from the diamond approach along with an idea called 'acknowledgment' which my psychologist friend Joe K. Fobes invented. However, even before that it takes a very particular attitude in order to make progress in uncharted emotional territory.<br />
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<span style="color: white;">Standards, Prices and Mines</span></h3>
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Most emotional issues that I come across in my own work are what I would call 'standards' issues. In other words, you're either putting up with something that you shouldn't have to or else you're expecting something unreasonable. A somewhat weaker form of this I call a 'price issue', ie how much are you "charging" or "being charged" emotionally for say friendship, love, sex, etc? With a full 'standards' issue it's not so much a matter of paying too much as it is expecting the wrong thing altogether due to, on some level, believing something that is false. Price issues are more negotiable, where ultimately you're looking for a fair 50-50 trade. This can happen when your 'parts' and another person's are in agreement regarding some primary issue, or if you've let go of your need for 'payment' in which case you can generally accept the other person's feelings.</div>
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In working with standards and price issues, the main thing you need to consider is what you're willing or unwilling to accept. It's a lot like Rosa Parks when the white person demanded she give up her seat. There's no such thing as 'compromise' in those sorts of situations, and either you'll be Rosa or you'll be the white person, and you basically have to decide whether or not you'll accept that role. In some cases, even though you'd rather say "no" (obviously, unless you like being a racist, which can happen to the best of us from time to time) you find that you can't congruently do it. This only indicates that you haven't navigated the issue enough to understand what the really important parts are yet. I call issues like this 'mines' like a land mine due to the fact that they can cause you to emotionally break down but the only thing you can do is dance around them until you've gotten far enough to dig them up and defuse them.</div>
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At any point in working with emotional issues you typically either know what to do or have no ground to stand on. In order to navigate from the latter to the former, you have to consistently reconsider what is important (ie what feelings, concepts, context), what that <i>means</i> to you or the other person (ie <i>why</i> is it important), and then what to do about it. What you do about something depends very much on what it means in the given emotional context.</div>
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With inquiry the idea is to try to untangle the mess that is your feelings, release the burdens they carry, if possible find out what your feelings are trying to tell you and eventually sort your way to freedom with the trail of hints you get. If your feelings are an impenetrable mess, you can either start by finding some way in which your standards (ie your constitution as a person) are being violated and then fight that, or you can try random things to find a positive response, ie some way in which your feelings can connect with someone else's. This is where inquiry and acknowledgment converge.</div>
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Once you have a starting point, you can begin to navigate your feelings to find out what they're about. Each feeling that emerges and which feels important is kind of like an item stuck on a shelf. The shelf may have various shapes and be at various heights, but in order to get the item off first you have to lift it, pull it away from the shelf, and then set it on the ground. This is how I typically experience the 'polarization' between parts described in IFS, and I've found that any part can carry burdens which include things like anger, sadness, jealousy (and arrogance), 'heaviness', specific complaints in the form of words, important ideas and occasionally more central (ie mine related) burdens. From time to time parts also reveal opportunities to 'open trade', when you can actually get back more than you've given without a one-sided deal.</div>
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For each of these (and other) feelings that arise, you merely sort out each feeling and allow it to present itself to you. If the feeling is 'loose' enough (ie not too polarized), then usually a deep breath in until it matches the feeling followed by a breath out with an asian-style bow either from the stomach or hips (also matching wherever the feeling is, and paying attention to the feelings on the way back up as well) will allow you to 'put the burdens down' and let them go. If the feeling 'hooks' successfully and 'deflates' properly, then you can 'drop' it back into the pool of your feelings or 'put it away' for safe keeping. If it does not, then you can try again or try something else if that doesn't work.</div>
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For more intense or important feelings this may not be enough, in which case there are a few possibilities. In many cases you might find a mine, which you can only rebury and try to move around. In some cases your feelings may get tangled and you have to release something else first in order to depolarize the part that you currently have. In other cases the feeling may come with other things, like it may include some metaphorical form or it may reveal memories and complaints and other such things, and in those cases it is necessary to sit with the feeling and relax into it until it reveals what it is about. Sometimes feelings require this just to 'thaw out' enough to be released, even though they may not reveal very much specifically.</div>
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In general, if I'm working on some emotional issues that I haven't cleared myself, either I'll be doing a lot of acknowledgment (and bowing) or else I'll be stuck and trying to find a way around. Often when working around being 'stuck' leads into a large amount of polarized energy being released, ie anger and other things that sometimes resemble sewage or otherwise feel like pure violence, which provides a starting point for more inquiry and acknowledgment. Sometimes this requires finding someone whose parts will either agree with or polarize with my own or changing modes completely.</div>
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Conversely, when I am working with someone whose dominant emotional issues are things I've already worked through (and assuming I'm coherent enough to manage therapy) then I tend to use provocative therapy and hypnotherapy more heavily. Those approaches are comparatively much more rapid and effective if you can find a clear way to apply them in order to expose a person's issues and redirect their behavior. It can also be substantially less painful than trailblazing methods thanks to the emotional support of someone more advanced. The more skilled and emotionally advanced the 'therapist', the less painful and time consuming therapy becomes.</div>
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For comparison and informational purposes, currently I am somewhere within the second phase of the Diamond Approach. I have seen brilliance, which looked like a shimmering pool of sunlight (or a lake with no lake) but which did not feel like much of anything, and later on I also saw the partly-completed integration of all of my 'essence'. It was much like Mr. Almaas described in that it was a bit like a glowing jeweled egg with some of the facets shining rather brightly while others were still clouded. At the time I had actually been thinking about 'god', and I've quickly found that 'looking at it' actually hurts because its beauty and purity emphasize the pain and stuckness of the parts which are still clouded. It is perhaps somewhat easier in that I do find that I have more choices at any point as compared to the first phase, however I cannot say that the turmoil or suffering is any less intense, and in some cases it is actually much worse.</div>
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You could easily say that my ultimate goal is to be able to look directly at 'god', or equally to be one with all of the things that people truly want in life. Right now, though, it's a very slow (although steady) process of polishing and letting go of everything that I try to keep for myself.</div>
Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-48897070082890546672014-08-17T21:10:00.000-04:002014-08-17T21:10:30.135-04:00What's in a Relationship?Previously I've written about how a relationship is essentially made up of the way you feel and interact, however I have yet to say much about the complexities of relationships and what to look for and <i>look out</i> for. A lot of that comes down to experience and perspective, which I didn't really have enough of until recently, and hopefully this will shed some light on some of the biggest questions people have about relationships.<br />
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Relationship Ethics</h2>
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Relationships are very complicated, make no mistake. Every person and situation is unique and the only way to figure things out is ultimately to throw yourself face first into the fray. However, when it comes to love relationships, people are generally looking for <i>more</i>. They want a <i>relationship</i>, something that means something, something that signifies that they are important to you. For a long time I've resisted that paradigm because I didn't want to sacrifice flexibility, but now I've begun to appreciate the value of having "a relationship" (or relationships) and what that means to people much more.</div>
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However, my idea of what "a relationship" is is still very different from what most people think of. Whenever I decide I want to have a serious relationship with someone, I commit myself to following some basic ethical rules-of-thumb that I've come up with from my own experience, as follows:</div>
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1. I won't give up on the person, even if they give up on themselves (perhaps especially). That means I won't leave someone for stupid petty reasons, and that I'll always do my best for them even if I don't necessarily know what to do. It doesn't, however, mean that I won't lose interest. I have had cases where I ultimately decided that we weren't compatible and ended a relationship on more or less neutral terms, but I do my best to avoid ending relationships on bad terms, and especially abandoning them.</div>
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2. I will not under any circumstance act out of revenge. This doesn't mean that I don't get into fights, or that they aren't shitty, but if something makes me angry I'll come out and say it up front rather than being a little shit and trying to do asshole things to 'get back at them' while pretending that nothing is wrong. That's just childish and solves nothing, and creates increasing resentment that will ultimately destroy the relationship.</div>
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3. I will never purposefully try to use a person's feelings as a weapon against them. That means I will never try to make a person that I relate to <i>jealous</i>, or to use their jealousy to get what I want if they happen to feel that way anyway. Jealousy is a pretty disgusting emotion, and can never form the basis of a healthy relationship. People who use jealousy to manipulate others are pretty disgusting, too, in my opinion.</div>
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The Next Level</h3>
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A more difficult question is when to take a relationship "to the next level", which of course means <i>sex</i>. Normally my answer to this is "whenever it feels right", by which I mean when the relationship is otherwise sound emotionally, and when we are close enough that I feel like it (and it's typically mutual at that point). The first time with any person is usually very stressful, but after that it typically takes a <i>lot </i>of the stress out of a relationship. The girl I've been with the longest would say something like "sex is the most intimate act of connection between two people", although I'm not sure that I agree with that completely (I like post-sex cuddles just as much).</div>
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There are other cases where my usual answer does not suffice, however. Sometimes there's just too much sexual frustration, and it just needs to go <i>somewhere</i>, and sometimes a person might be too afraid to accept or believe in love right away. In those cases I might allow sex to come first, but it is always a judgement call (and a very difficult one at that). In those cases I try to take extra care to ensure that I can deal with the person's <i>feelings</i> effectively, so that eventually they can relax enough to feel love and enjoy everything more. "Eventually" is usually not very long, either, since my methods (when I'm not emotionally buggered myself) have proven very effective.</div>
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Types and Compatibility</h3>
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Knowing what you want or don't want in a person is very important for making a relationship work. At one time I avoided making such a distinction because I didn't want to be a judgmental asshole, and to a point that's valid, but at the same time it's hard to be excited about someone who you don't really care for, and I'd prefer to be emotionally honest.</div>
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To me, personality is easily the most important factor. If you don't like a person's personality in general, if it doesn't attract you, and if you can't interact with them in a fun, casual way, then you're unlikely to get very far with them. Keep in mind that a person's <i>emotional problems</i> may obscure what they are really like, but you can usually catch at least glimpses if you pay close attention. There are also types that I like and get along with even though they aren't necessarily the most compatible, and some that I just can't bring myself to like. As long as you know where others stand and don't expect too much of them, things tend to work out well enough.</div>
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It is also important to know what you <i>don't</i> like. If someone has some trait that seriously turns you off, it will be hard to take them seriously emotionally, which usually does not lead anywhere good. For example, my 'main' type is probably intelligent, highly literate girls with an absurd sense of humor and preferably real interests. I also like shy, sweet types, although my compatibility varies. On the other hand, I absolutely <i>do not</i> like girls who are dumb, religious or excessively shallow. There are some exceptions, and it is more a spectrum than black-and-white, but if a girl has one of those traits it significantly hurts her chances of ever being very important to me.</div>
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Passive-Aggression</h2>
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The ugliest and most hazardous thing to look out for in any relationship is passive-aggression. This can be difficult to spot, but most commonly it shows up as things like fishing for compliments or attention, whining or unreasonable expectations. The worst thing about passive-aggression is that the person who is being passive-aggressive will almost always leave themselves some room for plausible deniability so that they can weasel their way out of taking any responsibility for their actions. They try to manipulate you into doing something, and if you do it then they shit on you and take you for granted, if you don't they may try to guilt trip or bribe you, and if you try to pin responsibility on them then they try to flip things on you. Passive-aggression is often, but not always, a huge pain in the ass to deal with. It takes delicacy <i>and</i> a firm hand to keep them from taking control of the situation and to discourage their manipulative behavior. There is also no guarantee that you will succeed either, because they can always find someone else who will enable their behavior, and they may even use this against you as an additional form of manipulation.</div>
Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-64547165652582585942014-08-16T09:41:00.000-04:002014-08-17T03:33:52.066-04:00Radical Emotional Honesty<h2>
Humanistic Therapy</h2>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Rogers" target="_blank">Carl Rogers</a> has been a long time favorite psychologist among psychologists, and his Humanistic/Client Centered Therapy has found many practitioners and advocates since its creation in the late 1930s. While Rogers' complete theory and methods are well beyond the scope of this article, his approach has several notable characteristics which were unique in his time, and which have inspired many other therapists since.<br />
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Back then, the only schools of psychology that existed are the two which are now considered "classical"; Freudian psychoanalysis (and subsets like Jung's work) and Pavlovian behaviorism. While the "classical" schools tend to treat people as machines being examined under a scientific microscope, Rogers saw people as being real humans, with real lives, real problems and real feelings. Whereas even today many schools of psychology (and especially experimental psychology) tend to refer to psychologists as though they're a separate, impartial and superior species, Rogers recognized that psychologists were just normal people also with their own problems, feelings and limitations.<br />
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The central tenet of Rogers' theory was that 'psychological maladjustment' results whenever a person "denies awareness of significant sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and organized into the gestalt of the self structure". Put another way, emotional insanity means denying any part of your experience. This is a theme that I've seen and written about over and over; in buddhism and taoism, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, the Diamond Approach, IFS and elsewhere. Rogers' approach was unique, however, in that he emphasized curing this with emotional honesty and also how important it is for the therapist to maintain a non-defensive, benevolent attitude towards their client(s). I should note that IFS emphasizes the latter but not the former.</div>
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Due to the success of Rogers' methods in treating a variety of classically "difficult" clients, and due to its allowance for both the client and therapist to be normal humans beings, Humanistic therapy spread like wildfire and is still popular today. It has also influenced numerous other schools of therapy directly or indirectly including NLP and IFS.
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Frank Farrelly and Provocative Therapy</h2>
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During the 1960s, a therapist by the name of Frank Farrelly developed an extension of humanistic therapy which he called '<a href="http://www.provocativetherapy.com/" target="_blank">provocative therapy</a>'. Unlike Rogers, who had primarily worked with people who attended therapy voluntarily, Farrelly worked in an asylum with people who often did not want therapy, and who even liked living in an asylum and getting free room, board and drugs.
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When Farrelly began practicing as a therapist, he used the same Freudian psychoanalysis that all psychologists learned at the time. After a colleague introduced him to Rogers' work, Farrelly quickly found that it caused a revolution in his practice. Suddenly he was able to achieve amazing results with clients that none of the other psychologists in his office could get an inch from. He continued practicing Rogerian client-centered therapy until a series of events caused him to accidentally discover an even more radical approach.
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The first case was a woman who was suspected of cheating on her husband, but refused to talk to any of the other therapists about it. When Farrelly was assigned to go out and interview her, she surprisingly confessed to everything, which he later learned to his embarrassment and the bemusement of his colleagues was due to the fact that he had forgotten to zip his fly in his rush to make the appointment. Later on he had a difficult schizophrenic patient which he was making no progress with after many sessions. One day with this schizophrenic, Farrelly was bored out of his mind from the patient's drolling monologue and decided to fall asleep right there on the spot. The schizophrenic was utterly shocked at this behavior and suddenly began expressing an interest in making actual progress for the first time since Farrelly had begun work with him.
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Humor and the Devil's Advocate</h2>
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After this, Farrelly began to actually purposefully employ such methods to shock and disrupt his patients out of their dysfunctional routines. He found that since a person with psychological problems generally believes absurd things, the best way to approach such a person is to take their absurdity and run with it. By taking their absurd propositions and drawing an even more absurd conclusion, by agreeing with them and then exaggerating or understating details, by mocking them in a friendly manner, by confronting them when they're lying or trying to take advantage of the situation, by purposefully misinterpreting what they say, by using puns, non-sequitur, and so on. When put together, to the client or patient it's as though their own dysfunctional behavior has become the butt of an elaborate joke. The therapist in this case is basically externalizing what he sees in the client, while exaggerating things to make it more obvious to the client how other people actually see them.
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Farrelly also liked to "play the devil's advocate", actually taking the side of the patient in continuing to display their dysfunctional tendencies. Instead of arguing with the patient and telling them to change, he would agree with them, elaborating things that they might think, listing off benefits of their dysfunctional behavior, and even encourage them to behave worse. By doing so, he was actually taking the place of the person's inner voice and driving it outside, where the person could then choose to argue against it themselves.
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In a typical situation provocative therapy takes a three-pronged approach. First, by using humor to make it obvious how other people see the client, second by playing the devil's advocate in order to allow the client to face their own inner dialogue, and third by using confrontation in order to maintain a therapeutic context and to prevent the client or patient from derailing or taking control of the interview (intentionally or otherwise).
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Emotional Honesty in Provocative Therapy</h2>
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Although provocative therapy employs many different specific techniques, the choice of their usage still comes down to doing whatever is the most emotionally honest and which has the most positive impact. To that end, humor is not necessarily appropriate in every situation, for example Farrelly admitted that when confronting a rape victim he would still have to tread very carefully and make sure that he was well calibrated before attempting anything highly provocative. Sometimes what is most appropriate is to be emotionally supportive or compassionate, and sometimes the best result is to have a client crying rather than laughing.
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Every person and situation is unique, but if you know what any human's natural tendencies are and if you are well in tune with your own feelings then it is possible to get an intuitive sense for what is most needed in any given case. However with provocative therapy this also carries a great danger, because if at any time the therapist loses their emotional composure they will end up projecting either weakness or hostility to the client. If that happens then the therapist either loses their credibility as a leader or ends up coming off as a douchebag, respectively. While the former is usually recoverable, I can hardly even recall all of the various relationships I've lost due to the latter. Sometimes I might get a second chance, but a lot of the time they never speak to me again. I've even had at least one case where I managed to chase them off during the very first interaction and then never saw them again. This can make learning provocative therapy very difficult and discouraging in spite of its profound effectiveness.
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Provocative Therapy and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy</h2>
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Provocative therapy and Ericksonian hypnotherapy are like two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, Erickson's "utilization" approach to hypnosis and therapy was often very provocative and sometimes even recognizable as standard provocative therapy. On the other, Frank Farrelly often found his clients "spacing out" during intense provocative therapy sessions, which annoyed him until someone told him about Ericksonian Hypnosis and he recognized and began utilizing those trances for therapy (although not hardly at Erickson's level). Provocative therapy can thus be seen as an extension of and as an explicit codification of Erickson's approach to therapy. The reverse, however, is less true since Erickson's work encompassed many things which provocative therapy never incorporated, such as trance phenomena, indirect associative focusing and so on.
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I should also mention that Richard Bandler and John Grinder also studied Farrelly's methods, which were highly influential especially for Richard Bandler's approach to therapy. However, they never formally codified provocative therapy (which fits poorly into the overall mechanistic model of NLP) and in spite of the fact that most of the crazy stories they tell from the early days center around provocative therapy, they hardly ever mention it (or Frank Farrelly) anywhere. This is at least one of the reasons why people who read about and train in NLP have so much trouble reproducing the results that Bandler and Grinder achieved. </div>
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Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-21128177870564637852014-07-31T20:56:00.000-04:002014-07-31T20:56:48.608-04:00ReorganizationYou may have noticed that many of the posts that used to be here have disappeared. The posts are not gone, I've just decided to split this blog into several because it covered too many subjects to keep it coherent. I tend not to stick to one subject for too long, but if I try to write about everything in one blog then posts that ought to be together end up getting split up or orphaned.<br />
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So now I have a <a href="http://fundamentalpermaculture.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blog about health and permaculture</a>, a <a href="http://tisfortyranny.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blog about politics and economics</a>, and a <a href="http://nginrng.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">blog about engineering</a>, which I never actually got to write anything about here. All of the posts related to permaculture have already been moved, however for politics and economics I intend to rewrite a lot of that differently, although I will probably re-incorporate a few of the posts that were here, eventually.<br />
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From now on this blog will be dedicated exclusively to psychology, philosophy and spirituality. I've mostly cleaned out the other off-topic posts, but I intend to make a few other changes to reflect that fact in the near future, and hopefully start posting more in general now that the organization is less restrictive.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-62874666088916855842013-04-14T17:47:00.000-04:002013-04-17T05:33:39.327-04:00Dante's InfernoIn my last article I wrote about the levels of emotional stupidity through which all of us must pass to reach freedom. Today I want to write about my actual experiences with this and some things I've learned from them. This is probably some of the most difficult stuff I've written, bringing together everything I've learned and done so far. We all participate in creating our own experience, and for most of us that experience is a nightmare, a prison made of fictions of who we think we are. If we know how, we can also create a dream of truth, a work of art. It's a battle between heaven and hell, waged constantly in your heart and mind. If you want to know heaven, first you must fight through hell. I hope to show how the battle is waged.<br />
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<b>Update:</b> added some things to the weapons list. <br />
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Symbols, Agreements & Belief</h2>
We all live in fear. Fear of living in a different universe from the one we actually live in. In the universe we live in, there is only perfection, harmony. Everything is art, everything is music. Everything, even pain, suffering, loneliness, war and death. There are no mistakes, no accidents and no coincidences. The world, just as it is, is heaven. Each of us is an artist and prophet in the unfolding masterpiece. Life is your paint and canvas. Symbols, agreements and beliefs are the tools and brushes with which you choose your colors and place your strokes.<br />
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We learn to use these tools from our parents, teachers, peers and life experiences. You can make sense of what I've written because of these learnings, because you agree that the words have a certain meaning. We each learn countless words, symbols and concepts and agree to give them certain meanings that we use to understand the world. Some of these refer to real things in our experience, while some of them refer to ideas that exist only in our minds.<br />
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As tools, we can use them to create science, art and even magic, however symbols are not the pure experiences they refer to. "Sitting in a chair" is not the experience of actually sitting in a chair, and "art" is not actually the experience of viewing a particular painting. When we believe that symbols are truth, we give them a life of their own, the tools become the user. Our accumulated knowledge becomes a wall of fog and noise, blinding and deafening us to the truth of ourselves and everything in our experience.<br />
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The Road to Hell</h2>
The path to hell starts with a single step. That step is judgment. We learn to judge from a young age. Naturally, children tend to explore and create, to seek pleasure and avoid pain. However, we learn from others; our parents, teachers, peers, pastors, etc, that when we do what they want, when we are the person they want us to be, we get rewarded with attention, praise, affection and things. When we don't, we're punished with rejection, anger, ridicule and even physical violence. We seek their attention to see ourselves, to learn who we are and what we can do in life, but out of fear of punishment and fear of not being rewarded, we accept their judgments and deny the very thing we sought.<br />
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Fear begets fear and judgment begets judgment. We learn to judge everything and everyone, ourselves most of all. Good and bad, beautiful and ugly, fat and thin, smart and dumb, perfect and imperfect, valuable and worthless. Our thoughts and words become weapons which we use against ourselves and others. We judge out of fear, in order to try to control things so our fears don't come true. Judgments are always one-sided agreements, and in our effort to control we end up doing the same thing over and over, either giving and serving while getting little back, or trying to take and manipulate while giving little to nothing in return. The imbalance generally continues until the person either snaps from giving too much, or others snap from being imposed upon; there is no peace in hell.<br />
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<h2>
The War of the Heart</h2>
The path to heaven also begins with a single step. That step is awareness. By becoming aware of when you are judging, you can decide to take a different step. This is where the real fight begins, and I suggest taking people you care about as opponents.<br />
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<h3>
Leashes & Walls</h3>
The first thing I usually notice that tells me I'm in for a fight is what I call 'leashing'. Leashing is one-sided agreements in action. Either the other person will try to control or manipulate you in some way, or they may try to hand you control (ie throwing themselves at you), or you may find yourself putting yourself at their feet. In the first two cases, I politely decline to either accept control or being controlled. In the last case, I fight to break the leash.<br />
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When you follow any leash, at its end you find what I call a 'wall'. I experience them like a solid barrier, and they're like a felt experience of the denial of self and the unwillingness to experience the pain of that denial. I used to smash into them quite painfully, but now when I realize I've hit a wall, I stop and stare it down. I'll look it over, look for a way through or around, chisel at it, smash it, punch it, kick it, ram it, and fight through it until it breaks. Ultimately, getting through the wall means acknowledgment; a full recognition of the judgments which you accepted into your identity. In my experience, the usual way to get to that point either involves yelling or crying, or both. When it comes to heart issues, it seems to be inevitable, although some people seem to change more easily than others, and it probably depends on a lot of things.<br />
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<h3>
Weapons of War</h3>
The fight out of hell is extremely difficult, and for most people (myself included) might be insurmountable without tools to aid in the fight. Here I present a list of agreements which have helped me to survive the battles thus far and to see truth where I might otherwise have been blind.<br />
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<b>Focus Your Awareness:</b> A natural consequence of judgment is that our awareness is constricted and fixated on a few limited things at the exclusion of everything else. You stop seeing, you stop hearing, you may literally close your eyes or be unable to look at what's going on. Simply by opening your eyes and looking at what's in front of you can make a big difference on whether you're able to fight or not. It may help to start by focusing your attention on random nonthreatening things to help you climb out of your head. This also means paying attention to your own feelings. They can tell you a lot about what's out of whack in your life. In Zen, they say that the path is always right in front of you. Can you hear the birds chirping? Can you see the trees sway in the wind? There is the path.<br />
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<b>Put Your Heart on the Line:</b> Putting your heart on the line means saying and doing exactly what you mean to, or at least refraining from saying or doing what you <i>don't</i> mean. This also means being honest with and about your feelings, even when you feel like shit. When things get tough, you may very well have to slow down a whole lot in order to be able to do this well.<br />
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<b>Start With What's Most Important:</b> Figure out what the most important thing to do is, and when you're sure of it, do that. Then figure out what the next most important thing is, and when you're sure of it, do that. Repeat until finished. The hard part is being sure. A trusted second (or third) opinion can be valuable here.<br />
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<b>Do Your Best:</b> You <i>will</i> screw up. You <i>will</i> blow up, you <i>will</i> crash, and you <i>will</i> have days where only the dog can understand you. It's an absolutely necessary part of all this. All you can really do is do your best, which will vary depending on how you're feeling, your health and your zodiac sign. If you've done your best, you have nothing to blame yourself for.<br />
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<b>Take Nothing Personally:</b> Everyone lives in their own experiential world. If someone else judges, ridicules, blames or tries to fight you, that comes from their own fear and pain, it has nothing to do with you. Let responsibility fall where it belongs; take responsibility for your own emotions, and to others the same. I can also point you to the beautiful <a href="http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin" target="_blank">Litany of Gendlin</a>.<br />
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<b>Question Every Assumption:</b> Curiosity and doubt are some of the most powerful tools in my arsenal. If you don't ask questions, you won't find answers. Ask good questions long enough, and good answers find you. It's doubt of the self that produces judgment, and likewise it's doubt of your judgments that sets you free of them.<br />
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<b>Know Nothing:</b> Give yourself permission not to know. It's perfectly ok to say "I don't know". This is actually probably a large part of how I keep my sanity these days; I answer most questions with "Hell if I know!". Also give yourself permission to not know who <i>you</i> are, or who other people are either. Existing in this universe means continuous change and evolution. Nothing is as solid or unchanging as we experience our concepts to be.<br />
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<b>No Merit:</b> There is no good or bad, right or wrong. Everything is perfect, and nothing you do gains you (or loses you) any points towards everything. You do what you do because you want to, simple.<br />
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<b>Throw Paint:</b> When all else fails, throw paint. Do whatever, say whatever. Usually works out ok, as long as you've got nothing else.<br />
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<b>The Stick:</b> This is one of my favorite koans, and although it's rather subtle it speaks for itself:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after
another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and
sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is
emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity.
There is no giving and nothing to be received."
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica; font-size: x-small;">Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked
Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica; font-size: x-small;">"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"
</span>
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</blockquote>
<b> </b><br />
<h2>
Dying to Live</h2>
Probably the biggest disappointment I've ever had was finding out just how difficult, painful and tedious it is to fight your way out of hell. Pain, misery, fear, anger, hatred, confusion, headaches, rinse, repeat. There's occasional glimpses of love and freedom, but just enough to frustrate you near to death. Most days it's like crawling in a barrel and rolling down a rocky hill, and feels about like dying pretty much every time. Up and down, back and forth, and I think I've forgotten what sleep is. I think the only reason I'm still able to fight is because I started seeing other people fight right along with me. It's the first time I can recall that I've gotten back exactly what I've given.<br />
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<h3>
References</h3>
The Toltec Wisdom Series (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Freedom/dp/1878424319/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366125496&sr=1-8&keywords=toltec+wisdom" target="_blank">1</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Five-Levels-Attachment-Toltec-Wisdom/dp/1938289080/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366125496&sr=1-3&keywords=toltec+wisdom" target="_blank">2</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Agreement-Practical-Self-Mastery-Toltec/dp/1878424610/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366125496&sr=1-4&keywords=toltec+wisdom" target="_blank">3</a>)<br />
<a href="http://webspace.psychiatry.wisc.edu/gustafson/docs/PositioningFinal.pdf" target="_blank">Positioning Opens Up the Lines of Sight for the Whole Situation</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Very-Brief-Psychotherapy-James-Gustafson/dp/0415950589/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366125687&sr=1-1&keywords=Very+brief+psychotherapy" target="_blank">Very Brief Psychotherapy</a> by James P. Gustafson<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Meditation-Psychotherapy-Techniques-Clinical/dp/0470948264/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366125806&sr=1-3&keywords=Zen+meditation+in+therapy" target="_blank">Zen Meditation in Therapy</a> by C. Alexander Simpkins & Annelen M. Simpkins<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Trances-People-Live-Stephen-Wolinsky/dp/096261842X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366126033&sr=1-1&keywords=trances+people+live" target="_blank">Trances People Live</a> by Stephen WollinskyMarc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-67668185499320714762013-03-10T22:10:00.003-04:002013-12-06T01:22:09.474-05:00"Relationship" is a Verb!Things have been pretty rough recently, but I'm learning a great deal and I hope to write some about it now that I have some space to think. I'm always looking for depth, and I haven't been disappointed to find it (although disappointed for other reasons, perhaps). My last few articles have been basically about relationships (sexual, mainly), but I haven't really said much about what makes a good one, or how a relationship is even defined.<br />
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<h3>
Nominalizations, Groupthink and Possession</h3>
The first thing I can say about the word "relationship" is that it's a 'nominalization', that is a verb which has been converted into a noun, and thus objectified. There are many words like this; "relationship" (to relate), "government" (to govern), marriage (to marry), etc.<br />
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Some of these words also objectify a group as an independent thing that can think, decide, etc, which is not true. Every group is made of individuals each having individual thoughts, making individual actions, and so on. When the capacity to think is attributed to a group, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vmnq5dBF7Y" target="_blank">bad things happen</a>. Words like "couple" and "government" exemplify this. Even the simple word "we" can lead you down a slippery slope.<br />
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Finally, when it comes to relationships, there is a tendency to cling to the illusion of posession. "My" boyfriend/girlfriend, "my" husband/wife, "my" country, etc. In every case, some exclusion is claimed in general by external coercion. You serve one country, one significant other, one God, etc. to the exclusion of all others, and to do otherwise is a betrayal. It is by this means that everyone is converted into a slave, to their job, their spouse, their country and so on. This is based on a fundamental distrust, and creates a lot of resentment which is ignored until things start to break at the seams.<br />
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<h3>
To Relate</h3>
To understand how a 'relationship' works and what makes it good or bad, you have to start with what actually makes it up; actions. The words you say, the gestures, touches, the jokes, laughing, provocations, teasing, activities you do together, and so on. What each person does and how they do it speaks volumes for the nature of a relationship. I should note that 'to love' is also a verb, although it can be strange to consider feelings as actions.<br />
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The most important thing is what it is you're actually interacting with. Most people are unable to see the person/people in front of them. All they can see is their own hopes and fears, or else the hopes and fears of others. Unable to see both at the same time, they can't make an intelligent compromise between their own wants and those of others, so they try to manipulate the situation to get what they want.<br />
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<h3>
To Consider</h3>
The theme of "being considerate" has come up a lot for me lately, but it hadn't really occurred to me just what it means to consider. To consider what? Well obviously, the other person's feelings. Stereotypically this is something women complain about to men, although the reverse also happens.<br />
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To be considerate is a very difficult thing to do no matter what's between your legs. Not only do you need to be able to consider the other person's feelings and context, but you also have to respect your own and strike a fair deal between them. Even if you're <i>willing</i> to do that, figuring out a person's feelings and what's important in their context is not a simple task. That's the kind of stuff psychologists have been arguing about for more than 100 years now. It occurs to me that it's not really so complicated, it's just that they try to stick really complicated names on things that are absurdly ordinary. This is also where the depth is at, and what gives relationships the potential to be great.<br />
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<h3>
To Present</h3>
If consideration is the depth, to be present is what brings the depths to the surface. What is it that you <i>present</i> when you're "being present"? No less than your awareness, attention and influence (which are also nominalizations; to be aware, to attend, and to influence). Usually these are preoccupied in thoughts; hopes, fears etc. There is an entire class of meditations (focus meditations) which focuses (facepalm here) on developing presence. This requires a practice of developing flexibility and depth of focus, shifting from the big picture to various levels of details, and expanding your senses as far as they will go, then extending your influence through your awareness. Usually people do the opposite: they look at reality, then at their desires, and try to manipulate reality to get their desires, only looking later to see if they got what they wanted.<br />
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<h3>
Deeper Meaning</h3>
This has been the topic of a few arguments I've had recently. How do you know what relationships are worth pursuing? Is it better to have just one romantic relationship or many? Where do you draw the line?<br />
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I think there are really two important points here. The first is that, in order for a relationship to be functional, it must be fair. If one partner gives everything and gets nothing back, then it isn't much of a relationship. This doesn't just mean in terms of physical things or favors, either, but also in terms of being considerate and emotional closeness. This requires that both people can see and work out a fair deal, otherwise you get dependency or co-dependency, or one person or both are getting used.<br />
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The second is that it is best to maintain only relationships which are truly awesome and which you would keep up with forever. Meaningless self-gratification is an avoidant behavior, a symptom of some imbalance in your life. Time spent satiating that instead of dealing with it is time wasted. It takes time to accumulate worthwhile relationships, but always time well spent. I think it's worth mentioning that there ought to be at least some common interests in such a relationship, although a perfect clone of yourself is obviously not reasonable to expect.<br />
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<h3>
Common Stupidity</h3>
As with everything else, there's plenty of common 'wisdom' regarding relationships which is dead wrong and yet it's how people really treat each other more often than not. This is the kind of sickness you should watch out for and either avoid or smash when you run across it. I'm not gonna plagiarize, so you can <a href="http://www.provocativetherapy.info/articles/2009/10/male-female-tribal-wisdom-by-frank-farrelly.htm" target="_blank">read it here</a>. Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-22180844601111561292013-02-23T15:48:00.001-05:002013-12-06T01:35:14.737-05:00Feminaziism ExplainedNow that I've actually had some time to acquire stats, I've been kinda surprised at what I've seen. Apparently I've got readers, regular or random, from every continent except Antarctica (screw you Antarctica!). There's a definite US/english speaking skew, but I've gotten plenty of hits from many places that aren't (and some that I'd hardly heard of). I'm rather pleased with the diversity.<br />
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The #1 most popular search that leads people here, ironically, is "is the diamond approach a cult?". I never expected that small comment to be a breadwinner, but there it is. Virtually all of the searches that lead people here are psychology related (go figure) and evenly cover the Diamond Approach, Internal Family Systems, and Milton Erickson. Psychology is definitely a big part of this blog, and there will definitely be more to follow on that, but I'm kind of disappointed that there are few if any people purposefully reading this for any other reason. For now, oh well. Part of it is probably lack of much content, or at least of content that stands out. The rest is advertising in the right places, which I am <i>very</i> lazy about, not that I don't have places I could do that. Maybe later :).<br />
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Today's article is somewhat psychology related, and is brought to you courtesy of Valentine's Day and some insane experiences I've been having recently. And no, not the "awesome" sort of insane, either. In particular, I'm referring to feminism and its consequences.<br />
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<h3>
Contradictions and Doublespeak </h3>
On the surface, feminism claims itself to represent "equality for women", i.e. sufferage, the abolishment of discrimination and exclusion, and so on. Great, awesome. Except that's not really what they're asking for, nor does that accurately represent the policies that feminists have actually pushed into law. Also, we're no longer living in the dark ages, the "glass ceiling" is nothing more than a myth today (at least in the west) and exclusive men's-only clubs and things are virtually extinct.<br />
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What you can see plainly today, rather, is a growing number of exclusive women's-only activities, clubs and so on, justified by "equality", but plainly discriminatory. And that is precisely what they want; positive discrimination. They want to have their cake and eat it, but they don't want to buy the ingredients, do the work of making the cake, or clean up the kitchen when they're done. They have "affirmative action" laws that force businesses to hire women even if they basically refuse to work or do a poor job, laws that force businesses to employ and pay (non-working) mothers, "no-fault divorce" laws that allow a woman to walk away with everything a man owns based solely on her word, and laws around rape which provide no meaningful punishment for false-accusers (and offer zero protection for men who are raped). There's your 'equality'.<br />
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And those are just the legal consequences. The social consequences are much more pervasive and insidious. "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" has increasing become the battle cry of the now feminised media. Both in advertisement and on television shows, men are now portrayed as thuggish, stupid, helpless children being 'humorously' guided only by the wise and benevolent nagging of a woman. In public school, it's now apparently mandatory for teachers to repeatedly spout the "fact" (which they pulled out of their feminist asses) that "women on average are smarter than men" (but equal!), since you see so many of them in engineering fields, or actually doing anything meaningful besides filing their nails and occupying a spot on front of a TV, of course. "Sex education" is practically nothing but pseudo-scientific misandry, thinly veiled by the paper authority of the government run school system. Men are portrayed as nothing but sex fiends and rapists, looking to fuck and chuck as many women as possible, and basically implicates them as walking STD infections or potential unplanned pregnancies.<br />
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The sort of sickness that feeds feminism (and misandry) comes from both sexes, though, and is a deeper problem than feminism itself. In female "tribal wisdom", "Welfare is only a man away", and in male "tribal wisdom", "the man is supposed to be the provider". Both sexes apparently agree that (strong, independent) women need to be taken care of by a man, nay they are entitled to it and the nearest man is obligated to do so for them immediately (in exchange for {the promise of} sex, of course). In other words, all the woman should have to do is wiggle her ass (or other parts) and the man then offers his paycheck for the mere privilege of being manipulated.<br />
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I've noticed personally that women tend to automatically place men into one of three categories. 1) Walking welfare check (ie free lunch), 2) Sex object (the thugs they actually sleep with, married women included), or 3) a creepy loser. In general, women think themselves terribly clever at being able to manipulate and shame men into these roles (and then taking advantage of the free ride), but if you refuse to comply their reality tends to fall apart.<br />
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Western women (and women in general really) tend to base their value on how good of a sex object they are, or rather how well they can control men with their bodies and whatever else. In conversations regarding relationships, they usually refer to themselves in the passive-objective form "me". "Romantic stuff should happen to <i>me</i>", "My boyfriend took <i>me</i> on a date", "My boyfriend went shopping with <i>me</i>" and so on. Rarely, if ever do you hear a woman say something like "<i>I</i> decided to do x", or "<i>I </i>took responsibility"; making themselves an active subject just does not occur to them. And yet in the same breath they want to cringe and whine about men treating them as sex objects, but they whine even louder when they <i>don't</i>. They want to be a passive object, with no responsibilities and all the privileges of a relationship, and they also want to be treated as a real person at the same time, again just as long as there are no responsibilities to this (like considering other people's feelings and needs).<br />
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<h3>
The Man Trap</h3>
In order to successfully shirk all responsibility for contributing anything to anyone, women <i>require</i> a man that they can manipulate into shouldering that responsibility on their behalf. Unfortunately, in the modern western world, governments are more than happy to assist them in forcing men at gunpoint to do their frivolous bidding. It grants politicians more control, after all, so why shouldn't they?<br />
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Probably the most obvious is that divorce courts are extremely biased in favor of women. Even a woman who has no children and contributed nothing to a relationship is entitled by law to alimony for life, to sustain the "lifestyle she's used to". If there are children, she's entitled to them, too. They came from her vagina, after all, and so they must be her sole property. And to child support, since she's a helpless (strong, independent?) woman who can't take care of them without a cash cow to pay for it.<br />
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If the man tries to do anything to protect himself, ie a prenup (or stronger contract, preferably), the woman inevitably complains that it's an "unromantic legal contract". Mind you they have no such complaints about marching down to the government office to sign your life away in an unromantic, legal <i>marriage contract</i>. And hey, they even get a big, shiny expensive rock and a huge narcissistic party thrown just for them as a bonus.<br />
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If that's not bad enough, in many places they are trying to enact laws that imply that any woman who even <i>lives with you</i> for a certain amount of time is entitled to the full benefits of marriage; ie all of a man's possessions and income. Of course, even if you avoid <i>that</i>, governments have plenty of programs; single mother ghettoes, single mother welfare and so on for which they will force you to pay taxes. Consider yourself successfully parasitized.<br />
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<h3>
Society Pays</h3>
Whenever someone tries to get privileges while neglecting any responsibility, there are negative consequences. Aside from the huge legal-economic vacuum that feminism represents, there are social consequences that are far worse.<br />
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In the UK especially, women are basically never held accountable for their actions. If a woman does something deliberate and criminal, it's written off as "she couldn't help it, she didn't know any better, she needs a counselor or therapy". As a result, women commit heinous crimes (often against men) and walk free. It's also very popular in the UK for women to abandon newborns in dumpsters, parking lots, and so on which occurs <i>all the time</i>. Of course, all they did was install "baby drops" at hospitals so now women can abandon their children at whim without facing any emotional consequences for it.<br />
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Not only that, but if a woman wants welfare without the bother of marriage, she can just have babies, then collect welfare and child support and get a free house on top of that. It's the children who really get screwed, since they're stuck with a manipulative parasite of a mother who tears the family (if there ever was one) apart at whim. They get to live in a ghetto and go to crappy schools while their mothers drink and pop prescription pills all day (and of course screw around with their thuggish boy-toy of the moment).<br />
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Indeed, the destruction of the family has created an entire generation of thuggish-whorish delinquents and criminals. And the government, of course, then steps up to "save" everyone from the criminals they created in the first place. So you get fascism as a final cherry on top.<br />
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Things aren't quite as extreme in the US or Canada, but there is still a significant burden, and a very significant degree of entitlement and demand for instant gratification that plagues most wealthy societies. Implosion from a critical mass of parasites is only a matter of sooner or later.<br />
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<h3>
A Political Movement</h3>
In no way am I trying to suggest that women are inherently insane, or parasites, or that no woman ever takes responsibility for anything, or that women are somehow less intelligent. The real problem is that, from a young age they are trained (in general) to expect infinite free lunches forever, as a part of an ongoing political movement called "Feminism" (free lunches for women only).<br />
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The thing is, regardless of what individual women may think, the women who are actively engaged in the political workings get rewarded simply for doing so. You can get funding, prestige, and political power just for whining about having a vagina and about life being totally unfair on account of that fact. Just like every other politician, they are driven by greed and power-trips.<br />
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The government also likes feminism, since it allows them to control men through women, and to control women through free-lunch programs. Ultimately, group-think makes people stupid, and totalitarians have no use for intelligent serfs. It's much easier to control a group that undermines itself through competition and groupthink than one of individuals who cooperate and think for themselves. Divide and conquer, and all that.<br />
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<h3>
A Case of Brainwashing</h3>
From a young school age forward, kids in school are indoctrinated with feminist double standards, and then especially so in "sex education", which is more like part religious part feminist propaganda. There's a long list of such double standards which degrade both men and women, and create a culture which actively enables female entitlement (to basically anything they want). The gist goes something like this:<br />
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“Us women don’t need men…<br />
…what do you mean men are on a <a href="http://marriagestrikecentral.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Marriage Strike</a>? How are we meant to cope! Grrrr.”<br />
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“Children don’t need fathers, and are probably better of without a man in their lives…<br />
…but men who walk out on their children are scum for depriving kids of a father.”<br />
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“Women are financially independent from men and can cope easily enough on their own…<br />
…but we still want – nay, demand – child support, alimony, welfare benefits for single mothers, etc.”<br />
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“Men and women are equal…<br />
…but women are better.”<br />
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“Gender roles are pure social constructs; no behaviour is naturally male or female…<br />
…but men are naturally bad and women naturally good.”<br />
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“Women are just as capable as men, if not more so, in the workplace…<br />
…but we do insist on positive discrimination/affirmative action to ensure we can succeed.”<br />
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“Women are actually stronger emotionally than men, better able to handle stress and emotional pain…<br />
…but we demand to be wrapped in legal cotton wool to protect us from the evils of sexual harassment.”<br />
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“Women are the more gentle, nurturing and caring sex…<br />
…but we want the right to gleefully abort our babies at whim.”<br />
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“Feminism is not about hating men, it’s about equality…<br />
…(insert random Andrea Dworkin or Germaine Greer quote here.)”<br />
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“Making wide generalisations about a gender is unfair and nasty…<br />
…and all men do it all the time.”<br />
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“It is terrible that women are objectified and equated with their sexual organs…<br />
…come on fellow lezzers, let’s watch The Vagina Monologues!”<br />
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“Women are not in anyway impaired by PMS…<br />
…but we reserve the right to use PMS as an excuse to justify murder.”<br />
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“There is no excuse for domestic violence or child abuse…<br />
…except having a vagina of course.”<br />
<br />
“For a woman to sleep around it means she is liberated and free…<br />
…but a man who sleeps around is a womanizing sex-crazed bastard!”<br />
<br />
(from another blog)<br />
<br />
"Many women do behave as if equality means getting their way all of the
time. True equality means equal consequences, equal effort, equal
expectations, etc. Many women want their cake, they just don’t want to
have to pay for the ingredients, make the cake or clean up the kitchen
afterwards."<br />
<br />
<h4>
Links</h4>
<a href="http://eternalbachelor.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Eternal Bachelor</a> : Scary tales of feminist reality in the UK.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-60629564104199388712013-02-10T18:42:00.003-05:002013-02-23T14:34:57.430-05:00What I Learned from PUAWhew! Recently I've been distracted by a conversation with Joe Fobes, who introduced me to a whole lot of new psychology stuff that I'll have to write about later. I've also been working 8AM to 4 or 5PM, and haven't had a whole lot of time to do anything. Now that I've got things reasonably settled, I'm going to try to get at least something written. There's plenty of topics that I haven't touched on yet, and plenty more side stuff to talk about, so as usual it's more a matter of getting it down coherently in text. And having the time and energy to do so.<br />
<br />
I've also been having an interesting conversation with <a href="http://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Jimmy</a>, who has some <a href="http://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/2012/10/hierarchical-strategies.html" target="_blank">very</a> <a href="http://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/2012/11/take-away-interpersonal-lessons.html" target="_blank">cool</a> (although sometimes hard to follow) <a href="http://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/2012/12/just-expectation-hah.html" target="_blank">insights</a> into Ericksonian Hypnosis. He also links to some very good articles on lesswrong, which I never would have been able to dig up myself. I've also been re-reading Erickson's collected works, and I've edited the <a href="http://dreamingofmeta.blogspot.com/2012/11/tao-of-psychology-part-6-erickson.html" target="_blank">second Erickson article</a> to include some clarifications and insights. If you can't tell, I've had a lot on my mind lately.<br />
<br />
Today I want to talk about something that I kind of hate, but is also kind of cool. If you've never heard of the "pick up arts", you might want to google it quickly to understand just wtf I'm talking about. Before I even start on what I thought was cool, I think I should preface it with everything that is garbage about the whole industry and the concept in general.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Lame Stuff</h3>
When I first learned about 'game', all I heard about was all the techniques, how to dress, how to make them jealous and how to tell stories about yourself. I got the stupid idea into my head that I could use hypnosis to enhance this, but could never figure out how. That sort of seemed to work the way they said it would, but none of it led to actually getting laid, nor to anything resembling a meaningful relationship. At the same time, they were saying that it doesn't matter what you say, but rather how you feel about what you're saying. I observed this directly myself; sometimes I would say virtually nothing and yet the result was far better than when I tried doing all that stupid acting crap. I decided then that hypnosis would be better used as a therapy rather than a means of control.<br />
<br />
So then I got into '<a href="http://www.realsocialdynamics.com/" target="_blank">natural game</a>', which focused around dealing with your inner state and being more 'authentic' as opposed to using techniques and acting. They had a lot more interesting things to say, but they were still incongruent in many ways. They still used a lot of cheap "techniques", in spite of the fact that they admitted that they were useless. They advocated forcing your way through your resistances, and that you should go out 7 days a week so that you don't "slip backwards" into your old ways. They also said that men and women are equal, which I agree with, but then they go on to say that if a woman is physically attractive, that is all the value she needs to 'bring to the table', whereas the man should be cool and open and level headed and provide the good time. Utter nonsense. Their focus on actual self-improvement was superficial at best, and as much as they might claim 'radical honesty' or whatever, they were all very artificial in their social interactions.<br />
<br />
Aside from that, both 'schools' spoke about eliciting jealousy and making yourself seem "higher value". Jealousy, I found, is a miserable and hateful thing to use, and you invite them to throw it right back at you when you invoke it. As for being "higher value", that's all about living through your own values congruently. That's a topic for another time, however. Flirting is really very, very stupidly simple. All you're doing is demonstrating confidence, playfulness (and general positivity) and interest. Once you understand that, all the other crap they say is superfluous and often backwards. Two out of three works well, too.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Cool Stuff</h3>
The cool stuff I learned was more about social dynamics, and that probably made the whole thing worthwhile. There's a lot more going on in social interactions than most people are consciously aware of, but to which they respond in profound ways <i>unconsciously</i>.<br />
<br />
Probably the most ubiquitous example of this is the Reticular Activation System or RAS for short. The RAS is like a visual 'cache' for important reality-objects to pay attention to. This includes both threats (like if you saw a gun out of the corner of your eye, you'd probably freak) as well as desired things (hey, there's a hot girl/guy, or hey, there's a bag of money). When something in our RAS radar comes within our peripheral vision, we automatically look at it without thinking about it, and this happens <i>all the time</i>.<br />
<br />
One thing which is naturally almost always in our RAS is to look out for <i>alphas</i>. There's much talk in the PUA community about "being alpha", but they seem to have very little understanding of what this really means. An alpha is simply someone who acts primarily through their values (as opposed to acting through anxiety). A person who acts through their values will tend to produce their own good time, rather than needing to follow along with a group, although there are certainly degrees of 'alpha'. If you go to a club, you can easily observe the phenomena where one person in a group will be the most active leader, and everyone around them will be looking to that person to try to figure out what they should do. This has been called a "chode crystal".<br />
<br />
Most of what determines an 'alpha' from a 'beta' depends on non-verbal signals like body language, facial expressions, glances, and voice timbre. What your body projects is interpreted as being strictly <i>more true</i> than what you say. If you say something and your body language or voice projects that you don't believe it, people will think you're trying to trick them or are hiding something. <i>Alphas</i> generally project <i>values </i>which result in a distinct confidence, fluency and grace of movement, whereas betas project uncertainty and a level of disbelief in what they are doing.<br />
<br />
In addition to non-verbal signals, people will also use what is known as a "congruence test" to ascertain the social 'pecking order'. Even if a person moves or talks like an alpha, when challenged they may break down and react in a negative or beta fashion. So, people will tease you, insult you, try to manipulate you or get you to be subservient, anything to see if they can put you under them. Essentially, if you violate your own values in your response to them (or sometimes if you respond at all) then you may find your status automatically lowered. It is the <i>strength of your reality</i> or frame which determines your social status and not what you look like, how much money you make or what activities you participate in.<br />
<br />
As might be guessed, since displaying "alpha" non-verbal behavior congruently causes people to tend to follow what you are doing, it has a great potential for hypnosis. Instead of trying to copy what they are doing and use that to lead them, you get them to <i>want</i> to follow you (which they may do automatically on an unconscious level) so that you are <i>giving</i> them something when you display similarity to them. Then leading them is nearly effortless.<br />
<br />
There are also untold legions of difference social signals that mean "I want to fuck you", which also occur in degrees. One thing I was shocked by is just how quickly a person's attitude can change in that respect, sometimes flip-flopping back and forth in almost comedic fashion. The other thing that surprised me is just how sexually charged almost all casual conversations in all situations are. It seems it doesn't matter what gender you are, or whether they're in a relationship or not, sex is the number one concern for most people. I've also seen that most people are bi to at least some degree under appropriate circumstances. Weird shit, let me tell you.<br />
<br />
My general conclusion has been, aside from the three main aspects of flirting, the majority of social action should be directed to people as... well.. people. Surprise? Through a complete lack of understanding of this, PUAs fail to manage meaningful relationships, and usually end up with mentally immature people, and then complain that they don't understand. To those folks, here's a cluebat for you.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-14372074342879549692012-11-30T16:54:00.000-05:002012-12-01T12:00:50.869-05:00Irrational RationalityWell, I thought I had 'tao' basically finished, and then I found out that Jay Earley from IFS also practices the diamond approach. <a href="http://jayearley.com/what-ifs-has-to-offer-diamond-approach-inquiry" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">His article</a> on the relationship between the two is quite a bit different from mine, and mentions some things that I didn't. Apparently his books are primarily focused on IFS as 'therapy', ie goal/problem oriented, whereas the DA is very open-ended. He has worked with some DA students, but generally he keeps IFS and DA separate. Since I have the opportunity, I'm planning to shoot him some questions and see if I can get some clear(er) answers before I rewrite (and yes, I've been slacking).<br />
<br />
Today, however, I want to talk about a disturbing trend that I've seen gurgling from the annals of the interwebz. There are a few people who hold 'rationality' as an ideal, and profess that all people should live with 'rationality' as their primary standard. In IFS, you might say they had an over-analytical part, and moreover that they're trying to tell everyone that we should be led by over-analytical parts as well. Speaking 'rationally', though, my bigger complaint is that they often use logic in ways it is not meant to be used, or in ways which are incorrect or not logic at all. At the same time, they have no problem regularly begging for donations for their vaporware projects. There are two main offenders that I'm aware of, Stefan Molyneux of <a href="http://www.freedomainradio.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">freedomainradio</a> and the folks at <a href="http://www.lesswrong.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lesswrong</a>, who also run the <a href="http://www.singularity.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">singularity institute</a> and the <a href="http://appliedrationality.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Center for Applied Rationality</a>. After I've deconstructed them to death, I'll discuss what 'rationality' really is and what it really means.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Stefan Molyneux, 'Universally Preferable Behavior', and 'Real-time Relationships'</h3>
Stefan Molyneux is a libertarian activist who has an endless collection of podcasts about libertarianism, austrian economics, psychology, atheism and what he deems 'objective ethics'. While he makes some good points about government, and introduced me to anarcho-capitalism and austrian economics, I can't say that I agree with much else that he says. Several Austrian Economists have pointed out that he has no idea what he's talking about, both in regards to economics (a topic for another time) and to ethics, which is a consistent pattern with most anything he says.<br />
<br />
<h4>
"UPB"</h4>
Molyneux's pride, glory, and primary source of income is convincing people that he has discovered something miraculous; a system of 'objective' and 'universal' ethics, which he calls "<a href="http://board.freedomainradio.com/blogs/freedomain/archive/2008/09/25/universally-preferable-behavior-a-rational-proof-of-secular-ethics.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Universally Preferable Behavior</a>". His definitions of 'objective' and 'universal' are far from standard, however, as is the 'logic' he uses to justify his conclusions.<br />
<br />
At first, he acknowledges Hume's observation that you cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is', and that there is no objective quality of 'better':<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As Hume famously pointed out, it is
impossible to derive an “ought” from an “is.” What he meant by that was that <i>preference</i> in no way can be
axiomatically derived from <i>existence</i>.
It is true that a man who never exercises and eats poorly will be unhealthy.
Does that mean that he “ought” to exercise and eat well? No. The “ought” is
conditional upon the <i>preference</i>. <i>If</i> he wants to be healthy, he <i>ought</i> to exercise and eat well. It is
true that if a man does not eat, he will die – we cannot logically derive from
that fact a binding principle that he <i>ought</i>
to eat. <i>If</i> he wants to live, then he <i>must</i> eat. However, his choice to live or
not remains his own.<br />
Similarly, there is no such thing as a
universally “better” direction – it all depends upon the preferred destination.
If I want to drive to New York from San Francisco, I “ought”
to drive east. If I want to drive into the ocean from San Francisco, I “ought” to drive west.
Neither “east” nor “west” can be considered universally “better.”<br />
It is true that very few people <i>do</i> drive into the ocean, but that does
not mean that it is universally true that nobody <i>ought</i> to drive into the ocean. Principles are not democratic – or,
if they are, we once more face the problem of rank subjectivism, and must throw
the entire concept of ethics out the window.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
and acknowledges that a theory must be consistent with observed phenomena in order to be considered valid:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If I say
that gravity affects matter, it must affect <i>all</i> matter. If even one pebble
proves immune to gravity, my theory is in trouble.</blockquote>
and that preferences cannot be objective:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Preferences do not exist objectively within
reality.</blockquote>
but then (actually out of order in the book) he contradicts himself, saying:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I say that some preferences may be
objective, I do not mean that all people follow these preferences at all times.
If I were to argue that <i>breathing</i> is
an objective preference, I could be easily countered by the example of those
who commit suicide by hanging themselves. If I were to argue that eating is an
objective preference, my argument could be countered with examples of hunger
strikes and anorexia.</blockquote>
and makes arbitrary leaps over the is/ought gap:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you correct me on an error that I have
made, you are implicitly accepting the fact that it would be <i>better</i> for me to correct my error. Your
preference for me to correct my error is not subjective, but objective, and
universal.</blockquote>
Nevermind the fact that he states originally that <i>behavior </i>is what is objective, universal, and to be preferred but here he clearly states that it is the subjective <i>preference </i>which is 'objective and universal'.<br />
<br />
And, to finish it off, he 'proves' his theory in his most favorite way of doing so, circular logic (that's a fallacy for those not aware):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ol>
<li>
The proposition is: the concept “universally preferable behaviour” must be valid.<br />
</li>
<li>
Arguing against the validity of universally preferable behaviour demonstrates universally preferable behaviour.<br />
</li>
<li>
Therefore no argument against the validity of universally preferable behaviour can be valid.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
Overall the book is nothing but a bunch of pseudo-logical rhetoric designed to convince overanalytical people that morality is objective and universal. The actual content of the book is nowhere near as organized as my deconstruction of it (which I strained to manage) which makes it much easier to hide all the self-contradiction and blatant fallacy. In spite of its "logical" facade, the actual arguments are predominantly emotional, with very little real logic or reasoning and absolutely zero evidence to support the claims he makes. The rest of the book only goes downhill from what I've mentioned, with false dichotomies and the same fallacies repeated in variations.<br />
<br />
<h4>
RTR</h4>
Molyneux's other major work he calls "Real-time Relationships" or RTR for short. In spite of its name, the primary focus of RTR is neither being in the moment, nor mindful awareness of one's feelings. Instead it encourages people to analyze every social interaction they have and to judge whether the other person/people are interacting morally or not.<br />
<br />
In spite of the fact that Stefan often refers to IFS, both UPB and RTR make assumptions and recommendations that are in direct contradiction to the theory and teachings of Dick Schwartz. Molyneux often advises people to disown their families and to leave abusive relationships. While I agree that you have no obligations to stay in abusive relationships, he also promotes an attitude of judgment towards everyone (x is a bad/immoral person) and blame especially towards 'bad' parents. He also likes to play therapist, although he has never been trained in IFS or anything else, and obviously shows little comprehension of psychology in general.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Lesswrong, SI and CAR</h3>
In contrast to Stefan Molyneux, the folks at lesswrong are techno-socialists. They profess that in a short while we will develop a superhuman AI which will either make human effort completely obsolete or else destroy humanity terminator style. They too promote an absolute standard of 'rationality' which they claim will solve all of humanity's problems. However, the fallacies that plague lesswrong's arguments have some general differences from those of Molyneux. They're also somewhat better organized, which makes it much easier to dissect.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Lesswrong's Bayesian Machine</h4>
The cornerstone of lesswrong's 'rationality' is bayesian logic and game theory. In their distorted view of reality, human-level intelligence, and for that matter all truth can be achieved using only these things. They seem to be blissfully ignorant of visually-driven thought experiments, meta-logic, epistemology and ontology. They only vaguely acknowledge that psychology exists, mentioning obscure concepts like 'ugh-zones', which describe a very real aversion to confronting psychological 'burdens', but relegate their importance to the sole fact that they interfere with 'rationality' by producing cognitive bias. Their model is extremely oversimplified, to say the least, and not nearly as useful as they claim it to be.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Singularity Institute Mugs You</h4>
Springboarding off their dramatically oversimplified view of psychology and intelligence, they then take a great leap into fantasy land, predicting that in 50 years we will have a superhuman AI that will either be the ultimate nanny or the terminator. Thus, they claim, we need to start now to develop 'friendly AI' just like in an Isaac Asimov book. Even if you ignore the economic and physical problems with their vaporous theory, and the fact that they aren't actually doing AI research, and the fact that real human intelligence cannot be summarized with bayesian networks, their explanation for how we will achieve this is an insult to anyone with any knowledge of computer science.<br />
<br />
Namely, they invoke Moore's Law, claiming that since computing power tends to double every two years or so, that we will necessarily have superintelligent computers just around the corner. Ignoring (and this is a lot of ignoring) the problem that Moore's law is soon doomed to face the reality of the limits of atomic scale, the real problem is that Moore's law does not apply to AI research at all. Yes, desktop computers have become much more powerful since they were first introduced; orders of magnitudes more. However, computers still do basically the same mechanical, deterministic tasks. Computing power does not equal intelligence, so no matter how fast or how complex a desktop computer becomes, it will not become a shred more intelligent, except perhaps by means of very complex software. Software which depends on AI research that they're not doing, and which moves far slower than Moore's law.<br />
<br />
In fact, SI doesn't actually do anything at all except self-flagellating and 'brand building' (ie taking people's money). <a href="http://givewell.org/" target="_blank">Givewell</a> declined to recommend SI, commenting that they didn't actually accomplish anything, and furthermore that their argument was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager" target="_blank">pascal's mugging</a>. I consider that an accurate assessment.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Center for Applied Fallacy</h4>
As part of their campaign to 'rationalize the world', they split off an extra branch of SI which is aimed at imposing 'rationality training' on unsuspecting layfolk. Through this effort, they hope to brainwash the world into becoming good little 'rational' techno-socialists, ready to accept the blessings of their all-benevolent technological singularity dictator in 50 years. They also have an entrepreneurship program, associated with ycombinator, which has become known for ripping off investors with fraudulent tech startups. The only good thing I can say about it is that, given their general ignorance of psychology and complete lack of charisma, they aren't likely to succeed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
So What Is 'Rationality'?</h3>
In NLP, we would call the word 'rationality' a <i>nominalization.</i> A nominalization is a verb, which through the magic of the ambiguity of language has been converted into a noun. The verb from which 'rationality' is derived is 'to reason'. So what does it mean to reason? Put simply, reasoning is the capacity to represent and solve problems without having the actual problem in front of you. Reasoning includes thought experiments, meta-analysis, logic, questioning and hypothesis.<br />
<br />
In the past there has been much controversy over whether reasoning or empiricism is more useful for discovering truth, and even whether 'truth' can be known at all (it can't, but that's a topic for another time). Over the past century, however, we've pretty much come to the conclusion that they must be used together (reason + evidence = science) in order to achieve results, and even then there is an uncertain element that requires imagination (ie, coming up with theories that interpret the raw data).<br />
<br />
Far from being an ideal to live up to, reasoning is something which requires constant questioning of everything in order to remain useful. It is, at best, combined with evidence under proper conditions in order to come to a better understanding of how things work, and at worst fundamentally limited in accuracy thanks to the map-territory distinction and recursive complexity. While there is a definite place for reason and evidence in discovering truth, there is also far more to life and being human. Both lesswrong and Stefan Molyneux seem to be trying, in contrast, to reduce humans to mere machines.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-47026280874941164272012-11-28T04:29:00.000-05:002012-12-01T11:57:23.914-05:00Consumed by ConsumerismAlright, I've been busy polishing up the "Tao of Psychology" series, making minor corrections, adding clarifications, rewording things and so on. I'm basically happy with it now, so I don't expect to be doing any more editing on that in the future. I had also been contemplating rewriting manifesto and sins, but ultimately I decided they don't need it for the moment. I'll probably end up rewriting them at some point so that they flow better, but it's not a top priority. I'm still far from running out of ideas of things to write, although I feel like I need a short break after writing 'tao'. I've already got ideas for the next few articles, so expect business as usual.<br />
<br />
Today I want to talk a bit about consumerism (durr) and how your money disappears on things you don't need. For many people, no matter how much money they make, it always seems like it disappears just as quickly. They like to spend their time 'going shopping', they associate entertainment with spending money, they load up on debt, buy an expensive car, and always need to have the latest toy to show off. They keep "perfect" lawns and then spend more money spraying poisons on those lawns to keep them 'perfect'. These people then end up working till they're 60 if they're lucky, usually at some job they despise, and then 'retire' to a life of vegetation and maybe growing vegetables if they actually have enough money and health by that point to maintain hobbies like gardening.<br />
<br />
Those that aren't so lucky end up in a retirement home somewhere where they're ignored and rot until there's nothing left of them (or until the bed sores dig completely through their body). Others will end up working as a greeter at wal-mart until they fall apart. There's a term for this lifestyle; it's called the 'rat race', and even if you win you're still a rat.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Impulse Buying</h3>
For most people in the developed world, buying things is a matter of desire. Whatever catches your attention this minute is where your money goes, no real thought goes into how much value you're actually getting for your money. As a result, most of that crap ends up piling up around your house and pretty soon you're throwing expensive things away because you really had no use for them in the first place.<br />
<br />
Consider a set of knives, for example. If you buy a set of knives at wal-mart, you end up with a bunch of knives, most of which you have no use for, and all of which are equally dull no matter which way you turn them. For the price you paid, you could have gotten a few good (or at least decent) knives that you would actually use. If you buy a cheap pair of shoes, you end up replacing them within a year, often less. For the price you would pay to replace cheap shoes every year you could buy a nice pair of shoes that would last ten years and be far more comfortable. Then you have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/8122-EZCracker-Handheld-Cracker-Separator/dp/B0035XHY08/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354089364&sr=8-1&keywords=egg+cracker" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">garbage like this</a> which works even less well than wal-mart knives.<br />
<br />
Most of this stuff will get used once (or at least a good attempt!), or maybe a few times, and then it's off to the landfill, along with the mountains of packaging it all came in. Other stuff may sit around in your drawers and on your counters, maybe to come out for a minute once a year. And this junk is where the majority of your money ends up going.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Rat Food</h3>
The rat race wouldn't be complete without genuine rat food. Not coincidentally, a large chunk of where people's money disappears to is the overpriced and nutritionally bankrupt packaged/instant foods, fast foods, and eating out in general. Not only does eating that kind of food relieve you of your hard earned dollars, but it also leaves you feeling like a caged rat. If you ever get the chance to visit a country where the people eat fresh produce as the norm, you can see a huge difference in how the people carry themselves, their general attitudes, and the striking lack of obesity and other problems which are epidemic at least in the US.<br />
<br />
Cost wise, it's not even a fair comparison. Just as an example, a TV dinner might cost you $2.50, and feed you for one meal, whereas for $4.00 I can buy a 10lb (4kg) bag of potatoes that I can cook out of for two whole weeks. For the cost of 7 TV dinners (ie one meal a day) I could eat for a whole week, and much healthier at that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Technological Inferiority</h3>
In the modern world, we all assume that technology is making our lives easier, better, and more productive. Is this really true though? With the advent of cars, we can now travel farther in less time than was ever before possible. However, you also have to change the oil and spark plugs ($), get things repaired on it ($$$), buy gas regularly ($$$), have your tires rotated, balanced, aligned and occasionally replaced ($$), potentially clean it and other things like putting air in the tires which are fairly time consuming. Then, on top of that you get to sit in rush hour traffic for hours a day going to and from the city just so you can work to pay for all that.<br />
<br />
Then you have cell phones and computers. While they started out as practical business devices, they've since evolved to become (mindless) entertainment centers; expensive, complicated, and with their own associated upkeep costs. Now you have a generation of children who live with their faces glued to a phone, and who are so shallow and mindless that they stand no chance of contributing anything meaningful to the world.<br />
<br />
And of course the myriad of plastic gadgets and knick-knacks that you can buy for just $19.95! They'll change your life forever by annoying you for several minutes before you give up on trying to make them work and throw them away.<br />
<br />
Life in general has, without question, become more complicated, faster paced and more stressful in modern times <i>because </i>of technology. We were probably better off when the most complicated thing we had was a watermill.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Bad Habits</h3>
Habits and hobbies alike can also be a life-sucking money pit. The most popular 'hobby' in the western world today is undoubtedly TV. Even the 'educational' stuff on TV generally isn't, it rots your brain, shortens your lifespan, shortens your attention span, and results in delinquency amongst children, who learn to rely on it for attention and to keep themselves entertained. Additionally, TV is both the platform through which consumerism is indoctrinated in the masses, and one platform by which governments keep their citizens intentionally misinformed.<br />
<br />
There are of course other hobbies which are destructive to one's wallet. Shopping for instance, if taken on as an activity and source of entertainment in itself, is the fastest way to see your money disappear. Malls are an epicenter of mindless indulgence and useless junk. Going out to eat, watching movies and taking expensive vacations are equally bad. Drugs or alcohol of course also cost money, and even more so if you drink your alcohol in a club or bar.<br />
<br />
There are also hobbies which can save you or even make you money. Gardening, for example. If you're skilled and well-educated on soil systems, you can grow a significant part of the food you would normally have to buy. Not only do you save money, but what you get is fresher, and with good choices of breed and soil management much more flavorful and nutritious as well. Knife sharpening is another, not only is it a very zen sort of activity, but people will pay you to sharpen their knives. You can even make a career of it. Watch, clock or bike repair are also similar. Most of these require some investment in equipment and learning, but can easily pay for themselves. There's a large list of other crafts that fit into this category (soap making, tailoring, etc), your imagination and preferences are the only limits.<br />
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<h3>
Economic Consequences</h3>
In order for a market to run efficiently, it is necessary that consumers are well educated about the products they buy, and that they choose quality over junk, given the same or similar price. If consumers will buy any garbage that is sold to them, then garbage is what the economy will gear itself to produce. Likewise, the health of an economy and the wealth of a nation both depend on savings and investment. When the average person buys a house, a car or a college degree using debt rather than saving money, then wealth cannot be built and inevitably decay and poverty will result. An economy which both accumulates debt more than savings and which produces garbage more than things of value is doomed to collapse. Similar catastrophes are bound to occur wherever people act without making the effort to understand the consequences of their actions.<br />
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<h3>
Further Reading</h3>
If you want to learn more about how <i>not</i> to be a consumer, and how you can live comfortably for ~$7,000 a year, check out <a href="http://www.earlyretirementextreme.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Early Retirement Extreme</a>.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-6140839349569171622012-11-25T23:14:00.002-05:002013-01-12T00:12:29.263-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 7: A Secular SpiritualityThe book "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein tells the story of a human boy named Mike who was born and raised on Mars by Martians following the death of his parents and all of the other colonists. When a later mission 'rescues' him and returns him to earth, he is shown to have learned superhuman capabilities from the martians. He can control his breathing, heart rate, muscle growth, and even his sense of time. After struggling for some time to fit in with the other humans, he visits several churches, hoping that the 'old ones' of earth could help him to understand what it means to be human. He finally comes to a realization of the contradictoriness of human nature, which gives him the revelation he needed both to understand his own humanity and to fully understand the teachings of the Martian 'old ones'.<br />
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After that, he becomes inspired to start a church in order to teach the people of Earth the things he has learned. He finds that the only way he can do this is by teaching them to speak martian as the human languages completely lack the words needed to describe what he knows. His church becomes very wealthy and prosperous, and several of the other large churches declare him a heretic, sending hoards of angry believers against him. Ultimately, he decides to allow them to have their way, peacefully allowing himself to be martyred to show them the true nature of their hate.<br />
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It's often said that the real world is stranger than anything in science fiction, but in this case I'd say they're not too far apart. While humans can't actually make objects disappear into another dimension with our thoughts, or breathe the martian atmosphere (95% CO2, which often freezes), we <i>can</i> learn to control our autonomic functions, our sense of time, and to transcend the artificial limits of personality to find higher meaning in life and reach profound states of awareness. We don't have to learn martian to do it, either. (although Ericksonian language might as well be)<br />
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Mr. Ali observed that if parents (or peers or teachers, etc) fail to recognize, mirror and support a child's developing essential nature, the child will dissociate and create self-image parts to protect that nature in whatever way they can. These parts become the story we tell ourselves <i>about</i> ourselves; our 'life story'. By seeing this story objectively for what it is, we can learn to unwrite it, to transcend it and live in the present instead of the past or the future. We can learn to stop our incessant inner 'doing', to center ourselves in being and to transcend the limitations of attachment to the body.<br />
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We can do this without invoking gods or ghosts, and without requiring belief in the absence of evidence. Ericksonian Hypnosis can further aid in teaching these things experientially instead of by mere advice or dogma, and to more fully unleash the potential of the human mind both in the inner journey and in living in the world. It is my conviction that this is truly the path which will allow humans to transcend war, prejudice and totalitarianism, and to evolve as a civilization to work towards what is really important and what really does good.<br />
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<h3>
Zen Hypnosis</h3>
Recently, while I was digging for free resources on Milton Erickson, I stumbled across <a href="http://www.uncommonknowledge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">uncommon knowledge</a> and their sister sites, <a href="http://www.uncommonforum.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">uncommon forum</a> and <a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hypnosisdownloads</a>. At first I took little interest in their hypnosis audio, as Erickson commented that no single induction fits perfectly for all people. However, after experiencing a definite effect from a mere text induction (that wasn't directed at me), I decided that it might be worth looking into to see if they had anything that resonated well with the theory I have described. Although it's scattered around randomly, it turns out they have a lot of things which are exactly what I was looking for in terms of converting IFS/DA into a hypnotic format.<br />
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Now that I've had the chance to try some of these, I can say more about it. Their inductions suck, so it's bring-your-own-trance. Some of them, particularly the ones Roger Elliot narrates, have very good, very Ericksonian suggestions though, and would be quite useful if you've learned autohypnosis already.<br />
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<h4>
Intro</h4>
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/relaxation-techniques/harmony-nature" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harmony with Nature</a>: Unguided visualization to boost inner peace and harmony.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/relaxation-techniques/body-relaxation" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hypnotic Body Scan Relaxation</a>: Teaches you how to quickly and deeply relax every muscle in your body. An easy way to naturally learn to enter a trance, and extremely useful in general.<br />
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<h4>
Clarity</h4>
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/personal-skills/know-yourself" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Know Yourself</a>: Introduces you to the many facets of you.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/fun-hypnosis/cloud-nine" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cloud Nine</a>: Helps you to have a very zen-like experience, and to connect with your sense of inner harmony.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/stress-management/mindfulness-meditation" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mindfulness Meditation Training</a>: Helps you to become more centered in the present, to become more detached from your emotional states, and to gain a wider perspective on things.<br />
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These three provide the fundamental skills needed to begin unwinding your personality, and help you to discover a sense of inner calm that underlies all of the chaos you normally experience.<br />
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<h4>
Heart<br />
</h4>
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/personal-development/strength-character" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Strength of Character</a>: Helps you to achieve a deep self honesty, from which your indestructible inner strength and perseverance arise.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/thinking-skills/trust-instincts" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trust Your Instincts</a>:
Teaches you to become aware of subtle physiological signals your body
sends you, to find and believe in the truth in your heart, and to
combine your instincts with your reasoning ability to improve your
judgment. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/enjoy-life/meaning-life" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Meaning of Life</a>: Teaches you to access your inner sense of meaningfulness, and to create greater meaning in your life through it.<br />
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These three work synergistically with the last three to amplify the effect of meditation, increase centeredness and awaken your inner guidance.<br />
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<br /><h4>
</h4>
<h4>
Intuition</h4>
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/personal-skills/awakening-intuition" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Awaken Intuition</a>: Teaches you to gain access to the subtle and powerful abilities of discrimination of your unconscious.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/thinking-skills/learn-mistakes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Learn from Your Mistakes</a>: Become your own best teacher, learn how to learn from your past experience and improve yourself without self-punishment.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/personal-development/comfort-zone" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Expand Your Comfort Zone</a>: Learn to expand your boundaries gradually, to invite more excitement into your life.<br />
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<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/interpersonal-skills/others-shoes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Others' Shoes</a>: Teaches you how to experience what it's like to be another person, and come to understand people better in general.<br />
<h4>
Misc</h4>
<a href="http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/enjoy-life" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Super Senses</a>: (at the bottom) Self-explanatory.<br />
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<h3>
Other Hypnotic Techniques</h3>
Recently I found a bunch of related hypnotic techniques through <a href="http://hypnosis.org/">hypnosis.org</a>. Cal Banyan's <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hypnosis.org%2Ffree-hypnosis%2Fhypnosis-hypnotherapy-articles%2Fcalvin-banyan%2Fthe-key-to-successful-hypnotherapeutic-age-regression-indentifying-the-initial-sensitizing-event.php&ei=Y-3wUIqpOIWC9gSm7YHQCQ&usg=AFQjCNHazMhb46IIrq24QBzU_3O169huyw&sig2=pllpYRug1bAMmSGYsh_Lrw" target="_blank">regression therapy</a>, C. Roy Hunter's <a href="http://www.hypnosis.org/free-hypnosis/hypnosis-hypnotherapy-articles/c-roy-hunter/client-centered-parts-therapy-revised-2009.php" target="_blank">parts therapy</a> and <a href="http://www.hypnosis.org/free-hypnosis/hypnosis-hypnotherapy-articles/c-roy-hunter/spiritual-parts-therapy-revised-2009.php" target="_blank">spiritual part therapy</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ego-State-Therapy-Gordon-Emmerson/dp/1845900790/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ego state therapy</a> and <a href="http://www.beaudryhypnosis.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Michelle Beaudry</a>'s "<a href="http://www.hypnosis.org/hypnosis-books-cds-dvds/hypnosis-hypnotherapy-books/the-spa-of-your-inner-mind.php" target="_blank">Spa of the Inner Mind</a>" unguided imagery and "<a href="http://www.hypnosis.org/free-hypnosis/hypnosis-hypnotherapy-articles/michelle-beaudry/" target="_blank">The Forgiveness Pyramid</a>". From what I understand, connecting with your inner spiritual guidance is a simple and straightforward process, and would be easy to integrate with other techniques.<br />
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And that, my friends, is the end of this series. (finally!)Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-81799263143556451182012-11-25T08:27:00.002-05:002013-02-10T16:56:40.259-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 6: Erickson RevisitedSurprise! More Milton Erickson :P. In all seriousness, though, in my first article on Erickson, I primarily covered the general character of his therapy and methods. I didn't, however, say much about trance or hypnosis, what those are, how they work and what you can do with them. While I won't be giving any instructions on how to actually induce a trance (ok I lied, sort of), I will be describing what you can do with one, how that relates to what I've been discussing, and some of the latest findings in neuroscience and how that relates to trance.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is Hypnosis?</h3>
While the word 'hypnosis' might bring up images of swinging watches, 'hypnotic gazes' and the like, hypnosis can easily be defined as any communication which causes a change in thinking in another person. Advertisement is hypnosis, teaching is hypnosis, negotiation is hypnosis, even social situations are hypnosis. All of our mental problems can be ascribed to hypnosis, and any successful treatment is also hypnosis.<br />
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More specifically, hypnosis affects people on an 'unconscious' level, where responses seem 'automatic', and not voluntary or controlled. "Un-conscious" literally refers to anything that isn't conscious. When you walk down the street, you don't think "ok now left foot go there, now right foot go there, now left foot.." and so on. You just walk, and your unconscious does all the rest. Your unconscious regulates your breathing and immune response, it filters your experience and it performs all the skills you've mastered and no longer need to think about. It also has the reigns on all of those latent mental abilities that you always hear about how we don't use them.<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Characteristics of Trance</h3>
You can't really talk about 'hypnosis' without also talking about 'trance', although like hypnosis there's a lot of superstition surrounding the phenomenon. Really a trance is just a mental context. When you go to work, you probably put yourself into a 'work trance'. When you 'fly into a rage', you're invoking an 'angry trance'. People who are good at performing or playing music will put themselves into a 'performance trance'. As you might guess, we're in some sort of trance or another <i>all the time</i>.<br />
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However, in most of these trances, 'consciousness' is in the foreground; reacting, watching and making the usual fuss. In a 'hypnotic trance', the unconscious is brought to the foreground, which is what makes this sort of trance different and special. It is not, as many hypnotists do their best to convey, a state of 'increased suggestibility'. You do not become a mindless slave or automaton. Rather, you gain more direct access to your more subtle inner machinations, to your imaginative abilities, to your autonomic functions, and to many other abilities that you probably didn't know you had.<br />
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There are certain profound differences in awareness that characterize a "trance" as opposed to the normal "waking state". Awareness of 'external reality' is essentially traded for 'internal reality', leading to what is called "rapport", where the person ignores and/or gives no significance to external reality objects. Instead, <i>ideas</i> are given reality, and additionally examined very closely to relevance to the subject <i>as a person</i>. While a person in a trance is very receptive to ideas, they will reject or defeat any ideas which they find objectionable or harmful. It is this very engaged ideation which allows access to various physiological and intellectual capacities. Also, as a result of a limited awareness of reality contexts, a person in a trance may fail to find amusement in things which they normally would in the waking state (like practical jokes).<br />
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Outwardly, there are observable differences between someone in a 'hypnotic trance' and someone who is 'normally awake'. Probably the most obvious and profound indicator is that their pupils dilate like satellite dishes. It's almost impossible to miss. They also tend to relax their muscles and take on a sort of spaced-out or stuporous look. Their movements take on a strange rigidity (catelepsy), their attitude becomes more child-like, they lose awareness of most things in reality unless you specifically point them out, and they become very literal in the way they interpret what is said to them (due to the literal interpretation of ideas). Check out the video links at the end of the first Erickson article for examples.<br />
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<h3>
Light vs Deep Trance</h3>
Most hypnotists seem to recognize that there are 'light' and 'deep' trances, and some even add in a 'medium' category, although for reasons I'll explain I don't consider that distinct. Basically, in a 'light' trance, the conscious mind is still 'awake', and can even participate in eliciting and experiencing hypnotic phenomena. In a light trance, you're generally limited to associative phenomena like positive hallucination, although you can also elicit dissociative phenomena in a localized way. For example, you could develop amnesia for your name in a light trance, but if you developed amnesia for the entire experience the trance would automatically 'go deep'. It's really a sliding scale, with fine variation in how far you've 'drifted off', but at some point you <i>really </i>'zone out', which is called 'deep trance'.<br />
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In 'deep' trance, your consciousness has either gone away, or to sleep, or is simply in a state where it is so comfortable that you just don't care about anything. You don't care enough to try to move, or to speak, or to pay attention to anything in reality. In a 'deep' trance, it's possible to elicit all of the associative phenomena with profound lucidity, and to elicit all of the dissociative phenomena like negative hallucination, amnesia and anesthesia in a global way.<br />
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<h3>
Hypnotic Phenomena</h3>
There are a number of specific phenomena associated with trance as they are easily identified as unusual and are easy to elicit consistently. There are also many more than I could list, some profound and some subtle, which cover a wide range of experiences and capabilities above and beyond what is well studied. I'll try to give some examples of both to give you a pretty decent overview and an inkling at what sorts of things are possible with hypnotic phenomena.<br />
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Some basic phenomena:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon" target="_blank">Ideomotor activity</a> (and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing" target="_blank">automatic writing</a>)</li>
<li>Positive hallucination (experiencing something that isn't there in any of the senses)</li>
<li>Negative hallucination (not experiencing something that <i>is </i>there)</li>
<li>Anesthesia/analgesia</li>
<li>Hyperesthesia (amplification of senses)</li>
<li>Amnesia</li>
<li>Hypermnesia (extreme recall)</li>
<li>Time distortion (time seems faster or slower than what the clock says, sometimes extremely so) </li>
<li>Control of breathing, heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, blood flow (to specific areas, has even been used to reduce bleeding during surgery) and immune response (amongst other things)</li>
</ul>
<br />
Erickson also often used hypnosis to awaken people's 'intuition'. He took the position that the unconscious could be aware of more things and process them faster than consciousness can (modern science agrees, more below). He used this to help people improve their performance in sports, to make creative leaps, and went into a trance himself to improve his awareness of his client's state and to allow himself to instantly respond to whatever they did during therapy.<br />
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To give a firsthand account of something similar, back in my "pickup" days, I had the opportunity to see someone who was 'in state'. I decided in the moment to see if I couldn't go into a trance to 'copy' that state, and so I defocused my eyes and watched him for a moment; and as he moved and interacted I could see sort of 'swirls' occurring around his elbows and other joints, and soon I felt a strange new feeling arising from my center. This expanded like a flame, and then when I went to walk away it didn't even feel like my body. I moved like he did, almost exactly, and at his pace (which I had to slow down). Later I was making small talk with some customers and it didn't even sound like me (although it wasn't like him either). I was more confident, easygoing and personable than I have ever been; normally I hate making small talk at all.<br />
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Of course, that experience didn't last, but it was astounding how I was able to 'absorb' so completely what someone else felt and how they moved. Especially when it was something so alien to my own experience.<br />
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There is another case of Erickson's which I think is illustrative. He once had a blind woman come to him because she thought hypnosis might help her see. Having no sense of sight, it was difficult to distract her and limited the kinds of hypnotic phenomena he could elicit. After much effort, he finally managed to get her to manifest arm levitation, and left her only with the suggestion that she would be surprised. Later, she found that she could walk and move easily and smoothly like a sighted person. Being blind all her life, she had built up her senses of hearing and touch over her lifetime which she was able to synthesize so that she could move gracefully without thinking about it.<br />
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<h3>
Posthypnotic Suggestion</h3>
By linking a hypnotic suggestion either to a class of experiences or to a future time, it effectively becomes a posthypnotic suggestion. When the trigger for the suggestion is activated, the person goes into a 'posthypnotic trance', during which time they carry out the suggestion. This may persist until the suggestion is fully carried out, or it may only last a moment and then the person wakes up with residual hypnotic phenomena.<br />
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<h3>
Hypnotic Sophistication</h3>
To Erickson, unless you intended to purposefully deceive him (and probably even then), he considered you a good subject as a matter of fact. However, he often spoke of a distinction between subjects in terms of "sophistication", which I did not understand for a long time.<br />
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In order for a person to carry out a suggestion such as "stay in trance, but act as if you were awake", or "you have an interesting experience, and learn important things", they must first be able to manifest basic hypnotic phenomena such as ideomotor activity and hallucination. The more abstract and complex the suggestion, the more sophisticated the subject must be in order to carry it out.<br />
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<h3>
Autohypnosis</h3>
Many of Erickson's first experiences with trance were autohypnotic. You can learn autohypnosis through a posthypnotic suggestion, and/or you can also learn to do it in a 'naturalistic' way which Erickson described. His method was simple: Gather, in your mind, all of the impressions which are relevant to what you want your unconscious to do, focus on them clearly in consciousness, and then set them in the back of your mind for safe keeping, with the knowledge that your unconscious will respond when it has come up with a solution. It may respond like a bolt of lightning out of the blue, or intuitively without you noticing that something has changed, or perhaps in a dream, but you won't know until it does. Of course, sophistication helps, but it isn't necessary to get a good response.<br />
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<h3>
Hypnosis & Neuroscience</h3>
While modern neuroscience has found out virtually nothing about trance itself, or hypnosis in general, it has found some fascinating things about representation and memory which are linked to trance phenomena.<br />
<br />
It was found that for the primary senses (VAKOG) each could be trained so that you can remember and name more details of things you've seen. Hypnotic games with hallucination and hyperesthesia can achieve the same thing without having to do 'flash card' type work. Nikola Tesla, for example, gained his engineering skill because as a child, he was in such boring and captive circumstances that he found himself drifting off to daydream worlds regularly. Later, when he learned engineering, he figured that because he already had such imaginary prowess that simulating engineering in his head would be easy. Turned out he was right.<br />
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They've also found that reaction time can be reduced, regardless of age. This can be trained through martial arts practice, or ironically through first person shooter games like Halo(tm). Posthypnotic suggestions have also been used to aid in improving reaction times.<br />
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Previously I mentioned how memory champs use the method of loci to memorize obscenely large bits of information (like 18,000+ digits of pi). The method of loci is a combination of visual representation and anchoring, both skills which can be practiced and improved through hypnosis.<br />
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Other experiments have used people as living computers. They showed some subjects pictures of helicopter pads and had them become familiar with what one looked like on a satellite photo. They then hooked the subjects up to an EEG and rapidly flashed many satellite photos in front of them while measuring the output. They found that even though the person wouldn't have any conscious awareness of it, whenever they saw a helicopter pad in a photo their brain would register an 'aha' response, telling the computer to search that frame to find a pad. The photos were cycled fast enough that they could barely see anything at all.<br />
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<h3>
Closing Thoughts</h3>
Hypnosis not only offers the possibility of directly teaching the fundamental skills and states needed for inner work, but also the possibility of awakening the latent potential of the human intellect and human action. It can be used to bypass and break up rigid conscious states, and to achieve rapid change and growth. It's faster and more powerful than meditation, and I almost consider it to be a way of life. Ultimately, it's something you'll have to experience for yourself.<br />
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<h3>
Links<br />
</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-Every-BODY-Saying-Speed-Reading/dp/0061438294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353849350&sr=1-1&keywords=body+language" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"What Every Body is Saying" by Joe Navarro</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unmasking-Face-Recognizing-Emotions-Expressions/dp/1883536367/ref=la_B002FSXSVI_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1353849446&sr=1-3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Unmasking the Face: A Guide to Recognizing Emotions from Facial Expressions" by Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesan</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dog-Whisperer-With-Cesar-Millan/dp/B000EGDALQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1353849784&sr=8-3&keywords=the+dog+whisperer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Dog Whisperer: The Complete First Season </a><br />(Humans act more like dogs than you think)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.uncommonknowledge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Uncommon Knowledge</a></li>
</ul>
<br />Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-68475081690117059612012-11-21T22:28:00.003-05:002013-12-13T07:46:57.424-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 5: The Diamond ApproachWoah. I posted a few comments yesterday on <a href="http://www.wikihyp.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wikihyp</a> which I also linked back here, and when I went to check my stats later that night I found I had as many views yesterday alone as I have since I started writing this. I'm not sure whether that's actually because there were that many people reading through, or if it was because individual posts were being counted as 'views' when they hadn't been from my previous traffic. Anyway, I was a bit skeptical of Joe at first, but after reading through a bit about what he's doing I find that I agree with the majority of everything he says. He seems to have a very solid grasp of what I consider to be the most important aspects of Erickson's technique and therapy, and puts the ASCH to shame in that regard. Joe and Craig Galvin and <a href="http://www.hypnosiswithouttrance.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">James Tripp</a> are all doing awesome stuff, and I highly recommend checking them out. It seems there's an 'underground Ericksonian' movement that's much bigger than I was aware of. Previously, I left off talking a bit about the Diamond Approach and how it helped me to make sense of IFS. Today I want to cover that in some depth and hopefully leave you with a good sense of what it's all about.<br />
<br />
Hameed Ali (pen name "AH Almaas") originally studied physics in college, and was working on his PhD when he happened to attend a class by Claudio Naranjo. Claudio had been working on synthesizing psychology and spirituality, which he saw as being one and the same. Mr. Ali had a profound spiritual experience which led him to question if he was really doing something meaningful with his life, and decided from then on that he would study psychology and spirituality.<br />
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He worked and studied with Claudio for several years, along with spiritual teachers from Sufism, Taoism, and Buddhism, developing himself spiritually and discovering parts of himself that he didn't even know existed. Shocked that nobody seemed to have an explanation for the things he was experiencing, he began recording his experiences and comparing them with people he worked with. Eventually he came together with a comprehensive theory and practice to explain and reproduce the profound revelations he had, which he called "The Diamond Approach".<br />
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EDIT 11/09/13: Since I've had quite a bit of experience with this stuff now, I've decided to edit this to include my own observations. I can now personally confirm the validity of most of the basic concepts within the diamond approach, as well as some things which I observed to be quite different.<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Fundamental Narcissism</h3>
The heart of Mr. Ali's theory revolves around what he terms 'fundamental narcissism'. He realized that most people, including 'normal' people, mostly don't experience reality or themselves as they really are. Instead they experience their <i>identifications </i>and <i>beliefs </i>about themselves and the world. In the early days of NLP, Richard Bandler often commented to that effect as well. Identifications and beliefs are rigid and "opaque" to the "true self" (as in IFS), which prevents people from experiencing their 'spiritual' nature - all the things we consider good and often idealize such as strength, will, love and compassion.<br />
<br />
The sum of these beliefs and identifications make up our 'self-image', which we experience instead of our <i>selves.</i> The self-image can contain elements which we see as being bad, for example a person might say "I'm dumb" or "I'm shy" or "I'm unlovable". It can also contain elements which we are highly attached to and consider vital to who we are; "I'm an American" or "I'm a Christian" or even "I'm smart and good looking". The work in the Diamond Approach focuses on seeing through these fixations in order to reveal true nature or "essence". As the buddha often said, <i>it is our attachments which cause our suffering</i>. "Enlightenment" is merely the process of letting go of these attachments, and "realizing" the aspects of the true self. Seen in this way, "enlightenment" and "self-actualization" are two aspects of the same process.<br />
<br />
The same dynamics as IFS apply (although I think Mr. Ali probably recognizes more things as being parts than IFS does) with exiles trying to get attention and managers and firefighters trying to stop them from manifesting. Mr. Ali also emphasizes that, whenever a part is being experienced <i>internally </i>we also <i>project </i>aspects of parts onto the world outside. Sometimes we project our parents onto other people, either by idealizing (projecting essence onto others) or re-enacting abuse, and sometimes we project an inner child onto someone else and act out the part of the parent (although both roles are played by inner children). Projection also occurs more subtly in the way we define our everyday reality; for example if you think of a spoon as "a small metal shovel used for transporting food to your mouth", you won't be able to experience the spoon as it really is in your hand in the moment. Words and analytical ideas are unable to capture even such a mundane experience.<br />
<br />
The 'self-image' is said to often be experienced as an entity many times in therapy. It always appears as a sort of 'coating' or 'shell', blocking the person from the world, although the form changes each time it is encountered. It's often hard, sticky, or heavy, and at the highest levels, it's seen 'directly' as a sticky fluid that 'screens out' reality and prevents it from being seen clearly.<br />
<br />
In my experience, the personality usually appears as a sort of barrier which clouds my thoughts. At first it appeared hard and solid, very much like running into a brick wall. After dealing with many issues, getting knocked down and then recovering and getting back into things, it now feels more like a cloud of silly putty, thick and sticky. In all cases it has a character of unpleasantness, which I can only describe as being filthy and disgusting. It usually appears when I've had enough experience with an issue that I become fully aware of it.<br />
<h3>
Holes and Space</h3>
In his own work and in his work with other people, Mr. Ali noticed that once he managed to work through the defensive emotions, he often came across an experience which is described as being like an inner "black hole". A sort of deficient emptiness, a lacking, which when approached would bring on intense fear and disorientation. It was like if you 'fell in', you'd get lost down a bottomless pit mario style. This was also a recurring experience in therapy, each person inevitably had many of these which might appear in different places in the body, and they all seemed to mark the 'center' of a given cluster of issues.<br />
<br />
He found that if the fear surrounding these 'holes' was dealt with, the hole itself would become less threatening. There might still be some disorientation, but mostly it just became a calm emptiness. When clients focused on this emptiness, reliably it would transform itself, becoming a spaciousness which began to expand until it became boundless. Sometimes this 'space' would be clear and open, sometimes it was full of presence, and sometimes it was more black and void-like. In every case, however, after the space had fully expanded, a profound state of the 'true self' would then emerge from it, revealing the source of the sense of lacking.<br />
<br />
Once that point had been reached, the cluster of parts involved became 'fully understood' and no longer reappears. He also found that, following each such experience, the person would gain a subjective sense of having "more time" and having "more space", and over time they would gain an increasing 'general faith' in life which begets a realistically optimistic attitude.<br />
<br />
He also mentions that most therapists stop before reaching that point. The fear and disorientation of the 'holes' tend to discourage them from trying. In 'self therapy', they even mention the phenomena, saying 'it's like there's nothing there, an emptiness where my <i>self </i>is supposed to be'. Because they avoid or miss the experience, the <i>self </i>never materializes (or at least not completely).<br />
<br />
In my own experience, "holes" have usually always been associated with either fear, anger, jealousy and other personal emotional conflicts. The very issues which modern society would have us believe we should "compromise" on tend to be those most important to actually fight about. Furthermore, unlike Mr. Almaas's account, I find it rare to ever deal with a hole without a great deal of trauma and catharsis in the process, and other times I experienced essence without any particular "hole" identified with it. In general, "understanding" a hole for me has meant understanding the absurd limiting beliefs I had and acknowledging them.<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
The Aspects of the True Self</h3>
One of the strongest aspects of the diamond approach is the extensive discrimination and description of the aspects of the 'self'. I have now had personal experience with most every aspect which Mr. Almaas described, and can relate them to their significance and to how I came to experience each.<br />
<br />
Mr. Ali notes that the parts of the self-image are in imitation of the aspects of the true self which they ironically suppress. Anger mimics strength, compulsion and effort mimics will, neediness mimics love, pity and empathy mimic compassion and so on. The imitations never achieve the glory or the effectiveness of the real thing, however. <br />
<ul>
<li><h4>
Strength</h4>
Strength is warm, firey and energetic. Strength supports movement and action, and is the primary focus of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo" target="_blank">Tummo</a>. Strength is revealed by deciding on an action and taking it, even when it requires fighting against your worst fears, and by fighting against any imbalanced emotional exchange you come against. You could say it's developed by the practice of walking off of (emotional) cliffs.<br />
</li>
<li><h4>
Will</h4>
Will is solid, supportive, secure and radiates certainty sort of like an inner mountain. Will also supports action, providing the steadfastness required to persist, and allowing you to act without efforting or nagging yourself. Will is also inextricably related to sexuality and sexual security. In the 'natural' school of 'pick up', will is referred to only as 'state', and Milton Erickson's 'anticipated response' drew heavily on will. Will, like strength, is gained through emotional "fighting", but comes through finding enjoyment in things that you are proud of, in spite of possible judgment from others. Will is also the antithesis of spoiled, bratty behavior, and can be used like an emotional demolition tool against such behavior.</li>
<li><h4>
Love</h4>
Love is a warm, smooth melting feeling, like an embrace of liquid gold. This is, of course, what most people attempt to experience through a relationship. Usually, the need for the other person to provide that experience causes tensions which ultimately destroy the relationship. Nonetheless, most issues around love will require another person as an object of that love in order to clarify them, and issues surrounding any aspect of essence will tend to affect your perception of love first and foremost. I only experienced love after first having experienced strength (in a fight revolving around love), and thanks to the admiration of certain sweet persons who helped me out when I needed it.<br />
</li>
<li><h4>
Compassion</h4>
Compassion is a gentle, healing energy which makes pain easier to bear. Note that it doesn't make pain 'go away', nor does it do anything to try to. Instead, it helps you to 'stick with it' until the pain is healed. For me, compassion arose very easily when I did not expect it, simply acknowledging that I was attacking myself was sufficient.<br />
</li>
<li><h4>
Joy</h4>
Joy is light, warm and energetic. Joy also includes the experience of curiosity and engagement, ie 'being in the zone'. <br />
</li>
<li><h4>
Peace</h4>
Peace is empty, clear, silent, and well, peaceful. Peace allows you to 'cut through the noise' to get to the heart of things. I first experienced peace through practicing mindfulness meditation.<br />
</li>
<li><h4>
Value</h4>
Value is royal, noble and holy. Value is a matter of feeling important, as though your existence is valid and meaningful, and was one of the most traumatic issues to work through.<br />
</li>
<li><h4>
Nourishment</h4>
Nourishment is the experience of being filled with wholesomeness, literally as if you were drinking it. Nourishment is the only aspect of essence directly tied to the enjoyment of food, you could say it's literal 'chicken soup for the soul'.</li>
<li><h4>
Awareness</h4>
Awareness is a clarity, developed by continuing to look and listen to everything that is said and done, even when it's unpleasant or scary, and responding to what is actually there. Conscious awareness begets greater awareness, and is a necessary practice for clarifying essence.</li>
<li><h4>
Knowingness</h4>
Knowingness starts with acknowledging that there are things that you don't know. Until you acknowledge that you don't know something, you cannot begin to investigate it and find out. Knowingness is also developed by acknowledging that there are things that you know but don't know that you know (perhaps because you don't want to).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><h4>
Brilliance</h4>
Brilliance is something like a cross between a lightning bolt and liquid sunlight. Mr. Ali mentions that people often mistake it for god because it is so glorious, and it provides a liquid-like ability to seep through experience and reveal inner truth as though it were transparent. Brilliance is the source of major "aha!" moments where the common threads of different ideas come together. Most of my experience with brilliance has been indirect, I only realize after the fact that I've somehow outsmarted myself.</li>
<li><h4>
Personal Essence</h4>
Personal essence is sort of the 'center' which integrates all of the aspects of the true self into a whole person. It adds a 'personal' character to all the aspects as this happens. <br />
</li>
<li><h4>
The Essential Self</h4>
Also called 'the point'. It is like an infinitely small, but very bright point of pure beingness. It is like an individual, personal version of the absolute, and has a characteristic of indestructibility to it, too small to cut, too short lived to kill, and shining without light. I experienced this spontaneously shortly after strength and love.<br />
<br />
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
You might notice that (some of) these sound familiar. They're the very traits which society venerates under various names: "courage", "kindness", and of course the #1 most cliche of all, 'love'. I don't believe that there is any coincidence that across a variety of cultures and religions around the world, the same basic values turn up consistently. Likewise, certain activities, whether they pay well or not, often become a 'calling' for people simply because they embody these characteristics in a physical form. On the other hand, there are careers such as being an advertising executive which no one would claim has any deep meaning. We even have words like "deep" and "shallow" which we use to describe them.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Process of Inquiry</h3>
The actual practice of the Diamond Approach incorporates elements of Object Relations Therapy and the Feldenkrais Method, although both have been modified to fit the DA framework. The primary practice of inner work is referred to as 'inquiry', and involves being mindful of your emotions while keeping an open and curious attitude towards them. By directing that open curiosity towards your emotions, and questioning them (even if it's just the attitude of a question) until they're fully understood, you work through your parts and reveal the 'holes', ultimately revealing the <i>self.</i> Feldenkrais is used often when a person gets 'stuck', or when the teacher notices tension in the student that they aren't aware of.<br />
<br />
Mr. Ali does recognize the sort of paradox that occurs where, in order to work with parts and free the self, the aspects of the true self are necessary first. In IFS, this is explicitly recognized and managed by getting the parts to 'back off' so that the true self can be temporarily revealed and do the work. In DA, however, he only vaguely recognizes that sometimes the student is 'in sync' and work can happen, and when they take 'the wrong attitude', that they won't be able to get anywhere. He kind of runs around in circles with it, but never reaches a solid conclusion of how to get 'in sync' with any consistency. He also recommends using anger to access strength and to force your way through inner defenses, which causes many problems and has limited success.<br />
<br />
There is another aspect of inquiry that has to do with giving things up. As Jesus (supposedly) said in the Bible, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven". In the process of revealing the <i>self, </i>you end up giving up your identity, your beliefs, your parents, your conceptions of reality, even the solid ground you think you're standing on. In contrast, the aspects of the <i>self </i>are fickle, fluid, ephemeral and constantly shifting. They offer nothing to grasp onto, and disappear into thin air if you try to fix them into place and build an identity from them. As the buddha pointed out, it is our attachments that stand between us and enlightenment.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Three Stages of "The Journey"</h3>
Mr. Ali uses the metaphor of a journey to describe the process of self-realization. In this journey, the soul is both the guide and the destination. He recognizes three main 'phases' of this journey, each with its own unique focus and revelations.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The First Phase</h4>
During the first phase, a person basically has little or no access to their <i>self. </i>Most of the focus of this phase is learning to access the self and free some of the aspects of it in their basic form. At this point, the self is experienced as bits of greatness here and there scattered within a sea of parts.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Second Phase</h4>
After the first phase, students now have much greater access to the basic aspects of the self. This makes the work much easier and allows it to proceed more quickly; simply becoming aware of a part is enough to heal it very quickly. However, the parts become more subtle and difficult to detect. They try to cling to the newly revealed self and its aspects, and become possessive of them.<br />
<br />
In the second phase, working through parts does not usually reveal new aspects. Instead the aspects are transformed into a purer manifestation. While most people have heard of 'unconditional love', here it is revealed that strength, will, compassion and so on can also become unconditional. "Unconditional" in this sense does not mean <i>for me, all the time, without me having to do anything</i>. That is the egoic idea of 'unconditional'. In this sense, 'unconditional' means <i>the intrinsic nature of everything and everyone, everywhere, always.</i> The experience of unconditional aspects is clearer, brighter, and more profound, and you begin to see the character of those aspects reflected in each other as well. Mr. Ali calls these "diamond essences"; ie "diamond strength" "diamond will" and so on, however I find this to be a bit gimmicky and confusing. The second phase is also usually when the aspect of brilliance is revealed.<br />
<br />
Towards the end of the second phase, you begin to see that parts are actually manifestations of the self as well. It is as though the self was an infinite ocean, and parts are like individual waves. This is something which can't be experienced when parts make up the majority of conscious attention. At the end of the second phase, once all the aspects have been 'upgraded' to their unconditional forms, this culminates in the 'supreme self'. The "supreme self" is the highest experience which has the attribute of being 'personal' or individuated. All higher aspects are 'universal' and impersonal by comparison.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Third Phase</h4>
The third phase is quite different from the other two. There is no longer anything to do with the primary aspects of the self, and instead the focus is on the very act of conceptualizing. The experience of you knee, for instance, without the concept of 'knee' and 'location', becomes formless and dimensionless. The same could be said for holding a spoon, feeling the 'coldness' and so on, or in regards to people who you feel 'familiar' with and have a stable of idea of who you think they are and how they should act. When these things are experienced as an <i>experience </i>in and of itself, they lose their stable familiarity and become new and wondrous, and you become explicitly aware of their nature as thought.<br />
<br />
He offers an interesting meta-exercise related to this. In the exercise, you pay attention to your experience, and notice what you think of as 'self'. If you can point to it or name it, you know it isn't the self (including the body), since then what is it that's doing the pointing or naming? The self includes those things, but because it includes them it must also be greater. As you strip away and include all the things that <i>aren't </i>self, you find yourself in more inclusive, more expansive states until you include everything and everything is seen as thought; timeless, dimensionless and formless.<br />
<br />
It is in the third phase that you experience a direct connection to the universe, including it and manifesting from the same contiguous 'stuff'. You no longer feel bounded by the limits of your body; that is not where you end or all that you include. The states of the third phase tend to transcend concepts, and include universal consciousness, pure being, absence, non-conceptual awareness and the supreme ultimate (known as "taiji" in taoism). The "supreme ultimate" in particular is a non-conceptual experience of reality in which you experience your (selfless) self as an observer of this reality. Attempting to introspect at this point results in looking back outwards, as if there is nowhere further 'back' that you can go, and inside and out are one.<br />
<br />
<h4>
The Source</h4>
At the end of the journey, upon casting away everything that is left of you, you find The Source, although it sometimes manifests earlier than this. The Source is described as being the ultimate unmanifest, like pure unknowable mystery and wonder. Once The Source has been experienced and recognized, you start to see it in everything. It's as though everything you see manifesting is the 'front' of the universe, and The Source is the back. Everything seems less real, less substantial and transparent, with 'the light of the void' shining through. It's kind of like the universe is a movie; lights dancing on a non-existant screen. The light has no real substance, and when you try to see the 'back' of the pictures it makes there is nothing.<br />
<br />
Mr. Ali notes that people who reach the 'ultimate' level of attainment generally shift between the supreme self, the supreme ultimate, and the void. This is automatic, and whatever aspect of the supreme self or whatever level of awareness is most appropriate for the situation is what manifests at that time. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Shortcomings</h3>
While the Diamond Approach is quite advanced in some ways, it has several features which are less than attractive. Mr. Ali has some serious guru-itis, and through his books he beats you over the head with 'my way is the only way', 'you have to stick with the spiritual practice forever' and 'you need to fully dedicate yourself to finding (my) truth'.<br />
<br />
While some of the methods he uses (like feldenkrais) are interesting and effective, many of them are not. I already mentioned the problems with 'inquiry' relative to IFS, although the generally non-verbal approach in inquiry is very interesting.<br />
<br />
The Diamond approach also includes a lot of small group and large group meetings. While I can appreciate the possible value of a small group session, I don't see the value in anything they do in the large group meetings, especially given what they usually do there. In <a href="http://www.ahalmaas.com/Videos/love-and-emptiness.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this video</a> you can see Mr. Ali spout some random irrelevant gibberish about love, followed by 5 minutes or so of clicking his prayer beads, as though he's said something so awesomely profound that it deserves 5 whole minutes of meditation to understand it. Compared to that idea of 'meditation', Ericksonian hypnosis is orders of magnitude more effective and engaging.<br />
<br />
Speaking of effectiveness, the Diamond Approach seems to have very little overall, at least in terms of consistency. He expects a 7 year commitment in his organization (the Ridwan School, sounds like jedi to me) before most people reach a high level of attainment. On the plus side, that's the requirement for becoming an instructor in the school, which ensures thorough training and development amongst their teachers. Overall, the organization is rather cult-like, and they arrogantly tout their methods as best without experimenting with other possible approaches. He readily admits that most people who enter the school drop out before reaching a high level of attainment, and considers that to be the students' problem rather than something for the organization itself to improve upon.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Closing Thoughts</h3>
Mr. Ali had a fascinating parable which he relates to the attitude people tend to take towards 'therapy'. It goes something like this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One day an elephant came to see the great shah, looking very troubled indeed. He said to the shah, "Oh great shah, I can't understand it at all. I can't seem to eat the right mosquito foods, they make me feel sick. I can't find a suitable mosquito mate. I can't do the right mosquito things. I'm just not a good enough mosquito, can you help me?" and the shah said "I would be happy to help you, but you're not a mosquito at all". The elephant, however, was quite skeptical. He pointed his trunk and said "Look at my long, pointy nose! What besides a mosquito has such a nose?" then he flapped his ears and said "See? What else besides a mosquito has such flappy wings?". The shah replied, "Well, perhaps you're a bird. If the food of a mosquito makes you ill, perhaps you should try the food of a bird to see if it fits." The elephant sat thoughtfully, and then said "Alright, I'll do as you suggest, and try some bird food to see if that doesn't fit better."</blockquote>
So too with clients. They come in wanting all their mosquito problems solved, ie they want an even better, grander self-image, when all along they are truly elephants, the true self, which is something completely different.<br />
<br />
I hope these articles have been both revealing and inspiring to at least some of the people who read them. I still have a bit more that I want to write on this subject before I put it down, but for now what that will be about is a secret :).<br />
<br />
<h3>
Update</h3>
I just found out that Jay Early (who's interpretation of IFS I heavily critiqued) <a href="http://jayearley.com/the-diamond-approach" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">originally practiced the diamond approach</a> (and still does). Life is full of surprises. I had previously thought there had been no contact between the two, but it seems I was mistaken.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-37134879302956871562012-11-20T00:32:00.000-05:002013-01-11T19:46:01.349-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 4: Internal Family Systems TherapyIn part 3, I left off by saying that I had found Internal Family
Systems (IFS) Therapy to be the answer, or at least half of the answer
to the question of unifying NLP and making sense of Erickson's work and
near-death experiences. Superficially, IFS is similar to the work of
Virginia Satir, one of the founders of Family Therapy. Satir had what
was later known as "Satir Categories", a characterization of different
"parts" or personality types which people typically presented in therapy
and daily life. Her work focused on recognizing and comforting these
inner 'parts' to alleviate the rigid behavior they produced. She was
known for having "parts parties" often involving the whole family to
that end.<br />
<br />
<h3>
IFS: The Beginnings</h3>
Back in the 1980s, Dr. Richard Schwartz began
working on his first major psychological study, involving bulemia. At
the time he was well aware of NLP and Erickson's work, however he didn't
practice either. He was also aware of Virginia Satir's work, although
he considered it too "lovey dovey".<br />
<br />
As he worked with
clients in the study, he found that many of them described having inner
"parts" which were like autonomous personalities. By working with these
parts he found that when they released control, the client usually knew
what to do in order to heal the parts with little or no help from him.
Over time he noticed that not only did inner parts tend to take on
similar roles between different people, but ultimately they all turned
out to be 'inner children'.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Protectors and Exiles</h3>
Dr.
Schwartz noted that parts typically took on common roles, which tend to
interact in clusters. At the center of each cluster is what he calls an
'exile', a part which carries a burden of rejection, abandonment or
loss which the person cannot (or could not as a child) handle. Exiles
often want recognition, but other parts do their best to prevent the
exiles from emerging due to their tendency to cause problems and
overwhelm.<br />
<br />
The protectors spend most of their effort
either trying to prevent exiles from emerging (managers) or trying to
quiet them down and get them to go away after they emerge
(firefighters). Managers can be angry, or cause the person to work
obsessively, or be judgmental or pessimistic. Firefighters tend to
manifest more in terms of self-destructive behaviors like binge eating
or drug abuse, by which they attempt to fill the 'hole' of the exiles'
trauma to suppress them before they do any serious damage.<br />
<br />
All
of the parts ultimately have good intentions; the exiles usually just
want to be understood, while the protectors try to protect the person
against the harmful tendencies and overwhelm of the exiles. They may
occasionally superficially show a desire to hurt the person in extreme
cases, but even then it's always for a protective reason (ie: "I want
her to die".. "because the pain is unbearable").<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Self</h3>
When parts are active, they tend to 'take over' the person's consciousness; the person believes they <i>are </i>the
part, often even building an identity around the part which they
consider important to who they are. However, in working with parts, Dr.
Schwartz found he could get them to 'step back' and give up control,
naturally by asking politely. When this happens, assuming there are no
other parts in the way, he noticed that people's attitudes changed
dramatically. They became calm, confident, and compassionate towards
parts which they might have hated just moments before. His clients
described it as 'not like a part', and 'just being myself', connected
with the experience of clarity, confidence and lightness.<br />
<br />
Dr.
Schwartz began calling this the 'true self', or just 'the self', to
differentiate it from the parts. He found that in therapy, it was the
client's <i>self</i> which ultimately did the therapy and healed the
parts. He also found that for therapy to be successful, the therapist
also had to be able to stay in their self, as only through the self can
the therapist provide support, compassion, and clarity to help the
client work through their traumas.<br />
<br />
As he worked more
with IFS, and so too with his clients, he found that the parts would
block, or be opaque to, the self. The self is vulnerable, and if a
person experiences a trauma before their self is fully developed that
remains unresolved, then the self is unable to cope and splits into
'parts' in order to try to protect the self from further trauma. When
the self is fully developed, as in a psychologically 'adult' person,
then the vulnerability is not an issue since it is supported by the
strength and other aspects of the self. As parts are healed, they become
more transparent to the self, which then becomes more dominant in the
personality.<br />
<br />
The self is described as a sense of
boundlessness, deep connection with the universe and a loss of identity
as a separate being. People who are 'self-led' show a distinct passion
for life and contributing to the world, they need no moral or legal
codes to do the 'right thing'. Dr. Schwartz seems to recognize this as
being a spiritual state, although I think there was some resistance to
accepting that, and still is amongst certain practitioners.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Healing Parts</h3>
The general process for healing parts is fairly
straightforward, although there are minor variations and the various
forms the process may take are multitude.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Getting parts to 'step back'</h4>
The first and most vital step in
dealing with parts is to identify them and get them to unmerge from the
self. This generally requires recognizing their protective intentions,
and reassuring them that they are in a safe environment. Once the self
has been uncovered, it's often helpful to let them 'take a break' and
'get some space' from the parts for a minute.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Unburdening</h4>
Once the self has been uncovered and given a chance
to settle, work turns to the exile at hand. First time is spent simply
paying attention to the parts and noticing how the person feels toward
them. Usually the self knows what to do already, and will manifest
curiosity, compassion, love, courage or whatever else is required.
During this interaction, the part usually reveals what experiences,
emotions etc it has been holding, which relieves the part from the
burdens which made it extreme. It is through this process that the part
becomes understood.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Retrieving the part from the past</h4>
Dr. Schwartz noticed that even
after parts had been unburdened, they often retained their extreme
behaviors and persisted. Many of the parts seemed to be 'stuck in the
past'; ie within some old memory from which they originated. He
theorized that if he had them bring the parts out of the 'past' and into
the present, then the parts would be able to 'grow up' (since they're
inner children). Often the exiles are placed in the care of other parts
after retrieval.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Reassigning Protectors</h4>
After an exile has been healed, the
protectors which previously protected it are either allowed to go on
'vacation', or else they are asked if there's more useful work that they
would like to do.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Polarized Parts</h4>
Often times protector parts will have opposing goals or openly dislike each other.
This creates inner conflicts which create emotional turmoil above and
beyond the original traumas. In instances where this occurs, the inner
conflict must be mediated before the exiles those protectors are
protecting can be dealt with.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Shortcomings</h3>
While IFS is definitely a powerful framework, there
are some shortcomings to the theory and practice, some major and some
minor. I think it's worthwhile to mention that IFS is extremely
flexible, and IFS practitioners are encouraged to allow their clients to
determine how therapy is done. There are many different opinions by
different people on the theory, and likewise there will be differences
between the styles used by different practitioners, even between
different clients. Here I'll be mainly focusing on Jay Earley's
interpretation, since his books are probably the most well known which
deal directly with the practice itself. Not everything I mention is
exclusive to Jay's work, though, and is more general to IFS as a field.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Poorly defined Self</h4>
The self, its nature, and its characteristics
are one of the most poorly studied areas of IFS. Some practitioners
consider it to be just another part, others see it as being distinct and
having spiritual significance. I think the spiritual view has become
more dominant overall in recent times, however. Either way, the self is
viewed as having a central and important role in therapy and health, but
their understanding of the self is not proportionate to its importance.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Imagining parts adds extraneous content</h4>
In Dr. Earley's account,
which I think is typical, clients are encouraged to visualize their
parts. In further interactions, the clients then interact imaginatively
with them, hugging, coddling, holding hands with and similar with the
parts. There are a few problems I've found with this, first and foremost
that parts often are not clearly separable. Adding representations to
something tends to solidify it that way, whether it was an accurate
representation or not. It also distracts the client from paying
attention to their emotions and how they actually feel in any given
moment (what buddhists would call 'developing awareness'). Lastly, it
encourages the client to become attached to the part as they know it,
which discourages them from questioning further and discovering the true
nature of their parts. This inevitably leads to becoming an 'internal
babysitter'.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Retrieving parts doesn't work</h4>
In one of Dr. Earley's books, he
relates a story about a client who had worked with a certain part,
unburdened it, brought it into the present, and then he later talks
about how the part came back and manifested its usual behaviors even
after that complete process. That case stuck out like a sore thumb to
me. I think the rest of the process before that point is basically spot
on, and IFS definitely achieves some solid improvements, but bringing
parts out of the past was a blind guess from the beginning. I see a
distinct danger in that without completely resolving the parts, instead
of 'growing up', the Self ends up becoming something like a babysitter
for them (that thought scares me anyway). This was also what led me to
look for answers as to what <i>does </i>work in order to complete the process.<br />
<br />
I
found out through studying modern hypnosis that negative emotions are
not only connected to one event, but often to others as well. The
Initial Sensitizing Event (ISE) is the first instance where a negative
emotion/negative beliefs occur, with additional Subsequent Sensitizing
Events reinforcing them afterwards. To get a part to 'grow up' and
become integrated, not only do you need to release the negative emotions
from all of those memories, but you also need to replace them with deep
personal truths. Without using hypnosis, IFS is very limited in this capacity.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Asking the person what parts they would like to work with is counterproductive</h4>
Dr.
Earley suggests in one of his books that the client should pay
attention to whatever parts turn up during the week, try to identify
them, and then work on them when they go in to therapy. I see this as an
unintended hypnotic suggestion that go something like this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Hey part, what other parts have been pissing you off this week?</blockquote>
Which
already sends the session into a parts-led fiasco from the start. It's
also impossible to work on a part that isn't immediately manifesting
during the therapy session. Sometimes it's possible to elicit a part
through recall, but often it isn't. My opinion is that most people are
manifesting parts most of the time anyway, and if the therapist is
manifesting Self, then even if the client isn't manifesting parts when
they walk in, interacting with the therapist will more than likely
elicit some parts with no trouble. It is much better to start by asking
where you are <i>right now</i> rather than where you were or where you may want to be.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, you can ask the unconscious to produce a relevant feeling or part in trance, which is very reliable.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Reassignment of parts is unnecessary</h4>
Milton Erickson achieved
legendary results and only used reassignment in a minority of cases, and
even then his usage was distinctly different (in his case reassignment
would be the main intervention). In NLP they use reassignment in the
"Six Step Reframing Process", but it isn't very effective. In the next
article, you can see that the Diamond Approach does not employ
reassignment. My thinking is that if the original exile is really
completely healed, then no reassignment should be necessary since the
other parts will literally have nothing to do if the exile is 'gone'.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Closing Thoughts</h3>
Overall I thought IFS brought some important
techniques and distinctions to the table in a way that is clearer and
more straightforward than most other approaches. I should like to point
out that IFS bears a structural resemblance to object relations therapy,
Virginia Satir's method, Eckhart Tolle's description of "pain bodies",
the Diamond Approach (which draws heavily on object relations), self
therapy, ego states therapy, voice dialogue, inner child work and
probably numerous other "parts therapies". I don't believe it is any
coincidence that so many different unrelated people from different and
sometimes unrelated backgrounds (Eckhart Tolle has no background in
psychology at all) have come to such similar conclusions.<br />
<br />
After
reading through the IFS books, I was left with more questions than
answers, and I wasn't certain that I would be able to find answers to
those questions at all. None of the other schools of psychology that I
knew of was even as advanced as what they were doing with IFS, but some
of the things I had read in "Conversations with God" hinted that perhaps
somewhere in the myriad of books on spirituality I might find the
missing pieces I was looking for. Someone had suggested a book about
some guy claiming to be enlightened (and his dog), but the reviews on
amazon had been less than spectacular and I passed it over figuring it
would just be more woo-woo positive thinking nonsense. I decided from
that to dig by reviews and see if anything stood out. I checked out
Deepak Chopra, who I'd vaguely heard of before, but the reviews didn't
inspire me to investigate him any further (I've since been informed that
my decision was correct).<br />
<br />
I stumbled across one
review, however, that made mention that someone by the name "AH Almaas"
had a much clearer theory of spirituality, so I decided to check that
out and see if it was really worth looking into. I saw by skimming that
he talked a lot about 'synthesizing psychology and spirituality' which
sounded exactly like what I was looking for, and the reviews were solid
on top of that so I decided to shell out and see for myself what he was
on about. What I did not expect is that he would answer all the
questions I had about IFS...<br />
<br />
Links:<br />
<a href="http://www.selfleadership.org/" target="_blank">The Center for Self Leadership</a> (IFS headquarters website, lots of free articles and stuff, also therapist and trainer directories)Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-19790212542005090102012-11-19T00:03:00.000-05:002012-12-01T11:50:13.615-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 3: Near Death ExperiencesFirst, some housekeeping stuff. I mostly rewrote "The Sins of Society" and changed "Society" to "Civilization". After I started writing some real articles, it occurred to me that my original list was lacking in many ways, so I completely reorganized it. I've also added a quote to the article on Milton Erickson, as well as some relevant links (and some pdfs) for several articles. I'll probably end up re-writing a lot of things later, or at least do some editing.<br />
<br />
Previously I mentioned that I had decided to do some further study into near-death experiences (or NDE for short) in search of the 'holy grail of NLP' that so many have failed to find, or at least some clues that might point the way. NDEs turned out to be a fascinating subject. Although not everyone who has a "close call" with death necessarily has an NDE, those who do report similar experiences regardless of religious orientation or ethnic background. Themes of NDEs also appear in religious texts from around the world, including the Bible and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This strongly suggested a common psychological grounding in the experience and the results of those experiences.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is an NDE?</h3>
While there is no precise definition for what an NDE is (in fact some people have them without having a 'close call' experience at all), there are several common features of the experience which distinguish NDEs from other more common psychological states. NDEers (people who have had an NDE) often report having communicated with a 'higher being' of some sort, who acts as a supportive guide during the experience. They also frequently report having a "life review" (ie "your life flashed before your eyes") guided by the 'higher being(s)'. Finally, most NDEers show clear evidence of profound psychological change. After the experience, they find themselves more optimistic, more connected to the universe, and that their interests change in particular ways. Not only do they change, but in studying NDEers it was found that their positive attitude towards life was contagious; people who spent lots of time around NDEers became like them.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Spirit Guides</h3>
One common theme in NDEs is the appearance of 'spirit guides', often described as 'higher beings' with which the NDEer is able to communicate telepathically. Spirit guides appear in a multitude of different forms largely depending on what a given person expects or would find acceptable. Sometimes they appear as an animal, sometimes as a bearded old man, sometimes as a familiar person. Often there is only one spirit guide, but sometimes there are many. Almost always, the spirit guide is described as displaying 'supernatural colors' either in their eyes, or their clothes, or perhaps in the environment in which they appear. Sometimes the spirit guide is never seen at all, just heard. In every case, though, the spirit guide(s) acts as support and helps the person to understand what they are experiencing.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Life Review</h3>
Probably the most well known feature of an NDE is the life review, described as "your life flashing before your eyes". There is much more to it than that, however. Sometimes it's more like a movie showing one thing at a time. Sometimes the events of the person's life are scattered in front of them like an ethereal picture gallery. Sometimes they see their life as a timeline from left to right. Sometimes their entire lifetime presents as a single moment.<br />
<br />
In all cases though, they experience their whole life, in the first person and from the first person perspectives of everyone they've ever had contact with, as well as from a third, 'omniscient' perspective. They relive every pain, every joy, every confusion, as well as those of everyone else they've ever met. They see, nay, experience directly, the consequences of everything they have ever done. A spirit guide (or guides) usually acts as support during this process to help the person tolerate the experience and to understand it better. Everyone who has experienced the life review reports that what they saw as most important in the life review were what they would normally have considered unimportant, or hardly even remembered. The smallest look or gesture, the smallest act of kindness or the smallest dismissal. These are shown to be what is truly meaningful.<br />
<br />
Although the Bible accounts that you are judged at the time of death, it is not the spirit guide nor any god which 'judges' you. The sort of blaming 'judgment' preached by religion and which you find in courts of law does not occur at all. Instead, you are the judge of your own life, not to judge as 'good' or 'bad', but rather to see how your life as lived versus what was actually possible. You are made to understand fully, and to decide if the life you lived was true to yourself.<br />
<br />
The Tibetan Book of the Dead mentions this as being a glimpse of enlightenment, in which the person is finally able to see the truth, for the first time for anyone who does not achieve enlightenment in life. Often at the end of the experience, the NDEer experiences their connection with the universe, which they describe as 'everything being made of love' or that everything <i>is </i>love in its very substance. The life review is probably the most profound experience associated with NDEs in addition to being the most well known. Those who live to speak of the experience report a much greater appreciation for life in general.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Changes in NDEers</h3>
Besides becoming more optimistic and gaining greater appreciation for life, NDEers also report changes in their interests in general. They tend to focus more on work they consider meaningful and to lose interest in money, getting laid, or other materialistic or self-serving ends. They lose interest in fiction (except perhaps for masterworks) and gain more interest in non-fiction, especially when it contributes to their work. They also virtually always become interested in helping others in some way, or benefiting humanity and living things in general.<br />
<br />
<h3>
NDE-equivalent Experiences</h3>
As I mentioned before, not all people who have an NDE are near death. Generally, however, they only occur during either serious physical or emotional distress. Eckhart Tolle, for example, had an NDE-equivalent experience during an episode of extreme depression, following which he spent a year on a park bench admiring the wonder of life before becoming a spiritual teacher. He reports a deep connection to "The Void", and his theory of psychology also mirrors some others that I'll be discussing in the next two articles.<br />
<br />
The author of "The Shack" was suffering from guilt and loss of his daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered. He went back to the shack in the woods where she had been killed years afterwards, had an NDE-equiv in which he saw "god" as a black woman (who was referred to as "Papa"), the 'holy ghost' as an ephemeral woman with a supernatural-colored shifting garment, and Jesus, who was more 'normal' and relatable. They ultimately led him to closure and a greater appreciation for life.<br />
<br />
Neale Donald Walsch, author of the "Conversations with God" series, had a more mundane existential crisis, during which he found himself involuntarily writing responses to his questions. The mystery source of his writing identified itself as "God" and of course led to writing all those books. His revelations in that process were obviously a part of his own psyche, but they resonate strongly with other NDE experiences and represent probably the most extensive record of an NDE yet recorded.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Milton Erickson and NDEs</h3>
Milton Erickson himself had an NDE, due to a case of poliomyelitis which he contracted when he was 18. Incidentally it was also his first profound experience with trance, and probably influenced his methods of therapy and his view of life. A few of Erickson's cases also displayed NDE-like experiences during trance.<br />
<br />
One that I can remember vividly was a woman who met a 'spirit guide' animal (in the form of a peacock) which she described as being of 'supernatural colors', and then later she 'went diving' into an ocean where she dug up 'treasures' and brought them back to shore. Apparently her whole body "shimmered" during the entire experience, although she was rather unusual in general. Erickson also reported that many of his students who worked with him for a long time described going to "The Void" at one point or another and having an experience of profound peace which carried over afterwards.<br />
<br />
Many NDEs, and especially the NDE-equivalent experiences, are also clearly hypnotic in character. Neale Donald Walsch, for example, communicated with god via automatic writing, a variant of ideomotor activity which Erickson used frequently for a similar purpose. In "The Shack" (the real author is anonymous) his description of his experience suggests that he hallucinated it, probably with time distortion which could make a few minutes seem like a whole week of experience. Many people who experience a life review in extreme situations (like drowning) also report the experience seeming like hours but occurring in only moments. Time distortion, ideomotor activity and hallucination are all hypnotic phenomena.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Closing Thoughts</h3>
While I did find some striking similarities and connections between NDEs and Erickson's work, I was not able to find anything consistent or applicable that could explain what was actually going on or how to repeat it. I was certain that NDEs somehow held the key to psychological health and spiritual integration and thus to understanding NLP from a broad perspective, but extracting that truth would require finer distinctions of the process than what was available.<br />
<br />
At the time, I had been procrastinating reading up on Internal Family Systems Therapy, a method of psychology which I had become fairly familiar with from the rantings of <a href="http://www.freedomainradio.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stefan Molyneux</a>. Stefan's theory of morality, which is more logical fallacy and rhetoric than anything else, along with his obnoxious personality in general, had previously put me off of investigating IFS further. After I ran into a dead end with NDEs, however, I decided I had nothing to lose by picking up Dr. Schwartz's book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did Dr. Schwartz recognize Erickson, Bandler, Grinder, and Virginia Satir, but he also had a brilliant structural theory of psychology which he built solely from listening to what his patients told him about their experience. It turns out, at least in my opinion, that IFS therapy forms half of the key, both to understanding NDEs and to unifying NLP and Erickson's work, which will be the topic of the next two (or more) articles.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-46127692938817699392012-11-16T23:00:00.000-05:002012-12-01T11:49:39.637-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 2: NLP <i>11/18/2012: Added pdf link.</i><br />
<br />
When I first read about neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) I was pretty skeptical. However, Milton Erickson had spoken well of its founders and I figured if he had approved of it then it was at least worth looking into. In retrospect my opinion is a bit mixed, but overall I think NLP contributes a good deal both towards understanding Erickson's work better, and to psychology in general.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Early Development</h3>
In the 1970s, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bandler" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Richard Bandler</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Grinder" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">John Grinder</a>, under the supervision of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Bateson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gregory Bateson</a>, began working on a project to study various successful therapists and try to identify the important aspects of their technique. Their first subject was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Perls" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fritz Perls</a>, from which they derived the "meta model". Later they studied <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Virginia Satir</a> and Milton Erickson. From this work, they developed what would later be known as NLP.<br />
<br />
Their work was heavily influenced by both Gregory Bateson and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Noam Chomsky</a>, with an emphasis on systems modeling and a strong recognition of the fact that thoughts and understanding are merely information.<br />
<br />
They developed several fundamental principles at this time which became the foundation of future work, some of the most important include:<br />
-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The map is not the territory</a>.<br />
-The mind and body are part of a single inseparable system.<br />
-Choice (or more choice) is better than not having choices.<br />
-The meaning of your communication is what the listener hears (assuming honesty). In other words, it is the responsibility of the communicator to ensure that they are understood in the way that they intend.<br />
-If what you're doing isn't working, do something else. (alternately, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result)<br />
<br />
<h3>
Further Work</h3>
Soon the NLP movement gained momentum, and many other people joined Richard and John in doing further research and developing the model. These included Robert Dilts, Judith DeLozier, Steve and Connirae Andreas and others. During this time many new ideas were incorporated into NLP, which expanded a great deal and became a basic model of the mechanics of thought.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Representational Modalities</h4>
One thing that they noted was that we think through our senses. Namely Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory and Gustatory. These they called "modalities". Verbal is sometimes included as "Auditory: digital", and emotions are also sometimes considered as a meta category.<br />
<br />
They noted that people generally have a most-used modality, which is reflected in how a person speaks and refers to things. The most obvious cases would be a person saying "I see", versus "I hear you" or "I feel that", however it can also be much more subtle than that.<br />
<br />
We use "representation" in order to reason and make sense of things. For example, considering the following sentence(s):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yesterday I was eating some fresh, juicy strawberries in my garden when a pink elephant with blue polka dots chased a yellow cat through my flower bed. It was a stomping, shrieking racket, and bits of flowers were left scattered all over.</blockquote>
In order to make sense of that statement, you have to imagine eating strawberries, seeing a pink elephant, bits of scattered flowers and so on. <br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
"Sub-modalities"</h4>
Along with the modalities, they also noticed that each could have a number of modifiers associated with it. It turns out these modifiers, which they called 'sub-modalities', shared commonalities between the modalities. These include location, movement, intensity, shape, number, symmetry and texture. Originally it was thought that the 'sub-modalities' were like building blocks from which experiences were built, and from which new experiences could be built. This changed later, however, which I'll discuss further on.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Anchoring</h4>
The process of association is ubiquitous both in normal thought and in mental illness. Mental states can be linked to certain external cues, telling us when to feel happy, sad, angry and so on, and they can also be linked to other mental states, for example associating "psychology" with "Milton Erickson, NLP, hpynosis" and so on. They called the process of forming associations "anchoring". An anchor can literally be anything you can think about - a tone of voice, a facial expression, a touch, the sight of an object, person, place or situation, and so on.<br />
<br />
They found that anchors can be manipulated in all kinds of interesting ways. One way, which they called "sliding anchors" was used often by Erickson. For example, he might start counting from 1 to 20 as a person went into a trance, and as his counting became associated with their state, he could then use the numbers to control the person's state. By saying "one" he could wake them up, for instance, or by saying "twenty" take them into a deep trance. Saying "twenty-one" would then lead to an even deeper trance, and skipping numbers could change their state more rapidly than counting one at a time.<br />
<br />
Another thing that can be done with anchors is what they call "collapsing anchors", which is also equivalent to "parts integration". In this case, a person might be torn between two seemingly conflicting states or choices. By anchoring each of the conflicting states, then triggering both anchors either at the same time or in rapid succession, they found the states integrated and the conflict would resolve itself. Collapsing anchors can be used in other interesting ways, which I'll touch on later.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Dissociation</h4>
Dissociation is very much the opposite of anchoring. With dissociation, two things are made separate and exclusive. This might include conflicting plans or beliefs, but it's also associated with a number of unusual phenomena related to trance. This includes amnesia, negative hallucination (not seeing something that is there, also "selective hearing"), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ideomotor activity</a>.<br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
Strategies</h4>
In putting together the basic phenomena, they found that when people solve everyday problems, as well as when they experience mental distress, they use patterns of the different phenomena in a certain order in order to invoke certain states, helpful or problematic alike. They found that by making small changes to a problem strategy, they could help the person to break out of that pattern. Conversely, they found that by studying the strategy used by experts, they could learn to reproduce (some of) the capabilities of those experts, and teach them to others. Robert Dilts's magnum opus, "Strategies of Genius" details the strategies of many of history's geniuses, which he inferred by studying their writings. I highly recommend giving it a read.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Reframing</h4>
One of the techniques they derived from Milton Erickson they called "reframing". Very often a person's problem arises not from the situations they face, but rather from the meaning they give to those situations. By changing the implied meaning of an experience, they found that many problems lost the characteristics of being problems. "Lemons to lemonade", if you will.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Pacing and Leading</h4>
Both for hypnotic induction and successful therapy, it is necessary for the therapist to form a relationship of trust and understanding with the client. The longer this takes, the longer therapy takes. Milton Erickson, however, could establish such a relationship often in the first session. His techniques for doing this became known as "pacing and leading". This is achieved by mirroring the client's preferred modality, their gestures (to some extent), by using or following their figured of speech, by matching their breathing, or simply by maintaining an engaging conversation. By demonstrating to the client that you understand their model of the world, you can then proceed to introduce changes to that model, to break up their rigid conscious pattern or to induce a trance.<br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
Observation</h4>
Another important aspect of Milton Erickson's technique, and possibly the most important aspect, was his ability to observe people very closely and to pick up on minute changes in their inner state. He would watch things like pupil dilation, muscle tension and relaxation, changes in skin color, changes in pulse or breathing, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">subvocalizations</a> and other subtle things which he could only be implicitly aware of. It was only by keen observation that he was able to note changes in his clients, and respond appropriately.<br />
<h4>
</h4>
<h4>
Patterns</h4>
One of the things which NLP is most well known for is 'patterns'. Basically, 'patterns' are therapeutic techniques which, at least in theory, can be used to solve various problems given an appropriate choice of pattern. The most well known of these is the "10 minute phobia cure". Unfortunately for NLP, most of the 'patterns' turned out to be less useful than the distinctions listed above, and while there was much talk about figuring out a framework to determine how to know when to use a particular pattern, nothing ever materialized to fill this void in spite of many attempts.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"NLP 2.0"</h3>
In spite of the many interesting and useful distinctions that were made in NLP regarding the mechanics of thought and learning, there continued to be a large gap between the theory and the practice. NLP lacked any overarching theoretical framework which could act as a guide for therapy, and the patterns tended to be overly rigid and difficult to apply appropriately. Disagreements, both legal and theoretical, began breaking out in the NLP community. Eventually they all agreed to disagree, which led to the formation of a diversity of proposals for "NLP 2.0", in various attempts to consolidate and reconcile the previous work and to add new discoveries to the heap. No such "unified theory" has yet been accepted by the community in general, although many of the proposed theories have offered new insights and techniques.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Design Human Engineering & Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning</h4>
After the split, Richard Bandler formed his own school, focusing on two sets of tehniques called "Design Human Engineering" and "Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning". His school currently operates, and focuses on using hypnosis and building new states from scratch using sub-modalities. I won't say much more about it, but people have taken the course comment that the only thing they really get out of it is that they develop an "inner place for doing inner work".<br />
<br />
<h4>
"The New Code"</h4>
John Grinder wrote two major books after the split, "Turtles All the Way Down" and "Whispering in the Wind" which he wrote with Judith DeLozier. "Turtles" is a guide to managing inner states for accomplishing various tasks, and came off as fairly dark and very dissociative. "Whispering in the Wind" was supposedly the magnum opus for Grinder's "New Code of NLP", but was mostly apologetic and didn't offer much insight as to how NLP could be improved.<br />
<br />
Grinder currently teaches in the UK, where NLP is accepted as a mainstream school of psychology. Sadly, I can't say much good about his practice or his instructors. You can see one of his instructors, Michael Carroll, failing to heed one of the most basic tenants of NLP (if what you're doing isn't working, do something else) not once, but twice in the official videos at NLP Academy (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPgykPFEV4U&feature=share&list=UUmaujNxA3FY8H23yORh5WwQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">one</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_jztl9G1vk&feature=share&list=UUmaujNxA3FY8H23yORh5WwQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">two</a>). One of his other instructors, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GTPnvCc_SM&feature=share&list=UUmaujNxA3FY8H23yORh5WwQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stephen Gilligan</a>, I can only describe as "that creepy woo-woo guy". While I have nothing personal against any of them, I think it's extremely important for a therapist, let alone someone <i>teaching </i>therapists, that they should be at least basically mentally healthy themselves. For teaching in general, being able to demonstrate what you're teaching is equally important, but I haven't seen them live up to either count, and that's bad news for their many students, and for the legitimacy of NLP in general.<br />
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John did make an interesting observation that the conscious and unconscious can't be 'integrated' like other states can, but can learn to interact and work together effectively. I had the opportunity to test this with a member of the ASCH. In a session after he had induced a deep trance, I had him collapse the anchors he had set for the waking state and trance state. It felt like he pulled an inner guitar string tight, then another string, and wrapped it around the first before letting them snap back into position. That and a flash of the sort of blurry darkness that characterizes deep trance, and then after a minute of inner stirring I settled in a light trance, in which consciousness can affect communication with the unconscious. I believe it supports John's hypothesis.<br />
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<h4>
The Meta-States Model & Neuro-Semantics</h4>
Two relatively new names on the NLP scene, L Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer are preachers turned NLP instructors who came up with their own model to explain some contradictory things they observed in relation to the original. They noted that what had been called "sub-modalities" actually had "<i>meta</i>phorical" significance, and were not the atomic building blocks that Richard Bandler had assumed them to be. They found that the same also applied to the Patterns, implying that as long as the metaphorical-emotional content was maintained, it should be possible to creatively use the patterns creatively, even to the point of changing them to be unrecognizable from the originals.<br />
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While this insight is indeed important, the meta-states model is extremely circular to the point of headache without actually explaining much of anything new. They failed - I thought - to integrate their findings in any meaningful way, or to provide anything that might unify the still-disjoint theories of NLP.<br />
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Hall's techniques for dealing with problem states, which he dubs "Dragon Slaying", also rely heavily on the meta-model. I haven't really mentioned much about it, but suffice it to say that it's extremely irritating and passively insults your intelligence. It's also a very inefficient and time consuming way to deal with psychological problems, if it works at all. <br />
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They come to the conclusion that the techniques of NLP are only suitable for simple problems like nail biting or a simple phobia, but ineffective for more complex conditions like general anxiety or complex trauma. I agree, but I can't say they managed to improve anything in that area.<br />
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<h4>
A Recursive Approach</h4>
In the now-defunct NLP Anchor Point magazine, I ran across a series of articles that was based around Douglas Hofstadter's book "Godel, Escher, Bach" which sounded very interesting. So, I decided to pick up a copy of GEB and see what that was all about. I can say that it was an excellent and entertaining introduction to number theory, and touches on some fascinating things related to incompleteness and uncertainty, but I cannot say that I found it useful for psychology. Hofstadter's sequel, "I am a strange loop", was more specifically focused on psychology but I found it to focus on the more shallow and meaningless aspects of being human - things like "what kind of music do you like?" or "what's your favorite food?". IAASL also wasn't written in the highly artistic style which made GEB such a great book. Overall, at least for psychology, I found it to be a dead end.<br />
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<h4>
Humanity in Therapy</h4>
Later I ran across a few more articles in anchor point which piqued my curiosity. A guy by the name of <a href="http://www.transformations.net.nz/index.html" target="_blank">Richard Bolstad</a> had written several articles with similar themes, one calling for bringing the human element back into therapy, one on Ghandi, and one on near-death experiences (which you can <a href="http://www.transformations.net.nz/trancescript/being-of-light.html" target="_blank">read for free</a>). By that point I had already grown sick of the mechanistic way in which NLP practitioners tend to operate, and moreso with their money-centric (MY money centric) attitudes, and the direction Dr. Bolstad was taking struck a deep chord with me. Something told me he had the right idea, and so I decided to delve deeper into the subject of spirituality and NDEs to see if I couldn't dig up any clues that could put things into perspective, and perhaps reveal the "missing link" needed to unify the NLP framework.<br />
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For now that's all I will say, but I'll be discussing the results of my research much more over the next few articles.<br />
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Links:<br />
"<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28132782/Richard-Bandler-the-User-s-Manual-for-the-Brain" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The User's Manual for the Brain: The Complete Manual for Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner Certification</a>" by L Michael Hall & Bob Bodenhamer (scribd) Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-88586883676022643502012-11-14T20:05:00.003-05:002012-12-01T11:46:37.865-05:00Tao of Psychology Part 1: Milton Erickson <i>Update 11/17/2012: Added a quote and some video links.</i><br />
<i>11/18/2012: Added some pdf links! </i><br />
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When I first took an interest in psychology, most of what I came across was very typical of the mainstream. Label people with these diseases, categorize them as this or that "personality" and work with them to establish "healthy self-esteem" or whatever criterion a particular school might consider desirable. Failing that, there's at least one drug for every complaint a psychiatrist might make about a patient. All of that was interesting in an intellectual, scientific sort of way (although in retrospect I wouldn't call any modern psychological research "science") but in practical terms none of the popular therapies really have anything (or at least not much) to offer. They spend all their time analyzing their clients and telling them how they should live, and none of their time actually observing or interacting in a meaningful way.<br />
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Then I came across NLP and Hypnosis, which changed the way I thought about psychology forever. Both in hypnosis and NLP, the name <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Erickson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Milton H Erickson </a>seemed to be a common theme, so I decided to see for myself just what he was about and whether he was as great as people were saying he was. I was not disappointed.<br />
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Milton Erickson studied hypnosis and trance before hypnosis had even become an accepted field of study within psychology. Even after hypnosis became mainstream, Erickson's view of hypnosis and trance still differed considerably from the accepted norm. So too did his method of therapy, and the results he achieved were beyond anything that anyone else even thought possible.<br />
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Erickson considered trance to be a normal, everyday occurrence that virtually everyone experienced frequently without realizing it. When you space out momentarily in a conversation, that's a trance. When you're driving and start thinking about something and driving becomes an automatic task, that's a trance. When two lovers become entangled within their own bubble of reality and zone everything else out, that's a trance. He called these "common trance" to distinguish them from the more profound forms that he was able to induce purposefully, and very often he would give examples just like these to begin an induction.<br />
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Discussing Dr. Erickson's hypnotic technique in any detail would require volumes (which have already been written), so I want to focus here more on his general approach to therapy, and how it differed from most all other therapies before or since.<br />
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Dr. Erickson considered therapy to be something that the client did for himself, with the therapist only providing suggestions that the client could follow in order to accomplish his own ends. He never took the attitude that he was telling his clients what they should do, and vocalized his opinion that taking that attitude was never helpful for the client and in fact insulted their inherent capacities. Straight from the horse's mouth:<br />
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Now, too much has been written and said and done about the reeducation of the neurotic and the psychotic and the maladjusted personality. As if anybody could really tell any one person how to think and how to feel and how to react to any given situation. Everybody reacts differently, according to his own background of personal experience.</blockquote>
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He did not view trance as a state of increased susceptibility to suggestion (in fact he found the opposite to be true in many ways), nor did he believe trance to prevent one from resisting suggestions (his experiments demonstrated otherwise). Instead he saw trance as a state of intense inner concentration in which a person could learn by direct experience. His suggestions were merely a tool to help people learn to use hypnotic phenomena to solve their inner or outer problems. The result is that people who he had helped not only got relief from the problem they came to him for, but also often learned to solve other problems for themselves, or to use hypnotic phenomena to enhance their abilities in other ways.<br />
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As an example, one of his former students suffered a blow to the head by a falling brick just days before he was scheduled to give a speech at a conference he was attending. He recounts that he was able to negate the pain of the injury so that the doctors were able to work without anesthetic, and in spite of the fact that the doctors had claimed weeks of healing time, he was able to heal quickly enough to manage to speak at the conference without trouble. His doctors could not believe that he could have healed as quickly as he did. He also noted that Erickson had never given him any specific suggestions that he should do, or be able to do any of those things.<br />
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Much of what Dr. Erickson was able to do he attributed to what he called "anticipated response". While what he meant by that could really be interpreted in three ways, the main thread between them was that he could direct his own belief in order to direct the client more effectively. In some cases this might mean speaking with deliberate uncertainty in order to cause the client to question themselves. Sometimes this meant speaking with absolute certainty (especially when giving positive suggestions) so that the client, too, will believe that something will happen. At other times, this would mean that Milton would go into a trance first (which was common) and sort of "share" in the hypnotic experience, hallucinating whatever it was that he intended the client to hallucinate, or at least giving the distinct impression that he was.<br />
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Dr. Erickson took a very "natural" approach to therapy. More often than not, he would go into a trance himself and allow his unconscious to respond to his clients in real time without needing to think about what he was doing. He always had an underlying attitude that his clients could and would achieve the change that they wanted or required. If his clients would not believe in themselves, he would believe for them (although not in an obvious or obnoxious way). This is something which I think is absolutely required for successful therapy, and sadly something which the vast majority of therapists today lack.<br />
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Unfortunately his legacy organization, the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, apparently has no requirement for reading anything he has ever written. They seem to be more focused on pushing new books by new authors, and while they seem to be capable enough at inducing trance, they completely lack the most important characteristics of Erickson's own success with actual therapy. He inspired a number of other schools of therapy, however, including brief therapy and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).<br />
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In part 2 of this series, I'll talk a bit more about NLP. NLP offers a lot in the way of understanding Erickson's hypnotic techniques (but not his approach to therapy) and provides a better understanding of the mechanics of thought. <br />
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Some links:<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/gkopK8X__L8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A hypnosis demonstration with Richard Bandler</a>. (aka Richard Bandler behaving deplorably)<br />
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"<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesTrippTV" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hypnosis Without Trance</a>" - James Tripp, uses semi-ericksonian technique.<br />
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"<a href="https://hypnosis-and-health.com/Hypnotherapy_-_An_Exploratory_Casebook_-_Milton_H._Erickson.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hypnotherapy, an Exploratory Casebook</a>" with Ernest Rossi (free pdf)<br />
"<a href="http://www.nlpinfocentre.com/nlpebooks/NLP%20-%20Patterns%20of%20the%20Hypnotic%20Techniques%20of%20Milton%20Erickson%20Vol%20I%20-%20Richard%20Bandler%20and%20John%20Grinder.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton Erickson, Volume I</a>" by Richard Bandler and John Grinder (free pdf) Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640937793722132256.post-64080893756509840292012-11-06T23:55:00.004-05:002014-07-31T23:45:01.703-04:00ManifestoIn the modern developed world everyone is expected to live the same way. Go to school, do everything the teacher tells you to do, go to college, get a degree, get a job, get married, have kids, retire and then vegetate in a retirement home on your kids' money until the Alzheimer's finishes eating your brain. You learn that authorities are always right, that obedience and loyalty are the most important values, and that everything is a competition and if you "aren't good enough" then you'll never succeed (but if you try too hard then you're a loser).<br />
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Additionally, you're expected to dedicate your life to an employer who will treat you as disposable in return, to dedicate your life to a spouse who may also treat you as disposable in return, to present the appearance that everything in your life is always perfect, and to obsess over <i>money</i> and <i>things</i> and to show them off to everyone else (or be a loser). Whether or not you're actually <i>happy</i> is irrelevant; success is all about making someone else jealous, however you manage to accomplish that (which is why idols and movie stars are considered to be important people in modern culture).<br />
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Of course, <i>nobody</i> is happy in the modern developed world because of this. They may convince themselves that they are, citing other people's jealousy as 'evidence', but ultimately that amounts to piss in the wind at the end of the day. Jealousy is an ugly emotion and happiness could never possibly result from it. Nor can happiness be bought with money or favors or popularity.<br />
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On the other hand, you're basically left with three choices. The first is to take drugs and try and forget that you're unhappy. The second is to go to a psychiatrist and get prescribed drugs to forget that you're unhappy. The third is to join a cult where you're told to "believe and pray" and <i>pretend</i> that you're not unhappy. Of course, there is also suicide or "going postal", but for most people those are not particularly acceptable answers.<br />
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And so our society is filled with racism, sexism, religious hatred, violence, war, government plundering and meaningless garbage (such as the entire city of Las Vegas). This has happened because we do not understand ourselves, and because we do not really try to understand ourselves (it's easier just to pretend and then blame others for your own shortcomings, after all). A person who doesn't understand themselves not only can't be happy, they also can't be free, yet every human is born free and with the capacity and desire to be happy.<br />
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This blog is dedicated to exploring psychology, philosophy and spirituality, without dogma or fluffy "let's all just love each other" bullshit, for the purpose of helping people to become freer and happier in their daily lives through better understanding themselves and others, because human civilization cannot continue to survive and develop when most "adults" in society have the emotional maturity of a tantrum-throwing five-year-old.Marc Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12701776526777086824noreply@blogger.com0