10 commandments of WTP

CSGnet Archive CSG2009
1

[David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT)]

1. Do not attempt to relate PCT to any other ideas or research result.
2. Do not accept any correlations less than .99
3. Do not use any of the standard research designs that you learned about in graduate school.
4. Do not use group results when working with a person in individual therapy. Forget about the research done by other people.
5. Do not use any of the standard ways of analyzing data with statistics. In fact, do not bother to learn any advanced statistics.
6. Do not use anything but the modeling approach.
7. Do not go to graduate school and learn anything but PCT; it is a waste of time, money and energy.
8. Do not do Psychological Testing; it was designed by people whose only goal is to make money and to keep people in their place.
9. Do not be interested in individual difference variables. Only be interested in generalizations that hold for all people at all times.
10. Do not be concerned with helping people feel better by reducing symptoms unless you can figure out the internal conflict which is causing the symptoms.

2

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.13.20134 MDT)]

David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT) --

BP: I can tell that the extraction really hurts. My sympathy.

I made comments on each of the commandments, and after reflection, deleted them all. They're not about me. Actually, the list is a good review, if somewhat exaggerated, of certain conflicts between PCT and conventional approaches. PCT does imply that certain kinds of knowledge are probably wrong, that certain methods are probably mistaken, and (at a higher level) that many aspects of our educations were wastes of time, money, and effort. It can be hard to take such implications calmly.

But this is how one gets to the root of conflicts. You express yourself, and then pull back and look at the result. Reorganization proceeds. In your list of commandments are many subjects worth looking into, and many levels.

As for the tooth, all I can recommend is to take the pills the dentist prescribed. I don't have anything better to offer.

Best,

Bill P.

3

[From Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640)]

David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT)

I take issue with some of these 10 commandments just as I do with the
10 that have been falsely attributed to God (why would an all-powerful
God give his rules on a tablet to a bearded Middle Eastern stutterer
who is lost in the desert rather than just whispering them into the
ear of every person in the world, in their own language of course? I
think it's just a make-believe story;-). Anyway, here's my comments on
the WTP "commandments":

1. Do not attempt to relate PCT to any other ideas or research result.

I've been relating PCT to other ideas/research results for years and I
think it's usually been OK with God... er, WTP.

2. Do not accept any correlations less than .99

I accept them all the time. Sometimes they are useful (as in my
analysis of aggregate economic data) and sometimes not (as when
evaluating the fit of models to data).

3. Do not use any of the standard research designs that you learned about
in graduate school.

I think you have to know how to do "standard" research before you can
do research on control systems. It's all the same thing. In all
research you have to manipulate independent variables to see their
effect on other variables (dependent variables in conventional
research; controlled variables-- which are functionally the dependent
variable-- in control research) and you have to know how to eliminate
confounding variables through appropriate use of experimental
controls.

4. �Do not use group results when working with a person in individual
therapy. Forget about the research done by other people.

This is two commandments in one. I agree with the first one and
completely disagree with the second. I guess that means I get struck
by only 1/2 a lightning bolt?

5. Do not use any of the standard ways of analyzing data with statistics. In
fact, do not bother to learn any advanced statistics.

I don't agree with this either. We may not use inferential statistics
much but I have found it useful to know many standard descriptive
statistics (correlation, regression, multiple regression).

6. Do not use anything but the modeling approach.

Agree. But this applies to all psychologists, whether they are control
theorists or not. All data analysis is based on modeling. Non-control
analysis (in psychology) is based on the open-loop general linear
model while control analysis is based on the closed-loop control model
of behavior.

7. �Do not go to graduate school and learn anything but PCT; it is a waste
of time, money and energy.

I completely disagree with this. I doubt that I could have understood
PCT if I had not gotten a good graduate education. I certainly would
not have understood how revolutionary (and correct) PCT is or why
psychologists are so freaked out by it. That's why I am comfortable
going back to teaching. I teach only statistics and research methods
(I'd do cognitive, too, if asked) but I think understanding these is
essential to understanding PCT and why PCT blows conventional
psychology out of the water.

8. Do not do Psychological Testing; it was designed by people whose only
goal is to make money and to keep people in their place.

OK. That's a good one too. But I don't think the statements about the
people who develop the tests is generally true.

9. Do not be interested in individual difference variables. Only be
interested in generalizations that hold for all people at all times.

Again, not true. Of course we are interested in how people differ, in
terms of what kinds of variables they control, how well they control
them and why.

10. Do not be concerned with helping people feel better by reducing
symptoms unless you can figure out the internal conflict which is causing
the symptoms.

This is not quite true. I'm not a therapist but I have dealt with
people with serious problems; I even prevented a suicide once, of a
student at Augsburg College where I taught. So I know that when people
are having symptoms that could lead to suicide the first thing you
want to do is stop the symptoms. But I think the point of the
discussion (as I understood it) was that making the focus of therapy
symptom removal misses the point. The point of therapy is to help a
person get to the causes of the symptoms. So an _exclusive_ focus on
alleviating symptoms is not therapy. But if I had someone who said
that they were so depressed that they were going to kill themselves
and if I had a little pill that I knew would make them happy for a few
hours so that they wouldn't kill themselves until I could work with
them in the next session then I'd give them the pill.

So by my count I accept about 8 of these 10 commandments, which is
about the number of the "real" 10 commandments that I accept (no, one
of them is not the one about having no other gods before me; I've
become a big fan of Baal;-))

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com

4

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.14.1807 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640) --

RM: re David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT)

...Anyway, here's my comments on the WTP "commandments":

BP: Very cool, calm, and collected. You're in excellent form today.

However, the main use of David's list, I believe, will be for David to examine and resolve the implied conflicts. There are many things to fear about using MOL -- in David's post I just answered, it turns out that you can be censured and even sent to jail by state boards for practicing MOL in New Jersey without a license, and maybe elsewhere, too. Sounds like a bunch of people one really wouldn't want to associate with.

Going against the mainstream of your profession can arouse massive opposition to your disturbance. Of course people do it and get away with it all the time. Can we do an end-run around the defenses? What if all sorts of unauthorized persons with no PhDs or licenses just started doing MOL with each other on the internet? Pretty hard to stop that. Maybe that's what I should do next: get on FaceBook or whatever and run courses on how to do MOL with your friends, kids, grandparents, etc. "Living without a License," how does that sound? Maybe a book title, you MOLers out there?

Best,

Bill P.

5

I can see it happening

···

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Bill Powers powers_w@frontier.net wrote:

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.14.1807 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640) –

RM: re David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT)

…Anyway, here’s my comments on the WTP “commandments”:

BP: Very cool, calm, and collected. You’re in excellent form today.

However, the main use of David’s list, I believe, will be for David to examine and resolve the implied conflicts. There are many things to fear about using MOL – in David’s post I just answered, it turns out that you can be censured and even sent to jail by state boards for practicing MOL in New Jersey without a license, and maybe elsewhere, too. Sounds like a bunch of people one really wouldn’t want to associate with.

Going against the mainstream of your profession can arouse massive opposition to your disturbance. Of course people do it and get away with it all the time. Can we do an end-run around the defenses? What if all sorts of unauthorized persons with no PhDs or licenses just started doing MOL with each other on the internet? Pretty hard to stop that. Maybe that’s what I should do next: get on FaceBook or whatever and run courses on how to do MOL with your friends, kids, grandparents, etc. “Living without a License,” how does that sound? Maybe a book title, you MOLers out there?

Best,

Bill P.

6

By the way, maybe this explains some of the nebulous anxiety I feel that seems to co-occur with the excitement that I feel in discovering a way to actually be helpful to people…

···

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Andrew Nichols anicholslcsw@gmail.com wrote:

I can see it happening

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 7:27 PM, Bill Powers powers_w@frontier.net wrote:

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.14.1807 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640) –

RM: re David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT)

…Anyway, here’s my comments on the WTP “commandments”:

BP: Very cool, calm, and collected. You’re in excellent form today.

However, the main use of David’s list, I believe, will be for David to examine and resolve the implied conflicts. There are many things to fear about using MOL – in David’s post I just answered, it turns out that you can be censured and even sent to jail by state boards for practicing MOL in New Jersey without a license, and maybe elsewhere, too. Sounds like a bunch of people one really wouldn’t want to associate with.

Going against the mainstream of your profession can arouse massive opposition to your disturbance. Of course people do it and get away with it all the time. Can we do an end-run around the defenses? What if all sorts of unauthorized persons with no PhDs or licenses just started doing MOL with each other on the internet? Pretty hard to stop that. Maybe that’s what I should do next: get on FaceBook or whatever and run courses on how to do MOL with your friends, kids, grandparents, etc. “Living without a License,” how does that sound? Maybe a book title, you MOLers out there?

Best,

Bill P.

7

[From Dick Robertson,2009.07.15.0859CDT]

[From Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640)]

David Goldstein (2009.07.13.21:36 EDT)

I take issue with some of these 10 commandments just as I do
with the 10 that have been falsely attributed to God (why would an all-powerful God give his rules on a tablet to a bearded Middle Eastern stutterer who is lost in the desert rather than just whispering them into the
ear of every person in the world, in their own language of course?

So, what you are saying is that political scamming did not originate with the U S congress?

I need some clarification on a few points as follows (in regard to others I obey or not as suits me, and throw myself on the mercy of the all-powerful when caught in sin):

  1. Do not accept any correlations less than .99

I’ve sinned on this one in the past (behold my dissertation, as i blush feverishly.) But I’ve reformed, thanks mainly to Phil Runkel.

  1. Do not use group results when working with a person in
    individual therapy. Forget about the research done by other people.

I’m a convert here, thanks again to Phil.

  1. Do not use any of the standard ways of analyzing data with

statistics. In fact, do not bother to learn any advanced statistics.

I’m in the clear, thanks to old-timer’s disease.

  1. Do not go to graduate school and learn anything but PCT;
    it is a waste> of time, money and energy.

Too late for my salvation. Anyhow,

. I doubt that I could have understood PCT if I had not gotten a good >graduate education. I certainly would not have understood how >revolutionary (and correct) PCT is or why psychologists are so freaked >out by it.

I have a bunch of friends who had good graduate education–and they are the ones freaked out by PCT. There’s a lacuna here somewhere.

  1. Do not be interested in individual difference variables.
    Only be interested in generalizations that hold for all people at all times.

Well, Phil sorted this one out–so well, in fact, that I can even somewhat get some attention from some of those with good graduate educations.

  1. Do not be concerned with helping people feel better by reducing
    symptoms unless you can figure out the internal conflict which
    is causing the symptoms.

I have a different take on the purpose of psychotherapy. That is: it’s to foster reorganization that results in a person surmounting a problem he previously
was stuck in. This was my view even before I ever heard of MOL, but it’s partly why I subscribed to its benefits so readily–although I have not yet been convinced that MOL is the only way to reorganization, unlike some of my (hopefully erstwhile) peers.

That said (Oh, how I love these up-to-date cliches), in my former career as a (mainly client-centered/dynamic, but “cognitive-behavioral” for insurance companies) therapist we (patient and I) sometimes underwent a large-scale and successful reorganization without ever clearly coming up with an understanding of the cause of the symptoms. In other cases the causes came clear during, maybe as result of, the reorganization. In still other cases the patient and I did come first to share a theory of what the causes of the symptoms were, and that sometimes did, and sometimes didn’t help the reorganization process. I came to conclude that these differences resulted mainly from the different styles/types/structures of control hierachies different people have. Or, in layman’s terms: different people have different types of cognitive/emotive processing.

In still other instances patients went away happily without any major reorganizations I could see, after discovering they already possessed behavioral skills they weren’t applying in the problem areas. I suppose you could call these “localized” reorganizations.

So by my count I accept about 8 of these 10 commandments, which is
about the number of the “real” 10 commandments that I accept
(no, one of them is not the one about having no other gods before me; I’ve
become a big fan of Baal;-))

Well, then I suppose I have to show a little legacy loyalty to Odin.

Best,

Dick R

8

[From Dick Robertson,2009.07.15.0945 CDT]

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.14.1807 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640) –

BP: Very cool, calm, and collected. You’re in excellent form today.

However, the main use of David’s list, I believe, will be for
David > to examine and resolve the implied conflicts. There are many
things to fear about using MOL – in David’s post I just answered, it
turns > out that you can be censured and even sent to jail by state
boards for practicing MOL in New Jersey without a license

NOt to worry, the concern is unfounded. MOL is clearly a “cognitive behavior” procedure, which the insurance companies love–mainly because it’s short-term. Well Tim has already shown that it is short term. No problem there then.

Sounds like a bunch of people one really wouldn’t want to associate with.

Haven’t you noticed that people in the trades (medicine, plumbing, etc.) protect their turfs through magic words? What you need to do is describe your procedures with the right magic words. Don’t go loping off with your favorite neologisms just because you invented them.

Going against the mainstream of your profession can arouse
massive opposition to your disturbance. Of course people do it and get
away with it all the time. Can we do an end-run around the defenses?

There you go. I imagine that in the Soviet Union it might have been common to have hidden microphones in the consultation rooms, but we don’t have that yet, except in regard to talking with people outside our country.

What if all sorts of unauthorized persons with no PhDs or licenses
just started doing MOL with each other on the internet? Pretty hard
to stop that.

Oh, I disagree heartily. Licensure is a process of protecting the turf by insuring that all peers have at least a modicum of knowing the trade’s agreed-upon rules.

Maybe that’s what I should do next: get on FaceBook or whatever and run >courses on how to do MOL with your friends, kids, grandparents, etc.

There you go. Label it as a form of entertainment (you could even make a video game with it perhaps), and you’ll make a bundle.

“Living without a License,” how does that sound?

No, no – That’s drawing attention to the wrong perception, see above.

Best,

Dick R

9

[From Dick Robertson,2009.07.15.1038CDT]

···

From: Andrew Nichols anicholslcsw@GMAIL.COM
Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:57 pm
Subject: Re: 10 commandments of WTP

By the way, maybe this explains some of the nebulous anxiety I feel that seems to co-occur with the excitement that I feel in discovering a way to actually be helpful to people…

Andrew, do you see your anxiety as concern about

Going against the mainstream of your profession can arouse massive >opposition to your disturbance.Of course people do it and get away with > it all the time. Can we do an end-run around the defenses?
that Bill mentioned in his post to you? Or, do you see it more as an uneasiness in the excitement about venturing into an unknown area in your development? Or something different yet?
In any case, I’m assuming that you perceive the “anxiety” as an unwanted experience. If that is so, are you familiar with (as described in Wikipedia)–> Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)…“a model of interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns of thought) underlying them” (quoted from Oxford Dict.) ?

It became the name of a group of procedures developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in their books, called The Structure of Magic (I & II) in the mid 1970s. They focused a lot on the value of what they called “reframing” the way you perceive and name some experience. By giving it a different name you can see it in a different context, and/or it can bring up a different set of associations in your mind. Their application in psychotherapy was, of course, to use reframing to put a more positive spin on some experience you had labelled negatively, and thereby to evoke a different emotional context.

They had some success with their procedures. They were not familiar with PCT, which was also developing in the same era. You can see how their thesis can be viewed with PCT terms in something like: The self system tweaking certain of its principle-level subsystems, like “look for a wider view of that perception” (you see as a disturbance to something you are controlling), and increase the gain in a program for surveying your vocabulary for different ways to describe it. Unfortunately PCT sometimes requires a lot wordier descriptions just because they try to contain details that are blithely passed over by simply calling something a “reframing of the words you would use to describe some experience.”

I hope my attempt at some rough examples in my two previous posts proves useful.

Best,

Dick R

10

I’m only superficially familiar with
NLP, but I can see how parallels could be drawn between the two systems of
thought.

I think my anxiety is related to 1) reorganization
taking place in my understanding of the goals and possibilities in my
profession (psychotherapy), 2) excitement in finding something that helps me
clearly identify (and simplify) what my task is in clinical work, 3) background
thoughts regarding how a faithful application of PCT principles could bring me
into conflict with colleagues unfamiliar with PCT, 4) a dawning awareness of
how a very large system of principles and assumptions (the DSM IV, psychiatric
diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and the insurance reimbursement do not seem to
fit with a PCT-informed understanding of human problems and their effective
treatment, and finally, 5) a dawning awareness of how far I/we have to go in
adequately developing practical applications of PCT to human problems (a sense
of time wasted while we all could be helped).

Sorry for the tediously detailed statement
above, but I guess I am attempting a “down-a-level” analysis of my
anxiety.

Thanks,

Andrew

···

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU] On
Behalf Of Robertson Richard
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
11:07 AM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU
Subject: Re: 10 commandments of
WTP

[From Dick Robertson,2009.07.15.1038CDT]

From: Andrew Nichols anicholslcsw@GMAIL.COM

Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:57 pm

Subject: Re: 10 commandments of WTP

By the way, maybe this explains some of the nebulous anxiety I
feel that seems to co-occur with the excitement that I feel in discovering a
way to actually be helpful to people…

Andrew, do you see your anxiety as concern about

Going against the mainstream of your profession can arouse
massive >opposition to your disturbance.Of course people do it and get away
with > it all the time. Can we do an end-run around the defenses?
that Bill mentioned in his post to you? Or, do you see it more as an uneasiness
in the excitement about venturing into an unknown area in your
development? Or something different yet?
In any case, I’m assuming that you perceive the “anxiety” as an
unwanted experience. If that is so, are you familiar with (as described in Wikipedia)–> Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)…“a model of
interpersonal communication chiefly concerned with the relationship between
successful patterns of behaviour and the subjective experiences (esp. patterns
of thought) underlying them” (quoted from Oxford Dict.) ?

It became the name of a group of procedures developed by Richard Bandler and
John Grinder in their books, called The Structure of Magic (I & II) in the
mid 1970s. They focused a lot on the value of what they called “reframing”
the way you perceive and name some experience. By giving it a different name
you can see it in a different context, and/or it can bring up a different set
of associations in your mind. Their application in psychotherapy was, of
course, to use reframing to put a more positive spin on some experience you had
labelled negatively, and thereby to evoke a different emotional context.

They had some success with their procedures. They were not familiar with PCT,
which was also developing in the same era. You can see how their thesis can be
viewed with PCT terms in something like: The self system tweaking certain
of its principle-level subsystems, like “look for a wider view of that
perception” (you see as a disturbance to something you are controlling),
and increase the gain in a program for surveying your vocabulary for different
ways to describe it. Unfortunately PCT sometimes requires a lot wordier
descriptions just because they try to contain details that are blithely passed
over by simply calling something a “reframing of the words you would use
to describe some experience.”

I hope my attempt at some rough examples in my two previous posts proves
useful.

Best,

Dick R

11

[From Rick Marken (2009.07.15.1120)]

Dick Robertson (2009.07.15.0859CDT)--

Rick Marken (2009.07.14.1640)--

I take issue with some of these 10 commandments just as I do
with the 10 that have been falsely attributed to God...

So, what you are saying is that political scamming did not originate with
the U S congress?

I don't think it's scamming. It's just dealing with conflicts, the
main conflict for many representatives probably being between their
desires to improve society, satisfy constituents and get money to stay
in office. This conflict may be particularly acute in the US where our
loony Supreme Court has found that campaign contributions are
protected speech, basically making bribery legal and giving the edge
to wealthy bribers. I leave it as an exercise to determine which party
benefits from this the most in the US. I think that if money were
removed from the political system, through public-only campaign
financing, the center of the political spectrum in the US would snap
noticeably to the left. Right now the left in the US is somewhat to
the right of the right in most of Western Europe.

. I doubt that I could have understood� PCT if I had not gotten a good
>graduate education. I certainly would� not have understood how
>revolutionary (and correct) PCT is or why� psychologists are so freaked
>out by it.

�I have a bunch of friends who had good graduate education--and they
are the ones freaked out by PCT. There's a lacuna here somewhere.

I think it depends on the individual. I was speaking for myself. I
learned most of what I know about computers, modeling and conventional
research methodology (particularly the assumptions underlying such
research) in grad school. That's why I think graduate school prepared
me to be able to properly understand PCT and appreciate its
significance. Obviously, graduate education has had precisely the
opposite effect on most others. I have no idea why that is. But I
suspect it has more to do with the people than with the education.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com

12

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1202 MDT)]

I think my anxiety
is related to 1) reorganization taking place in my understanding of the
goals and possibilities in my profession (psychotherapy), 2) excitement
in finding something that helps me clearly identify (and simplify) what
my task is in clinical work, 3) background thoughts regarding how a
faithful application of PCT principles could bring me into conflict with
colleagues unfamiliar with PCT, 4) a dawning awareness of how a very
large system of principles and assumptions (the DSM IV, psychiatric
diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and the insurance reimbursement do not
seem to fit with a PCT-informed understanding of human problems and their
effective treatment, and finally, 5) a dawning awareness of how far I/we
have to go in adequately developing practical applications of PCT to
human problems (a sense of time wasted while we all could be
helped).

What I understand by the term anxiety is that it is like a continuing or
persistent sense of fear – something bad is going to happen. If you’re
anxious about the changes in switching to MOL from your previous methods,
does this mean that you have a sense that something bad will happen if
you go on with this? Could there be a conflict here? If you’ve been using
other methods, you must have done so because there were things you
thought were good about them. What were they? Is it OK to give up those
things?
Also, I think we have to examine the obvious: what would happen if you
found out that PCT was just a big nothing and really didn’t involve
anything new? What if Bill Powers is just another paranoid schizophrenic
with delusions of grandeur? Got to look at ALL those background thoughts
to find the conflicts.

···

At 12:52 PM 7/15/2009 -0500, Andrew Nichols wrote:

Found a quote (in a review) that relates to Dick Robertson’s post of a
few minutes ago:
It is clear that therapy does work. Engel’s review of the research
literature shows that 2/3 of patients who engage in therapy do report
feeling better. This is better than the 1/3 of patients who report
feeling better without the benefit of therapy. Some therapies work better
than others, with the current edge belonging to cognitive behavioral
models. Some clinicians are more talented than others in establishing the
empathy that seems to make the most difference.
…
American Therapy: The Rise of Psychotherapy in the United StatesBy Jonathan Engel

New York: Gotham Books, October 2008

368 pages

Note that patients with therapy feel better only twice as often as those
who don’t. Half of the patients who went through therapy would have got
better without it, and saved all that money and couch time. And it’s not
the treatment, but the empathy that makes most of the difference between
clinicians’ successes. I wonder if that’s true of MOL.

Best,

Bill P.

13

Aren’t you supposed to be camping? J

Yes, I think there are conflicts in there.
Some of them may be related to my mind reviewing the possible ramifications of
applying PCT-based principles in my professional life. Also, I have come
to think that some of conflicts may be the result of lingering beliefs that I
am or could be responsible for controlling the people I work with clinically to
mitigate risk (suicide, homicide, etc.), even though I have always been of the
opinion that you contribute to decreasing risk if you make it clear that you
assume no responsibility for keeping the patient alive (that’s their job),
etc.

Thanks,

Andrew

···

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet) [mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU]
On Behalf Of Bill Powers
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
1:34 PM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU
Subject: Re: 10 commandments of
WTP

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1202 MDT)]

At 12:52 PM 7/15/2009 -0500, Andrew Nichols wrote:

I think my anxiety is related to 1)
reorganization taking place in my understanding of the goals and possibilities
in my profession (psychotherapy), 2) excitement in finding something that helps
me clearly identify (and simplify) what my task is in clinical work, 3)
background thoughts regarding how a faithful application of PCT principles
could bring me into conflict with colleagues unfamiliar with PCT, 4) a dawning
awareness of how a very large system of principles and assumptions (the DSM IV,
psychiatric diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and the insurance reimbursement do
not seem to fit with a PCT-informed understanding of human problems and their
effective treatment, and finally, 5) a dawning awareness of how far I/we have
to go in adequately developing practical applications of PCT to human problems
(a sense of time wasted while we all could be helped).

What I understand by the term anxiety is that it is like a continuing or
persistent sense of fear – something bad is going to happen. If you’re anxious
about the changes in switching to MOL from your previous methods, does this
mean that you have a sense that something bad will happen if you go on with
this? Could there be a conflict here? If you’ve been using other methods, you
must have done so because there were things you thought were good about them.
What were they? Is it OK to give up those things?
Also, I think we have to examine the obvious: what would happen if you found
out that PCT was just a big nothing and really didn’t involve anything new?
What if Bill Powers is just another paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of
grandeur? Got to look at ALL those background thoughts to find the conflicts.

Found a quote (in a review) that relates to Dick Robertson’s post of a few
minutes ago:
It is clear that therapy does work. Engels review of the
research literature shows that 2/3 of patients who engage in therapy do report
feeling better. This is better than the 1/3 of patients who report feeling
better without the benefit of therapy. Some therapies work better than others,
with the current edge belonging to cognitive behavioral models. Some clinicians
are more talented than others in establishing the empathy that seems to make
the most difference.
…
American Therapy: The Rise of Psychotherapy
in the United StatesBy Jonathan Engel
New York: Gotham
Books, October 2008
368 pages

Note that patients with therapy feel better only twice as often as those who
don’t. Half of the patients who went through therapy would have got better
without it, and saved all that money and couch time. And it’s not the
treatment, but the empathy that makes most of the difference between
clinicians’ successes. I wonder if that’s true of MOL.

Best,

Bill P.

14

Another thought that occurs is how others
may view the use of MOL as an “experimental” or “alternative”
(and therefore non-research validated) procedure, although I really don’t
seriously view it that way. Somewhere I think it was stated that MOL is
really a set of procedures that are part of all successful therapies –
really they are what make other psychotherapies work, when they do. That
is more my belief.

Thanks,

Andrew

···

From: Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)
[mailto:CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU] On
Behalf Of Bill Powers
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009
1:34 PM
To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU
Subject: Re: 10 commandments of
WTP

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1202 MDT)]

At 12:52 PM 7/15/2009 -0500, Andrew Nichols wrote:

I think my anxiety is related to 1)
reorganization taking place in my understanding of the goals and possibilities
in my profession (psychotherapy), 2) excitement in finding something that helps
me clearly identify (and simplify) what my task is in clinical work, 3)
background thoughts regarding how a faithful application of PCT principles
could bring me into conflict with colleagues unfamiliar with PCT, 4) a dawning
awareness of how a very large system of principles and assumptions (the DSM IV,
psychiatric diagnosis, psychopharmacology, and the insurance reimbursement do
not seem to fit with a PCT-informed understanding of human problems and their
effective treatment, and finally, 5) a dawning awareness of how far I/we have
to go in adequately developing practical applications of PCT to human problems
(a sense of time wasted while we all could be helped).

What I understand by the term anxiety is that it is like a continuing or
persistent sense of fear – something bad is going to happen. If you’re anxious
about the changes in switching to MOL from your previous methods, does this
mean that you have a sense that something bad will happen if you go on with
this? Could there be a conflict here? If you’ve been using other methods, you
must have done so because there were things you thought were good about them.
What were they? Is it OK to give up those things?
Also, I think we have to examine the obvious: what would happen if you found
out that PCT was just a big nothing and really didn’t involve anything new?
What if Bill Powers is just another paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of
grandeur? Got to look at ALL those background thoughts to find the conflicts.

Found a quote (in a review) that relates to Dick Robertson’s post of a few
minutes ago:
It is clear that therapy does work. Engels review of the
research literature shows that 2/3 of patients who engage in therapy do report feeling
better. This is better than the 1/3 of patients who report feeling better
without the benefit of therapy. Some therapies work better than others, with
the current edge belonging to cognitive behavioral models. Some clinicians are
more talented than others in establishing the empathy that seems to make the
most difference.
…
American Therapy: The Rise of Psychotherapy
in the United StatesBy Jonathan Engel
New York: Gotham
Books, October 2008
368 pages

Note that patients with therapy feel better only twice as often as those who
don’t. Half of the patients who went through therapy would have got better
without it, and saved all that money and couch time. And it’s not the
treatment, but the empathy that makes most of the difference between clinicians’
successes. I wonder if that’s true of MOL.

Best,

Bill P.

15

[From Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1507 MDT)]

Another thought that
occurs is how others may view the use of MOL as an “experimental” or
“alternative” (and therefore non-research validated) procedure, although
I really don’t seriously view it that way. Somewhere I think it was
stated that MOL is really a set of procedures that are part of all
successful therapies – really they are what make other psychotherapies
work, when they do. That is more my
belief.

There you have an interesting idea. All you people involved in therapy,
can you think of accepted methods in which just one or two of the MOL
ideas is an overt part of the therapy? I think “eclectic” is a
word accepted by various practitioners as long the electives are accepted
as normal. I have solid credentials from Carl Rogers, a statement saying
that every behavioral scientist should become aware of B:CP.

Another thought is this: Cognitive Behavior Therapy is apparently quite
big these days and is without doubt (as Dick Robertson says) among the
magic words. And we have a leader in Cognitive Behavior Therapy in
England, Dr. Warren Mansell, who will soon be turning out PhDs in
Perceptual Control Theory at the University of Manchester and is
supervising over 250 Masters and undergraduate students every year in
studies of PCT, with MOL as part of them. Furthermore, Dr Timothy Carey
teaches at the University of Canberra, has a private practice there using
MOL exclusively, and has five years or so of experience using MOL
exclusively in the National Health Service in Scotland – with most of
his clients being referred by MDs. MOL is an internationally recognized
method of psychotherapy that integrates elements of many accepted
therapies in a novel way and is taught internationally to clinical
psychologists involved with Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Is there a single
syllable of untruth in that?

David Goldstein, is this the sort of thing you could drop in the laps of
the right people in New Jersey? You, of course, are qualified to
supervise new MOL therapists, since you are among the pioneers in this
field and can get impressive letters of approval just by asking for
them.

What I’m saying is that if official approval would help practitioners of
MOL go public and use it exclusively if they wish, let’s take steps to
obtain it.

Best,

Bill P.

···

At 02:12 PM 7/15/2009 -0500, Andrew Nichols wrote:

16

[From David Goldstein (2009.07.16.06:40 EDT)]

[About Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1507 MDT)]

BP: David Goldstein, is this the sort of thing you could drop in the laps of the right people in New Jersey? You, of course, are qualified to supervise new MOL therapists, since you are among the pioneers in this field and can get impressive letters of approval just by asking for them.

DG: In the USA, getting an article on MOL Therapy published in the American Psychologist or an APA journal would help. Also obtaining APA approval to offer MOL Therapy workshops for Continuing Education credits would help. Coming up with a certification in MOL Therapy might be useful. There has to be more therapy research showing that it is effective for this kind of problem with this kind of patient.

The approach that Warren Mansell and Tim Carey are taking is probably a good one. MOL Therapy is being categorized as a kind of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which is widely accepted.

Having an academic center for MOL Therapy in the USA would be ideal.

17

[From Dick Robertson,2009.07.16.1031CDT]

[From David Goldstein (2009.07.16.06:40 EDT)]

[About Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1507 MDT)]

BP: David Goldstein, is this the sort of thing you could drop in the laps of the right people in New Jersey? You, of course, are qualified to supervise new MOL therapists, since you are among the pioneers in this field and can get impressive letters of approval just by asking for them.

DG: In the USA, getting an article on MOL Therapy published in the American Psychologist or an APA journal would help. Also obtaining APA approval to offer MOL Therapy workshops for Continuing Education credits would help. Coming up with a certification in MOL Therapy might be useful. There has to be more therapy research showing that it is effective for this kind of problem with this kind of patient.

The approach that Warren Mansell and Tim Carey are taking is probably a good one. MOL Therapy is being categorized as a kind of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which is widely accepted.

One other guy recently said that too. Guess who.

Best,

Dick R

18

[FromDavid Goldstein (2009.07.16.13:28 EDT)]

[About Dick Robertson,2009.07.16.1031CDT]

DR: One other guy recently said that too. Guess who.
DG: DR? The thing is that MOL has points of similarity with Client-centered, Psychoanalytic as well as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.“'The Southern NJ Center For MOL Therapy and PCT Research” is very much on my mind. Maybe it will be a retirement project.

···

----- Original Message -----

From:
Robertson Richard

To: CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU

Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 11:36 AM

Subject: Re: 10 commandments of WTP

[From Dick Robertson,2009.07.16.1031CDT]

[From David Goldstein (2009.07.16.06:40 EDT)]

[About Bill Powers (2009.07.15.1507 MDT)]

BP: David Goldstein, is this the sort of thing you could drop in the laps of the right people in New Jersey? You, of course, are qualified to supervise new MOL therapists, since you are among the pioneers in this field and can get impressive letters of approval just by asking for them.

DG: In the USA, getting an article on MOL Therapy published in the American Psychologist or an APA journal would help. Also obtaining APA approval to offer MOL Therapy workshops for Continuing Education credits would help. Coming up with a certification in MOL Therapy might be useful. There has to be more therapy research showing that it is effective for this kind of problem with this kind of patient.

The approach that Warren Mansell and Tim Carey are taking is probably a good one. MOL Therapy is being categorized as a kind of Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which is widely accepted.

One other guy recently said that too. Guess who.

Best,

Dick R