Counseling and the Hierarchy

[From Rick Marken (950127.1300)]

Erling O Jorgensen (950122) --

Hi Erling! I just wanted to let you know that you are not being ignored.
I was hoping that some of the other counseling types would answer your
questions; perhaps they will now that the _Sturm and Drang_ about PCT vs
conventional methodology has died down (and out, apparently).

I'll just make a quick, general comment. I think it's probably a good idea to
forget about the proposed nature of the levels of the PCT hierarchy when you
are dealing with "everyday" behavior, as you are in a counseling situation. I
think it is pretty obvious that there are levels of control (as was apparent
from the "method of levels" demonstration that you did with Bill at the last
CSG meeting) and that it is possible to find the source of conflicts
(incompatible goals) without worrying about whether there goals are being set
at the program, category, principle or system concept level -- or whatever.

Chuck Tucker (950126?) just posted a nice description (from Bill P.) of the
variables that are controlled when doing common behaviors (like pouring
juice). It would be nice to try to guess at some of the hierarchical
relationships that might exist in this description. For example, is "angle
of door" controlled in order to control "distance of pitcher from
refrigerator" or are they both controlled in order to control some other
(unmentioned) variable.

Counselors can base their practice on the basic insight of PCT: that people
control the world _as they perceive it_ relative to their own reference
specifications for those perceptions. But I think there is little that the
specfic decriptions of the levels can contribute to counseling practce since
there is still VERY LITTLE research on PCT, and hardly any on hierarchical
control. I think the counselors (and management gurus, like Dag) can make a
great contribution to PCT (rather than vice versa) by providing fairly non-
technical accounts of the everyday controlling exhibited by the people they
are trying to help; describe, for example, some of variables these people
control (as was done in the list Chuck posted), why you think these variables
are controlled, how you test your hypothesis about the variables being
controlled (usually by asking questions, I imagine), examples of the kinds of
control problems these people have, examples of problems resulting from
conflict vs lack of skill, etc.

If we can get a corpus of careful descriptions of what people do, in terms
of the variables they control, we might be able to start seeing evidence of
hierarchical relatinships between these variables.

Best

Rick