This is my first time on the net, although I've been following the postings
for a couple months and of course reading the literature for several years.
I'm enrolled in the MA program in Counseling at the U. of North Dakota at
Grand Forks, and am trying to understand various counseling dynamics from
a PCT point of view. I appreciate the clinical questions and perspective
that you bring, both in your postings in mid December and at the Durango
conferences the last two summers.
I've started to read Irvin Yalom's book on group psychotherapy, and one of
the therapeutic factors that he mentions is the "instillation of hope."
And it got me thinking about what kind of perception hope might be. A
comparable phrase that Yalom uses is a "high expectation of help" or
improvement.
With that notion in mind, it seems that "hope" might refer to the long-
range reference-state of a Sequence perception. It's like specifying the
goal of a perception that (knowingly) might not take place for quite some
time. I use 'long-range' in the sense of a slowing factor that could
tolerate error in an (as yet) uncompleted Sequence, without necessarily
triggering reorganization.
Just a word about notation. I've sort of developed the convention of
capitalizing references to any of the levels of Hierarchical PCT (to make
them explicit to the reader.) I also tend to use quotation marks to high-
light descriptive allusions to control loops and their components --
whether perceptions, controlled variables, references, gain, etc.
It seems a Sequence involving "hope" or an "expectation of help" would
specify references for the perceptual Relationship "better than before."
(This may in fact involve more than one Relationship.) With therapy
groups such as Yalom describes, I think of the Sequence: joining a group,
interacting, self-disclosing, ..., _waiting for improvement_. I would
imagine any of these Sequence components could be dissected into refer-
t(ences for the requisite Relationships.
Going in the other direction, once the "improvement" terminus of the
Sequence has registered, then perhaps the Program choice-point of
"continue-versus-terminate involvement" becomes activated. (I'm not
sure if 'becomes activated' is the best way to say this.) According to
HPCT, Program outputs set the terms (references) for Sequence percep-
tions.
An interesting feature of this arrangement is that specifying an "expec-
tation of help" reference (as part of a Sequence perception) implies that
there will be a sustained error if help is not forthcoming. [Following a
suggestion by Rick Marken that I saw in one of Kent McClelland's articles,
I've started to associate "negative emotion" with the decrease in gain
of a sustained error.]
Therefore, the client or group member would have a stake in registering
some improvement -- and so reducing their own Sequence error -- even if
they have to utilize their own degrees of freedom (rather than those of
the therapist) to do so! In other words, to set a reference for "high
expectation of help" can become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy, as is
shown, perhaps, in placebo effects.
Does this describe or capture some of the dynamic of "hope" from a PCT
perspective?
A related question (maybe the inverse) would be: Is the dynamic of "fear"
a similar uncompleted Sequence perception? In this case, it would be
specifying references of "worse than before" for the Relationship per-
ceptions...
Sequentially yours,
Erling
···
To: Dick Robertson (and any others)