[from Mary Powers 9901.05]
John Appel:
I'm glad you finally got logged on - was there something wrong with the
instructions I sent to you?
Thanks for posting Leslie's story. I have a few comments which I want to
make clear are indeed comments, not criticism. They have to do with the
compatibility (or lack thereof) of your comments and interpretations with
those of PCT-based therapy, the Method of Levels (MOL)
1) "The CSG may not realize that perceptual control is necessary for sanity."
I think this is well understood, at least implicitly. To be unable to
control one's perceptions means never being able to bring them to their
reference states, which means being in a very unhealthy and painful state of
chronic error.
The main reason for being unable to control perceptions is having opposing
reference signals demanding that the perception be in two different states
at once - conflict. I suspect that people who are angry about being
dependent and unable to do anything about it are unable because they are
terrified of being autonomous. Everybody starts out in life being
dependent, and most become autonomous as they mature. Leslie seems to have
been denied dependency when she needed it and denied autonomy when she was
ready for that - a nice Catch-22 which left her in conflict.
2) Leslie said "Did my father tell you about their not bringing me up? And
you answer "Yes, he did tell me".
I'm wondering about this because although I understand you have the
rationale of supporting her autonomy, you have chosen to do it by lying to
her. Her father did not tell you anything of the kind. Perhaps you felt he
"told" you this by implication, but I don't buy it. It's a bit risky to
"validate" by fudging the truth - what would happen if she found out?
In PCT therapy, MOL, the kind of answer that people are learning to do is
focussed on going up a level - not confirming a statement at the same level
(whether or not by a lie). For example: It's important to you for me to
know that. Or, you want me to have heard that from your father. Or...
Obviously there is nothing wrong with sticking to the same level until you
get a good feel for the next level, but the heart and soul of MOL (and we
hypothesize ALL therapies) is getting up to the next level...and the next...
3) You seem to be quite eclectic in your approach, drawing from
psychoanalysis (transference) and behavioral approaches (rewards). Maybe
MOL will make sense to you if I say it seems to me that just when you say
"our relationship, the father-transference, had begun", is just when she
shows every evidence of having gone up a level - she says her main fear is
that when she tells you things you will say there is nothing the matter; she
says "it's so amazing when you listen to me".
And when you talk of rewarding her, it seems to me that while you might draw
the analogy of giving a pellet to a deprived and hungry rat, and feel ok
about it because you were not the depriver in the first place, reward is a
very controlling concept - just what you want to free her from. You do not
want her to become dependent on your reward, your good opinion of her; you
are trying to provide an environment in which her actions truly affect her
perceptions as she needs them affected. Which is what those of us who do
MOL try to achieve.
I get the feeling that transference _is_ dependence on the rewarder. Isn't
the end game of this type of therapy to wean the patient from transference,
from needing that reward from the therapist? Does the idea of not getting
into a transference situation in the first place sound too weird?
4) "What is perceptual control. Why is it so important?
It is the essence of life to control, to resist forces and events causing
dissolution and to alter the environment to what one needs and wants it to
be. The only way to know that there is a discrepancy between what one needs
and wants and the way things are is to perceive the way things are, compare
that with the way they should be, and act to reduce the difference. This is
how a control system works, whether living, electronic, or mechanical. We
talk of _perceptual_ control in living systems to distinguish the process
from _control_ in non-living systems because a) living systems uniquely set
their own reference signals internally instead of from outside (like a
thermostat) and b) to forestall the knee-jerk reaction of some people who
think this is a mechanical, dehumanizing way to talk about people instead of
the first scientific explanation of the phenomenon of purpose.
Mary P.