[From Bill Powers (950829.0500 MDT)]
Martin Taylor (950828.1530) --
Thanks for the post on your experiences. It was a poignant reminder that
we human beings, as conscious entities, share something that transcends
all our petty differences. We inhabit a brain and body of which we know
very little and which, when they become more than usually visible to us,
remind us of our isolation. Yet somehow we can know that others like us
exist, and recognize their experiences in ourselves through the "layered
protocols" of communciation, which are as often barriers as channels.
WHAT we think then becomes far less important than knowing THAT we
think, and that there are others who also think. Could this be what
Descarte was struggling to communicate about his own self-examination?
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Rick Marken (950828.1400) --
Of course I won't really go away.
Whew!
But I think PCT also shows that it is important to distinguish
HAVING respect FOR others from DEMANDING respect FROM others.
An excellent point. It's very much like having love toward others as
opposed to demanding love from others. At the moment when you demand
respect or love, you are displaying neither one; the expectation of
getting back either one is then rather unrealistic.
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David Goldstein (950829.1210) --
I still am trying to find a way of doing the method of levels which
does not sound, feel so strange or unnatural.
One thing that will make it seem less strange is to concentrate on
grasping what the other person is talking about with each sentence or
expression. This means that your own thoughts and attitudes fade into
the background, and the other person takes center stage while you play
only a supporting role. This in itself can feel strange because you're
not constantly analyzing and diagnosing the other person, or trying to
steer the other person toward some conclusion that you're aiming for.
You're basically not even trying to help; just to understand.
When people talk normally, they aren't separating their thoughts into
levels; which is superordinate and which subordinate isn't even noticed.
If you listen carefully to what people say, particularly in spoken
informal conversation, you will see that there is usually a main subject
with little remarks showing up now and then that are not ON the main
subject, but ABOUT it or the speaker [I hope I'm saying this clearly].
Ordinarily, we hear such side-comments but let them pass, because
they're not the main thing the other person seems to be talking about.
By unspoken agreement, we "stick to the subject."
In the method of levels we don't stick to the subject, but instead
explore those side-remarks. Even though I've done this quite a few
times, I'm not quite sure how I pick which side-remarks to follow up on
and which to ignore. Being too selective amounts to putting your own
bias on where the process will lead, but I have a feeling that trying to
follow up on _every_ remark could just lead in circles. That could be
wrong. It could be that every side-remark indicates something that has
become important, at that moment, at a higher level. The fact that the
other person spontaneously puts the background thought into words may
show that just at that time the person wants you to know something about
what is going on behind the scenes. If you express an interest in it,
that could be enough to encourage more descriptions of the backgound
thoughts, and a transition to a higher level. But I haven't had enough
experience to know if there's any generalization about this that would
always work.
It occurs to me that in ordinary conversation, we often do acknowledge
the side-remarks, but only to the extent needed to let the main course
of the conversation go on. If I interject "I hope I'm saying this
clearly", you may just nod, or say "Sure, fine." I express a concern and
you briefly reassure me in words or by body language about it -- but
just enough to get back to the point.
The method of levels, however, requires not just letting the side-remark
pass by and not just dealing with it to get beyond it. Instead, the
side-remark is treated like a fork in the road. Instead of staying on
the main highway, you turn off onto what seems a side-road. Instead of
reassuring the person, you say "Are you concerned about not expressing
yourself clearly?" This, of course, feels like an abrupt change of
subject, something that people don't normally do. If you do it too
eagerly, the other person feels that you're pouncing. This feels
unnatural to both parties. There's a strong tendency on both sides to
return immediately to the main point and let the "digression" pass. As
the guide in the method of levels, however, you have to be a little
insistent about trying the side-road. Not too insistent; just enough to
see if the route is open.
Maybe the selection factor is the guide's judgment as to whether the
side-remark leads upward or sideways. If I remark "Is rain coming in
that window?" I think you could safely treat this as an intrusion from a
parallel thought, not a higher-level one. I guess that the judgment I
make is whether the side-remark or intrusion expresses an attitude
toward, feeling about, or thought about the main line of conversation or
the person doing the talking. But maybe not. Only more experience will
tell us what matters.
Another thing that's needed, I think, is patience. A person can get so
wrapped up in a subject that there aren't any side-remarks. I have
learned to wait as long as it takes for some comment to appear that
clearly leads into new territory at a higher level. Of course that could
also mean that I'm just too dense to pick up on all the hints that are
being dropped, but that's life. Doing this takes a high degree of
concentration, and it's still easy to miss things.
That's especially true if your own background thoughts are intruding too
much. Have you ever wondered how I dare to demonstrate the method of
levels in front of an audience? And usually with a stranger? "Oh, God,
all those people are sitting there waiting for something to happen in
this demonstration; I hope this isn't one of those tough cases so the
whole thing will bomb out. I think they're getting bored waiting for
some big phenomenon to occur. I don't think it's going to work." That
sort of background material is really distracting. If you haven't had a
lot of practice yourself in popping out of such thought-trains, the job
can become impossible. Basically you just have to think "Well, it's
either going to work or it isn't, so I might as well get on with it and
do my part right."
One nice thing about dealing with a nine-year-old is that you're not
going to have to face a person who thinks like a lawyer or a scientist
and can't be budged out of the level he or she is in. People with great
verbal facility are the hardest ones to deal with, especially if they're
used to interacting with other people who pounce on misstatements or
admissions of weakness. They've had too much practice with NOT letting
other people know their background thoughts. I've run across such people
now and then, especially in academia. A couple of times the process
simply hasn't accomplished anything I could detect. In the successful
instances of that kind, what I've done is to stop the process and just
explain exactly what I'm trying to do and why. Basically I say, "Hey,
you're smarter than I am, and if you don't want to go along with this I
can't make it work." If I can get a committment to give it a try,
experimentally (Hi, Ed Ford), it usually works. Of course maybe that's
an up-a-level thing too.
I hope you read this before trying the following:
I will start with something we have talked about: You are upstairs
with me. Your mom/dad is downstairs. You hear a door open and
close. Tell me what this is like for you. Give me as much detail
as you can so that I can experience what you are experiencing.
This is you deciding what's important to the kid. This is not likely to
work very well. It's too focused on _your_ goals, too impatient. If you
look at my demo on the tape, with Erling, you'll see that I started with
whatever was on his mind right then. If we did it again, we'd start in a
different place. It doesn't really matter what you start talking about.
It doesn't have to be about any big problem. The problems at the higher
levels aren't going to go away just because you start talking about
soccer. If you just get interested in whatever the kid wants to talk
about, pretty soon one of those side-remarks will show up, and you can
do a gentle test to see if the conversation can be turned onto that
road. If there's much resistance, you just relax and go on with the
conversation. Something will show up; one of the roads will be open.
That's sort of a mantra you have to keep in mind. One of the roads will
be open; you just have to maintain a kind of background alertness so
you'll see it when it shows up. You don't have to watch for subtle
hints; it will be obvious, if you're looking. The only hard part is to
keep looking and waiting and at the same time paying intelligent
attention to what's being said. Maybe that's not as easy to do as to
say.
I will, following the advice of Alvin Mahrer, a favorite sage
psychotherapist, audio tape the session so that I can relisten to
it later.
If you're really focusing on what the kid is saying and meaning, you
won't need a tape recording. The danger in using a tape recording is
that the next time you meet, you'll want to steer the conversation so
you can say all the things you realize you should have said -- and then
you won't be paying attention to what the kid wants to talk about and
you'll miss opportunities to find an open side-road, or notice the
ladder leading to the next level. If you just want to hear yourself
making mistakes, to avoid making the same mistakes again, fine. But you
can't go back and redo any session better; every new session is a new
session, not like any other.
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Best to all,
Bill P.