MOL and PCT

rsmarken · July 31, 2008, 3:35am

[From Rick Marken (2008.07.30.2020)]

Well, it's been some time since the meeting and even longer since I
posted but I have a few minutes now so I would like to see if I can
start a couple of threads on topics that I didn't bring up at meeting.
The first topic is "MOL and PCT". The CSG has evolved from being
evenly divided between scientists and practitioners to being nearly
all practitioners. That's fine with me; I'm as interested in
practical applications of this stuff as the next person. But it struck
me that the main practice being discussed at the meeting, MOL, seemed
to require very little, if any, knowledge of the science of PCT. It
seemed to me, from the way MOL was discussed, that the one who knew
nothing at all about the science of PCT could do MOL just as well --
possibly better -- than someone who does know it. That's fine with me
but then I wonder why MOL therapists would need have anything more
than the most casual acquaintance with PCT. Tim Carey has written a
wonderful little book about how to do MOL. As I recall there is a
little about PCT -- the hierarchy, perceptual goals and conflicts --
but I don't recall seeing anywhere that this knowledge would lead to
one doing MOL any better than by just following the rules, which
include: look for evidence of a background thought, when you see such
evidence (such as a laugh or hesitation) ask "what was that about?",
don't analyze and don't make suggestions. I think all this could be
done by just about anyone; I think there was talk about teaching it to
kids to do with one another. So my question is: what, if anything,
does one have to know about PCT in order to do MOL? If the answer is
"nothing" then why teach MOL in the context of PCT? If the answer is
not "nothing" then how, exactly, does what one has to know about PCT
relate to what they do, as the "guide", in an MOL session.

I would also be interested in knowing whether there have been any
studies to see if independent "experts" on MOL agree about when MOL is
actually being done. For example, it would seem to me that two MOL
experts who view, independently, the same MOL session done by a third
party as the "guide", should agree nearly 100% on when the "explorer"
has gone "up a level"; they should give pretty consistent descriptions
of what "level" the "explorer" was at before going "up a level" and
what the "level" was after going "up" (or "down", for that matter).

I'll be back in a moment with my next thread.

Best

Rick

Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com

Bill_Powers1 · July 31, 2008, 3:57pm

[From Bill Powers (2008.07.31.0812 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.07.30.2020)]

it struck
me that the main practice being discussed at the meeting, MOL, seemed
to require very little, if any, knowledge of the science of PCT. It
seemed to me, from the way MOL was discussed, that the one who knew
nothing at all about the science of PCT could do MOL just as well --
possibly better -- than someone who does know it. That's fine with me
but then I wonder why MOL therapists would need have anything more
than the most casual acquaintance with PCT.

Excellent questions. I think you have to compare some MOL sessions with sessions done by other practitioners to start to see the difference. Clients who have had experience with conventional approaches usually notice something different -- one of them said (to David G.) "This is fast-track therapy, isn't it?" Tim Carey remarked that his group in Scotland was the only one without anyone on the waiting list, though they had as many referrals as any other group. I think it was Warren Mansell who said, after his first observation of an MOL session, "This approach just goes directly to the schema, doesn't it?" He was trained as a Cognitive Behavior Therapist.

So what makes the difference? I think it lies in how the therapist thinks human behavior works. Conventional therapists give advice, assign homework exercises or processes that can be applied in a session, analyse the causes of a client's problems, and try to find solutions for the client's problems. They behave as if they think that they can do or say things that will cause changes in the client, changes for the better, or if they make bad mistakes, changes for the worse. They think they can see the client's problems more clearly than the client can see them. They think they know or can discover what it is about the client's thoughts, feelings, or behavior that needs to be changed, what the specific changes should be, and how the required changes can be brought about. They believe that there are "conditions" or "disorders" that assail clients, as if they had caught a disease or suffered some kind of damage, which the therapist must then try to heal. In short, they think the therapist is better equipped than the client to diagnose and treat whatever is wrong with the client.

Of course not every therapist believes all of those things, or believes them all of the time. If any therapist did, the result would be total failure (but for spontaneous recoveries that occur even without therapy). But my real point is that even without talking about MOL, nobody who understands PCT would think that any belief referred to in the previous paragraph is true. Whatever kind of therapy might be devised by a person versed in PCT, it would not involve doing any of those things or believing any of those things. So PCT is very important to the way a therapist does therapy -- primarily in determining what is NOT done.

If PCT tells us what NOT to do, what does it tell us about what to do? Directly, not very much, but indirectly, everything. PCT tells us that people control, or try to control, their own worlds of perception. It tells us that a person's own illness, pain, sorrow, and desperation, which arise from failures to control, cause that person to begin reorganizing. It tells us that reorganization works through random changes, not systematic or rational changes -- followed, of course, by behaviorally testing to see if a given change makes things better or worse. It tells us that no therapist sees the world as a client sees it, and that it is necessary to ask the client to be the observer and explorer, so the therapist can call attention to things that the client seems to gloss over. The therapist can direct attention to things by asking about them, but only the client knows which are the important things at the moment.

Another fact that PCT suggests to a therapist is that control is hierarchically organized. We don't control things just for the sake of controlling them, but because controlling some things is a means of controlling other things at superordinate levels. So if a person says, "I hate being poor; I want to be rich," the therapist immediately wonders what higher-order goals can be satisfied if the client is rich but not if the client is poor. It doesn't matter what the therapist would do with more money, or what the therapist imagines the client would do with it, or what might have happened in the client's past that makes money so important, or any of those ideas that springs naturally into the conventional therapist's mind. All that matters is finding out, and helping the client attend to, the ACTUAL reasons for which the goal of getting more money has been set and given importance. If there are any problems, that is the level at which reorganization is needed.

And of course the PCT therapist wonders why it is that if the client wants to make a lot of money, the client is not in fact making a lot of money. Control systems normally keep their errors very small. Why isn't this error small, too? So the therapist wonders what is keeping this control process from working. There are many possible reasons. Maybe the goal (like unaided systained human flight) is physically impossible to achieve. Maybe some education, or some skill, is lacking. Or maybe -- most likely of all -- is that the client at the same time (but for a separate set of reasons) wants to AVOID making more money.

If the problem is seeking a physical impossibility or lacking knowlege or skill, the trail leads to higher levels. Something more general needs examination and perhaps reorganization, so that is where attention should go next. But if the problem is a conflict, the therapist and client have found paydirt. Maybe just a trace of color, or maybe the mother lode.

We know that conflict between good efficient control systems at the same level of organization is the worst thing that can happen; it effectively destroys the ability of both control systems to correct their errors. Not only does conflict at a given level lead to a continual state of preparation for actions that never occur (e.g., chronic anxiety, anger, confusion, depression, delusional imagination), but it prevents the control systems from supplying the demanded perceptions to the higher control systems that are specifying the incompatible reference signals that sustain the conflict. No control systems at a higher level that depend on the conflicted systems can work properly; if the conflict persists, the higher systems must reorganize to avoid having to use those useless lower systems. Huge areas of experience and accomplishment become forbidden territory. That is probably not good for the client.

This tells the therapist that in order for reorganization to be effective, it must be directed to the area of the conflict, in the hope that the client will start changing the organization of related control systems and eventually come across a new organization that works better -- not only in the sense of resolving the conflict, but in the sense of not creating new conflicts with other control systems. Only the client can know when all the necessary corrections have been made. The therapist might suggest perfectly good ways of resolving the conflict (why not become a bank robber?), but only the client can know what OTHER control processes would be disturbed by any suggested solution. Listening to recordings of conventional psychotherapy, one can easily see that most suggestions by therapists are immediately rejected. The therapist can see only a small part of the whole problem (But like compulsive gamblers, conventional therapists tend to remember only the times they won -- when the client says "My God, that's a perfect solution, thank you, thank you, I'll do that immediately." Or some such fantasy).

There is one empirical observation that makes PCT therapy possible: it is the apparent fact that reorganization follows awareness. Reorganization itself is (theoretically) driven by intrinsic error, but its primary focus in the hierarchy of control seems to be movable, and it moves as the focus of attention moves, from one perception to another, from one level of perception to another. It also works in the background, unconsciously, but changing the locus of attention seems to have a strong influence on where in the hierarchy certain kinds of reorganization will take place, if there is intrinsic error.

There is no way to select a specific effect of reorganization -- any given reorganization is roughly as likely to make matters worse as to make them better. But a reorganization that makes things start getting worse is followed as quickly as possible by another reorganization, while if things start getting better, the next reorganization is delayed or even cancelled. And when we add the ability of awareness to say "Reorganize HERE," the chances of making something better that is relevant to a problem are probably improved by a large amount -- if awareness is focused in the right place.

So what do we get from all those PCT ideas in the context of therapy? The method of levels. The method of levels IS the theory we call PCT, as applied to therapy. Its only non-PCT aspect is the empirical observation that awareness is mobile and influences the locus of reorganization. That's not in the model, but everything else is.

Best,

Bill P.

Bill_Powers1 · July 31, 2008, 6:53pm

[From Bill Powers (2008.07.31.1200 MDT)]

I think we need to ask the following:
When a person claims do to MOL but not to know PCT, we should not take their word for it. How much is what they are doing MOL, and how much is what they know not PCT? Only by comparing the therapy systematically to what MOL would look like can we answer the first (hence adherence scales and systematic coding and analysis of MOL sessions), and only by exploring in detail the mental models the therapist is using to do MOL can we see how much it is similar to order different from PCT. Do they understand that behaviour is a means to an end? Do they see goals as arranged hierarchically? Do they see change as an intrinsic rather than an extrinsic process? They may say yes to each of these and still not claim to 'know' PCT.
See what I mean?

I agree with your proposals about checking on understanding of PCT and MOL. This is an important research topic and needs to be developed by as many researchers as can be enlisted. It's really a formal way to define both PCT and MOL to others (and ourselves).

David Goldstein has done a few things in this direction, which need to be improved and replicated. He and I, in collaboration, set up a Q-sort list which describes the experience of MOL therapy (and its opposites) from the client's point of view.The task was to arrange the items (presented in small subsets) in order from "least like" to "most like." A scoring algorithm then presented all the items in order. The originator of this method actually used sorting theory to show that the results were as reliable as an exhaustive comparison of each item to the whole list would be. This sort is done in rows, columns,and diagonals of a 5 x 5 array:

001 I found that my own ideas were inferior to the therapist's ideas about my problems.
002 When I was confused, the therapist explained things so I understood them better.
003 The therapist did not always seem to be interested in what I was saying.
004 The therapist brought my attention back to fleeting thoughts I mentioned.
005 I was reminded by the therapist of the social norms that apply to my actions.
006 I was told of the real meanings of my thoughts and feelings.
007 I was often unable to answer questions that the therapist asked.
008 The therapist seemed to have more insights into my problems than I did.
009 When I asked for advice, the therapist refused to give it to me.
010 The therapist communicated almost entirely by asking questions.
011 The therapist showed me that my present problems come from past experiences.
012 In the session, I was told or shown that my unpleasant thoughts are incorrect.
013 The therapist suggested new viewpoints toward my problems to try out.
014 The therapist helped me by using his knowledge of other people.
015 The therapist spoke less than I did during the session.
016 I do not remember any specific questions the therapist asked.
017 I was helped to see both sides of conflicting wishes and intentions.
018 The subject under discussion seemed to keep changing.
019 I began to understand the method that the therapist was using.
020 I was shown by the therapist that my desires or goals contradict each other.
021 I felt that it was up to me to resolve my problems.
022 The therapist made me more aware of how I felt and thought during the session.
023 The therapist gave me useful suggestions about how to act when I feel bad.
024 I was encouraged by the therapist to behave and think in a more realistic way.
025 The therapist had many suggestions about how I could solve my problems.

Using a computer-operated Qsort program I wrote (because I got tired of cutting out little rectangles from printed posts), both of us sorted these items from most like to least like what we thought a client would experience. I did two sorts from scratch and my sorts correlated better than 0.9. David did the sort and his sort correlated with mine at about 0.89. I'm sure that looking only at the top third and bottom third (or 8), the correlations would come out even higher.

Not everyone likes Q-sorts, but they do indicate something visible to the naked eye and at the same time quantifiable. I think it would be possible with further work to come up with improved lists for both MOL and PCT, couched in terms that any therapist could apply (that is, no jargon or technical terms, and if possible no items suggesting a bias). My program makes it possible to construct and edit lists and allows sorting the items in small groups -- the method isn't mine but I forget what it's called. Also, very long lists can be automatically split into separate lists for sorting. Simply looking at a sorted list gives a very strong flavor of the sorter's point of view. I'm not enamoured of factor analysis, but for those who are, themes can be suggested by using that method.

It would be quite interesting to see how people would sort the PCT lists, especially people who do not claim to understand PCT. And of course it would be especially interesting to see how therapists of different schools would do that sort. This sounds liked a great thesis topic.

Best,

Bill P.

Bill_Powers1 · July 31, 2008, 8:08pm

[From Bill Powers (2008.07.31.1346 MDT)]

When therapy proceeds satisfactorily there is, for some people, perhaps not
much of a need to think about PCT.

Not explicitly, perhaps, but principles and programs are governed by the system concepts people perceive and maintain. If a person wants to believe that people are simply automatons operated by stimuli that a chance environment happens to send their way, the sort of self-cancelling parody of a scientific attitude that a lot of scientists have seemed to support, that person will deal with psychological problems the same way one deals with an engine or a radio that has stopped working: take it apart and fix it, or write it off. I don't believe it's better to let such concepts govern you unthinkingly than to be aware of them (and reorganize them if they don't work as well as you want them to).

PCT might not always be obvious in the decisions I make or actions I take in
therapy but that doesn't make its influence any less pervasive or profound.

As I was writing that last post, I finally realized that I was really trying to construct an alternate way of viewing psychological problems entirely in PCT terms, not using any of the conventional constructs such as anxiety and so on. The problem with doing that, of course, is that conventional psychologists won't understand a word of it. What good is a new therapy if it doesn't address psychological problems? How can you treat schizophrenia if all you talk about is how people control for what they want to experience? But perhaps talking this way might serve to bring out the fact that the conventional constructs don't really say what has gone wrong with a person who has a disorder or a condition. They just name it or describe its effects. What, exactly, is wrong with a person who is "anxious?" How does a pill fix what is wrong?

So I'm agreeing with you. The underlying knowledge of the PCT model makes a profound difference in what you see before you and what you try to do about it.

Best.

Bill P.

···

At 02:38 AM 8/1/2008 +1000, Tim Carey wrote:

rsmarken · August 1, 2008, 1:19am

[From Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1820)]

Bill Powers (2008.07.31.0812 MDT)--

> Rick Marken (2008.07.30.2020)--

why MOL therapists would need have anything more
than the most casual acquaintance with PCT.

Excellent questions. I think you have to compare some MOL sessions with
sessions done by other practitioners to start to see the difference.

So what makes the difference? I think it lies in how the therapist thinks
human behavior works. Conventional therapists give advice, assign homework
exercises or processes that can be applied in a session...

So PCT is very important to the way a therapist does therapy --
primarily in determining what is NOT done.

So you have to teach people PCT just to get them to not give advice
during therapy? Wouldn't it be easier to just say "don't do advice"?
Does every therapist, after learning PCT, stop giving advice? I would
say this is an argument for _not_ wasting time teaching PCT to
therapists.

If PCT tells us what NOT to do, what does it tell us about what to do?
Directly, not very much, but indirectly, everything. PCT tells us that
people control, or try to control, their own worlds of perception...

So you have faith that PCT will make the therapist better at doing
MOL. Got evidence?

Another fact that PCT suggests to a therapist is that control is
hierarchically organized.

Why does this help a person do MOL? Since the 11 hypothetical levels
of control are not used in MOL, all the therapist has to learn to do
is look for evidence of "background thoughts". Why learn all the
complexity of how a hierarchy of control systems works if all you
really need to know how to do is look for background thoughts.

And of course the PCT therapist wonders why it is that if the client wants
to make a lot of money, the client is not in fact making a lot of money.

Uh oh. Isn't the analysis. I though the therapist is supposed to stay
out of it. As I understand it, the therapist is not supposed to ask
questions aimed at trying to find out why a person might have problem.
If this is not the case -- if the therapist can come up with
hypotheses about what the patient's problem might be, then this is the
first clear justification I've heard for the importance of learning
PCT in order to do MOL.

Control systems normally keep their errors very small. Why isn't this error
small, too? So the therapist wonders what is keeping this control process
from working. There are many possible reasons. Maybe the goal (like unaided
systained human flight) is physically impossible to achieve. Maybe some
education, or some skill, is lacking. Or maybe -- most likely of all -- is
that the client at the same time (but for a separate set of reasons) wants
to AVOID making more money.

If this kind of thinking is part of MOL, then I do see a role for PCT
in MOL. I though the therapist was supposed to just look for evidence
of background thoughts. What you are saying here is that the therapist
can hypothesize about the existence of a possible conflict and use the
MOL process to test these hypotheses.

This tells the therapist that in order for reorganization to be effective,
it must be directed to the area of the conflict, in the hope that the client
will start changing the organization of related control systems and
eventually come across a new organization that works better -- not only in
the sense of resolving the conflict, but in the sense of not creating new
conflicts with other control systems.

So the therapist does try to find conflicts and get the client to
focus on them so that reorganization can happen. This seems like the
MOL therapist has a lot more to do than just look for evidence of
possible background thoughts and, otherwise, mind their own business.
This is a whole different picture of MOL than the one I got at the
meeting -- or from Tim's book, for that matter. Apparently, in order
to do MOL you have to know what a conflict is, how it's expressed and
why it's caused. This, indeed, requires an understanding of PCT.

So what do we get from all those PCT ideas in the context of therapy? The
method of levels.

I would like to see a description of exactly how PCT informs an MOL
therapy session. What, for example, would be the difference between
two equally competent MOL therapists, one who knows little or nothing
about PCT and one who knows a lot. What would they do differently?

Best

Rick

···

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

rsmarken · August 1, 2008, 1:34am

[From Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1835)]

Bill Powers (2008.07.31.1200 MDT)]

I agree with your proposals about checking on understanding of PCT and MOL.
This is an important research topic and needs to be developed by as many
researchers as can be enlisted. It's really a formal way to define both PCT
and MOL to others (and ourselves).

David Goldstein has done a few things in this direction, which need to be
improved and replicated. He and I, in collaboration, set up a Q-sort list
which describes the experience of MOL therapy (and its opposites) from the
client's point of view...

Using a computer-operated Qsort program I wrote (because I got tired of
cutting out little rectangles from printed posts), both of us sorted these
items from most like to least like what we thought a client would
experience. I did two sorts from scratch and my sorts correlated better than
0.9. David did the sort and his sort correlated with mine at about 0.89. I'm
sure that looking only at the top third and bottom third (or 8), the
correlations would come out even higher.

This just shows that you and David know what you are supposed to say
about MOL. I would rather see the correlation between your
independently obtained answers to when "up a level" events happened in
the same therapy session.

By the way, why is a .89 correlation between answers to a set of
questions about MOL good data and a correlation of .89 between level
of religious belief and abortion rate not?

Best

Rick

···

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

rsmarken · August 1, 2008, 1:42am

[From Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1845)]

Bill Powers (2008.07.31.1346 MDT)-

When therapy proceeds satisfactorily there is, for some people, perhaps
not much of a need to think about PCT.

Tim's post didn;t go to CSGNet apparently. Anyway, there it is,
straight from the MOL therapists mouth;-)

So I'm agreeing with you. The underlying knowledge of the PCT model makes a
profound difference in what you see before you and what you try to do about
it.

I bet most therapists have a mental model of people that is much
closed to PCT than to S-R. I actually do think that knowledge of PCT
can help one do the therapy. In particular, I think it can help you
recognize where there might be a conflict. But it seems to me like the
insistence is on MOL being completely non-directive; that the
therapist has no role other than to notice possible background
thoughts and try to direct the clients attention to them. If that's
all there is to it (and it's fine if that's true) then I think a
knowledge of PCT is really not required.

Best

Rick

···

At 02:38 AM 8/1/2008 +1000, Tim Carey wrote:

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

Bill_Powers1 · August 1, 2008, 11:33am

[From Bill Powers (92008.08.01.0314 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1820) --

So you have to teach people PCT just to get them to not give advice
during therapy? Wouldn't it be easier to just say "don't do advice"?
Does every therapist, after learning PCT, stop giving advice? I would
say this is an argument for _not_ wasting time teaching PCT to
therapists.

As you say, it would be simpler just to say "Don't do advice," if giving advice really could change a therapist's behavior. But giving advice and problem-solving are extremely hard to give up. When a client tells you about a complex, sexy problem, it's like listening to a soap opera (including the fact that as an experienced therapist, you've heard the same basic story dozens of times). After the episode has developed to the point where dramatic tension has built up, you simply get sucked into the content of the story and are right there beside the client saying "Maybe if we tried this, or did that, or kept thinking this thought....": The urge to solve problems is all but irresistible. Problem-solving is actually very entertaining. But all you're doing as a therapist when that happens is joining in the client's futile attempt to reorganize at the wrong level (futile because it hasn't been working, which is the only reason why the client is there). The basic question in therapy is, in my opinion, "Why hasn't this person solved this problem already?" The client is showing you why, if you can only pick up on the clues.

The problem with just telling people what movements to make as MOL therapists is that this simply creates conflict with the higher levels that are already there in the therapist. The therapist is doing what he or she is doing because of the higher levels that are operating in that therapist, so any person external to the therapist's hierarchy (every other person) can only disturb that system by telling the therapist to change behaviors. It doesn't matter if the advice is good and correct; it will still be resisted. You can't change the behavior until you change the higher systems that are using that behavior as part of their output functions. Just imagine telling a Freudian psychodynamicist that he should stop talking about catharsis and cathexis and Ids and Egos and Superegos. Or telling a behavior mod specialist to quit trying to control people's behavior by giving them reinforcements.

In answer to your first question, I'd say that yes, everyone who really understands PCT would most likely quit giving advice, or at least would become a lot more tentative or enquiring about it. Instead of saying "You should stand up for yourself and not let that guy walk all over you," you would realize that you don't know exactly why the other person doesn't do that, and you'd ask, perhaps, "Is there something about that guy you're talking about that keeps you from fighting back at him?" The answer might tell you something new about the situation: "Yes, I feel sorry for the guy because he's so helpless, being a quadruplegic and all". Or instead of advising someone to stop talking about mental illness, take the time to ask a few questions and discover that he's an epileptic.

In that case it's the therapist who has to go up a level, but it's MOL just the same. That's what MOL is about. It's about finding out what is behind the surface manifestations of problems, at a higher level. After some experience with giving advice, the person who is aware of levels of organization will understand just how very much is going on inside another person that isn't visible from the outside. Only the person who lives in there can know all the consequences of trying to follow a given piece of advice. That's why the MOL therapist has to ask, not tell, and not argue when the client says his guess is wrong.

So it just doesn't work to tell a therapist not to give advice. You have to teach the therapist why not, if you can. The best way I know to do that is to teach PCT. Or at least offer it to be learned.

> If PCT tells us what NOT to do, what does it tell us about what to do?
> Directly, not very much, but indirectly, everything. PCT tells us that
> people control, or try to control, their own worlds of perception...

So you have faith that PCT will make the therapist better at doing
MOL. Got evidence?

I'd rather let the real therapists talk about that. So far I think all the people who have done more than one kind of therapy agree that MOL works better and faster. There are some studies under way but more need to be done.

> Another fact that PCT suggests to a therapist is that control is
> hierarchically organized.

Why does this help a person do MOL? Since the 11 hypothetical levels
of control are not used in MOL, all the therapist has to learn to do
is look for evidence of "background thoughts". Why learn all the
complexity of how a hierarchy of control systems works if all you
really need to know how to do is look for background thoughts.

I suppose if you want to learn the absolute minimum needed to get by as a so-called MOL therapist, you could do it that way. But why be a half-assed therapist? You probably won't help people much.

As to the 11 levels, you know perfectly well that I don't want people regurgitating a memorized list of PROPOSED levels that have never been formally tested. What matters in MOL is relative level: what makes a background thought important is that it gives a reason for existence of the foreground thought, not just the fact that it's in the background. If you worry about which one of Bill's Levels it is, you'll miss the point. The background thought tells therapist and client why the person is having the foreground thought (if it's productive background thought, and not merely wondering how much longer it is until lunch).

> And of course the PCT therapist wonders why it is that if the client wants
> to make a lot of money, the client is not in fact making a lot of money.

Uh oh. Isn't the analysis.

Yes, it's analysis. But it's not offered to the client. It suggests questions that the therapist might ask.

I though the therapist is supposed to stay
out of it. As I understand it, the therapist is not supposed to ask
questions aimed at trying to find out why a person might have problem.

Then you'll have to reorganize your understanding. If you simply accept that well, sure, everyone wants to make a lot of money, you'll be missing a clue about higher levels. You have to learn to ask the dumb questions, which really means that you have to stop letting your culture and private experiences dictate what you hear the client saying. If a person says he wants something and has wanted it for a long time, he is telling you that he isn't getting it. There's an uncorrected error, right? That means that none of the things he is doing to correct the error is working -- yet he keeps on trying the same things, and they keep on not working. A fat lot of good it will do for the therapist to start suggesting more ways to try to correct the error at that level, in that control system. Reorganization won't do any good in that place if it hasn't worked already. There's probably a conflict with another system at this level, or perhaps at a higher level that is setting the reference signals for this level. The background thoughts will give you an idea of what to ask about. Asking (or the search for an answer) moves the person's attention away from the current set of thoughts and feelings, and toward some other set where reorganization might do more good (the assumption being that reorganization follows awareness).

If this is not the case -- if the therapist can come up with
hypotheses about what the patient's problem might be, then this is the
first clear justification I've heard for the importance of learning
PCT in order to do MOL.

Don't forget what I said at the start of this post. MOL doesn't conflict with PCT at higher levels, but it very likely conflicts with non-PCT theories of behavior, which linger in all of us including you. It's a non-PCT theory of behavior that says you can teach someone to do MOL just by telling that person what behaviors to change.

If this kind of thinking is part of MOL, then I do see a role for PCT
in MOL. I though the therapist was supposed to just look for evidence
of background thoughts.

Yeah, but not just because it's nice to know about lots of background thoughts. The background thoughts are going on in higher systems and when the client starts to focus on them, he or she begins to see the control processes that are behind the foreground thoughts (actions, feelings, attitudes, etc). MOL isn't just a mechanical procedure that takes sick people in at one end and spits out well people at the other end.

What you are saying here is that the therapist
can hypothesize about the existence of a possible conflict and use the
MOL process to test these hypotheses.

Yes, I've been saying that all along. But the point is to get the client to look at the hypothesis and test it, not to show that the therapist is right or wrong. Even just looking to see if the hypothesis is right moves awareness to a new place, and it is that movement that does the work, not intellectualizing about hypotheses. During the looking, things change.

> This tells the therapist that in order for reorganization to be effective,
> it must be directed to the area of the conflict, in the hope that the client
> will start changing the organization of related control systems and
> eventually come across a new organization that works better -- not only in
> the sense of resolving the conflict, but in the sense of not creating new
> conflicts with other control systems.

So the therapist does try to find conflicts and get the client to
focus on them so that reorganization can happen. This seems like the
MOL therapist has a lot more to do than just look for evidence of
possible background thoughts and, otherwise, mind their own business.

Yes, that's what we have been saying and still say.

This is a whole different picture of MOL than the one I got at the
meeting -- or from Tim's book, for that matter.

Read it some more.

Apparently, in order
to do MOL you have to know what a conflict is, how it's expressed and
why it's caused.

No. The CLIENT has to see what the conflict is and see both sides of it at once. This happens naturally in going back and forth between the alternatives. After enough of that, people say things like "I'm just sort of up here, looking down at it." When that happens, reorganization is probably going on Up Here. It doesn't matter in the least if the therapist understands the conflict or how it gets resolved. Usually the final resolutions don't even happen during the session. Of course to steer the client toward a consideration of the conflict does require that the therapist understand the principles behind conflict. But NOT in order for the therapist to come up with a resolution of the conflict. Therapy is not a contest between client and therapist to see who can come up with the right answer first.

This, indeed, requires an understanding of PCT.

> So what do we get from all those PCT ideas in the context of therapy? The
> method of levels.

I would like to see a description of exactly how PCT informs an MOL
therapy session. What, for example, would be the difference between
two equally competent MOL therapists, one who knows little or nothing
about PCT and one who knows a lot. What would they do differently?

You'll learn more by trying to see what they understand at higher levels. You learn how different conductors work not by watching the baton but by listening to the music. It helps if you can do MOL yourself, because you will catch things in the client's statements that the inexperienced therapist obviously missed (like the therapist who doesn't see anything worth asking about when the client says he wants to make a lot of money, or doesn't like being insulted, or wants to be a better person). I suppose that one day we'll have teaching videos for people to test their understanding.

If MOL really works, the implication is that practically anyone could benefit by trying it. Does that have anything do do with your comments?

Best,

Bill P.

Bill_Powers1 · August 2, 2008, 1:59am

[From Bill Powers (23008.08.01.1857 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1845) --

I bet most therapists have a mental model of people that is much
closed to PCT than to S-R. I actually do think that knowledge of PCT
can help one do the therapy. In particular, I think it can help you
recognize where there might be a conflict. But it seems to me like the
insistence is on MOL being completely non-directive; that the
therapist has no role other than to notice possible background
thoughts and try to direct the clients attention to them.

I can understand how it might seem on first glance that MOL is supposed to be completely nondirective, because so many directive things that conventional therapists do are rejected. An impatient therapist might throw up his hands and say (as I have heard some say), "Well then there isn't anything for me to do!"

In fact I think all MOL therapists with some experience would aqree with me when I say that this kind of therapy is very demanding, and that the therapist is constantly exerting a bias by asking very directive questions, and even offering guesses about what might be going on. The emphasis is always on trying to bring out what is behind the current foreground topic, to the point where the foreground topic is all but ignored. It takes a lot of concentration and mental effort to figure out which way is "up" for the client when the client seems oblivious to anything but the foreground topic.

After the client gets the general idea this becomes easier because what the therapist does ask about usually turns out to be more interesting and important to the client than the subject of conversation that was previously in the foreground. When conventional therapists see an MOL session for the first time, they are very often surprised by the direction of questioning the therapist takes -- for example, if the client starts to talk about bad experiences in his childhood, the therapist might well ask "As you're telling me about these experiences, what are you thinking or feeling about them right now? Do they still bother you, as we're talking?" A conventional therapist might head directly for the juicy childhood trauma, but the MOL therapist would probably let the visit to the past go on for a while and then yank it back into present time. You can't reorganize the past.

This isn't a cookbook procedure and different therapists might put more on less emphasis on a given statement by the client. Too eager an approach can shut off progress. But the pressure to move to higher levels is always visible. And when conflicts are encountered, stalling the process, the direction clearly changes to exploring the various aspects of the conflict, trying to get them clearly in mind at the same time, without suggesting which way the balance should shift but always emphasizing considering both sides.

The principles behind all these ways of questioning are simply the principles of PCT; they don't have to be turned into rigid checklists of questions one is suppose to ask on a preset schedule. But don't confuse a lack of analysis or homework assignments or interpretations or advice with a lack of direction. There is definitely a direction; it's just not one of the conventional directions. And as Tim Carey points out often, all successful psychotherapists do these same things. It's just that they also do a lot of other things that get in the way of progress, wasting time or making matters worse. And of course they have no coherent theoretical principles to help them figure out what do to when a case doesn't proceed like clockwork, as Tim also said.

There is really no substitute for experiencing MOL in both roles. After that experience most questions answer themselves, in the same way questions about control answer themselves once you see a working model of a control system and understand it. It often happens that people put off this experience because of background thoughts they've never examined or discussed, and of course that would become the foreground topic of the first experiences with MOL. Once that barrier is breached, the whole thing becomes easier. For Mary, this happened at the workshop in Vancouver (run by Tim and me) where the group split up into pairs and swapped roles in practice sessions. She told me that her big background thought obstacle was "Other people have background thoughts, but I don't."

For me, the first experiences were back in 1952 or 1953 and I no longer remember the details. But they still happen when I put on demos of the method of levels. I suddenly realize that I want this person to talk about something I got interested in, and that I haven't paid attention for the past five minutes to what the client is interested in. It never stops; there's always a background thought.

Best,

Bill P.

Bill_Powers1 · August 2, 2008, 2:34am

[From Bill Powers (2008.08.01.1840 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1835)--

I did two sorts from scratch and my sorts correlated better than
> 0.9. David did the sort and his sort correlated with mine at about 0.89. I'm
> sure that looking only at the top third and bottom third (or 8), the
> correlations would come out even higher.

This just shows that you and David know what you are supposed to say
about MOL.

That's all it shows? In case you've misplaced it, here is the list of items. Perhaps you could pick one or two and explain how ranking on a scale from "most unlike" to "most like" the experience of MOL therapy shows that a person just knows what one is supposed to say about MOL:

001 I found that my own ideas were inferior to the therapist's ideas about my problems.
002 When I was confused, the therapist explained things so I understood them better.
003 The therapist did not always seem to be interested in what I was saying.
004 The therapist brought my attention back to fleeting thoughts I mentioned.
005 I was reminded by the therapist of the social norms that apply to my actions.
006 I was told of the real meanings of my thoughts and feelings.
007 I was often unable to answer questions that the therapist asked.
008 The therapist seemed to have more insights into my problems than I did.
009 When I asked for advice, the therapist refused to give it to me.
010 The therapist communicated almost entirely by asking questions.
011 The therapist showed me that my present problems come from past experiences.
012 In the session, I was told or shown that my unpleasant thoughts are incorrect.
013 The therapist suggested new viewpoints toward my problems to try out.
014 The therapist helped me by using his knowledge of other people.
015 The therapist spoke less than I did during the session.
016 I do not remember any specific questions the therapist asked.
017 I was helped to see both sides of conflicting wishes and intentions.
018 The subject under discussion seemed to keep changing.
019 I began to understand the method that the therapist was using.
020 I was shown by the therapist that my desires or goals contradict each other.
021 I felt that it was up to me to resolve my problems.
022 The therapist made me more aware of how I felt and thought during the session.
023 The therapist gave me useful suggestions about how to act when I feel bad.
024 I was encouraged by the therapist to behave and think in a more realistic way.
025 The therapist had many suggestions about how I could solve my problems.

I would rather see the correlation between your
independently obtained answers to when "up a level" events happened in
the same therapy session.

So would I, that's an excellent proposal. When do you propose to start?

By the way, why is a .89 correlation between answers to a set of
questions about MOL good data and a correlation of .89 between level
of religious belief and abortion rate not?

As I explained to Warren, when correlations get over about 0.9 I start waking up, and at 0.95 I definitely get interested. I find that too many items in the above list are hard to sort because they touch on similar points. This way of characterizing a therapy definitely needs more work before I would think of publishing anything on it. But we're among friends here, I think.

Best,

Bill P.

rsmarken · August 2, 2008, 6:25am

[From Rick Marken (2008.08.01.2330)]

Bill Powers (2008.08.01.1840 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.07.31.1835)--

I did two sorts from scratch and my sorts correlated better than

This just shows that you and David know what you are supposed to say

>about MOL.

That's all it shows? In case you've misplaced it, here is the list of items.
Perhaps you could pick one or two and explain how ranking on a scale from
"most unlike" to "most like" the experience of MOL therapy shows that a
person just knows what one is supposed to say about MOL:

Ok, let 1 = most unlike and 5 = most like. Here are my ratings (in
parentheses) of how unlike or like each item is to MOL.

001 I found that my own ideas were inferior to the therapist's ideas about
my problems. (1)
002 When I was confused, the therapist explained things so I understood them
better. (1)
003 The therapist did not always seem to be interested in what I was saying. (5)
004 The therapist brought my attention back to fleeting thoughts I
mentioned. (5)
005 I was reminded by the therapist of the social norms that apply to my
actions. (1)
006 I was told of the real meanings of my thoughts and feelings. (1)
007 I was often unable to answer questions that the therapist asked. (3)
008 The therapist seemed to have more insights into my problems than I did. (1)
009 When I asked for advice, the therapist refused to give it to me. (5)
010 The therapist communicated almost entirely by asking questions. (5)
011 The therapist showed me that my present problems come from past
experiences.(1)
012 In the session, I was told or shown that my unpleasant thoughts are
incorrect. (1)
013 The therapist suggested new viewpoints toward my problems to try out.(1)
014 The therapist helped me by using his knowledge of other people. (1)
015 The therapist spoke less than I did during the session. (5)
016 I do not remember any specific questions the therapist asked. (5)
017 I was helped to see both sides of conflicting wishes and intentions. (5)
018 The subject under discussion seemed to keep changing. (5)
019 I began to understand the method that the therapist was using. (3)
020 I was shown by the therapist that my desires or goals contradict each
other. (5)
021 I felt that it was up to me to resolve my problems. (5)
022 The therapist made me more aware of how I felt and thought during the
session. (5)
023 The therapist gave me useful suggestions about how to act when I feel
bad. (1)
024 I was encouraged by the therapist to behave and think in a more
realistic way. (1)
025 The therapist had many suggestions about how I could solve my problems. (1)

I bet that if you rated them the correlation between our ratings would
be close to 1.0. NAd I'm not even an MOL therapist though I think I
can do MOL pretty well too. But I doubt that we would agree about that
(if you watched me doing it) as much as we agree about what should be
said _about_ MOL.

I would rather see the correlation between your
independently obtained answers to when "up a level" events happened in
the same therapy session.

So would I, that's an excellent proposal. When do you propose to start?

Probably never. You're the one interested in MOL, not me. I'm
interested in all that stuff that used to be PCT. You know, the
experiments; the modeling; the stuff that will be in your upcoming
book. I'm just not that interested in therapy. Maybe it's because I've
never had a problem that a decent income couldn't eventually fix. I
think growing the middle class (and shrinking the underclass) will
solve more psychological (control) problems more quickly than all the
therapies Exxon's profits could buy;-)

Best

Rick

···

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

Bill_Powers1 · August 2, 2008, 2:54pm

[From Bill Powers (2008.08.02.0749 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.08.01.2330) --

Ok, let 1 = most unlike and 5 = most like. Here are my ratings (in
parentheses) of how unlike or like each item is to MOL.

> 001 I found that my own ideas were inferior to the therapist's ideas about
> my problems. (1)
> 002 When I was confused, the therapist explained things so I understood them
> better. (1)
> 003 The therapist did not always seem to be interested in what I was saying. (5)
> 004 The therapist brought my attention back to fleeting thoughts I
> mentioned. (5)
> 005 I was reminded by the therapist of the social norms that apply to my
> actions. (1)
> 006 I was told of the real meanings of my thoughts and feelings. (1)
> 007 I was often unable to answer questions that the therapist asked. (3)
> 008 The therapist seemed to have more insights into my problems than I did. (1)
> 009 When I asked for advice, the therapist refused to give it to me. (5)
> 010 The therapist communicated almost entirely by asking questions. (5)
> 011 The therapist showed me that my present problems come from past
> experiences.(1)
> 012 In the session, I was told or shown that my unpleasant thoughts are
> incorrect. (1)
> 013 The therapist suggested new viewpoints toward my problems to try out.(1)
> 014 The therapist helped me by using his knowledge of other people. (1)
> 015 The therapist spoke less than I did during the session. (5)
> 016 I do not remember any specific questions the therapist asked. (5)
> 017 I was helped to see both sides of conflicting wishes and intentions. (5)
> 018 The subject under discussion seemed to keep changing. (5)
> 019 I began to understand the method that the therapist was using. (3)
> 020 I was shown by the therapist that my desires or goals contradict each
> other. (5)
> 021 I felt that it was up to me to resolve my problems. (5)
> 022 The therapist made me more aware of how I felt and thought during the
> session. (5)
> 023 The therapist gave me useful suggestions about how to act when I feel
> bad. (1)
> 024 I was encouraged by the therapist to behave and think in a more
> realistic way. (1)
> 025 The therapist had many suggestions about how I could solve my problems. (1)

I bet that if you rated them the correlation between our ratings would
be close to 1.0.

If I did it by assigning scores as you did. I might use more 2 and 4 scores, and your 3 scores are different from the ones I would rate as neither like nor unlike, so the correlation would be less than 1.00. The Q-sort method forces putting the items into order, so there is a lot more variability than when only 3 or 5 levels of score are used (I think that with the above list, there were 13 different scores over the range). Your way is probably more realistic, in that it acknowledges the crudeness of such verbal comparisons.

However, I'd say you know a little more about MOL than just the words to use in talking about it (unless you really haven't read any of the discussions, or Tim's publications, or didn't understand anything you did read). What you said was that David and I merely agreed on how to talk about MOL, implying (I thought) that there wasn't anything real to learn about it. You appear to believe that MOL is simply a digression from PCT, having no connection to it, so time spend on MOL is simply wasted. We should just focus on theoretical models and testing them experimentally, if I hear you right.

NAd I'm not even an MOL therapist though I think I
can do MOL pretty well too. But I doubt that we would agree about that
(if you watched me doing it) as much as we agree about what should be
said _about_ MOL.

This list was about the client's experience of correctly- or incorrectly-done MOL, not (directly) the therapist's techniques. No doubt if you tried to play the part of therapist you might have had some difficulty at first remembering how it's supposed to be done, and you might fall into traps like getting involved the content and forgetting to look for disruptions and so on, but everybody does that. It's not easy to stick to the basic principles all the time. I don't always do it right myself.

>> I would rather see the correlation between your
>> independently obtained answers to when "up a level" events happened in
>> the same therapy session.
>
> So would I, that's an excellent proposal. When do you propose to start?

Probably never. You're the one interested in MOL, not me.

If you're not interested, why recommend an interesting research project? It wouldn't be that hard to set up a judging panel, would it? Given a video of a session, you could even do this via the internet. Aren't you even a teeny weeny bit interested in knowing whether different practitioners of MOL would mark the same incidents as showing a possible up-level comment or experience?

I'm interested in all that stuff that used to be PCT. You know, the
experiments; the modeling; the stuff that will be in your upcoming
book.

As far as I'm concerned, that stuff still is PCT. I spend a lot of time on it. We seem to disagree, however, on whether MOL is a legitimate relative of PCT. Would you be happier if it just went away and everyone stopped doing it?

I'm just not that interested in therapy. Maybe it's because I've
never had a problem that a decent income couldn't eventually fix.

I have a suggestion: if your income isn't high enough to solve all your problems, why not just earn more money? If you sense an error, I should think you would correct it. Is there some reason for not doing that?

I think growing the middle class (and shrinking the underclass) will
solve more psychological (control) problems more quickly than all the
therapies Exxon's profits could buy;-)

You're saying that there really aren't any internal problems -- our problems (or perhaps you mean only your problems) are all being caused by what other people do. Is that what you mean? So how can we get other people to behave differently? Are you saying that there really isn't any way? I trust you don't mean that we should use reward and punishment, or prayer, or brute force, and apparently you don't think MOL is worth considering, so what means do you recommend we (or those who agree with you) use to grow the middle class? And how do you see to it that the recommendations are carried out? Who will actually carry out the recommendations? Am I wrong in thinking you want these changes actually to take place?

Let me add that I'm honored to know a person who has no unresolved internal conflicts.

Best,

Bill P.

rsmarken · August 2, 2008, 6:08pm

[From Rick Marken (2008.08.02.1100)]

Bill Powers (2008.08.02.0749 MDT)--

I bet that if you rated them the correlation between our ratings would
be close to 1.0.

If I did it by assigning scores as you did. I might use more 2 and 4 scores,
and your 3 scores are different from the ones I would rate as neither like
nor unlike, so the correlation would be less than 1.00.

Yes, I said _close_. If you send your list of numbers I can quickly
get the correlation. The ranking approach does make it a bit harder to
get a high correlation but I bet that if we did rank them it's likely
the the Spearman rank order correlation would be pretty high too.

However, I'd say you know a little more about MOL than just the words to use
in talking about it

Yes, I think I do.

What you said was that David and I merely agreed on how to talk about
MOL, implying (I thought) that there wasn't anything real to learn about it.

I said that the correlation of your Q sorts shows only that you two
know how to talk about it in the same way. In fact, I imagine that you
and David (and others working with MOL) know a lot more about it than
just how to talk about it. Of course I think there is something real
to learn about it; I didn't mean to imply that there wasn't. I just
don't think the "real" part of MOL is being presented very rigorously.
But it may be that I am just too dumb to understand it. After all, I
was not smart enough to get into a clinical program when I went to
grad school. I may be too simple to understand the clinical stuff.

You appear to
believe that MOL is simply a digression from PCT, having no connection to
it, so time spend on MOL is simply wasted. We should just focus on
theoretical models and testing them experimentally, if I hear you right.

No. I don't think MOL is a digression or wasted time. What I think
(and, again, this may just be because I'm not smart enough for this)
is that the presentation has not been rigorous in the sense that the
relevance of PCT to MOL has not been made clear -- it seems more like
faith than science: believe in PCT and you will be a better clinician.

Maybe it has just that much of the stuff on MOL not been to my taste.
I love Tim's stuff on how to do MOL. Maybe my problem is a carryover
experimentalists didn't much care for the clinicians and vice versa.
Jealous, probably.

If you're not interested, why recommend an interesting research project?

OK, I'm interested to the extent that MOL is a way to promulgate PCT.
I can't believe that the "interesting" research project I suggested
hasn't already been done; seems like an obvious first step.

As far as I'm concerned, that stuff still is PCT. I spend a lot of time on
it. We seem to disagree, however, on whether MOL is a legitimate relative of
PCT. Would you be happier if it just went away and everyone stopped doing
it?

No, I think MOL is a wonderful extension of PCT. I just wish it were
presented/taught in a way that made it more obvious why knowing PCT is
essential to doing MOL. I think that could be done; I don't do it
because I don't do MOL and I would feel like an interloper if I
started talking about some of the things that I thing should be done
-- in teaching MOL, that is.

I have a suggestion: if your income isn't high enough to solve all your
problems, why not just earn more money? If you sense an error, I should
think you would correct it. Is there some reason for not doing that?

No. It's what I do.

You're saying that there really aren't any internal problems -- our problems
(or perhaps you mean only your problems) are all being caused by what other
people do. Is that what you mean?

No. I just think that people generally solve these problems on their
own and it's easier to do that -- to get control of what they want to
control -- when they have a secure job that provides a secure income;
money is what allows us to control for many of the things we need in
life.

So how can we get other people to behave
differently? Are you saying that there really isn't any way? I trust you
don't mean that we should use reward and punishment, or prayer, or brute
force, and apparently you don't think MOL is worth considering, so what
means do you recommend we (or those who agree with you) use to grow the
middle class?

I guess I would recommend political action, some of which involves
verbal communications that are aimed at helping people go up a level.
But basically I recommend trying to convince people in positions of
power to implement policies that make things better. Basically, in the
US that means voting all Republicans out of office. Democratic
policies are certainly not all right but they are overwhelmingly more
in the right direction than those of the Republicans.

And how do you see to it that the recommendations are carried
out? Who will actually carry out the recommendations? Am I wrong in thinking
you want these changes actually to take place?

We'll just keep trying.

Let me add that I'm honored to know a person who has no unresolved internal
conflicts.

That's not me. I do have such conflicts (I think) but they aren't
persistent (or particularly difficult). I have had problems in my
life, for sure. But they were usually the result of external
disturbances and they eventually get resolved on their own; I
reorganize on my own. I don't even know how I do it. So, yes, I'm
pretty error free right now. But that's largely because I am
financially secure (oh, and the people in my life -- wife and kids --
are pretty wonderful too; I can't help it if I'm lucky;-))

Love

Rick

···

from my graduate training in experimental psychology; the
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com

Bill_Powers1 · August 2, 2008, 11:04pm

[From Bill Powers (2008.08.02.1655 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.08.02.1100)--

Yes, I said _close_. If you send your list of numbers I can quickly
get the correlation. The ranking approach does make it a bit harder to
get a high correlation but I bet that if we did rank them it's likely
the the Spearman rank order correlation would be pretty high too.

Here is the output (attached). I have manually added two columns, the
first one being the statement number and the second being the score
given that number on a scale from 1 to 13. 13 is Most Like.

The sort name is BILLMOL1. 0n the line where that label is, the
statement numbers (as numbered in your post) are given in order of
score. The scores are in the line above. It doesn't look to me as if
the correlation would be very high, but I leave that to you.

If you want to use my QSort program I'll send it to you.

Best,

Bill P.

MethodItems-Rev-sum.txt (589 Bytes)

MartinT · August 3, 2008, 4:25am

[Martin Taylor 2008.08.02.23.54]

[From Bill Powers (2008.08.02.1655 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.08.02.1100)--

Yes, I said _close_. If you send your list of numbers I can quickly
get the correlation. The ranking approach does make it a bit harder to
get a high correlation but I bet that if we did rank them it's likely
the the Spearman rank order correlation would be pretty high too.

Here is the output (attached). I have manually added two columns, the first one being the statement number and the second being the score given that number on a scale from 1 to 13. 13 is Most Like.

The sort name is BILLMOL1. 0n the line where that label is, the statement numbers (as numbered in your post) are given in order of score. The scores are in the line above. It doesn't look to me as if the correlation would be very high, but I leave that to you.

You can't really do a useful correlation with such quantized data as Rick's. Only two of his judgments were neither 1 nor 5.

Just out of interest, I tried quantizing Bill's scores to see what agreement there might be. There is no quantization that can make Bill's scores give the same overall number of ones, threes, and fives as Rick gave, but if you take the three "7" scores in Bill's list and call them "3", and relabel 1-6 as "1" and 8-13 as "5", then of the 25 statements, Rick and Bill agree on 18 (12 or 13 would be roughly what you would expect of Rick's (or Bill's) scores were randomly distributed but with the same number of 1s, 3s, and 5s. So they are in moderate agreement, but also they have some disagreement.

Statements of disagreement may say something about what MOL means (or where it might be misunderstood). Rick's numbers (1 or 5, which I list as - and +) followed by Bill's (1 to 13, from which I subtract 7 to give + an - scores around the neutral value of 7) in parentheses. I omit Rick's 3s:

002 When I was confused, the therapist explained things so I understood them better. (-,+1)
007 I was often unable to answer questions that the therapist asked. (0,-1)
009 When I asked for advice, the therapist refused to give it to me. (+,0)
014 The therapist helped me by using his knowledge of other people. (-,0)
019 I began to understand the method that the therapist was using. (0,+4)
020 I was shown by the therapist that my desires or goals contradict each other. (+,-2)
024 I was encouraged by the therapist to behave and think in a more realistic way. (-,0)

Looking at them this way, there seems to be substantial differences of understanding only on 19 and 20. Knowing little more about MOL than I have gleaned from CSGnet and one CSG meeting, I have to guess that the difference is because Bill would say that the client found the contradiction rather than the therapist showing it, and that to Bill it is expected that the client will begin to understand the method.

Probably not very helpful, but fun to do.

Martin

rsmarken · August 3, 2008, 5:35am

[From Rick Marken (2008.08.02.2235)]

Martin Taylor (2008.08.02.23.54) --

Looking at them this way, there seems to be substantial differences of
understanding only on 19 and 20.

Yes, my major deviation was on 20 which read: "I was shown by the
therapist that my desires or goals contradict each other". I gave it
an 5 (highly agree) because I read it as the therapist "providing the
opportunity" though MOL for the person to see their conflicting goals
for themselves. I didn't read it as " the therapist, Sigmund Freud
like, provided an amazing revelation of my unknown conflict". If I had
read it that way I would have given it a 1 rather than a 5. Still, I
have seen MOL sessions where the therapist did ask the client to focus
on one and then another of the conflicting goals. This seems like a
perfectly legitimate thing for the therapist to do -- the therapist is
not solving the problem for the client; just asking the subject to
confirm "yes, I really want A and yes, I really don't want A" -- and
it seems like that could be called "showing goals that contradict each
other". I think this shows that agreement about verbal descriptions of
MOL is not a particularly good indication that there is common
understanding of MOL.

Best

Rick

···

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

dmg · August 3, 2008, 1:16pm

[From David Goldstein (2008.08.03.0907 EDT)]
[About Rick Marken (2008.08.02.2235)]

The list that WTP posted was only used to show interobserver agreement between WTP and DMG about what is and what is not MOL Therapy. Any therapist could use the items to compare their understanding of MOL with WTP, who created MOL.

It could also be used by a patient, after a session, to evaluate the session. By correlating the patient Q-sort with the Q-sort with that of WTP, one could determine whether the patient experienced the session as an MOL Therapy session.

···

----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Marken" <rsmarken@GMAIL.COM>
To: <CSGNET@LISTSERV.ILLINOIS.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 1:35 AM
Subject: Re: MOL and PCT

[From Rick Marken (2008.08.02.2235)]

Martin Taylor (2008.08.02.23.54) --

Looking at them this way, there seems to be substantial differences of
understanding only on 19 and 20.

Yes, my major deviation was on 20 which read: "I was shown by the
therapist that my desires or goals contradict each other". I gave it
an 5 (highly agree) because I read it as the therapist "providing the
opportunity" though MOL for the person to see their conflicting goals
for themselves. I didn't read it as " the therapist, Sigmund Freud
like, provided an amazing revelation of my unknown conflict". If I had
read it that way I would have given it a 1 rather than a 5. Still, I
have seen MOL sessions where the therapist did ask the client to focus
on one and then another of the conflicting goals. This seems like a
perfectly legitimate thing for the therapist to do -- the therapist is
not solving the problem for the client; just asking the subject to
confirm "yes, I really want A and yes, I really don't want A" -- and
it seems like that could be called "showing goals that contradict each
other". I think this shows that agreement about verbal descriptions of
MOL is not a particularly good indication that there is common
understanding of MOL.

Best

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

Bill_Powers1 · August 3, 2008, 4:22pm

[From Bill Powers (2008.08.03.0835 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.08.02.2235) --

> Martin Taylor (2008.08.02.23.54) --

> Looking at them this way, there seems to be substantial differences of
> understanding only on 19 and 20.

Yes, my major deviation was on 20 which read: "I was shown by the
therapist that my desires or goals contradict each other". I gave it
an 5 (highly agree) because I read it as the therapist "providing the
opportunity" though MOL for the person to see their conflicting goals
for themselves. I didn't read it as " the therapist, Sigmund Freud
like, provided an amazing revelation of my unknown conflict". If I had
read it that way I would have given it a 1 rather than a 5.

One thing the Q-sort does is encourage us to see things on a continuous scale rather than as exaggerated black-and-white choices that are forced by imagining modifying conditions not actually stated in the items. In fact, the item in question merely says that it was the therapist who showed (by unstated means) that "my desires or goals contradict each other." I take that as less flagrantly non-MOL than, for example, "005 I was reminded by the therapist of the social norms that apply to my actions," which my sort scored as 1, maximally unlike MOL. When you have to compare items with other items rather than assigning them scores on an absolute scale, many items get displaced toward the center by other items that are clearly more unlike or more like the stated sorting condition. In my sort, the score for "I was shown.." came out to be 5, moderately unlike MOL, and the score for "I was helped to see both sides" was 10, moderately like MOL. I didn't assign those scores; they came from a simple formula that computed scores from the final sorting order.

My intention in constructing this list (with David G.) was not to test for adherence to the principles of MOL, but to pick items that different schools of therapy would understand, but sort differently. Consider, for example, the way a therapist who considers the selection and wording of specific questions to be very important, when encountering

016 I do not remember any specific questions the therapist asked.

Obviously, that therapist would expect the client to have vivid memories of questions that "cracked the case," as some therapists think they can do. But an MOL therapist, particularly one who had attended a demonstration of the "round-robin" exercise put on by Tim Carey, would know that "clients" will not report remembering ANY specific questions asked by the therapists (not one explorer out of about 14 or 15 did at the Guelph meeting in 2005, where each of the guides conducted sessions with all of the explorers, switching counter-clockwise around the circle about every minute). Martin Taylor, organizer of that conference, will remember that, as will others.

If you go through the list trying to think like a psychoanalyst, or a behavior modifier, or a cognitive behavior therapist, or a psychiatrist, I think you will see how the items would be ordered differently depending on what you think therapy is about. That would lead to different correlations with the way an MOL-savvy therapist would sort the same items. I'm sure that with more work this list could greatly be improved and the differentiations sharpened, but this list might prove useful as it is.

Given my free choice, I would not use a Q-sort with a client to find out how the session was evaluated. In the same length of time I could learn more about that just by discussing it with the client. I think these written tests (in which I would include all "instruments" like the MMPI) interfere with the therapist-client relationship and by comparison are a fuzzy, slow, biased way to find out anything about the client.

However, if the purpose is to show someone else that MOL (as a method and as an experience) is different from other therapies, and to suggest just what those differences are, I think the Q-sort and other methods like it can communicate something useful. Similarly, to show changes in therapy to people other than the client, written tests do provide a standardized method of comparison -- and that is also useful in comparing therapies.

Still, I have seen MOL sessions where the therapist did ask the client to focus on one and then another of the conflicting goals. This seems like a
perfectly legitimate thing for the therapist to do -- the therapist is
not solving the problem for the client; just asking the subject to
confirm "yes, I really want A and yes, I really don't want A" -- and
it seems like that could be called "showing goals that contradict each
other".

I agree with the all but the last phrase: the statement did not mention the therapist pointing out goals that contradict each other. It says I was shown by the therapist "that my desires or goals contradict each other." In MOL, however , once the client (not the therapist), is satisfied with an identification of the sides of the conflict, the guide does not point out that they contradict each other. It's up to the explorer to decide that they do -- in fact, that decision is the main thing that that happens to resolve the conflict, and is meaningful only when it comes from the client. The turning point could be where the client says (to quote what an actual person said during a demo)," Well, I guess I can't do both of those things at once, can I?" That doesn't sound like a profound insight when the choices are Do A and Don't Do A, but if this is the first time you've really said that to yourself, it can be a bombshell.

Any time you end up saying "it seems like it could be called," you know you're forcing an interpretation. What you're after is "I don't think anybody could reasonably call it anything but ...". If that's not what you end up with, you give the item a 2 or 3, not a 1, or a 3 or 4, not a 5.

I think this shows that agreement about verbal descriptions of
MOL is not a particularly good indication that there is common
understanding of MOL.

Well, I think you're dead wrong about that. If you rule out verbal descriptions, you're saying there is no way to communicate about MOL using words. I do agree that demonstrations are better than words, but words are not useless. And anyway, you can't even do MOL without words. In cases such as what we're doing right now, we have little else. It's important to write and read carefully, of course, but words can convey ideas that others can understand with what seems reasonable fidelity. And it is possible for people to pick up reasonably correct understandings of MOL through reading and hearing about it, without actually practicing it. That's how most people get started with it.

After going through all that, I end up not at all sure what the subject of discussion is, here. You seem to have a number of amorphous concerns about MOL, but I can't make out what the theme is. It seems to me that you're talking all around the theme without saying what it is. What is it you're not saying?

Best,

Bill P.

rsmarken · August 3, 2008, 11:31pm

from Rick Marken (2008.08.03.1630)]

Bill Powers (2008.08.03.0835 MDT)--

My intention in constructing this list (with David G.) was not to test for
adherence to the principles of MOL, but to pick items that different schools
of therapy would understand, but sort differently.

That would have been an interesting study. I would have liked to see a
presentation on something like that at the CSG meeting.

Given my free choice, I would not use a Q-sort with a client to find out how
the session was evaluated.

So I don't have any conflicts and you don't have free choice. What a surprise;-)

In MOL, however , once the client (not the therapist), is satisfied with an
identification of the sides of the conflict, the guide does not point out
that they contradict each other.

I know. And that's as it should be.

I think this shows that agreement about verbal descriptions of
MOL is not a particularly good indication that there is common
understanding of MOL.

Well, I think you're dead wrong about that. If you rule out verbal
descriptions, you're saying there is no way to communicate about MOL using
words.

If that's what you think I was saying then I was dead wrong. But I do
believe it is possible to communicate about MOL using words. In fact,
that's what I would like to see: more communication about the details
of MOL. In particular, I would like to see more on what an "up a
level" event looks like to the guide, illustrated with examples.

I do agree that demonstrations are better than words, but words are
not useless.

Actually, I think words along with demos are the best; words are not
useless at all.

After going through all that, I end up not at all sure what the subject of
discussion is, here. You seem to have a number of amorphous concerns about
MOL, but I can't make out what the theme is. It seems to me that you're
talking all around the theme without saying what it is. What is it you're
not saying?

It's kind of amorphous to me too. My concerns are not about MOL
itself, by the way. I've experienced it in various ways and have even
benefited from it on occasion (I think). I guess my main concern is
about the presentation of MOL. And, again, that's probably because my
main interest in PCT is from a scientific rather than an applied
(mainly clinical) perspective. The MOL stuff would be more interesting
to me if the connection to PCT were made more concrete. It seemed to
me like much of the discussion of MOL at the meeting was in the form
of testimonials about the effectiveness or efficiency of MOL. It
seemed like there was more advertising than analysis. I already buy
the idea that MOL is the best therapy since sliced bread. I'm more
interested in getting a concrete understanding of how it is done, why
it works and how it relates to PCT. The research that I have seen on
MOL seems mainly about it's effectiveness or its similarity to other
therapies. I suppose I would like rto see more PCT-like research
regarding what is actually going on in individual MOL sessions -- not
just qualitative analysis of these sessions but quantitative ones as
well. But that's just me and since I don't plan to do that research
I'll just shut up and stop complaining;-)

Best

Rick

···

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

Bill_Powers1 · August 4, 2008, 2:02am

[From Bill Powers (2008.08.03.1857 MDT)]

Rick Marken (2008.08.03.1630) --

> My intention in constructing this list (with David G.) was not to test for
> adherence to the principles of MOL, but to pick items that different schools
> of therapy would understand, but sort differently.

That would have been an interesting study. I would have liked to see a
presentation on something like that at the CSG meeting.

Me, too. I don't know any therapists in my vicinity, but perhaps there are others who might at least do a survey. It would be better to use my Qsort program because it allows comparisons in small groups of statements and computes scores in a uniform way. But any way of doing the sort might be interesting. I do prefer the sorting method over simply assigning scores, because it does introduce a continuum of differences, and prevents reducing the scoring scale to a binary choice.

> Given my free choice, I would not use a Q-sort with a client to find out how
> the session was evaluated.

So I don't have any conflicts and you don't have free choice. What a surprise;-)

I do have free choice and don't use Qsorts to evaluate MOL sessions. But if others want to use "instruments" to evaluate things, that's better than not evaluating at all, so I'd be concerned about their doing it efficiently and in a standardized way. Eventually we'll need to know how to do that. Maybe we could even come up with an "instrument" that deserves the name.

In fact, that's what I would like to see: more communication about the details
of MOL. In particular, I would like to see more on what an "up a
level" event looks like to the guide, illustrated with examples.

Examples would be nice, but for that we need transcripts of real sessions, and once we have those the first order of business would be to have panels of judges marking up the transcripts to pick out what they see as up-a-level moments. I'd want to see that done in a good definitive research effort BEFORE anyone published guidelines for identifying such moments and in effect telling the judges how to judge.

The general criteria for detecting up-a-level moments have been discussed, largely in Tim Carey's writings (and in some of mine), but mostly he just says that they look like "disruptions" of the flow of the conversation. I think there's probably more to them than just a simple discontinuity, but since most MOL practitioners (and observers) claim to be able to detect an up-level event, we should probably test inter-rater reliability (I guess that's what it's called) before putting too many suggestions out there to contaminate the data. From the data we get from rating panels, we could then try to find simple and rigorous ways to define what is meant in terms of PCT. This sounds like grist for the graduate student's mill.

It's kind of amorphous to me too. My concerns are not about MOL
itself, by the way. I've experienced it in various ways and have even
benefited from it on occasion (I think). I guess my main concern is
about the presentation of MOL.

That's what most MOL practitioners are concerned about currently. It's clear to them (particularly those who used to do things differently) that MOL works in a uniquely efficient way, so they don't need to convince themselves. But to bring MOL into the world of science we have to formalize everything and try to build on a base of observable phenomena, so as to communicate with the Establishment and provide a systematic learning path for newcomers.

And, again, that's probably because my
main interest in PCT is from a scientific rather than an applied
(mainly clinical) perspective. The MOL stuff would be more interesting
to me if the connection to PCT were made more concrete. It seemed to
me like much of the discussion of MOL at the meeting was in the form
of testimonials about the effectiveness or efficiency of MOL.

Some, yes. But it's legitimate to note that one method works better than another before we have pinned down exactly why it does. To say that shifting to MOL reduced a waiting list delay from 15 months to zero is not merely a testimonial. I think Tim said once that local pharmacies reported a drop in sales of psychoactive drugs in the area where MOL is used (most referrals are from MDs). I hope that one's not a myth (Tim?). I'm glad that our choice is not simply between True Believers' praise of a new fad and computer models showing beyond doubt how MOL works. We don't have to give up because we don't have those models yet. If the clinicians simply apply MOL while the modelers sit on their hands until someone else comes up with the rigorous details, we will stay right where we are.

It seemed like there was more advertising than analysis. I already buy
the idea that MOL is the best therapy since sliced bread.

No, I don't think you do when you put it that way. That is a mocking overstatement meant to convey the opposite of what it says, isn't it?

I'm more interested in getting a concrete understanding of how it is done, why
it works and how it relates to PCT.

Well, there's the problem, isn't it? If you wait for someone else to come up with that concrete understanding, you will be left on the outside and whoever does what you ask will become the intellectual leader. It's not that someone already has this kind of understanding and is withholding it just to irritate you. Nobody has it; we have to work it out for ourselves, as we have done since the beginnings of PCT. There is nobody in the world who knows any more about this than we do, which is not saying that we know a whole lot but is saying that we're the ones, at least for now, who have to produce whatever new knowledge is going to arise.

The research that I have seen on
MOL seems mainly about it's effectiveness or its similarity to other
therapies. I suppose I would like to see more PCT-like research
regarding what is actually going on in individual MOL sessions -- not
just qualitative analysis of these sessions but quantitative ones as
well. But that's just me and since I don't plan to do that research
I'll just shut up and stop complaining;-)

I'd much rather see you shut up and start working on the problems you have defined. If you're so sure what PCT-like research is, start showing us how to do it to analyze methods of therapy.

Unless, of course, you judge that it will be more effective to march up and down Wilshire Boulevard waving your "Down With Republicans" sign and blowing weed through your beard.

Best,

Bill P.
]