Reorganization as the mechanism of change?

Method of Levels
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Would it be accurate to describe the reorganization as the expected mechanism of change in MOL therapy?

I asked a somewhat inarticulate question in the online training today about a “struggle” I had early on with the notion that we didn’t work on anything a client didn’t present or experience as a problem. The notion from my experience in other modalities is that clients will often bring in a presenting issue, but that therapists often “intuit” or assume that there are other “actual” problems underlying the presenting issue.

If I had it to ask again, I would have framed the question more this way. “My struggle early on with MOL was the notion that reference signals are not or shouldn’t be inherently seen as maladaptive, dysfunctional, etc… For example, a reference signal a pedophile might have that sex with minors is ok. But that we as MOL therapists only work with issues where the client is experiencing distress. Any thoughts on that?”

So… back to my first question re: mechanism of change. Can reorganization make changes in the following ways: evaluating the hierarchical level of a reference signal (prioritizing it or deprioritizing it) compared to a conflicting reference; reducing and/or increasing the gain for any perceived error; changing a reference signal to something that doesn’t create any comparator error; completely eliminating or deleting a reference signal? Any others?

Thanks for any thoughts/replies.

Lynndal

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Hi Lyndall,
I had the perception yesterday too that your question wasn’t directly understood. I agree that in MOL, when you talk to someone whose references are completely different from what you think is healthy (or acceptable), you don’t act to change that reference because you find it unacceptable. So you talk to the pedophile about what the pedophile wants to talk about with you, just like in any other session.

I think Warren’s response was that you’d still keep in mind other goals, such as protecting minors or preventing other dangers, such as is ethically justified.

When people talk about what they want to talk about, and you ask curious questions and notice disruptions, you will get to the heart of what’s important anyway, right? You don’t have to check if someones references are okay or whether they perceive ‘reality’ correctly.

And reorganization: I think we might need to discuss a bit further what we mean exactly by reorganization. I think about it as solving a conflict from a level above the conflict. If I don’t know if I’d choose A or B and I go level up, sense what’s important to me, A or B or C will present itself as the solution. Random output of reorganizing control systems setting references for lower systems until the error’s gone. I generally don’t consider changing levels below the conflict as reorganization, that’s just the normal control system (learned control system) doing its thing. I’m not sure about prioritizing goals at the same level being reorganization although I guess higher level references might play a role in prioritizing, so that this could involve reorganization after all…

Everytime I start thinking about reorganization I notice that there’s many things yet that I don’t understand. I’m at the level of being able to describe what I perceive as being a reorganization process and what’s not, especially in MOL, but I’d love to have a better grip on the mechanism in PCT terms.

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Thanks for the reply, Eva… I certainly have a long way to go to understand all the implications and intricacies of PCT, including reorganization, not to mention lesser known terms like “gain” which I assume as something to do with a reference signal almost like “how important is this reference signal to you”?(not, slightly, important, very, etc.) (I did just mention it… lol)

I think almost all of the “ways” I mentioned that changes might happen, could be seen as happening at a higher hierarchical level" including deleting or eliminating a reference (would have to happen at a higher level)

But just back to the basics for a moment and in an attempt to understand this from a somewhat common language of psychotherapy approach. Do you think of reorganization as the “mechanism of change” as defined by say, Kazdin " Mechanisms. of change reflect the processes through which some independent variable (i.e., therapy ) actually produces the change and explain how the intervention eventually. leads to the outcome (Kazdin, 2007).

Maybe, I can answer my own question a bit as I look at that quote. I think from a PCT/MOL perspective MOL (therapy) would not be the mechanism of change. Reorganization in the individual would be the mechanism of change. But perhaps MOL helps stimulate reorganization in the client through asking questions that increase awareness of conflict, etc…?

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Hi Lynndal,
I think there are many different ways of reorganization, like you suggested. And I believe, based on what I’m researching for my Master thesis, that one of the most fundamental ways of change in therapy happen through what I call “reorganization through memory reconsolidation”. This is when a reference state is deleted or updated by deleting or updating the memory/learning that is driving the reference state (without necessarily going up a level). In the PCT model memory is spread over the different levels, so I don’t mean that the memory of stressful event is deleted, but that the learning about this event (= memory on higher levels in hierarchy) can be deleted or updated using the principle of memory reconsolidation. I recently shared this idea with the PCT community, but didn’t get that much reaction to it. So it’s my view on a fundamental change mechanism, not that of the PCT experts. warmly, Malou

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Hi Malou,

Thanks for the response and the interesting tie-in for memory reconsolidation to reorganization. Given, my very limited understanding of reorganization and Eva’s comment above that has me looking at it in a new way (always happening at a higher level)… I suspect even if memory reconsolidation is another metaphor for an action of reorganization, that it almost has to involve a higher level since the deleted or updated reference signal is generated from the level above… so the signal to delete or update would have to come from a higher level. The more and more I read PCT, the more anything I read in psychotherapy starts to be interpreted from within that framework even when they’re using different words. :slightly_smiling_face:
Good luck on your Master thesis…!
Lynndal

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@Lynndal This quote and your realization (reorganization: looking at the mechanism of change from a new perspective) afterwards made me smile big time. This is why the connection with much of current literature (and most colleagues) is quite frustrating once you start thinking from a PCT perspective.

And @Malou I realized today, reflecting on my own ongoing learning process in PCT that I share your experience that it’s difficult to get the focus of others’ attention on the great work you’re currently doing. I realize that the only time I learn something new, is when I am working towards solving my own error. Without that drive, I can take a look at amazing ideas and sort of ‘reserve them for later’, not going through any reorganization at that moment. I might come back to some ideas months later, from a different perspective, and suddenly realize that the information was there already, all the time.

So maybe that helps a little in understanding the lack of response, we’re all busy controlling our own perceptions. Questions and arguments are ways to disturb some controlled variables and create error so keep on trying.

As your thesis adviser I’ve got multiple goals, and understanding your line of thoughts and learning more about PCT and how reorganization works is an important one for me :slight_smile:.
Eva

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@Malou,

I’m envious that you’ve got @Evadeh as you thesis adviser. I didn’t come across PCT/MOL until after graduating and coming across Tim Carey’s “Method of Levels” book as an intern… :slight_smile:

L

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Hi Lynndal

RM: I’m not a therapist (I don’t even play on on TV) but I did take one venture into some therapy-related PCT thinking (with Tim Carey, a real therapist). Here’s a paper we wrote distinguishing two different kinds of problem solving: the kind you do when you know how to solve the problem (as when a kid who has learned algebra solves an algebra problem) and the kind you do when you don’t know how to solve the problem (as when a person comes into therapy with a problem).

The first kind of problem is one that is solved through the use of existing control systems – probably the ones controlling perceptions of programs and principles – in the learned control hierarchy. The second is the kind solved by the biased random walk, e. coli reorganization process (that is also the one responsible for learning to control perceptions of programs and principles involved in doing algebra, for example). So, yes, reorganization is the mechanism of change in psychotherapy; but control of of higher level perceptions is the kind of change we see in skilled problem solving – the kind where a person knows how to get from the current state of the problem to the solution.

Best

Rick

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Thanks Rick @rsmarken . I likely have already read your article with Tim (since I do my best to keep up with the published articles on MOL/PCT) but I’ll take a look and/or a 2nd look to refresh, my memory and learning.

Your reply though conjures another question or maybe two. :slight_smile:

Skilled problem solving as you’ve defined it, being the control of higher level perceptions (where a person knows how to get from the current state of the problem to the solution) seems like “behavior”… the control of perception. If a person (in my interest, “a client”) knows how to get from the current state of the perception to the desired state (solution) then there wouldn’t be much “distress” since it would likely not be a persistent/long-lived error. The client would simply behave in a way to control their perception to the desired one. So, method of problem solving does not sound like reorganization necessarily unless all behavior intended to narrow a gap/error involves reorganization. I am thirsty, I don’t want to be thirsty, I pick up a glass of water. (does that involve reorganization)?

Thanks for article and the reply, Rick!

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Hi Lynndal

LD: Your reply though conjures another question or maybe two.

LD: Skilled problem solving as you’ve defined it, being the control of higher level perceptions (where a person knows how to get from the current state of the problem to the solution) seems like “behavior”… the control of perception.

RM: Yes, exactly!

LD: If a person (in my interest, “a client”) knows how to get from the current state of the perception to the desired state (solution) then there wouldn’t be much “distress” since it would likely not be a persistent/long-lived error. The client would simply behave in a way to control their perception to the desired one. So, method of problem solving does not sound like reorganization…

RM: That’s precisely the point we tried to make in the paper. What you are describing here is, indeed, not reorganization. It’s just behavior (or, better, control since behavior IS control from a PCT perspective). It is skillful problem solving behavior; there is no random trial and error, as there is in reorganization.

LD: I am thirsty, I don’t want to be thirsty, I pick up a glass of water. (does that involve reorganization)?

RM: Not if you are more than, say, 1 year old. When a child first picks up a glass of water that behavior involves reorganization; you can tell because it doesn’t go very smoothly the first (or second or third…) time. But once the child is about 1 year old (I think) they can control drinking from a glass fairly skillfully; reorganization of that control process is pretty much done and the kid is just behaving (a function of the hierarchy of control, from a PCT perspective, not of the reorganization system, which is functionally separate from the hierarchy).

RM: I suppose it is possible that some psychotherapeutic problem solving doesn’t involve reorganization. This would be true, for example, if the person were reminded of a way to solve the problem using an existing control structure that she or he had forgotten.

RM: But, again, my point in the paper was that there are two kinds of problem solving that can look the same: One kind of problem solving is controlling, which uses an existing control organization – like a person who solves and algebra problem by knowing how to control for the solution to an algebra problem – and the other kind of problem solving is random trial and error – like the person trying to solve an algebra problem when he or she is first learning how to control for solving algebra problems.

LD: Thanks for article and the reply, Rick!

RM: You are very welcome.

Best

Rick

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Thanks @rsmarken!

RM: I suppose it is possible that some psychotherapeutic problem solving doesn’t involve reorganization. This would be true, for example, if the person were reminded of a way to solve the problem using an existing control structure that she or he had forgotten

LD: I had to come back to this quote which is extremely interesting to me. It carries with it an assumption or implication that an existing control structure might exist but be forgotten. Very interesting. In this case, MOL (or some other form of psychotherapy) could help a client resolve a problem by helping a client develop “awareness” or say “insight” that makes the client “remember” that forgotten control structure. Is this an accurate interpretation of your comment?

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RM: Yes. I’m just basing this on experiences of my own where I had a problem which turned out to be soluble using skills I already had but didn’t realize could be applied to solving it. I was thinking of this as a memory problem – finding the address to an existing control organization – but maybe it’s actually a kind of reorganization after all. Some research on this might help.

Best

Rick