[From Bruce Abbott (990922.1400 EST)]
Bruce Gregory (990922.1103 EDT) --
Tim Carey (990916.1515)
Thanks to you too, Phil. By the way, I've been reading the
book by Robyn
Dawes you recommended: House of Cards. It's fabulous. Thanks
for mentioning
it.
I also have been reading this book. It is indeed extraordinary. Highly
recommended.
Anyone know who Robyn Dawes is? (I do.)
Bruce A.
[From Bill Curry (990922.1530 EDT)]
[From Bill Powers (990922.1214 MDT)]
I shouldn't have stated that so "volitionally". You can try out reference
signals voluntarily, but you do it either on the basis of your own existing
higher-level systems, or through reorganization. In the first case, you're
just doing what you do anyway, and in the second case, you can't predict
what reorganization is going to do. So talking about carrying out these
operations as if you could just sit down and rationally create some new
organization (perceptual or otherwise) is probably a mistake, a story.
In thinking of my battle with nicotine some 25 years ago, I remember a
continuing conflict between wanting to continue to smoke due to the
physiological addiction and wanting to quit because of the health
implications. As the error escalated I went through several quit/relapse
episodes before finally achieving my health goal. Just prior to quitting for
good I remember developing the principle that "smoking is a poor example for
my kids" [perhaps derived from the fact that my dad was 3 pack/day smoker].
This perception, to my recollection, was very instrumental in helping me make
the final break.
Did I volitionally eliminate error by synthesizing a new perception and use it
to reset the smoking reference signal(s), or was this an example of the
reorganizing system doing its random work outside the hierarchy?
Subjectively, the switch seemed volitional, but that also may be how the mind
rationalizes reorganization after the fact.
I think [and have read here where others agree] that we can volitionally go up
a level in imagination mode and adjust our references or otherwise trigger
reorganization processes. In either case, error reduction is being pursued to
enhance control. Is it really a significant distinction whether a person
intentionally goes up a level in imagination mode or is guided there by
insights derived through a MOL session?
My understanding is that advocacy of the MOL is based upon it being an
extremely efficient pathway to reorganization when confronted with persistent
error. What evidence do we have at this point to reject or disparage other
"up-a-level" techniques such as David's actor scenario, Brandon's sentence
completion exercises, Marc's Self-MOL or other forms? Since we ultimately must
resolve our own conflicts according to PCT, shouldn't we be open to any
methods that are consistent with PCT and which can help individuals help
themselves?
Best,
Bill
--
William J. Curry, III 941-395.0088
Capticom, Inc. capticom@olsusa.com
[From Bill Powers (990916.0333 MDT)]
From: David M. Goldstein, Ph.D.
Subject: Re.: therapy
Date: 9/15/99Tim, since you don't really know me, you didn't really detect what was my
background thought. What I really wanted to say is that you display a very
arrogant, know-it-all attitude for someone who is only a graduate student.
It is very unbecoming and annoying. I guess your not as good at MOL as you
think you are.
What's all this about respect for age? I thought you were joking, but now
it seems you were serious. Respect for age is earned, not automatically
granted after you acquire a certain amount of seniority. And anyway, it's
not respect for age per se -- plenty of people have had one year's
experience many times, which is not quite the same thing as many years'
experience.
If respect for age is the big thing, David, then our argument is over,
isn't it? Just do as I tell you and you'll be OK, young fellow.
Best,
Bill P (73 age points).
[From Bill Powers (990816.1004 MDT)]
Dick Robertson,990916,0711CDT]
Marc Abrams wrote:
I know i am not being "politically" correct but,
Dick, i am a bit confused here. You said you used MOL for " many, many
years". Ed has been around PCT as long as you have.Not Quite, I think. I got interested in "General Feedback Theory of
Behavior"
in 1957. Ed did, I think, about 1970. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.
To verify what Dick said: Powers, Clark, and MacFarland gave a seminar on
feedback theory at Carl Rogers' Counselling Center at the University of
Chicago in 1957. Dick Robertson was there, and has followed "PCT" (as it's
called now) since then. So Dick Robertson has been a PCT-aware
psychotherapist for 42 years.
Ed Ford first attended a meeting on "PCT" (as I remember it) at Palo Alto,
CA, as part of a 1983 meeting of the American Society for Cybernetics; I
believe he had been interested for one or two years prior to that.
While the idea for the method of levels was born in the 1950s, it was not
seriously considered as a method of psychotherapy in itself until the '80s.
And I didn't start pushing it with any confidence until the late '90s.
That's "1990's" for anyone with a Y2K bug.
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990816.1021 MDT)]
Bruce Nevin (990915-990916.1118 EDT)--
Some disabilities are remediable, some are not. Control systems and even a
new level of control can be developed. So far they don't have eyeglasses
for color blindness. Or for inability to recognize faces. But they probably
have "brain exercises" for the latter.
The problem with "brain exercises" is that they do nothing to enable a
person to do them. They simply _require_ that a person do something that is
hard to do, over and over, in the hope that it will become easier to do. If
it doesn't become easier to do, there is no further help available. "Try
harder" is the usual advice.
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990916.1942 MDT)]
Bruce Gregory (990816.1533 EDT)--
Tim Carey (990916.0535)
Bill pointed out at CSG, that conflict is really the only
psychological
problem. If you have a lack of skill, and no associated psychological
problems you just go find yourself a coach. If you're coming
up against
insuperable disturbances and there are no associated
psychological problems
then you just change goals or environments.
Bruce Gregory:
This seems facile to me. It seems to invite blaming the victim. You're
being oppressed? You can't run a four minute mile? Just change goals or
environments. You can't? You've got psychological problems. See an MOL
therapist. Is this what Bill _really_ meant? We have the goals de have
in order to reduce intrinsic error. We can't alter them without
increasing intrinsic error unless we can see how the new goals reduce
intrinsic error as well or better than the old goals.
Well, let's not fight facile with facile. I define a psychological problem
as one that results from the brain's systems suffering persistent
deficiencies in operation not caused by brain damage. In principle, if we
have difficulty controlling something, we reorganize until the difficulty
ceases to cause us any problems (minimizing intrinsic error, as you
suggest, although we lack a comprehensive list of intrinsic variables and
their reference levels). I state it that way to include the cases not only
where we become able to control, but where we change higher goals and
control something else, or rearrange our lives so that we can admit that
some things are beyond our control and stop trying.
A _psychological_ problem is one that persists and is not resolved by our
built-in (or learned) methods for resolving problems, yet which we can't
just drop. It's characterized by _chronic error_. The basic question in any
such case is, why haven't the brain's built-in mechanisms for correcting
errors resolved this problem?
There are probably many possible answers to this question, including the
existence of brain damage (meaning we were mistaken in calling it a
psychological problem). But the one answer that crops up the most often, in
my experience with myself and with others, is that we have selected goals
that are mutually exclusive: goals in conflict. When I listen to people
describing their problems -- the kind that have been around for a long time
-- I find myself listening to a snarl of conflicts. The person wants to do
This, but if he or she did This, then That bad thing would happen, and if
That bad thing were kept from happening, Something Else would go wrong.
Putting all the comments together, they preclude any action at all. Suggest
any change that would improve one aspect of the problem, and a dozen
reasons spring up why that change would just make things worse, and anyway
couldn't be accomplished. A person in this state is clearly in need of
reorganization, yet (too often) is not reorganizing effectively. Why not?
This is the real question the therapist must ask. Thinking up solutions to
the person's problems is pointless and ineffective, because unless the
conflicts are resolved, equilibrium will eventually be restored and the
same problem will return. Giving exercises is pointless because they just
strengthen all sides of the conflict. Nothing will work unless, either
directly or as a side-effect, it restores the person's ability to
reorganize, or perhaps (as the MOL would suggest) redirects reorganization
to levels where its effects might lead out of the conflict(s).
If it should be true that the Method of Levels does redirect reorganization
to levels where it can be effective, then the MOL would be the most
efficient therapy possible. It would be effective not only because it
addresses the underlying problem directly, but because it shields the
client from the therapist's compulsion to meddle and show how clever he or
she is. If we can't prevent all therapists from displaying their egos, we
can at least design a method that gives the egos the least possible
influence. The MOL is designed that way. This is why it strikes some
therapists, at first, as "not doing anything."
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990916.2030 MDT)]
Bruce Nevin (990916.1632 EDT)]
The problem with "brain exercises" is that they do nothing to enable a
person to do them. They simply _require_ that a person do something that is
hard to do, over and over, in the hope that it will become easier to do. If
it doesn't become easier to do, there is no further help available. "Try
harder" is the usual advice.Sounds like trying to get them to grow a new control capacity. How would
you do it better?
My point is that just urging them to do whatever it is is useless as a way
of helping them learn to do it. If they don't want to do it, they will
disregard your urging, and if they do want to do it, your urging can only
arouse resistance (overt or covert). If they want to do it, they are
already progressing as fast as they can. It's possible that some sage PCT
advice, if they ask for it, might help. For example, professional piano
teachers spend some time describing fingering schemes such that, as my old
friend piano teacher Sam put it, "you always have anough fingers." Sam
realized, though PCT, that the problem was one of perception, not
execution, and taught that way. If someone has come to you for help (Sam
taught primarily professional concert pianists), they are asking for
helpful information; even Tiger Woods gets golf lessons frequently. So that
can help. "Try harder" doesn't really help.
Best,
Bill P.
At 10:24 AM 09/16/1999 -0600, Bill Powers wrote:
[From Bill Powers (990916.2041 MDT)]
From: David M. Goldstein, Ph.D.
Subject: Re: Re: therapy
Date: 9/16/99Re.: Bill Powers (990916.0333 MDT)
As soon as I sent my post, I knew I should have just kept it to myself.
Wouldn't that just put you in conflict? The real solution, I should think,
would be to stop _wanting_ to say such things, which would imply a
fundamental change of attitude. But perhaps that would be unacceptable,
too. Anyway, you didn't ask me for advice!
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990919.1428 MDT)]
Bruce Gregory (9909.0650 EDT)--
I take you are a proponent of Bill's "stop wanting that" solution to
problems that do not involve conflicts. Is "stop wanting to live" your
advice to the individual stricken with cancer?
That would depend on whether the prognosis was certain. If you know you're
going to die, you can probably think of reference conditions other than "I
want to live" that would contribute to the best possible way of finishing
out your life.
Perhaps the phrase "stop wanting that" would seem more reasonable if stated
differently: find a higher-level position from which you can change your
present reference signal into one more appropriate to the situation.
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990919.1435 MDT)]
[Visiting offspring in Lyons, CO]
Bruce Gregory (990917.0645 EDT)]
"Stop wanting" to do X seems to me to be as valuable a piece of advice as
"try harder". And to have the same drawbacks.
Yes, like most unsolicited advice it is subject to justified rejection by
the victim. However, as a principle it is useful, since it reminds us that
our reference signals (wants) are set by higher systems, and it can help to
be reminded about going up a level.
Best,
Bill P.
Best,
Bill P>
[From Bill Powers (990919.1443 MDT)]
Bruce Gregory (990917.0945 EDT)--
It seems to me that exactly the same argument could be used against
coaching of any sort.
What psychotherapists do does not seem to me very similar to coaching. And
anyway, the coaching I have experienced hasn't seemed helpful. "Put your
back into it" and "Let's see a little pepper out there" have not made me
into a better athelete (or anyone else, I would guess).
I assume there are good natural coaches as well as good natural
psychotherapists. However, giving advice in psychotherapy involves a far
greater requirement for understanding the other person than coaching of
physical skills does, and I'm not sure anyone, natural or cultured, has
that degree of understanding. I strongly suspect that good therapists and
coaches keep their egos out of it as much as possible, and give very little
advice (though good coaching might entail giving certain kinds of advice) .
Since you do not make this argument with respect
to coaching physical skills, I infer that you feel the way you do about
psychotherapy for some reason I am not privy to.
It's risky to infer what I would say about something I haven't talked about
from something I have talked about.
I've stated my reasons occasionally. The advice that people are given is
seldom of the sort that a modestly intelligent client wouldn't have thought
of and tried already (like advising an agoraphobic to "just stand on the
porch for five minutes.") If advice were important in psychotherapy, no
therapist could help a client with intelligence superior to that of the
therapist. Also, I believe that insights are far more powerful when arrived
at by the client than when suggested by the therapist.
I know from experience that it's tempting to a therapist to treat a therapy
session as a sort of contest to see who can find the answer to a problem
first. It's very ego-enhancing to hear a client say "By golly, you're
right, I never thought of that! Now that you've explained it so clearly I
can see exactly what my problem has been! Oh, thank you, Doctor!" But in
practice, that does more for the therapist than for the client. Truly
useful flashes of insight are an outcome of reorganization, not (usually)
of receiving verbal information.
There are lots of other reasons, but interest in them must be ebbing pretty
low by now.
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990922.1214 MDT)]
Bruce Gregory (990921.2104 EDT)--
This seems to me to be an important point. Sometimes you cannot directly set
a reference level, but you can synthesize a higher order perception, the
control of which sets the reference level.
I shouldn't have stated that so "volitionally". You can try out reference
signals voluntarily, but you do it either on the basis of your own existing
higher-level systems, or through reorganization. In the first case, you're
just doing what you do anyway, and in the second case, you can't predict
what reorganization is going to do. So talking about carrying out these
operations as if you could just sit down and rationally create some new
organization (perceptual or otherwise) is probably a mistake, a story.
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bill Powers (990923.0250 MDT)]
Bill Curry (990922.1530 EDT)--
Also, Bruce Gregory (990922.1500 EDT)
Did I volitionally eliminate error by synthesizing a new perception and
use it
to reset the smoking reference signal(s), or was this an example of the
reorganizing system doing its random work outside the hierarchy?
Subjectively, the switch seemed volitional, but that also may be how the mind
rationalizes reorganization after the fact.
I think you're right about rationalizing reorganization. We say "I" did it,
when actually the experience is more like something happening to us. We
think we've made a choice when actually the choice just happened and we
took credit for it after the fact. When I quit smoking, a year and a half
ago, the only effective decision I can recall making was to read a book
Mike Acree gave me, and allow it to work on me if it could. Evidently, it did.
A lot of what we call "reasoning" is purposive -- that is, we know what
conclusion we want and we automatically find the premises and the reasoning
that will lead to it. This can feel like conscious deduction, but it's
really another form of rationalizing.
Volition is a tricky subject. What feels voluntary is almost always
constrained by higher-level goals that are not in consciousness at the
moment, yet are fully effective. Maybe volition comes into it when there
are many equally-effective ways of achieving a higher-level goal, and we
pick one of them just to see what _else_ will happen. Volition, creativity,
reorganization -- there's obviously some connection among these concepts.
I think [and have read here where others agree] that we can volitionally
go up
a level in imagination mode and adjust our references or otherwise trigger
reorganization processes. In either case, error reduction is being
pursued to
enhance control. Is it really a significant distinction whether a person
intentionally goes up a level in imagination mode or is guided there by
insights derived through a MOL session?
The MOL session as I see it now is primarily aimed at exploring _existing_
organizations in the brain (as Rick Marken said). Any insights and changes
that occur are strictly side-effects of the method. You might think of it
as updating and improving one's mental model of one's own organization. And
yes, I'm vague about what I mean by that. If control improves, good, but
the central aim of the method is to bring more of the brain's organization
into conscious view. That is a description of the _mechanics_ of the
method. The effects of doing this are still being explored.
My understanding is that advocacy of the MOL is based upon it being an
extremely efficient pathway to reorganization when confronted with persistent
error.
Well, that's what we suspect it might be, but we're still trying to find
out if that's true. If it's not true, we wouldn't want to encourage the use
of the MOL, or promote it as beneficial.
What evidence do we have at this point to reject or disparage other
"up-a-level" techniques such as David's actor scenario, Brandon's sentence
completion exercises, Marc's Self-MOL or other forms?
No reason to disparage them, but it's like trying to find out which
fertilizer is best for your lawn. You don't put them _all_ on it, because
then you wouldn't be able to see differences in their effects. We, or at
least I, want to know how effective the MOL is, as a method of
psychotherapy. Thus I want to see what it can do _by itself_. Mixing other
methods with it, with respect to the same person, makes it impossible to
see this. It's just common sense that you can't tell the effects of any
method if you're using other methods at the same time.
Since we ultimately must
resolve our own conflicts according to PCT, shouldn't we be open to any
methods that are consistent with PCT and which can help individuals help
themselves?
The whole point is how we can know what actually helps individuals. If
something actually helps, it doesn't matter whether it's consistent with
PCT or not -- the object is to help, not to be theoretically correct. But
lots of methods are used just because they're _reputed_ to help, with very
little follow-up to see if they actually do, and very little ability to
separate out what is effective among the details of various procedures from
what is neutral or even harmful. I think the MOL contains a principle that
is actually common to all successful therapies, but which is mixed in with
neutral and harmful procedures in all existing therapeutic approaches. Why
not try to eliminate the neutral and harmful aspects of psychotherapies, if
they exist, so as to arrive at a more effective approach?
It's almost as if those who believe in other methods don't really want to
find out if they're effective. I'm willing to let our evaluation of the MOL
rest on experimental tests of it. Why aren't others willing to do the same
with the methods they use?
Best,
Bill P.
[From Bruce Gregory (990815.1002 EDT)]
Tim Carey (990915.1715)
I know of no valid research supporting the efficacy of "brain
exercises".
Do you know any valid research supporting the efficacy of MOL?
Bruce Gregory
[From Bruce Gregory (990916.1000 EDT)]
Dick Robertson,990916.0748CDT
Then each reply gets a little more extreme. I have seen it
happen over and
over here on the net. I wonder if it comes from treating
netposts like real
conversations but without having the benefit of hearing tones
of voice,
changes of facial expression etc. The unintended result, I
think, finely
comes down to unnecessary rudeness.
I think you are right on the mark.
Bruce Gregory
[From Bruce Gregory (990816.1533 EDT)]
Tim Carey (990916.0535)
Bill pointed out at CSG, that conflict is really the only
psychological
problem. If you have a lack of skill, and no associated psychological
problems you just go find yourself a coach. If you're coming
up against
insuperable disturbances and there are no associated
psychological problems
then you just change goals or environments.
This seems facile to me. It seems to invite blaming the victim. You're
being oppressed? You can't run a four minute mile? Just change goals or
environments. You can't? You've got psychological problems. See an MOL
therapist. Is this what Bill _really_ meant? We have the goals de have
in order to reduce intrinsic error. We can't alter them without
increasing intrinsic error unless we can see how the new goals reduce
intrinsic error as well or better than the old goals.
Bruce Gregory
[From Bruce Gregory (990816.1750 EDT)]
Rick Marken (990916.1250)
What's wrong with blaming the "victim" when the victim is the
one who is making himself the victim? Who do you blame if you
are the one setting the conflicting references for perceptions
that keep you from controlling either perception? Aren't you
the only one to blame for making yourself miserable in this
case?
Is the slave making himself miserable by wanting to be free? Would MOL
be the appropriate course of action? All the slave needs to do is alter
his perception of freedom from "a lot" to "none." Is this what you are
recommending?
Bruce Gregory
[From Bruce Gregory (9909,1756 EDT)]
Tim Carey (990917.0530)
>[From Bruce Gregory (990816.1533 EDT)]
>This seems facile to me. It seems to invite blaming the
victim. You're
>being oppressed? You can't run a four minute mile? Just
change goals or
>environments.Based on the PCT model Bruce, what other courses of action would you
recommend?
It isn't the cancer that's the problem, its the fact that don't want to
die. Just adjust your reference level and you'll be fine. Is that what
MOL therapy is all about?
You can't? You've got psychological problems. See an MOL
>therapist.I'm not sure what you mean here.
See my example. Some people might think medical treatment appropriate,
not MOL therapy.
We have the goals de have
>in order to reduce intrinsic error. We can't alter them without
>increasing intrinsic error unless we can see how the new goals reduce
>intrinsic error as well or better than the old goals.Yep, agreed. How does what I've said contradict this statement, if I'm
understanding the statement correctly?
I don't know how to answer this question.
Bruce Gregory
[From Bruce Gregory (990917.0645 EDT)]
Bill Powers (990916.2041 MDT)
Wouldn't that just put you in conflict? The real solution, I should think,
would be to stop _wanting_ to say such things, which would imply a
fundamental change of attitude. But perhaps that would be unacceptable,
too. Anyway, you didn't ask me for advice!
"Stop wanting" to do X seems to me to be as valuable a piece of advice as
"try harder". And to have the same drawbacks.
Bruce Gregory
[From Bruce Gregory (9909.0650 EDT)]
Tim Carey (990917.1245)]
I think our wires are crossed. The "change the goal or change the
environment" scenario I was referring to when the problem of control was
insuperable disturbances.MOL is my method of choice when the problem of control is conflict.
I take you are a proponent of Bill's "stop wanting that" solution to
problems that do not involve conflicts. Is "stop wanting to live" your
advice to the individual stricken with cancer?
Bruce Gregory