Understanding Disruptions

[MatSalgado]

Asking about disruptions is crucial to shift awareness to higher-level perceptions implicated in the conflict.

So, how are disruptions defined? There is a great PCT explanation by @rsmarken that can be found in this thread.

Also, in MOL books, you can find several descriptions of disruptions, such as:

1. (A sign that) the content of awareness has varied / Awareness has shifted to another content that might lead to the level that has established the context for the conflict.
2. (A sign that) another point of view or perspective from the current point of view has appeared in awareness.
3. It represents the activity on other perceptual levels from the current one. If it is a reflection or a meta-comment about what is being said, it is assumed to represent the activity of a higher level in the hierarchy.
4. Those disruptions that seem to have heightened emotion associated with them are likely to be particularly useful.
5. Disruptions can be subtle or overt.
6. They can be verbal or non-verbal.
7. They can be noticed by the disruption of the stream of words while exploring a problem or describing an experience.
8. They can be noticed often by shifts in mood, behavior, and arousal.

While delivering MOL, I have been able to see how asking about disruptions can facilitate the shift of awareness to higher levels, but also sometimes to lower levels. Other times, the shift is to the same perceptual level.

Sometimes clients express that disruptions don’t always come with (or are about) background thoughts. For example, there are times when I ask about a disruption, the client becomes aware of it (for example, that they started moving their arms in circles while talking about their desires, “you are moving your arm like this [repeating the movement], what is this movement about?”), but it is only after focusing on the disruption for a while that they have new perspectives (the client says after thinking about it for some seconds: “it’s interesting that I’m moving my arms like that because I’m moving in circles with what I want”). This often happens with non-verbal disruptions: there seems to be no background thoughts fleeting in awareness, or at least that is what some clients experience -or say.

So it seems to me that Disruptions represent signs of possible activity of another control system unit than the current one. This other control-system unit can be controlling a perception from higher levels, but also from the same level or lower levels of perceptions. This other control-system unit can be controlling a perception in control mode or in automatic mode, outside of awareness.

What do you think about these ideas? I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts!

[bnhpct]

This is a really good start at identifying diverse ‘directions’ that awareness can shift while talking about matters of concern. We risked indulging the simplifying dogma that a disruption is always ‘up a level’.

There are fundamental principles underlying that dogma. First, there are two values for the conflicted variable x, each value commanded by a different system that is controlling x, and which therefore is at a higher level. We assume (and sometimes observe) that resolution comes when both of those systems are concurrently under observation and control at a yet higher level. Secondly, when I am speaking about perceptions of a certain level or order, my point of view on those perceptions is ‘seated’ in the perceptual input functions of comparators that control or observe those perceptions, and therefore at a relatively higher level.

When talk shifts to alternative perceptions at the same level or at a lower level (in the judgement of the observing therapist, and maybe in the judgement of the client), perhaps it concerns consequences of the conflict, or side effects of controlling the value of x that is currently in focus. Attention on these also affected perceptual variables is from the point of view of additional systems which observe and control them. Engaging these may open unexpected exits from the conflict.

I believe we control a consistent self-narrative, as though the script of the movie we perceive ourselves to be in. Self-consistency, fulfilled, harbors no enduring conflicts, only those quotidian conflicts which we routinely resolve as they arise. This aspect of self-perception is kind of like an immune system for a complex living control system.

Conflicts involving other people (involving e.g. roles, status, attributions/expectations) can be difficult to resolve with the original protagonists for various reasons such as physical or social distance, perceived danger, or illness or death of a protagonist. It has often been observed that a person may re-enact the form of such conflict with other players (e.g. Scripts People Live). Tom Scholte’s psychodramatic work exploits this potential. For reasons real or imagined, and re-evoked from memory, these affect or threaten to affect intrinsic survival variables. Defense against that threat encapsulates them in the self-narrative ‘script’.

People may ‘advertise’ what they need to work out and look for those with whom they can re-enact their stuck places. There’s a conceptual swamp of popular psychobabble about ‘codependency’ that hinges on this. One personal memory: In my period of serious courtship (which pretty quickly led to my relationship and then marriage with Sarah), one woman explicitly said “This isn’t going to work. There are things I need to work out, and I can’t do that with you. You’re too nice.” That is, I wasn’t ‘not nice’ in the specific ways she needed.

MoL doesn’t employ or need a meta-narrative of explanation like this, but it is possible that this describes some of the places to which a client may shift their point of view on what is worrying them in the present.

All that is rampant speculation. I hope that some researchers into MoL are working on analyses of recorded sessions and identifying actual levels of perceptual control (as distinct from other ‘locations’ for point of view). Bill’s subjective phenomenological identification of eleven orders in a perceptual hierarchy needs empirical investigation, it cannot be taken as dogma.

[Evadeh]

Hi Matias,
I haven’t got the time (or attention span) to get into depth here, but this thought has occurred to me:

What if disruptions we witness in MOL conversations (and life) are signs of reorganisation happening in control systems at various places in the hierarchy?
Shifting & sustaining your awareness to that spot, as we do in MOL, might allow that reorganisation process to take place more fully and in depth, and thus aid effective reorganisation. Through the exploration and awareness you connect more and more control systems so that they become involved in the larger reorganisation process.

The background of this idea is my talk for the IAPCT2023 conference which I’m currently preparing. I will talk about how reorganisation is experienced at every level in the hierarchy. This might shed light as well on your question about disruptions. My hypothesis is that a system in reorganisation at each level look s different. For example, a reorganisation at the sequence level may be a shift into another viewpoint/another train of thought. Like a distraction. Reorganisation at the program level is like a new choice that suddenly occurs, a new way of solving something. Reorganisation at the category level may be a new way of looking at something; an entire new interpretation of what something is. We could go down the entire hierarchy. I think feeling itself -a disruption from a feeling somewhere in your body - is reorganisation in process.

This of course begs the question: is it reorganisation that creates awareness, or does awareness create reorganisation? Or is awareness reorganisation in process?

Eva

[rsmarken]

@Evadeh

My hypothesis is that a system in reorganisation at each level look s different. For example, a reorganisation at the sequence level may be a shift into another viewpoint/another train of thought. Like a distraction. Reorganisation at the program level is like a new choice that suddenly occurs, a new way of solving something. Reorganisation at the category level may be a new way of looking at something; an entire new interpretation of what something is. We could go down the entire hierarchy. I think feeling itself -a disruption from a feeling somewhere in your body - is reorganisation in process.

This is a excellent suggestion, Eva. Reorganization should, indeed, look different when systems controlling different types of perceptual variables are being reorganized. You are probably already familar with it but, for the sake of others who might be interested, one nice piece of experimental evidence that seems to support your hypothesis is descibed in the research of Robertson and Glines (1985). Also relevant is Powers’ comment on that paper. I look forward to hearing about your approach to testing this hypothesis.

Best, Rick

[MatSalgado]

Thanks a lot, @bnhpct, @Evadeh, and @rsmarken for your really interesting contributions! They are really helpful in understanding different aspects of disruptions.

@bnhpct, this is particularly interesting for MOL:

BN: MoL doesn’t employ or need a meta-narrative of explanation like this, but it is possible that this describes some of the places to which a client may shift their point of view on what is worrying them in the present…

Something that still amazes me is that, regardless of the case, in MOL, the therapist doesn’t need to develop or apply any formulation or interpretation. They just need to stick to the main goals and principles to help the client gain awareness of what is trying to control them and why and how.

@Evadeh this is an interesting perspective:

EdH: What if disruptions we witness in MOL conversations (and life) are signs of reorganisation happening in control systems at various places in the hierarchy?

It is a beautiful way of making me think about reorganization in a way I haven’t thought before and to continue learning about it.

Would you say this applies to all disruptions, or only some of them?

How can we differentiate, in a conversation, between the control of a variable by different control-system units and a reorganization of the hierarchy?

EdH: The background of this idea is my talk for the IAPCT2023 conference which I’m currently preparing. I will talk about how reorganisation is experienced at every level in the hierarchy.

Really looking forward to it!

Thanks @rsmarken, for sharing these articles and the helpful PCT explanation of disruptions. Much appreciated!

[MatSalgado]

At the moment, when I try to grasp the concept of disruptions more clearly, I encounter some puzzles, such as:

1. What is an experience from a PCT perspective?
2. What types of experiences involves the notion of disruptions?
3. How is the disruption experience different from the non-disruption experience?
4. What is the relationship between awareness and disruptions?

I need assistance in providing comprehensive and clear answers to these questions from a PCT perspective, so your comments would be greatly appreciated.

Currently, I can offer some elaboration on these topics:

1. What is an experience from a PCT perspective?
Everything that the living control system perceives is an experience. But some experiences (can) become conscious, while others do not. However, is it only what is in consciousness considered an experience?
For example, breathing carbon monoxide and breathing clean air are clearly two different experiences for the living organism, but at least the former isn’t something you can be conscious of without an external device that tells you that you are experiencing it.

2. What types of experiences involves the notion of disruptions?
It seems that “disruptions” involves different types of experiences, not only the well-known “background thoughts.” Disruptions also seem to capture, for example, more “raw,” “felt,” or “anoetic” experiences that have not yet been symbolized (for example, a client suddenly moving their body while talking, or sometimes when a client cries without a clear reason, or the client’s eye twitching). Other times, disruptions capture non-well-defined perceptions, such as unclear or fuzzy images or memories. Taking this into account, I wonder if disruptions are different experiences, or are they different aspects of an experience?

3. How is the disruption experience different from the non-disruption experience? Or, if disruptions are just aspects of an experience: what are their different qualities?
I would say that disruptions have to do with capturing the spontaneity of experiences. Asking about disruptions would involve facilitating the client to gain awareness of what happens spontaneously for them when they start controlling in “control mode” (focus and sustain in awareness) a perception.
Something like: “let’s talk about a problem and see what happens…”. The “out of the current control/focus of awareness” fleeting experiences are understood as disruptions. BUT sometimes, the client is aware of the disruption. For example when a client says “This sounds crazy.” In those cases, what is fleeting in awareness seems to be the deep personal meaning of the expression. So the MOL therapist ask about it to help the client to elaborate on it.

4. What is the relationship between awareness and disruptions?
It is clear that attentional-focused awareness sometimes focus on just some aspects of the current experience. MOL questions facilitate the exploration of different aspects of current experience.

For example, a client can make this metacomment about something that is being said: “I just don’t know what I want.”

Questions such as:

• What made you say that? or, What has just happened that made you say that? could facilitate the client realizing that there are other important aspects of the experience is currently controlled.
• How does it feel not knowing what you want now? could facilitate awareness to capture the “felt aspect” of the perception of not knowing.
• How long has it been since you started not knowing? or when did you start not knowing? could facilitate bringing episodic memory related to the perception into awareness.
• Does it bother you not knowing? (If so, what bothers you about that?) could facilitate bringing the subjective meaning of the perception into awareness.
• What do you mean by “not knowing”? could facilitate the client to focus on the semantic meaning and how precisely it (can or cannot) represent the perception.

Of course, all these questions help move the perception captured by the disruption to the foreground of conscious awareness.

In summary, with a more detailed description of disruptions, I hope that we can develop more research hypotheses to test what, how and why questions can effectively and efficiently help reorganization´s work, in the context of MOL therapy.