Why learn and communicate PCT?

Learning PCT Communicating PCT
1

Hi there, I haven’t really introduced myself and don’t know exactly where to start other than

  1. I’m John in New Zealand

  2. I’ve gone from a few years ago stumbling across Tim and Margaret Carey’s RTP Intervention Processes book in the free pile outside a secondhand bookstore, to last night spontaneously trying to show my friend the rubber demo..

  3. This thread, on trying to clarify what some of the purposes for being involved might be.

I keep coming back to this statement from @wmansell in an interview:

Any intervention that makes simple scientific principals of human nature accessible for anyone - not just academics and professionals - to apply in helping themselves and each other - will hold promise for the future.

That seems as good an elevator pitch as any. I’m quite convinced by Warren et al’s arguments in favour of a transdiagnostic approach among professionals, and even more so among laypeople like myself in the broader culture where self-and-other diagnosis is rife and not always that helpful.

I’d add that while the future had never been as predictable as we tend to imagine, for most of us I don’t expect our worlds to become any less precarious in coming years! As the ground shifts under our feet, anything that will allow us to update our “mental models”/ rearrange our mental furniture as well as possible has got to be a good thing. To that end, the desire to spread understanding of these simple principles of control, conflict and reorganisation seems quite pressing. I’ve gone through a few upheavals myself this year, and I’ve founded it incredibly helpful to keep coming back to, okay, at least one thing that’s still true is people are living control systems. [Incidentally, among all the helpful PCT books, Carey, Mansell and Tai’s Principles-Based Counselling and Psychotherapy has become my desert island book, thank you Warren et al!]

So what about you, what kinds of purposes do you have for wanting to learn and communicate PCT?

2

That is an excellent start, John. Your touchstone awareness that people are living control systems suggests recommending Phil Runkel’s People as Living Things: The psychology of perceptual control. But maybe you’re already there. All very well for old Kipling to say keep your head, but better to know how.

3

Thank you Bruce, yes I nearly mentioned Phil Runkel’s book as an important one in my journey, one I have printed out and spent quite some time with!
And thank you for that sentence regarding the Kipling poem, I may well use that reference in talking to my friends about “Why PCT”.