The Map is not the Territory

Structural Differential — Alfred Korzybski.

Podcast

#278: Tim O’Reilly – The Trend Spotter The Tim Ferriss Show podcast

Transcript

Tim O’Reilly: Let me go back to George Simon because a lot of what he taught was a kind of mental discipline that was rooted in a model of how consciousness happens. It was framed somewhat in the language of Alfred Korzybski’s general semantics. Korzybski drew this wonderful diagram – it was actually a tool he used to train people – that he called the structural differential.

Korzybski’s fundamental idea was that people are stuck in language, but language is about something. And so, he represented what he called the process of abstraction so that people could ask themselves, “Where am I in that process?” So, the first part of the structural differential was a parabola, and the reason why it was a parabola is because reality is infinite, but we can’t take in all of reality.

And so, hanging from the parabola was a circle, and the circle was our experience, which is our first abstraction from reality. And then, hanging from the circle are a bunch of label-shaped tags – multiple strings of them – and these are the words that we use to describe our experience.

Korzybski’s training was for people to recognize when they were in the words, when they were in the experience, and when they were open to the reality. George mixed that in with this work of Sri Aurobindo, who was an Indian sage, and had come up with a model that integrated a spiritual view of this, and a practice which was just listening and being open to the unknown.

EFT, RLT and another perspective – Encounter

I’ve just listened to this episode of The Couples Therapists Couch

 In this episode, Emotionally Focused Therapist, Figs O’Sullivan, conceptualizes a case from the standpoint of working from the EFT perspective. Relational Life Therapist, Shane Birkel, talks about how an RLT therapist would work with the same couple. Figs and Shane talk through some of the similarities and differences in the two approaches and how they view couples cases that come in for therapy.

I’m immediately drawn to the conversation, and want to participate.  I appreciate the value systems in both models.

The American President – (Movie)

The Hero’s Journey Podcast‘s next effort will be The American President. I’ll watch it and make notes here, hopefully *before* they do the podcast. Watch this space.

This is the guide I use while watching:

Wednesday, 28 February, 2018

I’ve seen the movie and I’ve made some notes. I’m a bit sloppy as I did not like the movie that much.

Ordinary World

Day to day in th Presidents world – his life. His colleagues. The lobbyists. His daughter, dutiful dad.

Then there is a bit of a build up to election stuff – but that is ordiary for the President.

There is a call for the president to do the right environmental thing… he sort of refuses.

Then the soppsed “pitbull” comes on the scene Sydney Ellen Wade. The is on for an adventure and a fight for the environment.

But these are not the calls.

The call to Adventure

The call is that they fall in love. Well Pres. Shepherd falls in love and there is no refusal in sight… For a while. He pursues with gusto.. And she accepts his calls – litterally and as a hero. Both have ftiends alleies and enamies.

Love is the special world and they fall over the threshhold despite the threshold guardians each have. Is the dancing the moment they are truly in? Or the kiss?. Earlier really as the first whif of romance is in the air. So much for the pitbull.

Refusals

Then there is his refusal – he opts for the crime bill and not the environment. This cop out is also one where he refuses love. And his refusal here is matched by hers. “You have lost more than me, you have lost my vote.”

Seizing the Sword

But then in a speech to the world he accepts the call – the environment, even if he might not win her back. But she flies back faster than a speeding bullet. the adventure has gone on for a while so this might be more the seising of the sword.

He finally gets her roses and the elixer is true love prevails

And a big nod to liberal values.

Relationships, Romance and who is the protagonist?

I think they are both heroes, or maybe love is the protagonist. The trouble is that he is the main hero… He has all the power, it is a patriachal story. How might this have played out if it was not partiarchal? The relationship being the protagonist and each of them having a hero’s journey fully matched? It would be nice to speculate. Could it even be a romantic commedy then? I hope a much better one.

Are there any such dramas?

Reflecting on this it is clear that there are three elements in any relationship – each of the lovers, and the relationship. Each has a full life, i.e. the dramatic circle of the hero’s journey. Relationships are not 50/50. They are produced many 100% moments. How well can that be portrayed?

This question of how to put a relationship on the stage is a burning question for me!

Booktopia – Call of the Reed Warbler, A New Agriculture – A New Earth by Charles Massy

Call of the Reed Warbler

Very impressed by this guy.

Listened to him being interviewed here:

An agricultural insurgency — Thursday 11 January 2018

This all sounds too good to be true. But I do trust him!

Looks like we can manage the anthropocene.

“Relational” TA and psychoanalysis, psychodrama and the relational paradigm

I have been looking up anything to do with the relational paradigm  and keep bumping into relational psychoanalysis and relational T.A.

They seem fine. I’m surprised these branches of the tree are even needed – I would have thought that psychoanalysis and T.A. Were already “relational” in this way, i.e. Valuing of the relationship between the therapist and the client. Understanding attachment and early relationships as primary. Apparently not.

However I realise I’m in a different school altogether. One that see the relationship as the therapy, but not only the relationship with the therapist but the relationship people have with each other out there in the world. The marriage or committed loving relationship is the dominant one. I’ve come to understand that, especially in individual therapy, the relationship with the therapist can undermine the potential of the committed loving relationship with a partner. If there is no such relationship then the relationship with the therapist can be a surrogate, or if possible a way of facilitating the search for a mate. The rest of the time the therapist is there to facilitate the consciousness that will enable a committed loving relationship to be therapeutic. They are not naturally so – though they have a natural propensity to be so.

With this relational paradigm  more and more fully grasped of late I see that psychodrama has something of this philosophy well developed. Moreno speaks a lot of “in situ”. I think of that as working with the actual here and now relationships in a group.

Psychodrama does not require a theatrical setting, a frequent misunderstanding; it is done in situ – that is, wherever the subject is found.

Who Shall Survive? (1978) P86

However Moreno is not clear on this – Later in the same book he speaks again of therapy in situ

… it can take an immediate form, in situ, that is, in the course of all activities in which the individuals are en- gaged, in the home, in school, at work, for instance the handicraft shop, steam laundry, carpentry shop, department store, etc . The situations of living and working are at the same time used as therapeutic settings. We have found, however, that the analytic and activistic forms of group psychotherapy are not applicable to the deepest disturbances of the individual and the group; they require the application of deep action methods in the form of psychodrama. But they are applicable to social problems of the group in a setting in which, during the treatment, the group is artificially cut off from the community as if the rest of the community were non-existent and as if the influence coming from it could be disregarded.

He comes close to a relational paradigm, and then moves away for “the deepest disturbances of the individual and the group” to theatre where psychodrama clearly becomes treatment of or via a protagonist. Yet he stays close, because as we know, … the protagonist is a protagonist for the group. (ref?)

The idea that the relationship itself can be the source and vehicle for growth and healing, is not explicit in psychodrama – it is there in most psychotherapy, but only in the relationship between the client and the therapist. Yet this idea that the protagonist is working for the group can be translated to the protagonist working for the relationship. That helps!

The relational paradigm  is still to have its major impact, like any paradigm shift it is hard to get from the perspective of the old space.

Imago dialogue is one technique for activating relational healing, one that is easy to teach to clients. However I think T.A. Has the potential for that, Marshall Rosenberg NVC, and psychodrama does as well… Concretisation, role reversal, mirroring and doubling are potent methods. Psychodrama is not so easy without a director. How make the method easily accessible is what I’m working on all the time.

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond — Mark Winborn

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond

Heard about this on Shrink Rap Radio where Dr Dave interviews the author/editor Mark Winborn. Worth listening to.

I had to get the book, it is a sort of meditation on the nature of the relational space. It focusses on therapy, but this would be so relevant for those of us who consider that the marriage is the therapy.

Podcasts I’ve enjoyed lately

I’ve been using Pocketcasts on the iPhone. First one I’ve liked in all these years. The iTunes one never satisfied and the way I used to do it – was clumsy. But it worked and was essentially what did on the Palm.

Casts (as it also gets called) has a sharing function so I can easily pop them inhere from time to time. — though not the full audio. So the links might no work. When there is one I really want I’ll post the whole thing. The pocket cast links work only on the iPhone (or Android?) if you have the app.

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Are Computers Creative?

Studio 360 from PRI and WNYCEpisode:

http://www.pocketcasts.com/share/ttW4ML

I did follow this one up:

I liked this show. Why dpi these AI programs never use the Internet, Wolfram Alpgha etc? Siri creates its own search … I think the big breakthrough will come when they link all of these things – the music – art and writing and all search through some higher entity.

I just noticed the words “higher entity” I just mean a meta engine. Ha.

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RNZ: Saturday MorningEpisode: Kim Hill

Chris Szekely – Rahui and libraries

http://www.pocketcasts.com/share/s6Ur45

I like this and I have the book!

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1110/S00196/rahui-an-exceptional-new-childrens-book.htm

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WeAreMany.org

Ways of Seeing: The Art Criticism of John Berger

http://www.pocketcasts.com/share/ODAn7Y

All the talks at the Chicago socialist conference are here. I like some of them.

Listened to this just as I was given this book

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RNZ: Saturday MorningEpisode: Kim Hill Saturday Morning 19 May 2012

Art with Mary Kisler – Angelica Garnett

http://www.pocketcasts.com/share/7TLKXO

I like stuff about the Bloomsbury group. Bohemians.

I now have the Kindle Sample”

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Mac Power UsersEpisode:

Mac Power Users 56: Mail

http://www.pocketcasts.com/share/1s4pG1

Very long and a bit boring but what a resource if you want to understand Mail on the Mac.

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C.G. Jung and the Red Book

C. G. Jung and the Red BookLectures presented by Dr. Lance S. Owens

via C.G. Jung and the Red Book.

I’ve downloaded a couple of the Audio… could be interesting.

It is book worth owning, but big to ship!

Amazon

Harville Hendrix Audio

Harville Hendrix Helen Hunt Freud to Buddha

Note from: http://gettingtheloveyouwant.com/thinktank

The Challenge of Creating Change: Freud and the Budda in Dialogue with Imago
Join Harville Hendrix for a preview of the keynote presentation at the 8th Annual Conference

I listened to it and found it quite wonderful.

Harville places connectedness as a form of consciousness akin to or surpassing enlightenment. That is quite something. It makes sense to me as there is a resonance through the cosomos, things connect.

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Spotted another Harville Hendrix one there on Behaviour Change:

Harville Hendrix on BCR

How I listen to podcasts.

 

1. Find the RSS feed eg http://www.democracynow.org/democracynow.rss
2. Subscribe in Google Reader. http://www.google.com/reader/view/#overview-page
3. Have a filter in Google Reader to get all the podcasts subscriptions into a Podcast folder, easy to review!
4. Slide *episodes* over into the Firefox Download Box (I have it configured to be in the sidebar) if I think I’ll like them, or will have time to listen.
5. From the Download Folder slide all those mp3s into iTunes as music. Give them the My Podcast Genre (or similar). Make a smart playlist, and have that ticked to go to the iPhone upon a sync.
6. Walk! Listen. Rate. Once they are rated they leave the Podcast playlist (that how I set up the smart playlist). I use one star meaning delete. Soft reboot to clear the list.

That’s my Podcast System. Cumbersome? Tell me a better way.

I get exactly what I want. They stay in the Playlist till I’m done & then they go.

I can’t get that control with the built in Podcast folder, or the iTunes subscription system.

I see I made a post about this system before, has some more details.

Here is my podcast list in Google Reader

Manufacturing Depression

Democracy Now! 1 March 2010

There are several stories in this hour long program, one about earthquakes, one about race in a Californian university, and one about depression. The last one tells me what I know as a psychotherapy to be true. Not that antidepressants don’t always work, but that why they work is a big muddle, it could be the placebo effect or just time. And the price for this dubious result is to pathologise millions of people, to get them thinking about the psyche in a medical & unhelpful way.

All for huge profit.

The DSM 5 is a scandal and will make the problem worse!

All part of a 150 year trend… that bit was new to me.

Video of the Depression story on Democracy Now

Every health professional should watch this video, listen to this last story in this episode of Democracy Now, or read the book by Gary Greenberg, Amazon:

Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease

Manufacturing Depression?:

The primary point that Greenberg expressed in the interview is that we are taking a normal human experience and turning it into a disease. He makes it clear that he has no problem with relieving the suffering of depression with drugs, but he questions whether we have turned normal blue moods into a disease in order to justify medicating away sadness.

A satisfying read online is where Greenberg is interviewed on the Well. Quote follows.

Dynamic Facilitation

I am still intrigued by Dynamic Facilitation. I was recently asked a question about it: What about facilitator bias? Made me think and I discussed this question in various places. Clearly there is a lot of skill needed in the facilitation, however it is a clearly prescribed process.

Several things guard against excessive dependence on the facilitator, and prevent bias.

• The focus on the creative output. I imagine this is facilitated by the charts.
• The equal weight given to divergent perspectives.

Then as I was pondering this a podcast arrived – probably had been on the ipod for a while:

Psychologist interviews Jim Rough.  Shrink Rap Radio

 

It is an excellent interview, it is not full of technical details, the simplicity of the method continues to impress.

And on facilitator bias, Jim at one point shows how he does not say “I hear you … ” too much “I”, we want to leave that out. ”

Jim’s presentation makes what he does seem so ordinary and invisible that it is worth looking at Rosa Zubizarreta’s Manual for Jim Rough’s Dynamic Facilitation Method.

On the evolution of science.

I have just listened to a spectacular podcast. From 2006 – I missed it till I changed my system of managing podcasts – giving in to the iTunes default way.

Kevin Kelly – The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method.

Download: iTunes — Direct download

The textual summary is here:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly06/kelly06_index.html

I continue to discuss the podcast and relate themes to my own writing.

Interview with Charles Eisenstein

Play has been on my mind. And I just listened to this which sounds ok to me about halfway through there is a good bit on play.

From http://www.futureprimitive.org/

Joanna Harcourt Smith interviews
[Charles Eisenstein] June 27, 2009 – Interview with Charles Eisenstein
(50 minutes – 17.3mb)
Charles Eisenstein is the author of The Ascent of Humanity: The Age of Separation, the Age of Reunion, and the convergence of crises that is birthing the transition – a book about the history and future of civilization from a unique perspective: the evolution of the human sense of self.

Joanna Harcourt Smith interviews
[Charles Eisenstein] June 27, 2009 – Interview with Charles Eisenstein
(50 minutes – 17.3mb)

Creative Insight Council April 2009 – Audio

I am delighted to bring this audio here. Please download and listen!

Creative Insight Council April 2009 Austria

It is a podcast about Dynamic Facilitation and the success of A Creative Insight Council (close to a Wisdom Council) in a city in Austria.

This does not really explain what Dynamic Facilitation is, or the principles of an CIC, or Wisdom Council. It is a process developed in the USA by Jim Rough. See my earlier blog post.

I hope this audio will motivate you to explore that.

If you are familiar with Psychodrama, I can say this: it is a highly sociometric process with strong facilitation from a neutral facilitator. The group of 12 or so is created by lottery in the whole population of the city or country! Such is the nature of systems, there is isomorphy (self similarity) from the microcosm to the macrocosm and the group, if well publicised, is the protagonist group for the whole community. A microcosm CAN experience the deep heart-felt transformation of a small group process and give back its wisdom to the whole, who are likely to be receptive as the group was made up of a diverse, non-expert group.

For people familiar with Imago Relationship Therapy, this is a process of facilitation that used a dialogue process. Not so much *between* the participants who do not need to learn how to send or receive, but through the facilitator.

One difference between DF, Dynamic Facilitation and the two process I mention above, Psychodrama and Imago, is that the facilitation works towards solution statements.

Note that these councils do not seek any formal power, nor will they meet again after the council is over.

~

I am really inspired. I have always had a hunch that the small group process which has been so powerful in my life would change the world but I could never quite see how. Now I get it! Fantastic.

Page 39 “Who Shall Survive?”

J.L. Moreno’s “Who Shall Survive?” is online! asgpp.org

Excellent news. It is all in image form so not easy to search, but it will be easy to OCR to quote. Would love to see it all in text.

An Image follows:

Audio I’ve been listening to.

Here are a few podcasts I’ve enjoyed:

KH: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic

Dave Winer: Love, the early Internet and the mathematics of betrayal & hate. Its a podcast from October 2004.

KH: Denis Dutton – The Art Instinct (not as bad as I thought he would be, given my skepticism about evolutionary psychology and skeptics).

Entanglement

I continue to hold an hypothesis that the behaviour of particles is a microcosm of human relationships. Not just as a metaphor, but that something of the “tele” involved is the same in both levels.

Listening to this podcast from Nights on RNZ confirms and extends this hypothesis. But hypothesis aside – it is ASTOUNDING stuff!

Synchronistically I just had this one arrive from the BBC IOT, have not listened yet.

Creativity, spontaneity and something Blake said

I have linked to this quote before, I just noticed it again & saw it in a new light. In relationship to Moreno’s Canon of Creativity. I think the word “attention” is wonderful. Eastern traditions use attention in meditation, but what is attention? A Buddhist friend of mine said it is simply love. It is a mystery alright! I can put my attention where I will! Attention is intentional. Right now it is on the blinking cursor. A moment later on the song playing on the radio downstairs.

Attention & blessing are all forms of warm-up?

Compare this from with the passage below from an essay I have that will be in the next Psychodrama journal. Michael Meade:

What happens if they’re not shown the recognition of that seed?

Now, we’re back to death. William Blake said that the garden of the soul is already planted and is waiting for the water of life. Call it the water of attention. There are innate ideas, dreams, stories, buried in people. When we don’t water those seeds, culture loses ideas. It loses imagination. It loses the capacity to dream itself forward. I mean that literally.

What happens to someone whose innate core cannot grow?

The “second nature” of a person (the innate capacities) needs two kinds of attention. The person has to attend to it themselves. It also needs the other kind of attention which used to be called a blessing, the attention, especially from someone who’s respected, someone who says, “I saw that. I heard that. I see the seed of life you’re coming from.” If these two kinds of attention don’t happen, a kind of death is occurring, a withering.

From my essay, with a quote from Moreno:

“The universe is infinite creativity.” – Moreno

Moreno envisaged creativity as integral to the universe. Humans have creativity by virtue of being born in the universe and thus creativity itself lives within us. Yet not all of us are able to tap into our creative potential. What is the difference between those who create successfully and those who do not?

“What separates them is the spontaneity which, in the successful cases, enables the carriers to take full command of their resources, whereas the failures are at a loss with all their treasures; they suffer from deficiencies in their warming-up process. Creativity without spontaneity becomes lifeless; its living intensity increases and decreases in proportion to the amount of spontaneity in which it partakes. Spontaneity without creativity is empty and runs abortive. Spontaneity and creativity are thus categories of a different order; creativity belongs to the categories of substance — it is the arch substance — spontaneity to the categories of catalyzer — it is the arch catalyzer.”

(Moreno, 1953:39-40)

This quotation is drawn from Who Shall Survive, where Moreno describes the Canon of Creativity. This quotation, drawn from Who Shall Survive, describes the Canon of Creativity. I interpret Moreno’s Canon as a heritage of paths to creativity; on the one hand, our innate vitality and ability to be spontaneous beings and on the other, our artifacts, all that we have made, the tools we use, our alphabet, language and literature, all the items conserved in the culture. The inherited past including art works and treasures remain dull and dead until we come to them with spontaneity. Our cultural items cannot influence our creativity until we bring them back to life. We are automatons unless we are co-creators.

Rankism

Wikipedia

Rankism Knol article Robert Fuller

Biblography

Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies

New Dimensions Interview

Reading & listening to Robert Fuller got me thinking how he connects to the Marshall Rosenberg NVC, and all the dialogue material. I want to integrate!

Fear of banishment, need to be included, primal, we need to belong to the trib or we die.

Fuller is an expert on this major human need. Understanding needs is vital, and he seems to get this one. Needs are the missing link in psychotherapy – Maslows contribution is major – but it seemed the last word, and was not integrated into any modality that I know of.