October 27th, 2021
- Core Concepts:
- PSP, ASP
- Pro-symptom position
- Pro = symptom is emotionally necessary to have according to implicit knowings
- Position = active and self-protective positioning; agency, client produces symptom
- Makes deep emotional (initially unconscious) sense
- Anti-symptom position
- Client is against having the symptom
- Symptom happens automatically, client feels powerless
- Existence of symptom means “I am defective“
- The Two Sufferings
- the lesser suffering
- The unwanted suffering due to having symptom
- the greater suffering
- Not having the symptom brings suffering that is even worse
- pro/anti synthesis of sufferings
- Awareness of how the symptom is necessary to have plus recognition of the costs of having the symptom
- Empathy
- Standard empathy
- Empathy for client‘s suffering due to symptom
- “Yes, you‘re really frustrated at feeling so stuck...“
- Empathy for how the symptom is necessary to have
- “Mm hm, it just doesn’t feel right to you to take a next step...”
- Combining the two:
- “Yes, you‘re really frustrated at feeling so stuck... And at the same time, there‘s something in you that knows something about this...“
- the greater suffering piece highlights something really important about the wholeness of the system, not just that it's in conflict but that in some sense it has reached whatever equilibrium it has in that conflict, as a whole
- and something about respecting the person's choice of the lesser suffering, even if it seems worse from your perspective
- (although of course if you're in relationship with the person, it may actually be worse for you personally)
- (though this is also hard to know before you've actually uncovered the greater suffering)
- Yatharth > are The Two Sufferings just from two parts?
- me > yeah, often the output is from a conflict/compromise
- so it's not like the unconscious part is winning, exactly
- Y > when conscious parts are winning over unconscious, we don't come to therapy
- Y > Abhay:
- > “Perhaps "going away" as the desired resolution can concede its territory to a growing acceptance of the mechanism's karmic configuration. i.e., the problem isn't the problem - it's the very category of "problem" that can be remapped fundamentally to pure opportunity/offering.”
- general thing about crypto & Converting Moloch from Sith to Jedi
- Oh, relatedly, Patrick Collison does have a list of "Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together."