Transforming Your Self: Chapter 11: Changing the "Not Self" pt 2

Chapter 11: Changing the "Not Self" Partt 2

by Steve Andreas

One way of thinking about dual personality is that rather than having scattered individual ambiguous qualities, the way most of us do, one side of each ambiguity is assembled into one personality, while the other side of each ambiguity is assembled into another. Each personality functions as a one-sided integrated whole, but there is a vast gulf between the two.

Milton Erickson, who worked with a number of multiples, believed that each personality used the same set of experiences, while applying completely different values to those experiences:

". . . it seems to me that dual personalities actually represent well-organized, coordinated, and integrated use of the same total experience, but from two entirely different points of orientation. . . .

"My finding with dual personalities is that they react in both ways simultaneously. Usually one of the personalities is active and builds up an experiential background in that way. The other tends to be passive and to orient itself about things of only minor consideration to the other personality. As a consequence, you get two personalities constructed, each of which has its own set and scale of values, based upon totally different usage of the common experiences." (18, p. 143)

"While the ordinary personality is usually present, nevertheless the secondary personality is very definitely in the background, observing, participating, and sharing, but in a fashion unknown to the ordinary personality. I will agree, however, that when the secondary personality is in the foreground, the primary personality is most completely out of the picture, and, so far as I can tell, actually misses completely the experiences of the active secondary personality. Just how this is possible, I cannot conceive, and yet it seems to be so." (19, p. 144)

If Erickson's understanding is correct about different personalities arising from differently valuing the same experiences, that would also fit very nicely with what I have presented. Assuming for the moment that the conscious personality defines itself by negations, then the conscious mind would value the negated representation, while the unconscious would value its opposite. That would result in the secondary personality being completely unconscious and unknown to the conscious personality. Then when the unconscious self becomes conscious, it would make sense that the previously conscious self would continue to be totally unaware of the other personality, and whatever it did while it was in charge.

Some day I hope to find time to locate and interview a dual personality. I think that I could use the approach presented here to learn more, and perhaps confirm some of these guesses. I'd make a list of each personality's constellation of qualities, to hopefully learn more about how they remain separate, and how to integrate the two, and I would determine to what extent each personality defines itself by what it is not. If my guesses are correct, the primary personality defines itself by negation, while the secondary personality doesn't. By working at the level of qualities, rather than at the level of the whole personality, I think that integration would be much easier and faster, just as the integration of ambiguities as I have presented it here is much easier than when using the Visual Squash.

There still remains the question of how two sets of qualities can each be organized into a separate personality in relation to opposing sets of values, and how this is different from other extreme polarities such as bulimia. Most people include both sides of an ambiguity or conflict in one identity, even when one of them is severely dissociated and alienated.

Since multiple personality is such a rare disorder, we also need to consider the possibility that some kind of neurological damage prevents the usual integration of identity. There are a number of neurological injuries that severely disturb the sense of self, so perhaps there is a unique and rare kind of injury that results in multiple personality.

When I have seen films and videos of people who were described as multiples, most of them have not been very convincing to me. I usually didn't see the kind of complete nonverbal reorganization that people report. I saw only the incongruence and partial dissociation that is familiar to anyone doing NLP work with different parts of a person with conflicting outcomes.

However, many years ago I personally experienced a multiple who was very, very, convincing to me, so I am sure they do exist. I was with a casual acquaintance who was under considerable stress at the time. I looked away from her briefly, and when I looked back, there were strikingly different intently piercing eyes, commanding voice and posture. I am not easily scared, but this was a scene that could have come straight out of the movie, "The Exorcist." It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and the best way I can describe it is that someone else was there! I later found out that this other personality was a Mediterranean fertility goddess who took over control of her daily, and was typing the manuscript of a book!

Most multiples have been discovered during hypnotherapy, so we also have to consider the possibility that inappropriate hypnotherapy may play a part in creating a multiple. Erickson reported a couple of multiples who had not experienced hypnosis, at least not officially, but some hypnotic life experiences could have had a similar effect. For instance, some parents say to a child who has just misbehaved, "Where's my sweet little girl? Where did she go? Who is this bad girl?" If this sort of hypnotic language is used often, or during the kind of stressful events that often create traumatic "imprints," I think it could at least contribute to creating a multiple.

Keep in mind that a lot of this is speculation, and that I haven't tested it by working with a multiple. It might well be that this is one of those theories that Thomas Henry Huxley spoke of: "The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact." At minimum, these are some possibilities that could be checked out by people who work with multiples.

Changing Projection

Now I want to return to projection. Discovering the underlying process was a completely unexpected result of modeling how the self-concept functions. Projection begins with negated internal images of what I'm not, and the rest is my natural response to these negated images. Now that you have an understanding of this process, you will be sensitized to it and start noticing it in what other people say and do. Knowing how this process works also points the way toward how to change it. Assuming that negated images cause projection, how would you go about changing it, so that someone would project less?

Sally: Well, this sounds too easy, but couldn't you just ask someone to make positive images of what they have been negating? "OK, you're not cruel; what are you?" That would get them to make positive images of being kind or whatever the positive quality is.

Exactly. If you say to them, "OK, you're not cruel, so I assume you're kind," what are they going to say? It's something that they have to agree with, because of the logic--and usually paranoids are very logical, which is one feature that makes it hard to work with them. And when you change a negated representation to a positive example, you are only changing the representation, not the meaning, so that makes it very easy to do.

You first change the summary label for the database from "not cruel" to "kind," and then have them go through their entire database and change each of the representations to positive ones of kindness. That might seem a bit tedious, but it actually goes very quickly, especially when you group similar examples. And usually the person's unconscious mind gets the idea pretty fast and does the rest on its own.

Of course this process is a lot more difficult if someone has progressed all the way to full-blown paranoia, because then you are part of his dangerous and threatening surroundings, so he can't trust you. If you suggest changing negated representations to positive representations, he will probably think that is part of the plot against him, and refuse to do it.

Sally: How can you tell if someone has gone too far into paranoia?

I thought that probably you were one of them, too. But when you asked that trick question, you revealed yourself for what you are.

Sally: Oh crap. All right!

Dan: What if you told them in great detail what not to do? "Don't change any of your images of what you're not into images of what you are." It seems to me that if you are not trusted, and you tell him not to do something, that could be taken as a good indication that he ought to do it.

That could work, but I think you might have to build in some rationale for doing it that paced his belief system--perhaps something, just casually mentioned in passing, about the great danger in making negated images, because they tend to blind you to what is really going on around you, and of course that makes you vulnerable to people who want to harm you.

Another way to go about it is to pace the mistrust by saying. "Don't trust me." That paradoxically makes you at least somewhat trustworthy, because you are agreeing with their belief system. "I want you to carefully scrutinize everything I say and do, to be sure that there is nothing harmful in it." That paces what s/he is going to do anyway, while presupposing that "There is nothing harmful in it." Then you could go on to say something like, "Even if I'm acting with the best of intentions, I might do something to harm you inadvertently."

That sentence may seem like a pretty innocuous pace, but it presupposes two very important and closely-related distinctions: One is the difference between intention and behavior, and the other is the difference between intention and accident. A paranoid takes perceived harm as proof of bad intentions, so thinking about the possibility of harm resulting from good intentions, or accidental harm completely separate from any intention, introduces two different kinds of possible counterexamples to his belief system in one sentence.

Just as very few people understand the consequences of negative commands, most people have no idea how important it is to have positive representations of their qualities (even if they don't like them) rather than negations. They don't realize how a self-concept that is defined negatively can get them into serious trouble. There are plenty of people who can benefit from learning how to think of themselves without negations, and this is a change that is usually very easy to accomplish once you know what to do.

"Not self" (positively-valued)

We have been exploring the experience of not being something that you don't value. The other possibility, thinking of yourself as not being something that you do value, turns out to be very different. Again think of something that you are not, but this time make it something that you value. "I'm not tenacious," "I'm not graceful," "I'm not patient," or any other quality that you value. Take a couple of minutes to explore how you represent this, and what that experience is like. . . .

Amy: I see a lot of pictures of what it would be like for me to have that quality, and I can sort of step into them to feel what it would be like, but the feeling is only partial, and I know I'm not there yet.

"Not there yet." So this is a quality that you hope or expect to have in the future. What is your response to those pictures, and the feeling that you get from them?

Amy: It draws me toward them, it's motivating. I think about it a lot.

It sounds like you might have future-paced examples of this quality, but you don't have present or past examples of it.

Amy: Yes, I think that's how I know I don't have it yet.

Sam: I thought about a quality that I have, but I want to have more strongly, so I know I don't have that additional strength yet. Like Amy, I feel drawn forward, and I like it.

Yes, representations of something that you expect to have in the future are pretty direct and useful; they set a goal that is positively motivating. Each of us did a great deal of this while we were growing up and developing our adult skills and abilities. However, thinking of a quality that you don't have and don't expect to have in the future is very different. Does anyone have an example of that?

Sue: Yes, I see others with the quality that I don't have. I feel vulnerable because I don't have it. I'm envious of them, and I feel different and inferior in relation to them.

Now I want to ask you all to do what Sue did, and to take this process to the extreme. Imagine that all your focus was on valued qualities that you are not, and that you expect that you will never have them. Take a couple of minutes to experience what that is like. . . .

Alice: I feel like a Martian. I don't like that everyone else has all these wonderful qualities, and I don't. I feel really inferior to everyone else, and I don't like them for being so different from me.

Dan: Again I feel an emptiness inside, because all I notice is what I'm not, and I don't have any sense of who I am. I also feel a lot of distance, and the word "unfair" comes to mind.

Yes, thinking of yourself as not being able to have a quality that you value usually involves thinking of others as having it, so again there is an implicit comparison, noticing the differences between yourself and others. One of my criteria for an effective self-concept was that it not have comparisons, but only contain positive representations of your own qualities. Another criterion was that a useful self-concept would join people and not separate them into up/down, superior/inferior, etc.

When we compare ourselves with others, we usually think of only one or two qualities at a time; we usually don't think of all the other differences between us, or about all the many similarities. When we compare ourselves with others, we can always find someone who is better or worse than we are, depending on what we choose to compare.

Whether we feel inferior or superior, this comparing makes our self-concept dependent on others, rather than being something that we have internally. Comparing with others also draws our attention away from the qualities that we value in ourselves, and is likely to result in judgement of our shortcomings, bad feelings and other unuseful consequences. When I feel small and inadequate, criticizing others can give me a little temporary superiority, and make me feel a little better about myself. Now what is it like if you think of having that quality someday?

Dan: I feel a lovely release, like energy and attention flowing outward toward what I now think I could become.

Sue: It never occurred to me that I could have it.

Well, it is occurring to you now. Play the "As if" game. What is it like if you think about expecting that you could have that quality someday?

Sue: If I think about having that quality someday, it's still a bit unreal to me, but I start wondering how it would feel to have it, and how that could happen, so I feel better about not having it. I'm more curious about how those other people have it, instead of just feeling bad because I don't.

Our expectation of future possibility makes a huge difference in how we respond to an experience of not having a valued quality. If you expect to have a quality in the future, it can provide a wonderful experience of being motivated to develop the quality. Seeing someone else who expresses a valued quality can be a rich resource for finding out how much is possible, and for finding out how you can also develop that quality.

However, if you don't expect to have something in the future, and you compare yourself to the people who have it, this often results in dissatisfaction, envy, feeling inferior, etc. So if someone is thinking about a valuable quality that they don't expect to have in the future, and you work with them to change their belief of impossibility into possibility, that can transform envy, inferiority, and unhappiness into eager motivation, and that is a huge difference!

"What experiences and beliefs underlie your expectation of not having the quality in the future? What is your evidence for this belief about yourself, and what evidence is there for the opposite belief that you could hope to achieve this quality at some time in the future? When did you experience even a small degree of the quality, perhaps in an unusual situation, or perhaps long ago, or in a dream? Can you think of a time when you thought you could never have something, and then later you surprised yourself? If you could have this quality, how would your life be different?"

Once you have loosened up their belief about the possibility of having the quality, you can often proceed to either build the quality, as I did with Peter, or transform an ambiguous quality into the positive one that they want.

Fred: At a certain stage of life, some things may no longer be possible for someone, especially when there are physical limitations.

Well, all of us always have physical limitations. Remember that we are dealing with personal qualities. Although a quality affects what we do, it primarily affects the way in which we do it. Even if there are major limitations in what we can do, we always have some range of choice in how we do it. A quality like physical grace can be expressed in pole-vaulting, or with offering someone a slice of toast, and that is true of most qualities.

Did anyone do something different that what we have discussed so far? Wendy: When I thought of myself as "not kind," all my counterexamples to kindness jumped out at me and became very prominent and overwhelmed the examples of kindness, so all I had left was cruelty.

Melissa: I started out with a movie of kindness, but then it turned into cruelty.

So you both flipped from "not kind" to representations of being cruel, a negatively-valued quality. People have lots of different ways of responding to words of negation, so you really need to find out what they're actually doing in their minds, and not assume that they are doing the same thing that you do. I think we have discussed all the different possibilities, so these can guide your information gathering when you want to find out if someone is negating their internal experience.

Summary

Since it is very difficult for us to think and talk about negations, we need to make a very clear distinction between the words that people use, and the internal representations that they make. When someone says, "I'm not cruel," they could be making images of being kind, which works fine. Or they could be making images of cruelty and then negating them, or they could be doing both.

When we think of ourselves as not having a quality that we don't like, we set a process in motion that creates a division between our conscious and unconscious minds. This becomes the foundation for an unacknowledged "shadow" self, a process that can ultimately lead to paranoia. The same process may also lead to multiple personality, if the shadow side is thought of as being inside the body, rather than outside. Replacing the negation with a positive representation of who we are is easy in the earlier stages of this process, but much more difficult later.

Negated representations of valued qualities can be very useful and valuable motivators, as long as we think it is possible to develop that quality at some future time. If you don't think it's possible, this usually leads to envy and feelings of inferiority. Changing your belief from impossibility to possibility opens up a wide range of choices, from eager motivation to a decision that even though it's possible, you don't want to put in the effort required. If we really conclude that we can't achieve a quality, it is much better to simply focus our attention on all the valued qualities that we do have. We can admire and take pleasure in the unique and exceptional qualities that others have, and dispense with useless comparisons and negated representations of ourselves.

Finally we have learned everything we need to know in order to make the most difficult and useful kind of self-concept change, transforming a quality that someone doesn't like into its desired opposite.

This is an excerpt from Real People Press' new title "Transforming Your Self: becoming who you want to be".

©2002 Steve Andreas