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Six Blind Elephants:
Volume I
Understanding Ourselves and Each Other
by Steve Andreas
Logical Levels (excerpt from chapter 5, Categories of categories)
For simplicity I have begun by assuming that all members of a category are at
the same logical level, but this is not necessarily true. For instance the category
“things that I can think about” could include memories or images of physical objects
that are sensory-based, very general abstract concepts like “truth” or “beauty,”
and all the possible categories in between.
For instance, if you have a computer, you know that you can put many different
items into the same “folder” on your “desktop.” A folder is a category of things,
and it can hold a photo, or a sound recording, which is a certain scope of experience,
a document, which is a description of a scope of experience, or even another folder
containing other different items. A folder titled “miscellaneous” may have nothing
in common except the criterion that they are cluttering up your desktop, and you
aren’t using them right now, so you put them all in a folder to clear space for
other work.
When a category includes members at different logical levels, we can take any
two of them and determine if they are related by categorical inclusion. For instance,
if we use the category “things that I can think of,” mentioned above, we could
take a specific memory, and “truth” and find out if they are related by categorical
inclusion. Usually a memory is thought of as “something that actually happened,”
so it would be a member of the category “things that are true.”
But someone else might have a memory that they are uncertain about whether it
happened or not, so that would not be included in “truth,” but instead in a different
category that we might call “uncertainty.” We can even say, “If that memory is
true, then it can be included in the category ‘truth’ ” to indicate the difference
in logical levels between them. We can always examine an experience and a category
to find out if the experience can be included in the category. In the same way,
we can examine any two categories and determine if one is included as an example
of the other.
This is something that we do many times every day without thinking about it. If
I say, “That was a good movie,” that includes a specific scope of experience in
the category “good movie.” If I say, “I seldom watch movies,” that includes the
category “movies” in the more general category “things that I seldom do.” “Things
that I seldom do” is a subcategory of “things that I do,” for a total of three
levels.
If I say, “I want to do several errands today, some quick, and some that will
take longer,” there are three logical levels. “Errands” is a category with two
subdivisions, “quick” and “longer,” and “errands” is a category included in the
more general category, “things I want to do today.”
Another aspect of multiple logical levels is that the lower included levels become
presupposed. In the previous paragraph, “errands,” and the smaller included categories
“quick” and “longer” are presupposed. In ordinary communication this causes no
trouble, because both the speaker and the listener already presuppose those categories.
However, the same logical structure can be used to install presuppositions that
the listener does not already have, so this kind of communication is very hypnotic.
For instance, in the following short piece from a Virginia Satir “meditation,”
there are six logical levels of presupposition.
As we come fully in touch with our capacity, inborn in all of us, to choose out
of all we have at this moment, that which fits us well, we notice that there are
things we haven’t used.
Although the listener may not already agree with all these presuppositions, they
are likely to be useful, because they describe an expansion of choices that fit
the person (rather than someone else).
However, if a therapist were to use the same structure to say, “I want you to
get fully in touch with the latent and uncontrollable destructive forces seething
within you,” those presuppositions would seldom be accurate or useful.
Try a quick experiment. Think of a problem that you have, and notice how you represent
it in your mind. . . .
Now imagine that you say the following sentence to yourself, which is part of
a current self-help program: “Could I allow myself to remember how I used to believe
I had this problem?” and notice how your image changes. . . .
That question has five logical levels of presupposition: “problem,” “belief,”
“past events,” “remembering,” and “allowing.” That can certainly change the listener’s
experience of a “problem,” putting it into the category of remembered past beliefs—whether
they “allow” it or not. If the problem is purely imaginary, that could be useful.
However, if they really do have a problem, that will only recategorize it as no
longer a problem—not solve the problem. If the problem is cancer, thinking that
it is no longer a problem could be quite dangerous. Many people (and other people
around them) already suffer from attitudes and behaviors that they do not think
of as problems.
Nearly every communication has at least two or three logical levels of experience,
and some have many more. To gain skill in noticing these different levels, take
any sentence and first determine the categories in it. Then pair any two of these
categories, and decide whether one of them is described as a member of the other.
Start with short sentences and then work up to longer ones to gradually increase
your ability to do this quickly and easily.
In everyday conversation, people exchange messages at different logical levels,
and often this is entirely appropriate. I say that I enjoyed a good meal, and
my wife responds with “I’m glad,” including my experience in a more general category
of things that she is glad about. She asks me, “How was the seminar?” asking for
an overall evaluation, and I respond at a more specific level by telling her about
one of the events that I enjoyed—a scope rather than a categorization.
At other times, a response at a different logical level is not so useful. For
instance, if someone asks me how to get to a particular restaurant, and I respond
by raving about the wonderful food at that restaurant, that doesn’t tell them
what they need to know. If I ask someone what they thought of a movie, and they
respond, “I liked it,” that is not an answer to my question.
Since people’s problems exist at different logical levels, it is important to
be able to track levels, and respond at the appropriate level in order to offer
something that they can make use of. If someone feels terrible because they don’t
know how to drive a car, it is usually much more useful to teach them that skill
than it is to make them feel better about not being able to. On the other hand,
if someone is handicapped and physically unable to drive a car, then it’s appropriate
to change how they think about this limitation.
Often a great deal of therapeutic effort is devoted to changing the feelings that
someone has in response to a problem. It is usually much more useful to change
the situation or their perception of the situation so that it is no longer a problem
for them—and then their feelings automatically become more positive. Now let’s
examine another common situation that is a little more complex.
In a change-work session, often a client will say something like, “I don’t think
it will work,” a statement about the process, which is an apparent objection to
going forward with the process. “Disbelief” is a more general category, a higher
logical level, than the process itself, since disbelief includes all the other
things that the client doesn’t believe in.
Many therapists mistakenly think that they have to change this disbelief about
a process before they can proceed with the process itself. The therapist’s belief
is about the client’s belief, so it is at an even more general level than the
client’s belief about the process. At this point they have both become completely
distracted from the process that can be used to solve the problem! This is an
example of how both client and therapist can lose track of the logical levels
in communication, and waste a lot of time on irrelevant issues. Belief in the
process would only be necessary if you were doing faith healing, in which the
healer or guru has so little confidence in their own methods and skills that they
think that they need the client’s belief in order to bring about change. At this
point the real issue is not the client’s doubt that a process will work, but the
therapist’s doubt that their process will work even though the client doesn’t
believe in it. This situation betrays a common and fundamental confusion between
faith healing, which relies on belief, and science, the study of what works no
matter what someone believes, two entirely different categories.
When you know that a process will work, it is not important whether or not anyone
believes that it will work, any more than it is necessary to believe in a cell
phone in order to use it. It is only important that the client is willing to cooperate
in doing the process, so that you and s/he can find out if it works or not.
A very striking example of this appears in my 21-year-old video of the fast phobia
cure, which is also available in transcript form. After I conclude the seven-minute
session and say, “That’s all there is to it,” the woman expresses her disbelief
by laughing hysterically for 8 seconds. Then she says emphatically, “I’m glad
I didn’t pay for this!” and continues to laugh hysterically for another 20 seconds.
(If that doesn’t sound very long to you, pause, look at your watch, and try laughing
hard out loud for 28 seconds.)
Even though her conscious mind was completely unbelieving and skeptical, she was
very cooperative, and the process worked (and I now have 19 years of follow-up).
When you have confidence in your methods and skills, cooperation is all you need.
With this understanding, your response to a doubting client will be focused only
on eliciting their cooperation, not their belief. You can simply bypass their
disbelief, and redirect attention to what they want, a more specific category,
in order to gain cooperation in doing the process.
For instance, you can say, “You think some of the ideas and methods that I use
sound really weird and crazy, and you don’t think they could be of any use to
you. However, I don’t care whether you think it will work or not, because I’m
not a faith healer, and I know that it will work. The theories of physics and
electricity that were used to make your cell phone are also pretty crazy, but
they work, and when you use your cell phone to call someone, it is completely
irrelevant whether or not you believe that it will work.” This makes a clear distinction
between the categories of faith healing and science, and between a theory and
the results of using a theory.
“I also know you are really hurting in this situation and you don’t want to have
those horrible consequences and bad feelings that you have been having. You’d
really like to have much more resourceful ways of responding.”
Besides matching their experience, this refocuses their attention on the problem,
which is either a scope, or a more specific category, at a lower logical level.
This also elicits “away from” motivation, and then directs their attention to
their positive outcome, also giving them something to move toward.
“Now the really important question is this: ‘If my crazy methods did work, and
you got the outcome we have been discussing, would you have any objection to actually
being that way?’ I want you to vividly imagine that it is now tomorrow, and you
have already achieved the outcome you want. I want you to take some time to explore
very thoroughly how well this new way of being and responding works for you, now,
and in the days and weeks to come. What is it like to have these new responses?
How do your family, friends, boss, subordinates, and strangers respond to you,
in all the different major contexts in which you live—home, work, play, etc.?
Because we might find that we need to adjust your new response to be sure it works
well in all aspects of your life, before we go through a process that will create
this new ability in you.”
This “ecology check” (which is really a congruence check) asks the client to expand
their scope and create a series of sensory-based scenarios in which they enact
their desired responses, and notice how satisfied they are with the results. The
results of carrying out these scenarios will be used as feedback to adjust the
outcome until it is satisfactory. Often this rehearsal is all that is needed to
elicit and contextualize the new responses, and they may never have to go through
the process that they originally thought was “crazy.”
However, let’s assume that you do need to do another process, and a client has
objections to cooperating. You simply have to find a category that is acceptable
to them, and show how the “crazy” process fits into this category. For instance,
one colleague was working with a religious man who objected to visualization because
he thought it was “new age” and contrary to his religion. The colleague first
asked the client about a number of examples of planning for the future, in which
the client agreed that visualization was useful. Then he recategorized the visual
swish pattern as being a different kind of auditory or written prayer, a special
form of prayer in the visual modality.
Read Exerpts from
Several Chapters
Reframing
using a different scope (excerpt from
chapter 7, How scope influences category)
“Crazy”
Recategorization (excerpt from chapter
13, Higher level recategorization)
What others have said about Six
Blind Elephants . . .
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