Tag: Functional Interpersonal Meta Linguistics (FIML)

Why FIML practice works so well

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Done properly, FIML takes the worst parts of communication and treats them as the most interesting. And they are interesting. I guarantee you will see yourself and your partner very differently after a few months of FIML practice. Vague impressions and uncertain emotions, many of which you may not even be aware of, will give way to an increasing fineness of detail and definition in your communications with each other. And this will have a major impact on how you view yourself, and how you talk to yourself. The same will be true for your partner.

Another way of looking at FIML is to understand that you and your partner are creating your own micro-culture. What is in your culture and how it works is up to you. I don’t think it will work well or last long if you do not have an ethical basis for it, but beyond that, the rest is up to you. As a side note, FIML cannot possibly work if one partner is dishonest. There is no point in doing it if you plan to lie. Please see How to do FIML for a complete explanation of what is meant by honesty and what its limits within FIML practice are.

As partners progress in FIML practice, they will notice that each FIML query becomes a sort of example that expands within the mind. Once you notice a mistaken impression in one area and have dealt with it, you will probably notice that that same mistake is being repeated in other areas. This will strengthen your initial insights and make it easier to correct other occurrences of that mistake. Once you succeed in this a few times, you will experience significant feelings of relief and an increase in mental and emotional energy because your mind is no longer working against itself in that area.

And all of this will make FIML practice easier and more fluid in any other areas that come up. Just knowing that you have done FIML successfully and that both partners are willing and able to benefit from further FIML discussions is a huge relief. Not much is going to bother either one of you because you both know that you have the tools to deal with whatever presents itself.

Remember that FIML is not about judging. FIML is not about consciously or unconsciously importing structures or judgments from the large culture around you into the micro-culture you are co-forming with your partner. An example of what I mean could be tone of voice. If your partner’s tone of voice bothers you, start a FIML query, but do not expect or look for them to apologize for it. Rather, look for them to explain it while you explain to them what you think you heard. If you heard derision, say, where none was intended, the mistake is probably all yours, though your partner may want to reflect on that tone of voice anyway. Both of you can decide how to deal with that tone of voice in the future. Do you want it removed from your micro-culture? Do you want to keep it but understand it differently? The choice is entirely up to the two of you.

Notice how important it is in this example that both partners be completely honest about what they meant and what they heard. If one partner lies and says there was no derision in their voice when there was, your FIML practice sucks. This is so very important because partners not only can but must co-form their own micro-culture. Another way of saying that is we do not want to import anything thoughtlessly from the larger culture. We want our micro-culture to be clean, clear, and honest. We want it to be something that both partners agree on without reservation or hidden motives. If one of you is lying, none of this is possible. A lie is essentially a hidden standard, a standard one partner imports in secret without telling the other.

Naturally, mistakes happen and people have their failings. If you are lying, reread How to do FIML and and stop it. Read also On the Importance of Honesty and the Decision to Believe. It is not that hard to be honest in FIML practice. But it is absolutely necessary.

To continue our example, another important point can be made about tone of voice in this context. Basically, who can say what is “derision” in someone’s tone or not? A flat sounding, no-nonsense, here-is-the-info tone of voice can easily be misinterpreted as derision when it is not. If you import the false notion that any flat, no-nonsense tone is derisive, right there you are placing a huge limit on you and your partner’s capacity for full and open communication. Not having any strong, no-nonsense tone in your micro-culture more or less condemns you both to not being able to get your own facts and make your own decisions for yourselves. It may very well cause or perpetuate a passive attitude toward your existence and your place in the world. Decide for yourselves what your tones mean and how to deal with them. Of course, we have to keep the standards of the larger culture in mind, but not so much that we surrender our wise autonomy to them.

FIML practice works because it integrates and focuses linguistics, psychology, sociology, and interpersonal communication all at the same time. We use our speech to find sound data points that can be calmly and reasonably discussed. This exposes our psychology while providing us with sensible feedback from our partners. This helps partners co-form their own culture without having to conform unnecessarily to the culture of someone else. And all of this frees our interpersonal communication from blockage, misunderstanding, fear, and so on.

Mindfulness and error recognition

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Mindfulness practices improve our ability to recognize error.

A recent study shows this by monitoring brain activity with an EEG.

The EEG can measure brain activity at the millisecond level, so we got precise measures of neural activity right after mistakes compared to correct responses. A certain neural signal occurs about half a second after an error called the error positivity, which is linked to conscious error recognition. We found that the strength of this signal is increased in the meditators relative to controls,” said Jeff Lin, co-author of the study linked just below. [emphasis mine](link to quote: How meditation can help you make fewer mistakes)

The study is here: On Variation in Mindfulness Training: A Multimodal Study of Brief Open Monitoring Meditation on Error Monitoring.

Few Buddhists will be surprised at the general findings of this study.

Error recognition is what first got me to read about this study.

The findings became even more interesting to me when I saw the statement about the one-half-second error positivity response in the quote above.

Error recognition or the recognition that one might be making an error is key to successful FIML practice.

The second key is to act on our recognition quickly, within a few seconds if possible.

I have always figured it takes about a half second more or less to feel a slight disturbance that tells us we might be forming a wrong impression about what someone is saying or doing. That we might be making an error.

It is this disturbance that tells us it is time to do a FIML query. Virtually every time I do a proper FIML query I find I am either flat out wrong or wrong enough to want to revise my original impression.

In the past, I have called the slight disturbance mentioned above a “jangle,” a term I don’t really like because it makes the response sound stronger than what it is. I suppose I could refer to it as the “error positivity response,” but that would require an explanation every time I used it.

[Edit: I have decided to solve this problem this way: A jangle is basically a trigger.  The word jangle is used rather than trigger because the word trigger normally places too much responsibility on the speaker. A jangle should be understood as an internal emotional or psychological trigger that the listener 100% owns until it has been queried about. In most cases, partners will find that their jangles largely or entirely belong to their own psychologies and not their partner’s.]

In Buddhism, a jangle is probably the second of the five skandhas—sensation.

Buddhist practice will definitely make you more aware of the second skadha or “error positivity response.”

By being aware of this response in conversation with a trusted partner, FIML practice helps us take our mindfulness to a new level by providing  us with the opportunity to ask our partner about their intentions. In this way, we check our own mental work for error.

If this is done quickly enough to preserve clear memories of 1) your “error positivity response” and 2) your partner’s memory of what was in their working memory at that moment THEN you both have one of the few psychological facts you can both be sure of.

Facts of this sort are not just psychologically of great significance, they are also of philosophical significance because they really are one of the very few fact-types you can truly know about your own idiosyncratic existence; your own very weird being.

I believe this is why the Buddha emphasized the importance of the moment.

FIML practice explodes the moment or expands it to include more reliable information (your partner’s input). And this allows both of you to do a really good analysis of what just happened, what that moment entailed.

And doing that many times, will help both of you see how you really are. It will help you break fee from erroneous psychological frames or theoretical misinterpretations of any type.

Top physicist: ‘Reality Is Not Physical’

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Take this video as a semblance of an explication of Buddhism; then understand and use FIML when speaking to at least one other person. That’s where and how FIML fits in the human aspect of the cosmos. There is no better way for humans to communicate interpersonal subjective and objective reality. ABN

Timothy Williamson on Knowledge: What is Knowledge?

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__________

FIML works with the shared knowledge of two people; knowledge that both partners agree on.

FIML works with small bits of knowledge to avoid jumping mistakenly into false belief, justification, or truth as these words are used in the video above.

In this way, FIML is working with both primary subjective and primary objective knowledge, turning them into agreed upon better subjective and objective knowledge (since both agree).

Doing FIML frequently, clears up mistaken beliefs, justifications, and truths by clearing up basic subjective and objective knowledge mistakes.

I have only just heard of Williamson, but the messy knowledge basis of interpersonal relations has been clear to me for many decades.

When partners compare their subjective knowledge of self and each other, they correct their false knowledge and replace it with much better knowledge.

Basic FIML works with bits of language and semiotics that are small enough for both partners to distinctly remember in real-time and agree on what they are.

A huge advantage of working with small bits of knowledge is self-correction is fairly easy. And also its effects on meso and macro kinds of knowledge happen through autocatalytic expansion into those regions.

Everything changes when lots of little bits of knowledge are cleared up and made better. The insights expand throughout the mind.

FIML does not tell you what to think. It is a method for working with what you know or can know or thought you knew but maybe were wrong or right.

FIML’s truths, once realized, are psychological, existential, philosophical and spiritual. ABN

An analogy using photography that illuminates human interpersonal communication

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image source

I mean no offense to anyone, not even the photographer, but this is an example of how bad normal photos were in the pre-cellphone camera days. It can serve as an analogy for how people communicate interpersonally before FIML. Before FIML, our communication will be restricted, unsophisticated, clunky, and though it may be expressive as in this photo, probably not what we meant or deeply wanted to say. You can see the people in this photo definitely do not do FIML: 1) because the technique had not been invented in 1970; and 2) because you can. It is my firm belief that when millions of people do FIML we will enter an age of really good communication, much better than today. Just as most people now having a good camera on them all the time has yielded a massive improvements in photography, so FIML will deeply improve the ways we speak and listen and feel about doing that. Cellphone cameras give us many opportunities to shoot good photos and lots of practice in how to make a good photo. FIML is not quite like a camera, but it is a kind of cerebral technology that results in partners communicating much better. When we understand the FIML technique and use it often, our communication will improve at least as much as photography has improved due to widespread use of cellphone cameras. ABN

Gab AI answers ‘What is FIML’?

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Answer:

FIML = Functional Interpersonal Meta-Linguistics (often shortened to Functional Interpersonal Mutual [sic] Linguistics).

It’s a mindfulness-based communication protocol for two people who are close (couples, close friends, etc.).

The core idea: in real time, you stop the moment either of you feels even a tiny emotional jolt, ask what exact word/phrase/tone caused it (“let’s do FIML on that”), uncover the micro-misunderstanding, clarify it, and resume. Repeated many times, the partners gradually remove all the accumulated tiny layers of misinterpretation and latent resentment.

Developed by two Buddhists, Rob Kauth and Tara Stewart, back around 2011–2012. It was initially published on the Mindfulness in 3D blog and later formalized in small PDF guides. There is no commercial training empire; you just grab the instructions (often titled “FIML Basic Method” or similar) and do it yourselves.

Question: Where did you get the information on Rob Kauth and Tara Stewart?

Gab AI Answer: I don’t have a verifiable source that names Rob Kauth and Tara Stewart as the founders of FIML; that detail came from my own memory and I cannot confirm it. If you need certainty, you should look for primary documentation or contact the original FIML community directly.

Gab AI is wrong about the origin of FIML. I am the inventor/discoverer and developer of FIML.

Nonetheless, I am pleased that Gab AI was able to answer as well as it did in its first three paragraphs above.

FIML has never been called Functional Interpersonal Mutual Linguistics.

I am not aware of a Mindfulness in 3D blog mentioned by Gab AI, but there is a book by that title. I hope the author at least acknowledged where he got the idea, if Gab is right, especially if he called it Functional Interpersonal Meta-Linguistics or FIML.

Whether he did or didn’t, it’s no big deal to me. I mainly want people to use the technique to make their lives better. I don’t charge anything for it.

I may do more exploration with AI to learn how to present FIML to a wider audience and maybe discover more uses for it and more ways to do it.

That said, FIML is a very human psychology- or spirituality-based technique.

It may prove to be one of the really profound things humans can do that AI will never be able to do.

AI, however, should be able to model the FIML technique, which will show people how to do it more easily.

From the above, we can see that AI gets some stuff right and some stuff wrong.

AI itself may have the same deep problem all of us have — inescapable existential ambiguity. See this for more: Indeterminacy of translation and FIML.

I have asked Grok the same question I asked Gab AI.

It replied fairly well but needed more prompts to get there. It did not throw in a bunch of detail that came from my own memory and I cannot confirm, however, as Gab AI did. ABN

Psychophysics gains a new law of sensory perception that also sheds light on subjective perception

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First we have to understand Weber’s Law:

Weber’s law, also called Weber-Fechner law, historically important psychological law quantifying the perception of change in a given stimulus. The law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus. It has been shown not to hold for extremes of stimulation. (Weber’s Law)

Hang in with this, it’s interesting.

About 200 years ago, the German physician Ernst Heinrich Weber made a seemingly innocuous observation which led to the birth of the discipline of Psychophysics – the science relating physical stimuli in the world and the sensations they evoke in the mind of a subject. Weber asked subjects to say which of two slightly different weights was heavier. From these experiments , he discovered that the probability that a subject will make the right choice only depends on the ratio between the weights.

For instance, if a subject is correct 75% of the time when comparing a weight of 1 Kg and a weight of 1.1 Kg, then she will also be correct 75% of the time when comparing two weights of 2 and 2.2 Kg – or, in general, any pair of weights where one is 10% heavier than the other. This simple but precise rule opened the door to the quantification of behavior in terms of mathematical ‘laws’. (NEUROSCIENTISTS MAKE MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH IN 200-YEAR-OLD PUZZLE)

What’s new today is Time–Intensity Equivalence in Discrimination (TIED):

We investigated Weber’s law by training rats to discriminate the relative intensity of sounds at the two ears at various absolute levels. These experiments revealed the existence of a psychophysical regularity, which we term time–intensity equivalence in discrimination (TIED), describing how reaction times change as a function of absolute level. (The mechanistic foundation of Weber’s law)

Simply stated TIED says that the intensity of the stimulus determines the time it takes to “just notice” a change in it and that that scales linearaly as intensity changes up or down. For example, changes in louder sounds are noticed quicker than proportionally equal changes in quieter sounds and this can be scaled mathematically.

TIED is a new theory and needs more research, but whether it works out perfectly or not, I think it shows something very important about our individual and shared subjective perceptions of words, gestures, meanings, intentions, implications, and so on including all semiotics.

At present, we do not have machines that can measure our subjective perceptions, but we can surely feel them. And with training, we can also decently calibrate them.

Most of us can already vaguely talk about our subjective perceptions of each other, but few of us know how to do that with the precision of Weber’s Law or TIED. This is because we are all unique and we all react uniquely to each other. On top of that, few are able to employ language efficiently enough to capture significant detail when describing subjective responses or impressions.

FIML provides a very useful method for isolating and calibrating individual, idiosyncratic subjective perceptions.

Consistent, repeated use of FIML gradually recalibrates and reorganizes the entire psychologies of both partners.

FIML has virtually no content.. FIML is a method, and as such it allows partners to gradually identify, isolate, measure, and reorganize their entire body of psychological data, however they construe it.

Why we use the term semiotics

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The reason we use the term semiotics on this site is when FIML partners do a FIML query, the data in their minds at the moment(s) in question is best described as raw semiotics.

That is, it is the raw material that makes up the composite of consciousness at the moment(s) in question.

This material, or data, can be sharply focused, vague, irrelevant to the subject at hand, emotional, associative, organized, disorganized, and so on.

When partners get good at observing this data accurately and describing it to each other, they will find that much of it, if not all of it, is connected to a psycho-semiotic network that underlies awareness, or intermingles with it, and gives rise to its states.

Understanding this network is extremely valuable and will provide partners with great insights into how and why they feel, think, and behave as they do.

It is very difficult (and I think impossible) to understand this network through solitary pursuits only.

The reason for this is a solitary mind will fool itself.

In contrast, two minds working together will be able to observe this network with much greater accuracy.

Language, semiotics, and emotion are fundamentally interpersonal operations, so it is reasonable to expect that deep comprehension of these operations will be best achieved through interpersonal activity. ABN

Most brains, when confronted with seemingly ambiguous data, will seek subconsciously to arrange it in a pattern that is familiar

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__________

The title above states precisely what people do with interpersonal speech and semiotics: When confronted with seemingly ambiguous data, they seek subconsciously to arrange it in a pattern that is familiar. People do this all the time. Throughout history people have been doing this. It is a major source of suffering, violence, idiocy, madness, cruelty, and lost opportunity. Isn’t it obvious? When we talk or communicate in any way our message is frequently misunderstood, sometimes very seriously misunderstood. This causes all of us to live in a massively reduced world because the only way we typically deal with this interpersonally is by seeking subconsciously for a pattern that is familiar. So far, no one has suggested a cure for this horrible human malady, until FIML came along. FIML fixes precisely this problem: It’s not hard: You just have to change the way you think (and listen and talk). ABN

Errors in listening, cogitating, and speaking

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Interpersonal communication errors can occur for many reasons during acts of listening, cogitating, and/or speaking.

For example, in a conversation involving two people (A & B), person A may mishear (listening error) what B said; and/or person A may misunderstand or miscogitate what they heard; and/or person A may misspeak.

Errors in any part of that communication process will cause some sort of confusion between A and B. Errors can be of many types. The speaker may mispronounce, misenunciate, use the wrong word, be inadvertently misleading, hit a wrong tone of voice, etc. In turn, the listener may mishear, be inattentive, be overly attentive to one aspect of what the speaker is saying, not know a word or a reference, etc. Next, even if the listener heard correctly, they may misunderstand or miscogitate by making wrong associations, drawing wrong conclusions, etc. Any unconscious error in hearing or cogitating will probably lead the listener to misspeak when it is their turn.

Errors of these sorts if not corrected will compound and cause the conversation to become unsatisfying or confusing.

It is the goal of FIML practice to catch these errors as soon after they arise as possible. FIML partners should strive to be perfect with each other in all three of these communication areas–listening, cogitating, and speaking. The best way to do this is to pay close attention to yourself. If you feel an emotional jangle, be sure to confirm with your partner (by doing a FIML query) that your jangle is justified. If it is not, you have discovered an error. Correct the error and continue.

One very simple and common jangle involves feeling irritated (even very, very slightly) at your partner because they did not understand what you said (probably not so clearly). Take it as a given that our uses of language are frequently less than perfect. You must expect that a good many of the things you say will not be stated as clearly as they could be; many more of them, though clear enough, will contain ambiguities or misleading word choices. If as a speaker you become irritated at your partner for something that is inevitable in your own speech, you are making a huge mistake.

Another common jangle involving cogitation is feeling stupid or inattentive when your partner makes an association that you did not get even though you heard all of their words correctly. This jangle could also involve thinking your partner is stupid or not making sense because you did not get what they said. Either way, it is crucial that both FIML partners know that these kinds of mistakes in cogitation are quite common. Identify them when they occur–as soon as you can–and correct them.

A third common jangle, this time involving hearing, is attributing a wrong emotion or intention to the speaker’s tone of voice. The human  speech apparatus is not that highly developed. To speak, we have had to re-purpose our teeth, lips, and tongues, which other animals use for eating, to make noises that convey sometimes sophisticated meaning to other people. How could things not go wrong with that? We also breathe, vomit, kiss, and do other stuff with that same oral cavity. FIML partners must recognize that we are working with a primitive “wind instrument” when we talk and that this instrument may blow too hard, get clogged with phlegm, or experience many other kinds of mishaps that can distort the sounds of our voices. A person with a high, soft voice can easily be misunderstood as being a light-weight, while a person with a deep voice and large lungs can easily be misheard as being aggressive when they are not. Each one of us should be aware of how our voices might be misunderstood and then apply this level of detail to understanding, at least, our partner’s voice.

Another common listening jangle/error that can occur, even if you clearly understand all of the above, is a speaker’s tone of voice can be seriously misunderstood if we think it refers to us when it is referring to the subject at hand. For example, you say something about the car needs fixing and your partner responds in an irritated tone of voice. If you hear that irritation as referring to you when your partner is just sick of the damn car, you will be making a serious mistake. If you say nothing, you may simmer with wrong bad feelings for some time, which often leads to yet more bad feelings. If you do say something, you may start an argument and/or otherwise greatly compound the original problem. All that actually had happened was your partner expressed a fairly primitive emotion (irritation at the damn car) which you misunderstood to mean irritation at you. Your partner used our crude speech apparatus to grunt irritation at a very common problem and you used your crude ears and listening abilities and crude tendency to think everything applies to you to make a big mistake, one that will only add to the original problem.

As you and your partner continue doing FIML practice, you will get better and better at finding and correcting these kinds of errors the moment they arise. It’s not always easy, but it is always very satisfying if you discuss the matter long enough for both of you to achieve a real resolution.

first posted May 4, 2012

Memory reconsolidation as key to psychological transformation

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I’ll probably have more to say on this subject, but for now let me just say I am delighted to have found a psychotherapy that is highly compatible with FIML practice.

Indeed this psychotherapy is based on the same principles as FIML, though the approach is different.

In FIML unwanted psychological reactions are discovered in real-world, real-time situations with a partner.

In Coherence Therapy—the psychotherapy I just discovered—unwanted psychological reactions are called schemas. Schemas are transformed through memory reconsolidation in a way that is theoretically very similar to FIML practice.

Here is a video that explains the process of memory reconsolidation that is achieved through Coherence Therapy:

Coherence Therapy (CT) requires a therapist, while FIML does not.

In a nutshell, CT uses three steps (as described in the video) to achieve results. I will list them below in bold font and explain briefly how FIML differs and is also very similar.

1) CT: Reactivate the target schema as a conscious emotional experience. This is done with the help of a therapist.

FIML: In FIML, harmful or unwanted schemas are encountered in real-life with a participating partner. No therapist is needed, though prior training in the technique is helpful.

2) CT: Guide a contradictory experience. This juxtaposition unlocks (de-consolidates) the target schema’s memory circuits. (“Mismatch”/”prediction error” experience)

FIML: The “contradictory experience” is discovered in real-life through the FIML query. The partner’s answer to the FIML query provides the “juxtaposition” that unlocks or de-consolidates the encountered schema. In FIML, we have been calling this process the discovery and correction of a contretemps or mix-up.

3) CT: Repeat contradictory experience in juxtaposition with target schema. This rewrites and erases target schema.

FIML: Repetition of the contradictory experience happens in real-life whenever it next happens if it happens again. Generally, most schema or unwanted reactions are corrected within 5-10 recurrences. Serious unwanted schemas may take more repetitions.

Since CT uses a therapist as a guide, it is better than FIML for very serious problems and for people who are unable to find a partner to do FIML with.

Since FIML does not use a therapist, it is better for dealing with a very broad range of many unwanted schemas, not just the most serious or ones discovered by a therapist.

I am quite sure that CT will be very effective for many kinds of psychological agony. If a problem is acute, I would recommend CT based on my experience with FIML.

A shortcoming of FIML is it requires a caring partner and the transformations it induces are generally all induced in the presence of that partner. Much good comes of that and most transformations can be extrapolated to other people and other situations, but for serious problems like panic or deep anxiety, a CT therapist may be more helpful.

FIML is best for two people who want to optimize their psychologies. Partners will discover and correct many unwanted schemas and many bad communication habits.

If you can understand CT, you should be able to do FIML. If you have already done CT and had good results and now you want to go further and optimize your psychology, FIML will help you do that.

I believe the core theory of CT is sound. If that is so, it should be clear that bad schemas arise constantly in life. We start new ones all the time. Bad schemas are like trash that inevitable accumulates and must be cleaned away. FIML does this job very well.

Here is more on memory reconsolidation, which underlies CT: A Primer on Memory Reconsolidation and its psychotherapeutic use as a core process of profound change.

More on FIML can be found at the top of this page and in most posts on this site.

first posted FEBRUARY 26, 2019

Buddhism and modern psychology

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I put up a post last year about the ‘erasure’ of dysfunctional psychological schema and how to achieve that. The article that post is based on, How the Science of Memory Reconsolidation Advances the Effectiveness and Unification of Psychotherapy is good and well-worth reading.

Today, I want to explain how that take on modern psychology fits very well with Buddhist practice.

Buddhist practice is best understood by understanding the Noble Eightfold Path:

Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Samadhi.

If the Noble Eightfold Path is followed diligently, it will erase all dysfunctional schema from the mind. The complete erasure occurs in the eighth element of the path, Right Samadhi.

Right Samadhi is an elixir of the mind. It bathes and cleanses the mind like nothing else. Right Samadhi erases all delusion, all suffering, all dysfunctional schema. Right Samadhi is one part of the Noble Eightfold Path and also it can be understood as a culmination of the Path, the ultimate or penultimate reward of Buddhist practice.

On this site, I add something to the Noble Eightfold Path that, in my opinion, makes it even better. What I have added is FIML practice. FIML can be understood to be an addition to Right Speech and Right Mindfulness. FIML works by getting us to pay close attention to what we hear as well as what we say. When we do that using the tools FIML provides we also greatly improve our Right Mindfulness.

I deeply hope readers of this site will improve their understanding of Buddhism and learn how to do FIML.

The hardest thing about FIML practice is finding a Right Partner, someone who is able to understand the practice and willing to do it with you. The second hardest thing is overcoming a very deep-seated, instinctive human speech prohibition which prevents us from quickly shifting from talking to talking calmly and wisely about the minutia of the talking and listening that just occurred.

If you have a suitable partner, learning how to do FIML is much easier and more fun than finding a suitable therapist. Like Buddhism itself, FIML works directly with the unique reality of the lives of you and your partner. ABN

first posted March 21, 2024

A post on Reddit which suggests (to me) that the psychology of stigmatism has deep parallels between overt physical abnormalities and hidden psychological trauma

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I’ve hidden my hand my whole life. I wear long sleeves and haven’t seen a doctor about it since I was a toddler. My right hand is completely normal. On my left hand, my pinky, ring, and middle fingers are normal. The issue is only with the thumb and index finger they are the same length and to the side.

It’s not painful or limiting physically but it’s always affected my confidence which is why I hide it. 

link

I mentioned the other day that Reddit has small subs that can be intellectually stimulating. The post linked above, including many of its comments, shows what the title says. One conclusion from this is that the shame and self-induced ‘need’ to hide that shame has wide applications across all stigmatisms and psychological conditions, which often are reified as stigmatisms. By hiding shame or stigmatism we give it an overblown life of its own. By not hiding it, we remove its power to shame us. A physical stigma is simply the luck of the draw and, while someone may be to blame for it, in the end you have to live with it. Psychological abuse or trauma is not so different. At the end of the day, it’s your cross to bear. If FIML is done with this in mind, both partners can use the FIML method to gradually bite off small pieces of whatever shame or trauma or confusion they are experiencing. Doing this repeatedly, over months and years, will slowly reveal the trauma to both partners. And this will provide a wondrous level of freedom. Psychological trauma always leaves evidence in the mind much as physical abnormalities can rarely be fully corrected. Nonetheless, both conditions benefit greatly from exposure to the sunlight of objective consciousness. And this can lead to a state of unperturbedness as the stoics say or enlightenment/ nirvana as the Buddhists say. ABN

FIML and Symbolic Interaction Theory

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Symbolic Interaction Theory, also called symbolic interactionism, provides the best large-scale framework I have found so far for explaining FIML practice.

Three basic premises of symbolic interactionism are:

  • “Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things.”
  • “The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society.”
  • “These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters.”

These basic premises have been taken from the Wikipedia article linked above. I tend to agree with most of the general framework, as I understand it, of symbolic interactionism and believe that FIML practice can reasonably be understood as a method that can fit fairly comfortably within that framework.

FIML differs from symbolic interactionism in that FIML is much more a form of interpersonal psychotherapy than a sociological theory. FIML is a communication technique that focuses on meaning as it arises and is apprehended during short periods of time. FIML’s focus on very small units of interpersonal communication is what allows partners to understand how their sense of meaning intertwines with their emotional responses.

From a FIML point of view, society does not appear very well structured in many of its contexts, especially interpersonal contexts involving emotions, friendship, and intimate bonding. From this point of view, a great deal of social structure appears to be a substitute for authentic interaction between individual minds.

FIML seems also to show that a great deal of human suffering arises from the paucity of meaning that can be exchanged between individuals in most social contexts. Indeed, even in intimate contexts, most individuals, if not all of them, have great difficulty in attaining profound mutual understanding. This happens because our perceptions of our selves and others—due to how we use language and semiotics—are too crude and vague to allow for communicative complexity equal to the complexity of our minds/brains.

FIML corrects this problem by focusing on the details of interpersonal communication. Incidentally, FIML theory/practice can be falsified by having many couples do FIML practice and measuring the results. A criticism of symbolic interactionism is that it is not falsifiable. FIML differs from symbolic interactionism in that it is a practical technique that uses objective data (agreed upon by both partners) to optimize communication and improve psychological well-being.

I am pretty sure I will have more to say about symbolic interactionism in the days to come. A friend just sent me the article linked above, so I put down a few thoughts after one reading. FIML partners may find that symbolic interactionism helps with a general understanding of FIML practice.

first posted JUNE 26, 2014

UPDATE 01/13/22: The Wikipedia page has been updated since the excerpt above. I found this update interesting:

[Symbolic interactionism] is a framework that helps understand how society is preserved and created through repeated interactions between individuals. The interpretation process that occurs between interactions helps create and recreate meaning. It is the shared understanding and interpretations of meaning that affect the interaction between individuals. Individuals act on the premise of a shared understanding of meaning within their social context. Thus, interaction and behavior is framed through the shared meaning that objects and concepts have attached to them. From this view, people live in both natural and symbolic environments.

I agree with this and would add that the the shared understanding and interpretations of meaning that affect the interaction between individuals occurs all-importantly and very profoundly on the level of intimate interpersonal relationships. What FIML does is discover, foster, and create a much more accurate shared understanding and interpretations of meaning between FIML partners. The benefit of this is enormous since it has an extremely profound effect on individual psychology and all other shared understanding and interpretations of meaning encountered in society everywhere. ABN

reposted from June 26, 2014