Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) and FIML

This short interview gives a quick outline of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT): Albert Ellis: A Guide to Rational Living. FIML is not REBT and REBT is not FIML but the two methods are mutually supportive and probably not contradictory in all that many ways.

FIML resembles REBT in that it is a practice that can and will reduce neuroticism and unrealistic thinking. FIML is based on real data agreed upon by both partners and in this sense it is a pragmatic, scientific approach to human psychology and communication as is REBT.

FIML is different from REBT in that it is based on a specific technique that can be taught and then used by partners without the help of a therapist. FIML works primarily with very short segments of communication. It deals with belief, cognition, and emotion, but emphasizes accessing them by being attentive to the moment in a very concrete way.

FIML is not just psychotherapy but also very much a technique for anyone who wants to optimize communication with those who are most important to them. FIML helps partners understand how emotion, semiotics, habit, personal history, word associations, and so on influence how they listen and speak. FIML is largely value-neutral in what it says, though the practice will tend to strengthen awareness, rational thinking, and sound ethical behavior.

REBT is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

first posted JANUARY 1, 2012

Massachusetts middle school students tear down rainbow decorations and chant their pronouns are ‘U.S.A.’ during Pride celebration: Officials slam ‘intolerance and homophobia’

Massachusetts middle schoolers tore down Pride decorations and chanted that their pronouns were ‘USA’ in a striking protest after they were asked to wear rainbow colors to school. 

Students at Marshall Simonds Middle School in Burlington, Massachusetts, were asked to wear rainbow-colored shirts to celebrate Pride Month on June 2, but a preplanned protest broke out with students tearing up Pride flag stickers and chanting: ‘USA are my pronouns.’ 

Decked out in red, white and blue, the students destroyed the decorations lining the hallway the student organization Spectrum Group distributed, including a quote from American playwright Tennessee Williams, signage saying the school was a ‘safe space’ and ‘equality for everyone’ decorations. 

‘I was shocked and horrified,’ Nila Almstrom, a parent of an LGBT student, said at a town hall meeting about the protest. 

Parents have told local news outlets their straight-identifying students said they felt forced to participate and were ‘offended’ by the Tennessee Williams quote that reiterated that the human heart is ‘curved like a road through the mountains’ and only lines and streets can be straight. 

‘My daughter just said, “You know, mom, that’s offensive to me, I am straight,”‘ Christine Steiner told WCVB. ‘Some of the kids threw the stickers on the ground. But I can only speak for my daughter, she just didn’t want to wear that to school. It’s not that she wanted to hurt anybody’s feelings.’ 

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As always, the left is doing mind-control by commandeering metacognitive categories and insisting there can be no others. When these categories (required vocabularies, flags, patches, misquotes, etc) are opposed even slightly, those with differing views are deemed ‘intolerant’, ‘phobic’, or ‘hateful’. These nasty words comprise yet another metacognitive level, which the left always commandeers along with the first. Ironically by making such strict distinctions between right and wrong, the ‘tolerant’ left is itself being extremely binary. The way to stop this crazy use of language and the ludicrous policies that flow from it is confront them at the metacognitive level as Christine Steiner’s daughter is doing in the highlight above. ‘Inclusion’ that ostracizes and punishes those with different views is absurd on its face. ABN

Dissociation in FIML practice

In the field of neuropsychology, the term dissociation is used to describe various ways of identifying the neural substrate of specific brain functions.

One way this is done is by studying “lesions,” or damaged areas, in people’s brains and figuring out how that damage affects such functions as perception, speech, memory, vision, and so on.

Neuroimaging is another method for observing particular brain regions and thus “dissociating” them from the larger brain system in order to understand their unique functions.

While FIML practice does not rely on lesions in the brain and has not (yet) been studied in an fMRI machine, it does employ a kind of dissociation.

When a FIML partner stops a conversation and makes a query, the partner being questioned is essentially being asked to dissociate a few moments of communication from the large welter of brain function that had been going on before the query.

By isolating, or dissociating, that small segment of communication, both partners gain insight into how they express themselves and how they interpret what they are hearing or perceiving.

Seeing many dissociated segments of communication teaches partners that their communication is frequently more random, ambiguous, misleading, and just plain wrong than they had realized prior to doing FIML practice.

Dissociation in FIML practice also teaches partners how to sharpen their overall communication by frequently adjusting and fine-tuning small segments of it through FIML queries and follow-up discussions.

I can imagine more advanced neuroimaging devices than we have today showing what part of the brain is being used to do the “macro-perception” required by a FIML query. I hope that a more advanced device will also show how small mistakes in communication can often lead to very large mistakes in mutual understanding.

Ideally, an advanced neuroimaging device would dissociate the initial error in both partners’ brains and show how that error then quickly spreads chemically and neurologically throughout their brains.

For now, all we have is shared self-reporting between FIML partners, but this is still a very large improvement over not doing FIML at all. By clearing up many micro-errors in communication, FIML practice improves macro-functionality in the brain.

first posted APRIL 6, 2014

Why FIML is a little bit hard to do (at first)

FIML is hard to do at first because it violates, or seems to violate, a basic language instinct to not interrupt another speaker or question them too closely.

FIML gets around this instinct by having partners make a prior agreement to interrupt (or break into) a conversation and question each other closely, specifically to ask their partner to divulge the contents of their working memory and then (often) divulge their own.

FIML establishes a new human skill. The ability to do the above quickly and easily, and without undue emotion.

It will feel a bit weird at first to learn and exercise this skill, but after a few dozens iterations it will become fairly easy and eventually become second nature.

I believe FIML has never been discovered and this region of interpersonal language and communication has never been properly explored due to the strong but superficial instinct against it mentioned above. I would also speculate that this instinct is a significant contributing factor to hierarchical social structures and the psychologies that derive from them. In this respect, the psychologies of virtually all people everywhere are deeply steeped in the mores, taboos, and sensibilities that attend to and revolve around the instinct to hold your tongue when you most need to use it.

As post-modern humans on the verge of an earth-shaking AI singularity, it is past time to overcome this part of our primitive nature. ABN

‘The video is being censored everywhere’ – Shocking video of Syrian migrant stabbing children on French playground deleted across Twitter

Twitter has mass deleted a video of a migrant knife attack in France that saw five children being stabbed on a playground

A brutal video of a Syrian migrant stabbing children on a playground in Annecy, France, that went viral on Twitter has now been mass deleted, with numerous accounts displaying the message: video deleted.

The attack, which was covered by Remix News, shows a Syrian migrant racing around stabbing children, as a mother attempts to push her child to safety. According to press reports, at least five children were stabbed in the attack, including two adults. Two of the children remain in critical condition.

A full version of the video is available below through Rumble.

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I am posting this because it is being censored and also massively downplayed. The linked article contains the video, which is very disturbing. Hate crimes against whites are consistently ignored in MSM across the Western world. This one is an attack on white children but it must not be publicized because people might become prejudiced against the race of the perpetrator. This is mass mind-control and how it works. What we need to do to defend ourselves against this is actively and consciously practice manipulating the words, concepts, thoughts, and emotions that are used in mind-control. Say the words out loud. Contemplate the concepts, move them around in your mind, analyze them. Pay attention to mind-control efforts. They are very common and can be found within seconds almost anywhere in MSM. Ignoring or deleting truths is mind-control by omission. ABN

Covid — there was NO PANDEMIC

Covid-19 has been described as a global pandemic but does this title give it a severity and indeed fear factor way beyond its actual impact?

The word pandemic used to have a very specific meaning. It was used to describe a scenario where there was extensive incapacitation of key workers and large numbers of deaths, including young people. A genuine pandemic is not something that would have needed billions of dollars in advertising for people to even notice and fear. Using this long-established definition of the word, we conclude that there was in fact no global pandemic in 2020. The word was deliberately misapplied and weaponised against an unsuspecting public. Let us be clear, this article is not questioning the existence of a virus SARS-CoV-2 or an illness named Covid-19, but even the choice of ‘SARS’ (Severe Acquired Respiratory Syndrome) as the name for this coronavirus was already setting the scene for systematic fear-mongering.

The notion of a ‘pandemic’ was relentlessly promulgated through mainstream media to ramp up fear in the population, to help enforce unprecedented lockdowns and other extremely harmful policies (e.g school closures and universal mask wearing) and to push through Emergency Use Authorisations of novel technology mRNA and viral vector DNA products.

This would not have been possible were it not for three false premises that covid was: 

  1. novel; 
  2. extremely lethal; and 
  3. unprecedented. 

It was none of these things.

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This is a good example of using linguistic and psychological meta-categories (pandemic, fear, urgency, vax…) to commandeer a mindscape, to trick people into believing something that is not true. Lies like this are designed to enthrall entire cultures, to make them cower and obey. To control their minds and thus also their behaviors. I hate to say it but this is practically all the US government does these days. Nothing is true, it’s all designed to control the population and increase government power. Ukraine is another example, as is AGW, as is the planned destruction of our economy and borders. ABN

The connection between leftism and pathology

Some interesting research came out recently on the relationship between people with left-wing authoritarian politics, narcissism and psychopathy.

Interestingly, it seems to vindicate many earlier thinkers who theorised about the connection between leftism and pathology.

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The left has historically and in the present always fought for control of metacognitive language, concepts, and narratives. It gains control by vehemently asserting the rightness of its definitions while violently attacking any attempt to contradict its irrational assertions. This is where it reveals deep psychopathic tendencies and why it attracts psychopaths and the morally ungrounded. The key to leftist momentum and control is their control of metacognitive thought and language. If you disagree, you are ‘racist’, a ‘running dog’, a ‘reactionary’ and must be destroyed. The secret of all mind-control is control of metacognition such that victims cannot even think another way. ABN

The West has been conquered by a huge parasitic culture that we can defeat if we understand it

This parasite has been growing larger and larger since the end of WW2. It is feeding on the West while also consciously destroying it. Members of this parasitic culture delight in their actions.

Delight is a feature of this culture; delight in the abundance they feed on; and, yes, delight in the ruination they are causing. Parasites destroy their hosts by taking energy and sustenance from them. It is both a cultural feature and a psychological feature of parasites that they enjoy the harm they cause, positively delight in it. They literally dance to it.

The parasitic culture that infests the West has many mouths, many faces, many subcultures that feed in their own ways on what they can. But all of them agree that it is delightful and profitable for them to feed and destroy. The destruction happens because feeding without building is easier than building something nourishing and extracting reasonable personal benefit from that. Capitalism itself is not parasitic, though many of the groups that hate or abuse capitalism are.

Parasitic groups are all the same in that they have Complaints and want them addressed; they see a Bright Future and want it, vague though it is; they believe they Deserve abundance from the host body, the traditional culture of the West, and that Any Means are Justified for them to take it.

The host itself is acting exactly like a parasite is feeding on it. It is numb, cowed, afraid to say anything. It even believes the parasite might be right. It has been trained in these attitudes. The West became soft partly through the abundance afforded by its inventions but more importantly due to the clandestine violence visited on it by of some of the parasitic groups. This violence included poison, maiming, medical malpractice, educational misdirection, reputation destruction, career destruction, shaming, isolating, humiliation. It targets first and foremost strong young men and boys, destroying them before they become strong adult men. It encourages host women to attack their own men and boys and allows anyone with a complaint, real or imagined, to join the attack.

These host women are predominantly unknowing slaves of the parasites though many are willing slaves. Many of them become parasites themselves. Many slavish men have joined them in their rampage. As a group, united with other, older parasites, parasites more experienced than them and able to lead them subtlety, they have taken over one Western institution after another: academia, media, politics, state governments, churches, school boards, election boards, and so on.

Many of these slaves have a foot in both worlds; one in the host body and the other in the parasitic feast. They do not feel divided. They separate their roles. As host victims, they are numb to what is happening. They have Parasite Syndrome, which is similar to Stockholm Syndrome, only worse. These are the people who hate Donald Trump and the very idea of America being Great Again. These are the people who repeat every day what millions of TVs blare at them while never realizing that nothing they say is original or requires any thoughtful energy from them. Automatically, they memorize the TV message of the day and repeat it when required, only to start anew the next day should the message change.

These are the people who will not and cannot see any other side of the covid response but what the TV says. Of course many get their messages from other media, but TV is a valid symbol of their thoughtless collective acceptance. They are as slaves, afraid even to silently mouth some words.

My purpose in writing this description is to remodel what is happening. To provide another way to understand our demise than a history of ideas—Marxism, CRT, BLM, WOKE, corporatism, globalism, pathological altruism, etc. Once you understand the violence of the parasites, how destructive they are, how well they are organized, how dangerous and prevalent they are, you will see them in many places, always seizing power or enjoying the power and wealth they have seized while at the same time providing nothing useful themselves. I am talking about large groups of parasites, not individual psychopaths who abuse individual partners though a good deal of the dynamic is the same.

The WHO has been taken over by parasites. The WEF was founded to be a parasite. Many US agencies, if not all of them, have succumbed to parasites: CDC, FDA, NIH, NIAID, DoD, courts, medical boards, state governments, etc. Build Back Better implies that what was has to be destroyed. Build Back Better is not Obiden’s phrase. It is a phrase all Western “leaders” are using. I am sure readers of this site will understand that the West’s covid response has been arch-parasitic, so bad in fact I lean toward believing it was our parasites and not China’s that designed and released the virus in the first place.

By many of us seeing this huge parasitic organism for what it is and understanding that it operates as a loosely connected group of sub-parasites who help each other, we may be able to find a way to defeat it and bring back a civilization that respects individual rights, rational dialog, real science, freedom of speech, religion, and association. ABN

UPDATE: This post is from early last year. I am updating it to say that it describes only a mild form of the theory of parasitic infestation of the USA/West. Many people I respect believe (or claim to believe) that this sort of parasitism is like a mold that has grown organically within our institutions, slowly proliferating to the point where none of them works and all of them are bad for our society. RFK Jr and Sundance are in this camp. I can get along with people like this and even support their work. But personally I believe this parasitism has leadership, clear aims that began decades ago, and that it has encroached ruthlessly and deliberately. Top parasites foster and allow almost any other kind of parasite to flourish as long as it does not question or threaten them. This is why we see so many disparate groups feeding on the West and also why Westerners behave as if paralyzed. Beset upon from every direction they freeze in pseudo-moralistic fear of mere verbal criticism. This is not meant to disparage the victims. Psycholinguistic mind-control is extremely powerful. Try saying out loud our most forbidden words even while you are certain you are alone. This is our verbal region of mental defeat, the brainscape that has imprisoned us. ABN

Psycholinguistics defined

Definition one: Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes that make it possible for humans to master and use language.

Definition two: Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes controlled by language.

I generally use the word in the sense of definition two. FIML focuses on words and phrases and how we react to them and understand them. When we learn how to analyze real-time, real-world communication we learn to speak in a way that deeply resonates with our psychologies. Then everything improves. ABN

GLOBOPINKO EXPOSED by Nick Hudson

Hudson is describing psycholinguistic categories as patterns which identify global scams. Exactly right. Commandeer the language and categories, ban their refutations and you control the discussion and policy. This is all they are doing. It’s easy to understand. Top-level mind-control works at these levels. Covid has made this extremely obvious. During covid we saw how the machine works. ABN

Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers

We’ve been tracking retractions of papers about COVID-19 as part of our database. Here’s a running list, which will be updated as needed. (For some context on these figures, see this post, our letter in Accountability in Research and the last section of this Nature news article. Also see a note about the terminology regarding preprint servers at the end.)

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Retraction of a published paper from a journal is its removal from the journal.  It is typically done after findings of malfeasance, such as fabrication of data, substantial plagiarism, etc.  However, in the era of COVID-19, retractions have taken on a new (or perhaps previously hidden) politically-driven dimension.  Papers of high technical quality have been retracted if they question the government-industry approach to the treatment of COVID-19, and especially adverse effects resulting from the COVID-19 “vaccines”.

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Retracting or ‘disappearing’ scientific papers based on a vax agenda is anti-science. This is a form of psycholinguistic control of individuals and society at large. I want to emphasize how words are being used to defeat reason, science, a healthy society. Fighting words like the R-word or N-word are used to rile crowds and individuals. Sciencey words are used to justify proscriptions on speech and research while also signaling individual scientists that disobeying will mean loss of credentials. These are forms of mind-control leading to chaos and takeover of the nation. The only way out is reasonable government based on rational laws enforced by well-trained police—a very tall order in today’s USA & West & world. ABN

Analysis of news articles promoting racial division

#1 Look at the increase of news articles mentioning "white privilege," "systemic racism," "diversity and inclusion," and "unconscious bias."

How does the media's focus on identity politics and critical race theory contribute to the division and polarization of society?

[The R-word is a psycholinguistic hot button like many others. It limits thought as its usage raises cortisol. It has become a fight-word and ‘wins’ arguments which shouldn’t even happen because cortisol blocks thought. ABN]

Continue reading “Analysis of news articles promoting racial division”

AI makes mind-reading possible

Massive announcements in the world of AI today from the University of Texas, Geoffery Hinton, IBM, and Walmart.

Here’s the rundown on everything you need to know:

1. AI makes mind-reading possible

This new study will literally- *blow your mind*

Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a GPT-based decoder that translates thoughts into text using non-invasive fMRI scans.

– Participants trained the decoder by listening to podcasts for 16 hours.

– The AI system generated a text as participants listened to or imagined a new story, capturing thoughts .

The exact words were not always the same, but the overall meaning was captured.

[This whole thread is interesting but I am putting it up because the kind of AI feedback described above will reveal in detail the underlying loose organization and chaos of the mind as we speak and listen (and do everything else). Being able to see this clearly will revolutionize our understanding of human psychology; how it actually functions in real-time. When tech like this is something we can access routinely at a business or school or even purchase and use at home, human communication and self-understanding will hit fabulous new levels, freeing us from the humdrum common associations we must now depend on for clear communication. FIML practice can show a great deal of this right now. I would highly recommend more smart people learn to do FIML because it shows us how we really think and act, thus preparing us for what is coming from this new tech. Subjectivity will become much more objective. This will shock and even traumatize many, but it need not because it is real and utterly fascinating. In my view, this will become one of the most impactful technologies stemming from AI. ABN]

Continue reading “AI makes mind-reading possible”

How FIML can improve your favorite relationship, your own mind, and your partner’s

FIML is a technique used to optimize communication and psychological well-being between two people in real-time, real-world communication. It is a form of analytical psychotherapy that aims to clear up mistaken psychological interpretations that may have been held for many years or that may have just arisen. No psychological training is necessary to do FIML.

By clearing up many small mistaken interpretations between partners, FIML gradually clears up the psychological bases of those misinterpretations, which leads to greatly improved communication and psychological well-being. FIML can be used in any interpersonal relationship, including romantic relationships, friendships, and professional relationships. FIML is ideal and should be considered mandatory for marriages and other long-term committed relationships based on love or mutual affection, especially when partners live together.

It is important that both partners care about each other and very helpful if they realize that the well-being of one is the well-being of the other, or at least greatly contributes to that. FIML practice enhances and supports honesty between partners and their understanding of what honesty entails and how to be deeply honest in a relationship without relinquishing subjective privacy and freedom of thought, which are essential for spiritual and psychological growth.

To do FIML, both partners need to have a previous agreement to do it and then follow their mutual understanding of how FIML is done. Partners should do FIML at a time and place where they can converse without interruption.

A FIML query begins when one partner notices they have begun to form an impression or an interpretation of something their partner said or did. To be sure they are not mistaken, they begin a neutral query that fundamentally asks their partner to describe the contents of their working memory at that moment in time.

Partners must agree on the basic data that initiated the query. “When you said, XYZ what was in your working memory?” Partners must be able to agree that one of them said XYZ. Or, “When you turned away and looked into the sink, what was in your mind [working memory]?” Partners must be able to agree that one of them turned and looked into the sink. Moments like these are chosen by the partner making the inquiry. These moments can be playful or they can be very serious, causing incipient strong emotions to begin forming. Before those emotions take hold, do the query and find out if you were right or wrong by listening carefully to your partner’s answer.

After you have listened to your partner’s description of the contents of their working memory, compare it with your own. Then share your insights with your partner. This part of FIML is where the greatest value is. Since the precipitating event was small—a word or gesture or tone of voice—it is quite easy to confess your mistaken interpretation and then listen to your partner’s probably befuddled response to your mistake. This part is fun and can be a huge relief if your query was psychologically charged with underlying traumatic memory.

It really helps if both partners have a rich understanding of how imprecise, messy, crude, and sloppy almost all spoken language is. ABN

‘We are at an impasse. I love you. I am committed to you’ — the Crowders

The exchange between Steven Crowder and his wife, Hilary, is not unusual. Rules, commitments, roles, I love you. I don’t love you.

The exchange is an example of a common form of communication that is normal throughout the world. It is based on a deep failure to understand how interpersonal language does not work. And how it can and should work.

It does not work through vows, declarations of loyalty or love, roles, or ‘respect’.

Interpersonal communication between couples only works when they have a consciously shared method that allows them to understand themselves in real-world, real-time situations.

If the Crowders had been doing FIML, which is precisely the method they need, none of this would have happened.

Consider how simple-minded their conversation is. How stupid it is. Two full-grown, intelligent, successful adults who at some point must have cared for each other talk themselves into box like a couple of babies.

Their voices creak with anger as they battle for peace and contentment while destroying any chance of getting it with every word they say. Neither is to blame because neither one knows any other way to speak.

FIML is described in the links above. It is easy to do if you start before you get to where the Crowders are.

The hardest part about FIML is observing and controlling the first split-second of the formation of any significant impression or interpretation of your partner. FIML can only be learned when partners are at peace with each other. Then, small impressions with only small importance can be explored. This lays the foundation for deeper impressions later on.

For Buddhists, FIML requires observing and controlling your reactions during the first skandhas, before consciousness has fully developed. The fourth skandha of mental activity should be engaged in doing a FIML query rather than consolidating what is probably a mistaken impression of your partner. ABN