Tag: psychology

Comparing FIML practice with Schema Therapy

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Schema Therapy appears to be an effective treatment for people who are suffering with mental and emotion confusion.

An article published early this year claims:

A large scale randomized control trial shows Schema Therapy to be significantly more effective than two major alternative approaches to the treatment of a broad range of personality disorders. Schema Therapy resulted in a higher rate of recovery, greater declines in depression, greater increases in general and social functioning and had a lower drop out rate. The results indicated that Schema Therapy is also more cost-effective. (Source)

Psychological studies are notoriously unreliable and the source of the article linked above is the International Society of Schema Therapy, but still I think it is OK to to take their claims seriously.

Therapy is very difficult to study objectively and who else is going to promote Schema Therapy if not the people who believe in it? I am doing the same with my claims for FIML practice.

By comparing FIML and Schema, I hope to illustrate some of the values and drawbacks of both approaches to human suffering. I have chosen to do this with Schema Therapy (ST) because I just read something about it and it seems like a reasonable and workable approach.

ST seeks to correct “maladaptive schemas” that are defined as “self-defeating life patterns of perception, emotion, and physical sensation.” (Source)

Some comparisons with FIML:

  1. ST is based on the notion of people having “personalities” and thus “personality disorders.” FIML largely rejects the notion of personality or finds it trivial. FIML claims that all adults without exception have “disordered” minds, habits, emotions, responses, and so on. There is no need for a concept of personality or to classify types of “disorder” based on an ideal “personality.”
  2. ST claims that adults experiencing less than optimum psychological health use schemas to interact with the world around them. FIML largely agrees with this claim. We generally call dysfunctional schemas misinterpretations. We claim that adults frequently misinterpret what is being said and done around them. Some of these misinterpretations may have begun in childhood, but not all of them. Misinterpretations occur almost every time we interact with anyone. It is common for misinterpretations to occur several times per hour when two people interact. Some misinterpretations will go away on their own and some will cause serious disturbances in the relations between the two (or more) people interacting. Some misinterpretations will have serious ramifications beyond those two people. And some will have begun in childhood, but many childhood misinterpretations, though they may have become habitual, can be fairly easily corrected through FIML practice. They do not constitute a “personality disorder,” but rather a persistent or habitual way of mistakenly interpreting the world. In this sense, I agree that long-standing misinterpretations do look and act somewhat like “schemas,” though as described, I do not think they deserve reification as a classifiable entity called a “personality disorder.”
  3. ST asserts the existence of “schema modes,” which seem to me to be definitions or indications of personality modalities. Some of ST’s schema modes are the angry child, the impulsive child, the abandoned child, and so on. FIML does not use the concept of personality, let alone identify anything like a personality mode or a schema mode of that type. FIML recognizes that misinterpretations are common and that they arise throughout life. FIML claims that misinterpretations arise at discrete moments. These moments may have occurred in childhood and they may have occurred at any other time since childhood. FIML asserts that using classifications like “personality types” or “schema modes”, though marginally helpful to therapists, runs the considerable risk of distorting the always unique tangle of an individual’s complex suffering. FIML may use concepts like abandonment as a point of discussion and FIML may recognize that feelings of abandonment began in childhood, but FIML also claims that making “abandonment” into a classifiable “disorder” is misleading. FIML claims that reifying “modalities” like “abandonment” only makes them worse while obscuring their true origins and much more importantly how they actually function in real-time.
  4. ST uses a technique called “limited reparenting” which aims to correct unmet core needs that originated in childhood and that led to maladaptive schema. FIML does not require or use a therapist and FIML does not believe that maladaptive schema require “reparenting,” as ST claims.
  5. ST claims that it is cost effective in that it can achieve good results in 50 sessions with a trained ST therapist. A drawback of FIML practice is it requires a suitable partner, and a suitable partner can be hard to find for many people. If a person is suffering and cannot find a suitable partner, ST would be a better choice than FIML. If a suitable partner exists and if both partners understand how to do FIML, I believe FIML will be a better choice in most cases. FIML claims that all human beings are mentally and emotionally disordered and that disorders arise throughout life and on a daily basis at discrete moments as misinterpretations. There is no end to the constant arising of misinterpretations and thus there can be no beneficial end to stopping FIML practice. FIML can begin to correct mental and emotional disorders within days or weeks, but the process of doing FIML should be ongoing throughout life. FIML is like cleaning your home, washing your dishes, brushing your teeth, bathing. It must be done frequently and cannot be ignored for long without maladaptive consequences.
  6. ST claims to be able to create a “healthy adult” who is thoughtful, rational, happy and more. FIML also claims to be able to create a “healthy adult” with ST qualities, but FIML recognizes that the “interpersonality” of all adults requires constant monitoring. Once the major disorders of the pre-FIML individual have been corrected, FIML recognizes that new disorders may arise at any time and that they must be addressed as they arise. Basically, I do not believe that there is such a thing as an ongoing “healthy adult” that can be created in 50 sessions with a therapist. Health requires constant attention with a caring partner, not brief training with a paid stranger.

I would recommend ST for anyone who cannot figure out how to do FIML or who cannot find a suitable FIML partner. For those that do understand FIML and do have a suitable partner, we claim that FIML practice will help you become far less disordered mentally and emotionally but that you must remain vigilant for the rest of your days. You cannot remain healthy for long if you allow misinterpretations to accumulate.

Semiotic networks and semiotic wells

~ ABN ~ 3 Comments

Semiotics are the signs and symbols of communication.

Words, images, sounds, gestures, phrases, whole sentences, books, fields of study, and so on are all semiotics.

Within any one mind, semiotics are interconnected in a network. I am pretty sure we can speak of a single network in most, if not all, individual minds, but if you want to think of there being several distinct networks in a single mind, that would be fine.

Of course, the semiotic network within any one mind will have sub-networks and, most assuredly, many weird connections among its parts, its semiotic units and/or sub-networks.

When humans conceptualize space-time, we often use the notion of “gravity wells” or “gravitational wells.” Our sun sits in the center of and causes a gravitational well that is a description of the “bending” of space-time.

I want to borrow that sense of “gravitational wells” and use it to describe something called “semiotic wells.”

A semiotic well is like a solar system or galaxy in that it constitutes a system of semiotic elements that are all held together by the “weight” of some of its members. A “semiotic well” is a gravitational bending within a semiotic network.

For example, a trained botanist will have a semiotic well about plants and another well within that well about their particular specialty within the field of botany. To that botanist, many perceptions and events will circle in and around that semiotic well. They will know things about plants and see things in the world that those of us who are not trained in botany will not see.

The same can be said for any profession.Doctors, lawyers, therapists, translators, carpenters, plumbers, farmers, and so on; each will have a semiotic well, or wells, associated with their profession. All of us also have semiotic wells associated with our hobbies and main interests, and many other things.

One of my best friends is a janitor and he knows and see things about human messes and how to clean them that I would never have appreciated without his input. He also has a good sense of humor about his work.

And sadly, he also feels bad about his work sometimes. Though his friends and I know he is a sterling character and have great respect for him, he can’t escape knowing that he is working a low-status job and that very few people appreciate him for what he does.

This brings in another semiotic well, or an aspect of his basic janitorial semiotic well, that is emotional. My wonderful friend sometimes feels bad about what he is doing and finds it very hard to climb out of those feelings. It really is as if he has fallen into a well and can’t get out; he can’t escape the “gravitational well,” the semiotic well, of how he thinks most people in society see him.

He is caught at the same time in both a cultural semiotic well and a subjective semiotic well. His subjective well is very complex but a big part of it is his view of what others think of him.

Now, I think the same is true for all of us. Our professions create one kind of semiotic well, while the way we think society perceives our profession creates another well. Many of the semiotic elements of these wells are highly subjective and depend greatly on idiosyncratic perceptions and assessments.

What I want to do now is largely replace the concept of “personality” with that of semiotic wells.

The advantage of doing this is that we replace an ambiguous term with one that has discrete elements that can be discovered, changed, and moved around.

The gravitational “sun” at the center of my friend’s occasional depression is not his “personality” but his job, the drudgery of it, and, probably most importantly, how he thinks others see him as someone doing that job.

This describes a semiotic well that sometimes is so strong it pulls in his perceptions of many other things not connected to his work at all. And then all of that creates more wells that involve his wife, children, and friends. He can become a semiotic well to them.

But it is not just janitors who can feel that way. Doctors can get depressed because everyone they see feels bad. All day long, they have to deal with people at their worst. And sometimes they make mistakes that cause terrible feelings of guilt or helplessness.

The examples above are clear, I hope, because they are concrete and involve things we all know about.

Some other examples of semiotic wells are our fears, doubts, neuroses, memories, conceits, shame, pride, intentions, and so on. If we conceive of these sorts of subjective items as being aspects of our “personalities,” we won’t analyze them, or we won’t analyze them profitably. We will dwell on them instead.

If we think of them as semiotic wells, we will be more likely to see that they are networks of meaning that are made up of real things—the signs and symbols of communication. Communication happens within the mind as well as between minds.

My friend’s mind is infected with the signs and symbols of having a low-status job. In much the same way, but less concretely, all of us are infected by the signs and symbols of our semiotic wells, both subjective and external semiotic wells.

Our memories, fears, doubts, biases, and much more can become semiotic wells. And what we think others think of our jobs and our “selves” and deeds can also become semiotic wells. And what others really do think can become semiotic wells.

The terrible thing about this is we cannot discuss it with most people. But we can discuss it with some people and, given the right circumstances, we can analyze any semiotic well you can think of. We can discover what their parts are, how they interconnect, and which elements are “heaviest” and why.

Through analyses like that, we can reconfigure our semiotic networks and wells. By calling them into consciousness, especially with the help of a partner, we can fully understand them as we recontextualize or reconfigure them. Oftentimes, we will discover that an element that seems to have great weight, need not have so much weight. We might discover that some elements are false, especially if those elements are how we imagine what others are thinking.

If my friend, for example, could see what I really think of him—and not confuse my mind with what he thinks society sees—he would probably be amazed because I think he is a very clever and dignified person who does difficult work selflessly, mostly for the good of others. I have taken him as a model of human behavior at its best in many things. I have told him this, but he doesn’t seem to believe me because the force of his semiotic well about it is too strong.

Forming semiotic wells seems to me to be a primitive aspect of thought and communication. Transforming them through analysis seems to be a way to generate the escape velocity needed to free ourselves from them.

Not all semiotic wells are bad, but many of them tend to become bad even if they started out good. This happens because they can quickly ossify, or become static. Once you see yourself as “having such-and-such personality,” you will tend to turn the rich network of your mind into a simple semiotic well. Or once you see your friend as having this-or-that trait, you will tend to turn the rich network of their mind into a semiotic well.

Worst of all, most of us do this to each other constantly. Members of small groups, companies, work stations, towns, or churches tend to nickel-and-dime each other to death over static semiotic wells that can be generated from even the shallowest of ambiguities.

A signal-based model of psychology: part one

~ ABN ~ 2 Comments

Signals are fundamental to everything that exists. There can be no physical realm without signals and certainly no life.

What is a signal? Anything that transmits any effect to anything else is a signal. In this sense, all signals “mean” something, including the smallest signal anyone can think of.

The advantage of basing a model of psychology (not just human psychology) on signals is our fundamental unit of analysis is universal, including everything we can know and think about.

Our bodies do an enormous amount of signalling—both internal and external—without our being conscious of most of it. Many living and non-living systems maintain homeostasis through signalling that is non-conscious (or so we now believe). The laws of physics describe signals that explain, for example, how our solar system came to be the way it is and why it remains in homeostasis.

Signals also explain how non-conscious life-forms—viruses, bacteria, plants, your blood, etc.—have arisen and how they maintain their dynamic homeostasis vis–à–vis the ever changing environment that surrounds them and signals to them constantly.

Consciousness itself almost certainly emerges out of a network of signals. Conscious beings read signals in the environment while frequently signaling each other. Cats and birds use conscious signals extensively. Even life-forms that we believe to be non-conscious, such as worms and plants, send and receive signals constantly to each other, while also signalling internally and with their environment.

Draw the line between conscious and non-conscious signalling wherever you like. Then let’s jump to human psychology.

Humans are different from cats and other animals in that we specialize in signals. Birds are specialists of the air, fish of the water, and humans of signals.

Humans signal each other constantly with signs that can employ any of our senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and so on. Our preeminent signalling system is, of course, language. With language humans are capable of remembering complex groupings of signals. We are also capable of thinking about these signals and transmitting our understanding of them to others.

Right now, as you read, you are receiving a complex signal from me.

Consciousness is arguably our most precious quality. Human consciousness is filled with and based upon signals. For our psychological well-being—the well-being of our consciousness—the signals we send and receive to and from other human beings are of fundamental importance.

To say it another way, humans are profoundly interactive signalling systems and the quality of the signals sent between us and other human systems are of primary importance to our sense of well-being, our psychological health, our conscious sense of who we are and how we are doing.

When our consciousness is filled with or marked by clear, truthful, and ethically sound signals, we feel good. In those moments we do not suffer confusion, neurosis, or pain. When consciousness is filled with or marked by confusion, lies, and ethically unsound signals, we feel bad. In those moments, we suffer, often greatly. (Of course, there are exceptions to these statements. Injury and truth, to name two, can cause us pain and confusion. But the basic distinction made here works well enough, I believe.)

It makes sense, thus, to focus on human signalling if we want to figure out what makes us tick.

The science of human signalling is often called semiotics, which can be roughly defined as the study of signs and their meanings. Semiotics can and does also include non-human signs and signals, but for now let’s limit ourselves to human signalling. There are other sciences that describe human signalling, but semiotics, which emphasizes signs and their interpretation, will serve us well enough that we can temporarily ignore other ways of understanding human meaning—game theory, traditional psychology, anthropology, etc. Semiotics works well because semiotic analyses can be reduced to single signals; they have a distinct and clearly defined basic unit—the signal or the sign.

Why do we focus so much of our inquiry into human psychology on emotion? Emotion is inchoate, often even unfelt, until it is defined or given meaning as a signal or sign.

Emotions are real, but they are massively subject to cultural interpretation, to definitions that have arisen outside of the individual experiencing them. Culture is little more than a system of signs and symbols shared among a group of people. Human cultures have great variety because the signs and signals and the meanings of those signs and signals develop differently in different places and under different conditions. This fact alone should suffice to show that the meanings of human signs often are completely arbitrary.

As long as a bunch of people believe that the sun is a chariot driven by a god, that meaning of the sun will work as a cultural standard, or cultural element with varying interpretations. If most people in a community think the sun is the center of the universe, that will also work until a better idea comes along. If enough people believe that human hearts have to be sacrificed to keep the sun moving across the sky, that will also work well-enough to hold that society together. Wherever you look, you will find great cultural variety, much of it based on arbitrary decisions that have long been forgotten by the people adhering to that system of meaning, that system of signs that are signaled between members of any human society you care to consider.

Thus, in this context, isn’t it clear that focusing our inquiry into human psychology on emotion is going to provide us with many tautological results?

Similar statements can be made about many other elements of our traditional understanding of human psychology, including such elements as personality, neurosis, mental health, what being normal means, what our goals and desires are, and so on. The emotions and/or “psychological states” that these areas of inquiry deal with are vague and almost entirely changeable over time and place.

What is not vague are signals. When we ask what signals are and what their quality is we can get much better answers based on much better data compared to the answers we get when we ask only how someone feels and where those feelings came from.

How do we do that? More precisely, in the context of what we call human psychology, how do we analyze our signalling?

Is it valuable to compare my assessment of my internal signalling with “data” taken from “surveys” of other people who speak my language and live in a society which is sort of maybe the “same” or similar to my own? Yes, you can get something from that data but you will also make many mistakes because it is very crude, or general, data and will never fully apply to any individual or even come close to actually describing anything of significant value to most people. Such data will contain so many mistakes, it should be handled with great caution, if it is used at all. (You most certainly can fool people with that data. But that happens because many people will believe the data is scientific and provides an accurate metric that describes who they are. And that is an example of how a cultural semiotic can and does impose “meaning” on individuals; not hugely different from believing you have to sacrifice human hearts to make the sun go round.)

You can’t really get at the important signalling people do by using general surveys because your data is is coming from a tautological loop based on surveys that are generally put together on the basis of other surveys involving stuff like common words or feelings.

For psychology, for human mental health, the most important signalling people do is interpersonal signalling with significant other people.

When we try to figure ourselves out by remembering (a dubious exercise in so many cases) what our parents did or said or made us feel, we can get some useful information, but it is not that reliable and suffers from the same sort of misinterpretation as personality studies or studies of human emotion do. You can read whatever you want into it and/or be subject to the vagaries of chance interpretations.

The only significant interpersonal signalling data we can really know with significant certainty are data noticed, remembered, and agreed upon by two (or more in some cases) people engaged in significant interpersonal communication (signalling).

A mere observer (much less a surveyor) to this communication will never be able to know or analyze the data with anything approaching the accuracy or validity of the two people involved if those two people have a reliable method for gathering that data. Even if an observer has a video record of the exchange, they will never be able to know or analyze it with the accuracy of the individuals directly involved if those two people have a reliable method for gathering that data.

The day may come when brain scans can provide us with real-time data of that sort, but for now all we have is FIML practice, or something very much like it.

A signal-based model of psychology: part one

A signal-based model of psychology: part two

A signal-based model of psychology: part three

A signal-based model of psychology: part four

Why Smart People Are Stupid

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

This short article by Jonah Lehrer shows an important reason why FIML works so well.

From the article:

The problem with the introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings. We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand.” (Emphasis added.)

I chose this quote because it is relevant to the introspective practices of Buddhism and other disciplines.

I love introspection. But introspection without a way to check our work can and will lead us astray.

FIML practice corrects our (very numerous) mistakes in assessing the thoughts and intentions of other people. FIML also disabuses us of the errors we hold about ourselves based on our mistaken understandings of others.

The psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, as quoted in the article says: “My intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues.”

I believe him. This is how our minds (don’t) work.

FIML will probably not correct your general tendencies toward bias and misplaced confidence, but it will vastly reduce the number of mistakes you make about your partner (and thus yourself). This a huge benefit because when you have clarity with your partner, you gain an emotional and psychological security that is deeply satisfying.

For Buddhists, FIML helps us to avoid the mistakes inherent in pure introspection as well as the mistakes inherent in accepting only the generalities of the Buddhist tradition while missing its profound experiential depths.