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The Skeptical Solution to Bad Dogma

If you want the present to be different than the past, study the past

— Spinosa

When you detect a recurring pattern of unwanted outcomes in your past, you'd be wise to research why they keep happening.  Unless you've been singled our for Divine persecution, it's likely that you're doing something that causes them. There is some solace in the fact that their reoccurrences make it easier to do your personal research.

Barry is an illustrative client, who appraises himself to be socially undesirable and dreads an upcoming office party. As his therapist, I try to encourage him to change his appraisal of himself. "You don't know what other people think of you, so be flexible and try out new ways of thinking. Act as if the people at the party like you and want you to show interest in them."

But this kind of advice is cheap. It is easier to consider new ways of looking a things when the stakes are low [for the therapist] than when they are high [for the client]—especially when the latter has low self-efficacy in that domain. It takes courage to do what I'm asking of Barry— I would not ask it if it was not so important.

Applied Skepticism: Doing unbiased personal research

My claim is that Barry's premise that others will see him as repulsive is no more valid than the premise that others have no opinion about him and will be attracted or repulsed depending on how he treats them. So I propose that he research the social outcome of acting as if different premises were true. Specifically, replace the current premise: "The people at the party are not going to like me" with a suggested premise: "The people at the party want me to show them attention."

To do a fair comparison, Barry would have to test each premise by acting as if it was true. This will be difficult for him because he is starting with a prejudice [the premature judgment that the people at the party won't like him]. His poor social performance in the past produced outcomes that confirmed his handicapping premise. To give the alternate premise a fair trial, Barry will have to shake off his inhibitions in a domain of low self-efficacy. That is where technique of hypnotic suggestion is particularly useful.

To overcome the advantages of the handicapping suggestion, we have to do something special: Suggestion [pretending or acting as if the suggested reality was true] can enable Barry to do this research. But he would have to be pretty gullible to accept a fictional suggestion. . . wouldn't he?

Using Suggestion Vs. Complying With Suggestion

It is helpful to embrace the humility of Socrates: "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." Once you see the premises that elicit your reactions for the fictions that they are, you are no longer bound to act as if they are valid and complete. In fact, you can practice suspending your beliefs and dispassionately observe what happens when you act as if the suggested premise was true.

 

Thought Experiment: Suggestion

The Personal Research Tool identified the fictional premise that caused you to interpret the provocative event the way you did. Write that premise on the line below:

 

______________________________________________________________________
[If you haven't identified it yet, watch this video]
 

Use this opportunity to explore what happens when you view the provocation if a different premise was true. To select an alternative premise, consider how a dispassionate observer with unconditional positive regard for you, and who understood your values and goals, would advise you to view the situation. For example, you might advise Barry to "act as if other people want you to like them."

 

Suggestion: Act as if: _______________________________________________________
[The recommended premise is the Suggestion, in this case: "Other people want you to like them."]

To complete this thought experiment, act as if the Suggestion is true the next you encounter a similar provocation. Record you observations using the Personal Research Tool.

The more you practice "acting as if" the suggested premise is true the better you will be at exercising a mindful influence over your subjective reality. To develop your talent to exercise an intentional influence over your subjective reality, practice with the Heavy Shoe Script.

The primary challenge of self-determination is overcoming the dogma that your self-sabotaging interpretation of the provocative event is true. It may help to remember that you probably don't know more than Socrates did (and acted as if he knew nothing). All you really know as how things look from your particular perspective. Accepting Socrates' humility gives you the freedom to explore how things play out if a less handicapping premise was true.

 

 

Using Suggestion Intentionally > >

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