Pathology: The Study of Paths 
How to Solve Your Puzzle
Choose Your Path 
The Direct Path 
The TranceFormational Path 
The Path to Awakening 
The Final Destination It Looks Different Than It Feels
If you want the present to be different than the past. . .
study the past- Spinosa
I used the "puppy and puppy-trainer" as a metaphor for the Experiential and Abstract Processing Systems. Now I'm going to switch from how the two minds process information to their different perspectives. The puppy experiences directly how the world appears to the puppy; the puppy-trainer observes, from a distance, how the puppy interacts with its environment. To explicitly focus on these different perspective, I'll switch to the metaphore of the "tennis-player and coach."
When you play tennis you have to focus on the ball in play. You can't hit yesterday's or tomorrow's balls. You have to hit the one that is here and now. Performing in the here and now requires the first-person perspective. Second-guessing your shots, criticizing your performance, or other forms of abstract processing would distract from hitting this ball. For this reason, the imperative: "Be here now" has become the mantra for coaches of all kinds.
However, there is critical information that is not available from the first-person perspective of the player. The tennis coach, observing the game from the stands, can see things that the player cannot. The complementary perspectives of the player's first-person experiences and the coach's third-person observations can yield a better understanding of what it will take to achieve their shared objective.
The player and coach see things differently
Sometimes your situation seems hopeless, the problems are overwhelming and unsolvable. Yet if a friend was in a similar circumstance you would be able to suggest some obvious solutions. Likewise, when viewing one of your own blunders in retrospect you can often see opportunities that were invisible at the time. A bit of wisdom that will help you make sense of your personal history as well as help you curb your self-criticism: It looks different than it feels. The observer's perspective is different than the player's perspective.
Dissociateve and Associative Dreams
If you can see your face in the dream [as though you were watching a movie], it is a Dissociative dream. If you could only see your face if you were looking in a mirror, than it is an Associative dream.
The psychologist studies subjective phenomena from the Dissociative Perspective. When the psychologist is on vacation [s]he experiences subjective phenomena from the Associative Perspective. When you look back on a blunder you are observing the unfolding sequence of events rather than having the first-person experience of them. This dissociative perspective is less vulnerable to state- of appraisal.
Examples of state-dependent distortions:
- Doing something harmful to another seems like a better idea when you are in an angry state than it does when you look back on it.
- A first lapse seems like a better idea when you are craving that it does in retrospect.
Your can appraise your options more advantageously from the observer's perspective than from the player's perspective. And so developing the ability to shift form the default first-person perspective to the perspective of the dispassionate observer can be useful — especially if you are impulsive.
Switching to the Observer's Perspective:
In this Thought Experiment, you are an adult observing a youngster who is so excited to go swimming that she is about to jump head-first into a lake. You are familiar with this lake and know that there are rocks just below the surface. Can you imagine the subjective experiences of the excited child and the concerned observer?
Now, see if you can project these subjective experiences on two versions of yourself: One who knows you well and has unconditional positive regard for you, and is observing you in a situation that usually elicits a self-sabotaging emotional state, such as anger, shame, or relapse. Compare your appraisal of your options from the first-person's and the observer's perspective. Imagine a dialogue between these two entities.
This Thought Experiment is a metaphor for Epstein's Two Minds. The rational observer who has valuable knowledge [your Abstract Processing System], and the actor, who is in danger of making a predictable error [your Experiential Processing System].
The default is the first-person [associative] perspective. Only when we have the luxury of the time to detach and shift into the dispassionate observer's perspective can we access our cognitive gifts and respond mindfully.
Clients hire me to help them get to the outcome they want. I offer our collaboration some knowledge about psychological principles of cause-and-effect. And, like the tennis coach, I have something else of great value: Access to the dispassionate perspective of the observer, which complements the client's first-person perspective.
Our collaboration will be successful to the extent you understand me and I understand you. Here is my conceptualization of you:
- You have the cognitive skills to keep up with this demanding text.
- You are aware of a recurring pattern of behavior that you want to change.
- If you tried to change in the past, you relapsed.
- Whatever is causing you to act as you do, will continue to adversely influence the course of your life until you know yourself well enough to prevent relapse.
- Unlike the elite tennis player who has high self-efficacy in the domain of tennis, you may have low self-efficacy in the domain of our collaboration because of a history of poor outcomes or poor self-evaluations. When folks feel incompetent they tend to appraise their challenge as threatening and avoid taking chances. Their lack of confidence makes them reluctant to experiment with new ways of responding, which keeps them trapped in their counter-productive reaction pattern.
The next section describes several mechanisms that trap the unwary into recurring patterns of self-sabotage. Understanding how they work will enable you to avoid entrapment, and to extricate yourself from recurring patterns of unwanted reactions.
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