The Road to Reconciliation: Learn to Walk

86px-baby_in_diaper_learning_to_walkStand with your feet comfortably together. If you want to go somewhere, what do you do? You take one foot and put it forward until you throw yourself off balance. Then, at the last instant, when you’re about to fall on your face, you bring the other foot up to meet it, until you are back in balance. Repeat this dangerous operation as long as it takes to get where you’re going.

What are you, nuts? Why would you throw yourself off balance and risk injury when you are perfectly fine standing in one spot?

Because you want to get somewhere.

Relationships are like that. You and your partner are like two feet. Standing together, things are perfectly comfortable, but you can’t stand there forever. You want to try different things, be someone different, do something with your life, develop, grow. It’s inevitable. You feel stuck standing in one place too long. It’s static, suffocating. The blood pools in your legs. It’s bad for the heart. It’s safer to be a moving target. You have to move or everyone else will leave you behind. Can you wait for your partner, your other foot, forever?

Sad to say, people do. It happens all the time.

Normal relationships cycle through two phases: comfort and growth, standing still and moving forward. When you first meet, you take great strides as you get to know and accommodate to each other. Then you are comfortable. Then one partner gets a wild hair to do something outrageous, uncharacteristic, and steps out into perilous space. In healthy relationships, they’re not afraid to do so, because they know their partner will follow. In healthy marriages the partner will come along and they will soon be back into balance.

It’s always one partner who takes the first step. People don’t often get places by jumping with two feet at the same time. Whoever takes the step sets the direction and the pace. The other has to follow.

In unhealthy relationships, people are afraid to change. They wait around for the other to be ready before they take a step. Conditions have to be perfect before they try. If they want to get someplace, they feel obligated to convince their partner to jump with them.

When a problem enters a relationship, people get stuck waiting for their partner to change. If one of your feet is injured, the other foot takes the weight. You nurse the bad foot. You don’t go anywhere. Standing on one foot for a long period of time is very hard; just as hard as taking care of a loved one subsumed by a problem, but you could do it a very long time if you thought you had to. People have done it forever.

At some point, even a broken foot will be mended. The bone will fuse together, but the muscles will be weak, the tendons stiff, and the spirit uncertain. You’ll put weight on it gingerly and there will be some pain even though the bone is fine. Your first steps will be tentative. You might not even try, but it’s important that you do, because the other foot has been bearing the burden and is getting tired. When a problem takes a person over, he doesn’t even try, even when he could. He avoids pain, dodges uncertainty, and lets the other partner carry the weight, even when there is no need.

So, if you are the partner, in order to prevent the problem from taking over your relationship, you will have to take a step. Distinguishing the difference between your loved one and the problem, getting help, creating illness-free zones, and putting on your oxygen mask are all important steps, but the most crucial is to grow. Don’t let the problem prevent you from growing. When he sees you change, he will have to follow along or be left behind.

The Shrink’s Links: The Principle of Tenacity

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120px-korkenzieherIn this year’s election, you may have noticed people clinging to unreasonable political beliefs. When they post their poorly considered opinions on Facebook, you try to argue against them, but you can’t convince them of anything. Why is that? Why can’t they change? How can you convince them to see things your way?

Clinging to unreasonable beliefs not an unusual phenomena. It’s seen all over. A drug addict will continue to believe shooting up dope will make things better, despite all the problems it brings. A person with a phobia, who crossed thousands of bridges safely, still fears the next one will collapse. What accounts for the persistence of ill founded beliefs?
It’s the principle of tenacity.

I’m taking the principle of tenacity from Paul Feyerabend, a philosopher of science. For hundreds of years, scientists said that the smallest, indivisible unit of matter was the atom. Then someone came along and identified particles within that atom. You know, electrons, protons, and neutrons, as well as more esoteric things like quarks. Scientists didn’t threw out everything that has been said about atoms just because they were wrong. No, they kept the basic understanding of atoms, build upon it, and revise it. This is called the principle of tenacity.

The principle of tenacity also explains why religious believers can continue to believe in a loving God despite the problem of evil. The problem of evil just makes the religious believer exercise more faith. The principle of tenacity is also at play when an atheist refuses to concede that there are some things that reason can never explain. A mystery is just another occasion for science. Without the principle of tenacity you would just change your mind every time a new piece of contradictory evidence came along.

What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it good to follow the evidence? No, not always. There’s always evidence that contradicts any belief, even true ones. None of our beliefs ever explain everything. You might think, then, that the principle of tenacity prevents change, but no; the principle of tenacity also facilitates change. Watch this trick and you’ll see how it happens.

Let’s start with the drug addict who believes dope solves all problems. She’s not entirely wrong. Dope does a pretty good job of solving immediate problems before it starts to create new ones. The principle of tenacity allows the belief that dope solve problems to take root and grow. It also allows the belief that dope creates problems to take root and grow. It’s not unusual to find a drug addict who believes both, even though the two may seem contradictory. The belief that problems are caused by dope can be just as tenacious as the belief that it solves them. Without the principle of tenacity we would not have a second principle, one which eventually undermines it: the principle of proliferation. The principle of proliferation allows a number of attractive, contradictory beliefs to coexist at any given time.

The principle of proliferation would not exist had the principle of tenacity not allowed a new beliefs to take root in thin soil and persist under adverse conditions. The principle of proliferation then invents new alternatives as the principle of tenacity prevents the elimination of older beliefs which could be refuted. These older beliefs contribute to the content of the new rivals. You end up, not with everything converging towards a single view; but an ocean of alternatives, each belief forcing the others to be more articulate.
A religious person’s theology is improved when she takes a skeptic’s challenge seriously.  An atheist is more reasonable when he agrees there are limits to reason. Bridges don’t collapse every time you walk on them; and, if a broken clock can be right twice a day, so can the opposition’s political candidate.

Whether you’re leading a drug addict into recovery, a phobic over a bridge, a voter to stop supporting that odious candidate, or anyone in or out of church, the principle of tenacity can be your best friend, through this second principle of proliferation. You don’t have to argue against their beliefs; you just have to introduce other options.

Here’s where a third principle comes into play. It’s called the hermeneutic circle. We often think of the process of change in a linear fashion, like this: a belief will lead to a behavior, then a behavior will lead to a change in identity. For example, a drug addict becomes convinced that all her problems are caused by dope. Therefore, she stops shooting dope and joins NA. A phobic becomes convinced the bridge is safe, so he crosses it, and isn’t phobic any more. You convince someone on Facebook that their candidate is an idiot, so they vote your way, and join your party. You come up with an unassailable argument for or against the existence of God, and they will make a profession of either faith or doubt, and join your church, or quit theirs.

However, the process of change is not linear, it’s circular; and conversions are nowhere near as dramatic. A belief will lead to a behavior and a behavior will lead to a new identity. Then a new identity will lead to a new belief, which will lead to a behavior, then a behavior will lead to deeper identity. Deeper identity will lead to a more sophisticated belief, which will lead to more fine-tuned behavior, then a behavior will lead to even deeper identity. And so on and so forth.

Because the process is circular, it doesn’t need to be dramatic. You don’t have to convince the drug addict that dope causes all her problems all at once. You just have to convince her to try the coffee at the NA meeting. Then, if she tries the coffee and finds that no one judges her or kicks her out, she stays to hear the message. She comes back again, this time for the people, as well as the coffee, and hears more of the message. Over time, she knows as many people in recovery as shoot dope, so quitting seems a little more possible. She tried abstinence just a little, maybe for a day, then a week, then a few months. She is not fully convinced that dope causes problems until long after she stops using it. That’s how people change; little by little, in a corkscrew fashion. With each twist, digging deeper into transformation.

Similarly, if your friend has a phobia, show him how it would be nice, since bridges exist, to be able to use them. He might try a bridge now and then. As he tries bridges, he learns how to to cross them without having a panic attack.

There are no dramatic conversions. There are only dramatic stories of conversion. Dramatic conversion stories are good stories, but you misunderstand them if you think change hits you like a bolt of lightning. Take the story of the conversion of Saint Paul, for example. On the road to Damascus, where he was going to arrest Christians, he gets knocked off his horse, sees a blinding light, talks with the risen Christ, and goes blind. When Ananias, one of the Christians he was going to arrest, comes and heals him of his blindness, he is changed. He goes on to be an Apostle.

What you may overlook is how, long before he was knocked off his horse, Paul was getting prepared. He was learning about Christ, Christians, and Christian theology as he was persecuting them. The whole going blind and getting healed thing was just that one crucial twist of the corkscrew where you finally dig it far enough in to pull the cork out.

You may be tempted to just unfriend everyone on Facebook who supports the opposition’s candidate. You don’t want to have to read all that nonsense. However, these three principles: tenacity, proliferation, and the hermeneutic circle, suggest that’s the absolute worse thing you can do. Instead, keep the lines of communication open, so that we can all learn from each other until together we finally get it right.
Click here to listen to a philosophical discussion about these principles.

Click here for an expensive book on the topic.

The Road to Reconciliation: Calibrate your Compass

120px-compass_rose_browns_00Take a perfectly functional compass and put it in a room with an electromagnet and it will forget which way is north. It’ll point to the magnet because the magnet is exerting a force that it cannot ignore, far more powerful than that exercised by the distant, measly north pole.

When a problem enters a relationship it exerts a force every bit as compelling as that magnet. You can do nothing without taking a look in its direction. It will alter your attitude, change your course, and make you forget yourself and your values. You can do nothing without checking with the problem first.

You must get free of that interference and recalibrate your compass.

If you’ve ever recalibrated a compass, you’ll know that, for a minute or two, the needle will spin around aimlessly until it finds magnetic north. You’ll be lost if you try to use it then and confused if you rely on it for direction.

When people free themselves of the effects of the problem, for a minute they feel similarly lost and confused. When they discern the problem, starve it, get help, create illness-free zones, take care of themselves, get help, and take steps to their own growth, they feel as though they have lost their bearings. They don’t know what’s important anymore because they’ve been separated from their values for so long. Many go back to having their lives dictated by the problem. It is more familiar and comfortable.

To remain free, it’s important to stay with the process long enough to get your bearings straight. Reconnect with your values as you might find them in your religious faith, spiritual practices, the story of your life, the way you find meaning and purpose, or the things you told yourself you would never do.

The process my cell phone goes through to calibrate its compass gives us hints as to what this is like. Your cell phone compass probably works the same way as mine. In order for it to be correct, you have to tilt it this way and that. As you do this, a graphic in the phone helps you cover each direction completely. You fill up a circle as you tilt it every which way.

The process you will go through as you recalibrate your own internal compass is similar. You have to tilt briefly in every direction. Take a look around before you charge forward or go back. Take stock. Take inventory, first, before you move on.

The Shrink’s Links: Book Review: The Come Up for Men

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41mnguyxrul-_sx331_bo1204203200_At an under-advertised book fair, us authors did little more than sell or give books to one another. But I got a chance to meet Tracy Williams and hear his concerns about how, with the decline of marriage and increase in mass incarceration, few men remain in his inner city community to teach young men to be leaders. Therefore, he wrote The Come Up for Men.
This book offers sage, practical advice; the closest thing there is to an owner’s manual about how to live a life that you will be proud of and others will respect. Williams provides a rebuttal to all those voices of despair that pose as temptations and braggadocio. I can see The Come Up for Men being used in the curriculum of a church or community center youth group. If you lead one of those organizations, I suggest getting this book and using it to prompt a real conversation about what it means to be a man.
Click here to get the book.

The Shrink’s Links: Book Review: Internal Family Systems Therapy

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You are divided. You must have noticed this when you’re trying to decide whether to have that chocolate cake, or stick to your diet; when you rise, groaning from your bed, despite how comfortable that pillow looks; when you want to tell your boss to shove it, but instead say, Yes Sir. It’s like, up there in your mind, you have a boardroom with an array of directors all around the table. Your mother’s voice is heard sometimes. Also your father, your big brother, who called you a spoiled brat, and your little sister, who told everyone you were mean. There’s that coach who said you’d never `mount to nothin’ and that teacher who believed in you. There’s the you that your wife knows, another you that goes to church, and still another that’s not afraid to sing Karaoke when you’ve had enough beers. All your feelings are represented on the Board. There’s a miniature version of your spouse, a trusted friend, and a wise counselor sitting there. You can consult with them, even if the real person is not around. Your Board of Directors is always meeting, always talking, and always making affiliations with each other; vying for dominance at the table and secretly in cloakrooms, backstage.

The relationships between these characters follow the same rules and fall into the same patterns as relationships between actual people. You have some who dominate others. Some who are immature, angry, or caring. Some get really excited and over-react. Polarization is found here, just as in the US Congress; so are triangles, the love variety and otherwise. You have the same splendid complexity within as without. This gives you the same advantages that any group of people have (two heads are better than one), as well as disadvantages (sometimes all you do is go to meetings and never get anything done).

Many psychological theories have recognized this multiplicity, but they all have divided it up differently. Freud had his Id, Ego, and Superego. An updated version of Freud, Transactional Analysis, has Child, Adult, and Parent. There’s the Inner Child of John Bradshaw. Jung had a rich cast of characters. But no theory has done so much with the phenomena of multiplicity as that of Richard Schwartz’s, Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS).

Schwartz’s special contribution has been the recognition of three classes of inner characters and the relationship between them. First there are the disavowed parts called the Exiles. These are the memories you would rather not think about and the behavior you swore you would never do again. These are the feelings that threaten to take you over. These are the characters that you have wrapped in duct tape, hidden in the attic. Well, they’re getting pissed, and, whenever they get the chance, they bust out of their cells and raise hell.

The second class of inner characters is devoted to seeing to it that the Exiles never return. These are the Managers: the parts that, well, manage your life so the horrible things don’t happen. For instance, if you were obese as a child and got picked on a lot for it, then the part of you that gets you to the gym is a manager; so is the part that calls you a fat pig when you have a chocolate sundae.

Then there are the Firemen. This is the class of inner characters who responds to emergencies. What emergency? The Exiles escaping. Like firemen in the real world, who have license to bust down your door with an axe, go to the bed of a sleeping child, carry her out, and soak your living room couch with water, these Firemen go to extremes to keep the Exiles under wraps. In the case of the formerly obese child, every now and then she goes to a bar and sleeps with any man who will sleep with her. She’s looking for affirmation, emergency affirmation. That’s one of her Firemen doing that, so that the Exile, the shame-filled obese child, is kept under control.

You can imagine that when these three classes of characters gets going, the person feels very divided. The morning after the formerly obese woman goes to the bar, there are a whole slew of managers getting into the act, reprimanding her for being such a slut. This threatens to let lose some other Exiles and then, more Firemen to keep them wrapped up and more managers to repair the damage made by the Firemen.

Isn’t there a better way?

Yes, says Schwartz, there is a better way; his Internal Family Systems Therapy is all about finding it.

In Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is one character who is always hidden, but is crucial to the success of the whole. Schwartz confusingly calls this character the Self. Now, many would call the whole system the self, but, to Schwartz, the Self is a special entity.

…everyone has at the core, at the seat of consciousness, a Self that is different from the parts. It is the place from which a person observes, experiences, and interacts with the parts and with other people. It contains the compassion, perspective, confidence, and vision required to lead both internal and external life harmoniously and sensitively. It is not just a passive observing state, but can be an actor in both inner and outer dramas…I cannot see my Self because it is the me that is doing the seeing, and in that sense it is invisible to me. For these reasons, people are likely to be identified with their parts and unaware of their Selves…Once clients become aware that their Selves rather than their parts are at their core, and they experience their differentiated Selves, they feel better about life. One major goal of the model, then, is to help each client differentiate the Self as quickly as possible so that it can regain its leadership status. (Schwartz, Richard C. (2013-10-14). Internal Family Systems Therapy (The Guilford Family Therapy Series) (p. 40). Guilford Publications. Kindle Edition.)

He compares the whole system to an orchestra and the Self is the conductor. You don’t directly hear the conductor. He plays no instrument but his baton, but his role is crucial in bringing all the parts together in harmony. When the parts are in disharmony, they are paying no attention to the conductor. Maybe they don’t know he exists. Maybe awful things have happened that the Self was powerless to stop. Maybe they, consequently, don’t trust its leadership.

A therapist, in Internal Family Systems Therapy, spends a lot of time helping the client take inventory of the parts and identifying them as Exiles, Managers, or Firemen. Special care is accorded to honoring all, especially the Firemen, for their contributions. Managers are respectfully asked to step aside so that the Exiles can be addressed directly. The IFS therapist is always negotiating with the parts on behalf of the Self, so that the Self can be put in charge.

There is a fair amount of resistance to Internal Family Systems Therapy. Clients almost always think that being divided is less desirable than being whole. They worry that, if the therapist recognizes their parts, the parts will take over. There is a fear of Multiple Personality Disorder and the fractured state of Schizophrenia.  Schwartz takes great pains to reassure that is it normal, even desirable, to have multiple parts, as long as they are under the direction of the Self. Multiple Personality Disorder is disunion taken to an extreme, he says, but we all have multiple personalities.

When I started to read Internal Family Systems Therapy, I thought I would like it. My Master’s Thesis started off to be about Multiple Personality Disorder, so, I was familiar with multiplicity. I’ve been comfortable leading clients on role plays with ambivalent parts of themselves and with introjected parents. I know how I am divided. However, the more I read Internal Family Systems Therapy, the more uneasy I got. I attended a workshop on it. Still, something wasn’t right. I watched a number of YouTube videos showing the techniques in action. Something was wrong and I couldn’t put my finger on it. As Schwartz would say, I had parts that were drawn towards it and other parts that were skeptical.

It took me a while to identify the problem, but now I think I understand and am ready to share. I think Schwartz and his followers have lost touch with the obvious.

Multiplicity isn’t real. It is normal. It is desirable to certain point. But it ain’t real.

Yes, that’s right. I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I don’t think people really are multiple. It just looks like they are.

Reality is important to me, even though I am aware of how hard it is to grasp. Perhaps, it is because it’s so hard to define, that I don’t want to let it go when I find it.

Also, I have an image of being a practical, no-nonsense, kind of therapist to uphold. A certain kind of underserved clientele flock to me because they think the mental health world is glutted with flakiness. Can I really be telling them that they are inhabited by legions and get them talking to themselves? I, personally, don’t have a problem talking to myself, but I would feel partly responsible if a client left my office saying, “I knew it. They’re all the same. These shrinks are nuttier than their patients,” and went back to drinking and beating his wife.

Still, I understand the value of Internal Family System’s Therapy and want to find a way to make it easy for my clients to swallow and digestible for myself. This is what I came up with.

You know how a meteorologist will program a simulated climate into a computer? She will tweak this and that just to see what the effect might be. She’ll punch a few numbers in that indicate increased carbon emissions, run the program, and see the result on the Arctic ice cap. That’s what’s going on inside you. You have created, based on what you know, a simulated world in your mind. All the people you know are in it; along with all the possible versions of you. Then you run different scenarios.

For example, you’re starting a career in public speaking. You learn pacing, diction, and what to do with your hands. You practice in front of a mirror when no one is around, simulating a performance. Then the day comes and, while you are waiting to go on stage, you experience stage fright. Stage fright is essentially a simulated version of what you think will happen if you get tongue-tied.  You imagine going on stage and not being able to speak, everyone laughing, and you running off in humiliation. That is a simulation of both you and the audience.

The practiced version comes along to counter the stage fright. It says, you’ll be fine, you practiced this. It also says, the audience won’t mind if you trip up on a couple words. The practiced version is a Schwartzian Manager. You decide that, if you back out now, you will be humiliated anyway, so you decide to throw the tongue-tied simulation away. It’s important to realize that the stage fright was there all along, only it wasn’t always problem; it’s what motivated you to prepare. When you’re about to go on stage, it’s not needed anymore. It already did its work by motivating you to be better prepared. It becomes an Exile.

Time goes on and your career as a public speaker grows. You speak in larger venues. You still   have the simulation of being tongue-tied. It continues to motivate you to be better prepared. You write better speeches. You learn to use a teleprompter. Then you get your big break. You’re scheduled to appear in TedTalks. The moment comes and the simulation of being tongue tied is still there; only again, it’s not useful anymore. You can hardly be better prepared. You develop a new simulation, based on how, in the past, when you’ve had a few drinks, you felt calm. Therefore, on your way to your speaking engagement, you stop at a bar and throw back a couple of shots of whiskey. That simulation was your Fireman, in action. Only, I guess I would call it a security guard.

For a simulation to be effective it needs to fulfill certain criteria. It has to be an accurate representation of how you could be in the real world and an accurate simulation of the real world. It has to know whether you can pronounce certain words, for instance, and what the effect of alcohol would be. A simulation also has to seem to have a will of its own so you can accurately project how it will behave. It does you no good, when you run a simulation of the behavior of an audience, to tell it how you want it to behave. You need it to behave as an audience would behave, as if it had a will of its own. Similarly, both the practiced version and the tongue-tied version also seem to have wills of their own. That’s why it can be hard to talk yourself out of stage fright. Simulations do not go away quietly.

Schwartz notes that the behavior of parts of the inner world matches the behavior of an individual within families. You have the same polarization and the same triangularization inside as out. Is it any wonder, if the inner world is meant to be a simulation of the actual one?

Thus, the better a simulation is, the more easily it can also be confused with your actual self and the actual world. If you do confuse them, then that’s because you’re a good author and have developed rich, well-drawn characters that seem real.

You can hear this confusion when you talk. You say, as you’re about to go on stage, “I’m afraid.”

No, you are not afraid. You’re running a simulation that’s afraid. You created a character, meant to resemble you. If you confuse this character with you, then you did a good job creating it; but it’s not you. You are the creator. You are the person directing, watching, and listening to the show.

So, now that I have figured out why I felt so uncomfortable with Internal Family Systems Therapy, where does that leave me? Can I no longer work with clients who believe they are multiple? Do I have to stop conversing with the parts of myself? Can I no longer lead clients in role plays with their parts and introjected parents?

Not at all. In fact, my insight makes me feel a whole lot better about using Internal Family Systems Therapy, or, at least a version of it. You see, Schwartz and I are in agreement with the character of the most important component of the system: the Self. The Self is the meteorologist running the simulated climate program. The Self is the creator of all the simulations. A creator who has made his creation in his own image. An almighty god, who can cast his creations into hell, where they cry and gnash their teeth; or extend grace, mercy, and redemption to a broken inner world that matches the broken actual world.

I believe it is necessary, though, to say that these parts are not real. This gives the Self authority over the parts. If the Self knows it has authority, then it has strength. It knows it can afford to be flexible, compassionate, and curious. It can take leadership over its creation and not confuse the real world with the notions of the mind.

Click here to go to Schwartz’s website.

Constructive Conflict Audio-book Raffle

Book cover Constructive Conflict is now in audio, narrated by Pete Ferrand.

I have 25 free copies to give away and will raffle them off next Monday, August 25, 2016. Fill out the form below if you are interested.

If you can’t wait and want your copy right now, click here to go to Amazon.com. It’s also available in paperback and Kindle.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

The Shrink’s Links: Racial, Class and Discrimination among Psychotherapists

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If you have  thought it was hard to find a therapist, you’re right. A study appearing in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior shows that, among middle-class people who contacted a therapist to schedule an appointment, only 28 percent of whites and 17 percent of blacks received appointment offers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, appointment offer rates for both black and white working-class therapy seekers were an abysmal 8 percent. The study held factors such as insurance and time of appointment steady.

I’ve heard many therapists claim that they would not work with people from some cultural groups out of respect because they do not feel they are culturally competent to treat them. No wonder. If you do not see people different from you and listen to what they have to say, you will not understand them. If you do, you will.

Click here to read the article

 

The Road to Reconciliation: Understand the People of the Mind

As if it wasn’t hard enough to deal with the people who hurt you, you also have to deal with their representatives you carry around in your head. Actual people you can divorce, send to jail, move across the country and never see again; the people of the mind follow you, they share your bed despite divorce. Regardless of orders of protection, they dog your footsteps, day and night. It’s imperative you find a way to cope with these imaginary people or they will do you more harm than the real ones ever could.

You’ve heard the things these imaginary people say to you: You’re never going to amount to much… You’re just a slut… You’re a failure…. No one is ever going to want to be with you. No, they weren’t actual voices that you can hear. They’re thoughts, but thoughts are as persuasive as voices. These words may have originally come directly from the actual person. It’s like you have a tape somewhere, playing them over and over again. You worry that you might be going crazy, except that everyone has these inner critics.

You’ve tried to argue with these voices, prove them wrong. You’ve written positive affirmations, taped them to your bathroom mirror, and repeated them fourteen times a day. Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better. I will be successful. I’m a loving, committed partner. Everyone wants to be with me. You think this will help, but it doesn’t. The niggling nabobs of negativity natter all night, nonetheless.

At the risk of adding my voice to theirs, you’re doing it wrong. This isn’t the way you handle an inner critic. You’d be happier if you trained it to be better at its job.

We all need the capacity for self criticism. A good inner critic can stop you from committing many foolish things. It’ll halt you from saying that impolitic thing you were going to say. It’ll make sure your fly is zipped when you leave the men’s room. It’ll help you pick out the perfect outfit. It’ll hone your performance so that every day, whatever you do, you’ll do it better and better; not because you say so, but because you’re learning from your mistakes. A good inner critic is like a personal trainer, a portable therapist, a life coach, and a father confessor, all rolled into one. You should thank your stars you have an inner critic. It might save you from public humiliation. But, you need a good one.

You can train your inner critic to get better at its job by replying to all its statements with a single word question: Because…?

So, let’s take the things inner critics say to people and try out this method on them.

“You’re never going to amount to much.”

“Because…?”

”You’re just a slut.”

“Because…?”

“You’re a failure.”

“Because…?”

“No one is ever going to want to be with you.”

“Because…?”

If the inner critic is able to complete the sentence and tell you why you’re never going to amount to much, etc, then you’ve got some information you can use. For instance, if it says you’re never going to amount to much because you spend so much time playing video games, then that’s an intelligent point of view you should consider. Maybe it’s right. Maybe it’s wrong, but, at least you can reason with it. When the inner voice doesn’t do anything more than pronounce that you’re a loser, then it’s no different than those bullies who called you names on the playground. Their words are hollow, their arguments specious. You can dismiss their claims because they have nothing to back them up.

When you challenge the inner critic to give evidence and it follows through, then you turn the critic into a trusted advisor who gives you something you can use. It becomes a consultant who is more than just a yes man. If the inner critic doesn’t follow though and provide any evidence for its point of view, then it’s not a true inner critic; it’s an inner bully.

It’s important to understand who these people of the mind are and what they are doing there. In the same way that a meteorologist will program a simulated climate into a computer, you set the people of the mind up to match the actual world. Then you run different scenarios. They are your creations. There should be a strong resemblance; but they are not the people they represent and they are not you.

For example, probably everyone has an inner father. When you were a child it was in your interest to be able to predict what your father would do in a given circumstance. If you thought about swiping a cookie, you needed to know whether he would smile, yell, or beat you with a leather strap. So, you constructed an imaginary character you called your father, based on your father. The more accurate a representation of him it was, the more useful this construct could be. This inner father is not your father, it’s a simulation of your father; but, if you are a good author, it would be a damn good simulation.

You would also have to give these simulations free will in the same way that you might program a computer to make its own decisions based on preordained factors. The inner person has to be able to operate on its own, without too much input from you. It does you no good to hand a script to your inner father and tell it how to respond when you swipe a cookie; you need to know how it would respond so it can tell you how your real father would. This is how come these people of the mind seem to have a will of their own. You give it to them so their behavior can be like the free will behavior of actual people.

The simulations also have to go on running when the actual person is not around. Just because your father has left the room, it doesn’t mean you don’t need the simulation. You need to know how he would respond to the missing cookie when he returns. Just because you haven’t seen the actual person in months, doesn’t mean you won’t see him again. Just because he’s dead and buried, doesn’t mean you won’t come across people like him someday. This is why it’s often not good to dismiss a person of the mind. You might need it again.

These simulations get repurposed when we come across someone new who somehow resembles them. When you meet a new boss, for instance, you may use the model of your father upon which to construct a new model of your boss because they both have something in common: they are important, powerful males in your life. This way, if something comes up in which you don’t know how your boss will respond, you run the contingency through the father program, so at least you have something to go on. You may easily get confused, though, about who you’re dealing with. Many assumptions about your boss may come from what you have come to expect with your father.

You can see that you can easily get confused about who these people of the mind are. You may confuse the inner person with the actual person. You may think you know them when you don’t. If you do confuse them, then that’s because you’re a good author and have developed rich, well-drawn characters who seem real.

These people of the mind do more than give you models for how actual other people may behave. They also help you work out how you will behave. They help you play with possibilities to see how they might turn out. Before you swiped that cookie, you imagined yourself swiping that cookie. You worked out how to move the chair and reach the top of the cupboard without your father hearing you. You debated whether you should drag the chair or pick it up. You told yourself, if you drag the chair, it’ll rub on the floor and make a sound. That was an inner critic. It said, “Quiet, you’ll be too noisy.”

You can thank your inner critic for helping you steal that cookie.

The construction of inner representations of yourself has to follow the same rules that apply to constructions of other people. The simulation of yourself has to be an accurate representation of how you could be in the real world. It has to know whether you are strong enough to pick up the chair, for instance. The simulation of yourself also has to seem to have a will of its own so you can accurately project how it will behave. The simulation of yourself also has to persist over time, so that you can build on past failures and successes. It can also be confused with your actual self, so that you can’t tell the difference.

You can hear this confusion when you talk. You say, “I keep telling myself I’m a loser, a slut, and no one will ever want to be with me.”

No, that’s not you saying that. It’s your inner critic: a character of your own creation set up to resemble you or an important person in your world. If you confuse this character with you, then you did a good job creating it; but it’s not you. You are the creator. You are the person directing, watching, and listening to the show.

In summary, this is how you deal with the people of the mind: You act like the creator of this inner world, which you are. You put them to the use they were intended. You realize that you are to them as the figure of God is to His creation. You are the Almighty and, if you want, you can cast them into Hell where they cry and gnash their teeth; or you can extend grace, mercy, and redemption to a broken inner world that matches the broken actual world.