BEING THE CAPTAIN OF MY SHIP
is scary but liberating!

PREVIOUS: Double Binds (Part 11)

SITE: “Breaking the DB“

REVIEW
Levels: Every person or system has its own built-in self-preservation, & acts to maintain their identity (in unhealthy or healthy ways) – as seen in the family mobile. To do this successfully, the system is able to change at one level (lower) in order to maintain itself an another ‘higher’ level. See DBs, #2.

• However, the same processes that keep a system from dissolving or spiraling out of control can also block, brake, constrain, hinder, inhibit or prevent development & transformation, using BINDS : any repetitive self-preserving pattern which never-the-less is inappropriate or unhelpful, & which the D.Binded person has not been able to change

• The structure of each bind is unique, & can be expressed many ways :
= conceptually – such as the line by Groucho Marx, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member”
= metaphors: “I’m trying to run round a track to overtake my ideal self twice, and the more I develop the more the gap widens.”
= non-verbally, as multi-layered conundrums, in indefinitely repeating patterns, as in R.D. Lang’s EXP of the CLASSIC ACoA knot! (in Modelling Bs & DBs)

Resolving DBs in Therapy
As clients become aware of their binding patterns they’re faced with a hard choice : to be forever trapped in them,
OR risk moving into that scariest of places – the Unknown. But as their DBs become clearer, the person may spontaneously reorganize their thinking, which modifies or eliminates their need to DB themselves or others.

PROCESS – See chart
• Name & locate parts of your ideas in metaphoric language. ASK what’s underneath the DB beliefs, using “Being stuck is like …..” statements (in a cave, in mud, chained to a bed…. ) & Because ….. (Negative Benefits)

• Clarify the patterns across ideas / beliefs (the T.E.A.s) AND the relationships between components – what does a. & b. have to do with each other?
• Once identified, the patterns themselves can be labeled, symbolically represented & explored (ankle chains, bugs in the brain, pressure on chest…… burning, drowning, crushed…. )

• Thus the modeling process (gathering all the elements & then subtracting what’s not relevant) continues at a higher, more inclusive level of organization (One Cognitive distortion inside all Toxic Rules)
The combination of components provides a Metaphor Landscape, a context in which a pattern of the patterns – the larger inclusive organization – emerges, providing the requirements for change (LEVELS – all the way up and all the way down …. excellent explanation) “‘Levels’ is a common metaphor for arranging experience. Lower levels are defined by more specific examples of higher levels.”

Note: The “Operational Closure” at each level of this procedure occurs when the various components and their inter-relationships are clear enough so that the whole ‘frame’ is brought into the person’s consciousness.
FULL explanation of Chart ⬇️