writing space

I've written a couple fairly lengthy posts in a different thread regarding two topics that I wanted to share here:

1) 7 Cups Research
7 Cups makes some claims about the effectiveness of its listening services that it asserts are supported by scientific research. I looked into the actual research they cited and found that most of these claims are not supported by the research. This is largely because the very positive findings in that research are based on chat conditions that are significantly different from how most 7 Cups users actually experience the current site.
https://www.7cups.com/forum/GeneralSupport_28/DiaryEntriesConnections_1597/Charliesnotebook_211723/#forum-post-2152135

2) 7 Cups Site Improvements
I asked a further follow-up question: "What are the general/abstract features of the helping environments in these research studies that distinguish them positively from the current 7 Cups environment--and are different enough that their findings fail to be generalizable/applicable to 7 Cups?" Based on this question, I brainstormed a list of possible site changes.
https://www.7cups.com/forum/GeneralSupport_28/DiaryEntriesConnections_1597/Charliesnotebook_211723/#forum-post-2152143

[Feedback submitted to 7 Cups]

Subject: Misleading/false statistics on 7 Cups research page

The research stats page (https://www.7cups.com/about/research-stats.php) lists the following 5 statistics:
1) 90% of people feel better after talking to listeners
2) 97% of people view their listener positively
3) 80% of people believe that listeners can help people with mental health issues
4) 81% of users consider 7 Cups as a helpful service
5) 70% of people feel support provided by 7 Cups listeners is just as or more helpful than that provided by psychotherapy

Based on examining the research cited by 7 Cups (https://www.7cups.com/about/research.php), it appears that 4 of these 5 claims are either misleading or false in their current presentation.

Claims #'s 1-4 appear to be based on studies that are not generalizable to the average 7 Cups chat experience:
1) These studies used elite listeners (e.g. Verified, average rating of >=4.5) who aren't representative of the general 7 Cups listener population.
2) These studies used narrow/targeted member cohorts (e.g. mothers with postpartum depression, people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders) that aren't representative of the general 7 Cups member population.
3) These studies involved unusual conditions (e.g. listeners knew members' presenting problem prior to chatting, listeners had previously received special/targeted training on how to best support that group of people) that aren't representative of general 7 Cups chats.
4) Some of these studies involved very small N's (e.g. N=10) that greatly reduce their statistical power for the purposes of making inferences about general 7 Cups chats.

Claim #2 appears to be based on a misreading of the original research. The claim on the 7 Cups site is that 97% of *people* view their listener positively. This statistic appears to come from a study that did a 4-item survey of N=9 respondents and found that 97% of *items* (35 out of 36) were answered positively (Baumel, 2016).

Claim #5 is the only claim that appears to come from a study which is generalizable to normal 7 Cups chat conditions (Baumel, 2015). I will note that this claim still has an asterisk beside it since it was an exploratory study that used a convenience sample and only had a 30% response rate.

I kindly request that site administration consider significantly revamping the research stats page to avoid misinforming site users. The actual scientific research does not appear to support the figures that are being presented to justify the claim that "Research has shown that 7 Cups has a positive impact in people

I want to give everyone a heads-up that I've decided to no longer use my member account. (I will continue to check this thread for a couple days.)

There are some other real-life goals and identities that I want to pursue that I feel represent my current cutting-edge and where I'm destined/meant to be going right now. I don't feel like I am able to do that while simultaneously maintaining an active presence on the forum.

Over the past couple weeks, I've scaled back my forum usage in an attempt to compromise between the two sides, but I'm finding that it results in me giving what feels like inadequate energy to both sides. (Instead of getting the best of both worlds, neither side feels satisfactory.) I feel like what I need to do is make a full/bold commitment to what I am passionate about, and pour my energy and attention into that with reckless abandon--in much the same way as I've excitedly/enthusiastically poured hundreds of hours into this site over the past few months.

This is not a spur-of-the-moment decision. This is something I've been considering doing for the past month. I've held off by treating it as though I were making a major purchase on Amazon: it's been sitting in my cart for weeks just to make sure I don't change my mind. But rather than dissipating, my desire to leave has only become stronger in the past couple weeks. Within the past few days, I've felt a clear and urgent impulse to action that is powerful enough to overcome my resistance to change (and my fears/guilt about possible impacts).

I want to express gratitude to everyone who has helped me--either by directly supporting me and caring for my feelings/thoughts, or by simply being yourself and inspiring me to want to be more like you. Specific people I want to shout out:

@NoneTheWiser, @admaiorasemper, @jennysunrise8, @RarelyCharlie, @feelitinyourbones, @mytwistedsoul, @redmark, @dworth257, @ThankYouForLettingMeTryingToHelp, @calmLake1999, @Modal0154, @HappyLily291125, @lazyKatz, @sunshinegiraffe123, @quietCloud22

Greetings, "writing space" thread. It's been 10 months.

It's unclear to me whether this greeting is to myself, to this space, or to the other people who have lived in this space with me. I'll treat it as all of the above.

I've decided I want to approach this current writing in the following ways:

1) Do a sprawling/disorganized brainstorm of a list of potential things to talk about
2) Reorganize that brainstorm into a more concise outline
2) Do some story writing
2) Do some aleatoric writing
2) Do a self-dialogue where I am my own listener

1) Do a sprawling/disorganized brainstorm of a list of potential things to talk about

• Reasons for leaving my member account a year ago
• What I have done in the past year since leaving my member account
  • Describing what I intended to do when I initially left
  • Describing how that actually went and how things turned out
  • Describing what ended up happening instead
• Describing IRL happenings or changes within the past year (e.g. work, COVID-related changes, etc.)
• Reviewing old posts in this thread and describing the extent to which certain issues/concerns have or haven't been resolved
• Current concerns
• Current identities
  • 7 Cups "leader" identity
    • The complexities that this introduces are immense
    • I'm grinning a bit right now because one of the reasons I decided to not return to my member account a few months ago even after I realized I wanted to was a feeling that if I did, it would be way too obvious who I was. There aren't that many people on this site who write the way that I do... lol. That's neither a good nor a bad thing, but there are definitely certain signature things that I do a lot (e.g. use of "e.g." and "i.e.", lots of parentheses/slashes/commas/semi-colons, lots of bullets/outlines/headers).
    • I guess maybe I tend to scale some things back on my listener account and be a bit more disciplined and less selfish in my writing. Like, I don't have quite as many layers of nested bullets, my lists/digressions aren't nearly as long, my contrarian/rebellious streak is dialed back significantly. This thread is sort of like a playpen where I do finger-painting while with my listener account I behave a lot more like how I am at my IRL job in that I'm trying to actually assemble coherent/concise/readable arguments and largely strip away anything that might create the appearance of subjectivity/bias. Although my posts on my listener account tend to be long and complicated too, they're designed to be very readable and to provide information.
    • Yeah, I guess they're different enough. One of the things I think I wanted to convince myself of was that it was even possible to have a listener identity in which most of my "member" impulses have been dissociated or stripped from the content. As it turns out, it definitely is possible, lol. I think maybe I just wanted to get the listener side of things up off the ground and make sure it was working before I started mucking things up by adding something else to the mix that I knew was going to add a whole other level of complication?
  • 7 Cups listener identity
  • IRL work identity
  • IRL social identity
  • IRL personal identity
  • 7 Cups member identity
• Describing the relationship between the new 7 Cups identities I've established and the older set of identities that were previously present
• Revisiting specific topics I previously wrote about or reading through old posts in this thread and seeing whether my feelings have shifted
• Current to-do list items
• Relationships with others on this member account
  • The elephant in the room for me is a feeling that I basically abandoned all of my friends on here a year ago for my own selfish pursuits. (Even if those pursuits were growth-oriented or altruistic, I still definitely just suddenly severed a whole bunch of connections that were very special to me.) You could argue that there's nothing wrong with that, and I suppose if I had people telling me that it was wrong then I'd feel resentful and likely argue in the exact opposite direction that I have an absolute right to come and go as I please and I have full self-ownership. But, it's still something very uncomfortable that I haven't approached fully.
  • What struck me about the situation on here a year ago was... there was absolutely nothing I could complain about. I was treated with such kindness, and everyone was so unbelievably loving and compassionate and caring and amazing. Yet, I felt like there was some kind of subtle friction within me that arose from the inherent nature of relationships/feelings rather than any flaws/faults of anybody.
  • There are different layers of honesty and control, both for myself and for other people. I'm aware that at one level, there might be an intellectual and emotional understanding that boundaries and freedom/independence are necessary and important. At another level, there might be a sincere feeling of loneliness, missing someone, wanting them to be there, and wanting to remain connected to them.
  • It's like there's a certain layer of vulnerability where once it's reached, everything goes haywire. And that's the level I was predominantly operating from on my member account. (In psychoanalytic terms, it's a sort of borderline personality organization.)
  • "Rome was not conquered in a day" - I don't expect to figure this out this week or perhaps even this year. I'm also aware that there are some problems where the main way of resolving them is to ignore them and pretend that they don't exist and to come back later when the situation or set of tools I have to work with has changed. Sometimes this is done consciously and other times unconsciously.
• Relationship between member account and listener account
• Why I have decided to return to this account
• Why I have decided to continue using this thread rather than creating a new thread
• Comparison of me now vs. me a year ago
• Thinking about my overall lifespan and the extent to which I have progressed toward things I want to accomplish while I am in this world
  • E.g. if I've been in this world for roughly 30 years, and I optimistically assume I have another ~50 years at my disposal, deciding what I want to do with those 50 years. Viewing time as a resource, a single year corresponds to 2% of my remaining lifespan. That is sort of the argument for conscious planning/strategizing with respect to long-term goals.
  • I have really mixed feelings about trying to plan out one's life. I feel like my life hasn't yet collapsed to the point where it would really be constructive or necessary to think about that.
  • Even if one believes in reincarnation rather than YOLO, most systems that believe in reincarnation maintain that this life is important because one's next birth might not necessarily be in a human form, and a human form carries certain unique benefits. I don't really like thinking about this because it's speculative. But I don't really like thinking about death in general; it's on par with thinking about an upcoming work assignment/deadline that I haven't met.
• Establishing protective boundaries for others regarding what they are *not* expected to give me while I am using my member account
  • Addressing one of my reasons for leaving this member account, which is a fear that my expectations were spiraling out of control and I was more or less leeching from others--and if perhaps possibly giving something in return, still feeling like I was trying to create a sort of mutual parasitism where I would expect a huge amount of others and in return try to give a huge amount and sometimes beyond what I felt comfortable with. This is complicated by the fact that often I felt an extremely deep/rich meaning both in the giving and the receiving. Yet, somehow I felt an anxiety that it wasn't sustainable, or that the maintenance of this incredibly rich/deep/beautiful intimacy was cutting me off from other things I wanted to do. But I still feel like there are guilty/remorseful feelings as well, as mentioned above. It's just kind of complicated.
• The nature of a sort of BPD hunger/loneliness that seems to sort of grow to infinite proportions, comes to life especially when I use my member account (and whose expression is arguably one of the main things I wanted to get out of my member account--and also one of my reasons for leaving).
  • It's debatable whether I've ever really had BPD or complex trauma or any other mental health conditions of any kind. I feel a bit guilty/anxious sometimes listing those or other topics on my listener profile as "personal experience". E.g. do I really have lived experience with something like that? I don't want to take anything away from anything that anyone else is going through. For the longest time, I didn't list any topics as "lived experience" on my listener profile for that reason. But, at the same time I feel like I relate to the mindset and concerns of BPD, trauma, etc. and I have a really deep affection whenever I'm chatting with someone and they express themes of that nature, like a soft/warm feeling of gratitude that someone else is describing my own feelings.
• Discussing whether I feel the resolution of that BPD hunger is construction (i.e. creating new/more complex identities that balance out an overall self) or deconstruction (i.e. hurling oneself full-force into those feelings). Probably a false dichotomy, but sort of feels relevant that certain strategies/actions have the effect of decreasing feelings while others have the effect of increasing them. Maybe if I'd actually done any therapy or done a sincere/deep dive into DBT/CBT/ACT I'd have a better understanding of that.
• What the purpose is of me using this account now or what I hope to get out of it
• Describing my relationship to my member account identity
• Discussing conflicts that arose a year ago regarding the mixed purposes of this account, which also contributed to my desire to leave
  • Self-expression
  • Relationships with others
  • Self-exploration
  • Introspective writing
  • Altruism

2) Do a self-dialogue where I am my own listener

Listener: Hello

Member: Hi

L: What would you like to talk about?

M: I wrote quite a lot above

L: Yup, I saw. Is there anything there that you'd like to discuss further or where you feel like you have more you want to explain or focus in on?

M: Something I'm currently thinking about is my listener account identity.

L: Sure, what are you thinking about in relation to that?

M: I feel like it's really a major accomplishment some of what I've been able to do on there in the past year. I've basically gone from feeling like a complete outsider to somehow now being a lot closer to the center of the community. Ideas and visions that I've held for years that I felt were heretical or anathema have turned out to be acceptable, valuable, and helpful.

L: That sounds really wonderful. So on your listener account, you've gone from feeling like an outsider to feeling like someone who's needed or valued.

M: Yes. I'd say that I'm always cutting certain things away though. That's just part of what it means to have a listener account on this site. There are advantages and disadvantages to both the member and listener accounts. The advantage of the listener account is that you have increased power, not only in site functionality (e.g. ability to PM) but just in terms of general status. The disadvantage is that you have decreased freedom or latitude for self-expression.

L: So the listener account is something where you feel like you have more power but less freedom.

M: Yes. For quite a few months, I've been absolutely buried in work, both on this site and in real life. Within the past couple weeks, I've started to see things clearing up. One thing that I understand and know about myself when it comes to self-exploration is... it is work in the sense of being something that consumes mental energy and attention and creates additional things for me to worry about.

L: You've been really busy with stuff. And doing self-exploration is also something else that creates work.

M: Yeah, so I've largely held off on it. If work/volunteering are really hectic, I don't have the mental bandwidth to be able to explore myself.

L: You need to have mental space and availability in order to do exploration. But now you have some of that freedom since things are clearing up.

M: Yup.

L: What sort of things do you see yourself exploring right now? I know you wrote quite a bit above, and you mentioned that the listener account feels like something that has some plusses/minuses.

M: When I first left my member account a year ago, my vision was that I would go really fully into 1-on-1 listening. So, talking to lots of members and making a really big impact.

L: You planned to do a lot of listening when you decided to stop using your member account.

M: Yes, and I ended up not doing that. Or I tried to, but things got stuck. And then only months later, I ended up coming back to try again, but I ended up doing something completely different than what I expected. Instead of doing a lot of listening and helping members, I'm now doing more work helping listeners and thinking about some of the site-wide structures that influence the experience of large numbers of members/listeners.

L: So, you've ended up doing more "leadership" things rather than listening things.

M: Yes, exactly. And I don't see that as something problematic. Something they discuss in the Leadership Development Program is the idea that it's not necessary to do everything, and that there are multiple different types of roles that each contribute in their own unique way. So, some people do mostly listening and that's totally fine. Other people do mostly leadership and that's also fine. I know there's probably a bit of an unfortunate tendency for some of the most skilled listeners to basically get into leadership positions so that they're no longer doing any listening.

L: You see leadership and listening as each being different/valid ways of helping or contributing.

M: Yeah, and to be clear, there are a lot of things that one can do from a member account to be helpful as well. I sort of dismissed it a bit when I was on here, because the "pie in the sky" dream for me at that point was to be a really effective and prolific listener and provide support to a large number of people. That's sort of a different question or dilemma... whether it's better to provide shallow/short-term support to a large number of people or deep/long-term support to a smaller number of people.

L: Sort of like having a few close friends vs. having a large circle of acquaintances.

M: I think it's actually possible to reach a pretty deep level of intimacy with people even in just a single 60-90 minute conversation.

L: Where do you see yourself falling on that dichotomy of short-term vs. long-term support?

M: It's been a question that's nagged at me for a while. I know for sure that the people who have helped me the most on this site and in real life have been people with whom I've had long-term relationships. And the people I find myself thinking about the most are people I've been connected with for a long time. And it makes a lot of sense too that like... imagine I find someone very special who's in like the top 1% of people who I get along with the best. Wouldn't I want to befriend them and have a long-term connection with them and reap the benefits from that connection as much as possible?

L: If I'm understanding, you see long-term relationships as being much more special in your own experience. And you feel like it makes sense that if you meet someone really special, you'd want to have a long-term relationship with them.

M: I can't find it, but there's a clip I remember where Karl Pilkington was talking to Warwick Davis after filming "An Idiot Abroad" and saying he didn't feel like they really needed to hang out because nothing could top what they had experiened. And Ricky Gervais was joking about that, because what he was basically saying is "If you meet someone that you get along with really really well, get rid of them straight away." And Gervais was saying how he felt like what made friendships special is that they do change over time and don't have to be limited to a single amazing experience.

L: So, friendships or relationships as something that sort of evolve and change over time. What are your thoughts on that?

M: I don't dislike the idea. I guess the fact that I'm back on here using my member account again is proof of that. But, I think it undersells all of the dangers or risks associated with that. And I know that what you and everyone else is going to tell me is, "Well, relationships are inherently risky, but it's risky to be alive--suck it up and deal with it and be a real human being." To which my response would generally be "well f*** you too, thanks for telling me that my life is s***--that makes me feel like you really understand and relate to my perspective and concerns", lol.

L: Ah, so you feel like there are a lot of risks or problems with long-term relationships, but if you point those out people don't really take them seriously or think it's sort of insane to even question something like that. And that feels pretty invalidating.

M: Yeah... and to be clear, it's not like I'm completely on one side of the fence or the other. I think people have a tendency to take isolated statements out of context without considering the broader whole. And I definitely am a person with evolving/changing opinions. So, it's almost like I say one thing and people assume wrongly that that's the absolute truth of who I am. When I myself really just see it as me putting on that thing like if I were trying on a pair of pants.

L: You want to be allowed to try on different feelings, thoughts, or values just to see how they feel and whether they work. But people sometimes sort of assume that when you say something, you're permanently wedded to it.

M: Yeah, or maybe I just assume that they do and they're actually more open to change than I think. I don't know. I think people just generally have certain biases of like "relationships are bad" or "relationships are good", and if you happen to be on the wrong side of that, the other person does everything in their power to try to turn you over to their position. And I don't like that. That's exactly what I try to avoid as a listener. And that's something that I find really difficult to express and I don't think is adequately captured in the initial listener training... like this entire philosophy or worldview that informs the way that listening as a whole actually operates.

L: You really dislike it when people try to pigeon-hole you into doing something a certain way just because that's the way that they do things. And you feel like the kind of attitude or understanding that allows listeners to *not* do that is something that could be expanded or improved in the 7 Cups listener training.

M: I have no idea how though. And I mean, from one perspective, the current listener training is "complete". It's a bit like how there might be certain religious texts where it's like, "This sentence contains the whole meaning of the scriptures. If you are able to understand just this one sentence and practice it perfectly, you will be a fully enlightened sage." I think of the listener training as being like that... it's very terse, but there are certain things where it's like... even a single word or phrase is loaded with so much meaning and depth if you actually explore it. But then I suppose it's a bit like religious reading as well in that there's a lot of stuff that isn't quite as relevant.

L: There are certain things that aren't explained or expanded much but if a person took them seriously and thought about them deeply, they'd become a really good listener.

M: It's one of the things that always made me feel so alienated as a listener when I was using this site for the longest time... the fact that there seemed to be an emphasis on "skills" rather than on a more holistic/general worldview that involves respecting the freedom of the other person, practicing non-violence, and honoring the natural intelligence of the other person's feelings. If you have the worldview, you're going to do the right thing no matter what situation you're in. If your listening is dependent on speaking in a certain way or using certain skills or having knowledge of certain topics, there's going to come a time when you're going to get stuck. Or I guess that's how I used to think about listening or justify to myself a certain feeling of disdain toward the active listening skills that everybody kept pushing and using as the sole basis for evaluation.

L: If I'm understanding, there's a more technical/skills-based approach to listening and then there's a more intuitive/values-based approach. And between the two, you've felt like the intuitive approach is broader or more generalizable, and like there is a deficit on this site in the expression or explanation of that approach.

M: Yeah. What I think I've realized from having interacted more with a lot of listeners, both very new and very experienced, is a few things:

• The listening attitudes that I embody are not as uncommon as I thought they were.
  • Most experienced listeners on this site that I've talked with have an equally strong revulsion to advice-giving and imposing beliefs. I'm not unique in feeling that this is extremely important.
  • The listener evaluation and training mechanisms on this site--across the board--explicitly and implicitly emphasize these attitudes. They are present in a large number of places: initial active listener training, new listener primer, certain highly regarded/popular threads linked in the new listener primer.
• Most new listeners I've interacted with have found it extremely beneficial to receive my expression of this set of attitudes.
  • It provides context to some of the instructions in the initial active listener training that at first glance seem really impossible to practice (e.g. how am I supposed to help people if I'm not allowed to give advice).
  • I'd contend that what's really missing from the initial training is a model or expression of how it is actually possible to help people without giving advice--and not only in situations where a person is purely seeking validation/emotional support, but also in situations where a person is trying to do more cognitive problem-solving!
  • People have this mistaken notion that unless if you're giving advice, you can't ever really solve someone's problems, but there are lots of situations where just by giving someone space or summarizing/organizing and exploring/clarifying things that they've already said (without distorting or attempting to modify anything), the end result is that they solve their own problem. More importantly, I think that if people experience this, they come to understand what the lived experience of problem-solving is actually like, and then it becomes something that they're able to independently apply even if they don't have a listener.

L: Interesting. So, you are actually pretty orthodox and in line with both official training and highly respected listeners on this site. And when you do express this thing that feels like it's incompletely expressed in the initial training, it seems like people are appreciative or find it valuable. So basically, what you have to say is both accepted and thought to be helpful.

M: Yeah. I think what made it feel unique for me was that I didn't arrive at these attitudes as a result of being on this website. I came in as a pretty fully formed listener with certain beliefs/values based on my own personal study (for about 10 years) of different psychological/religious/spiritual systems and texts. So I guess I felt like it was just something weird or unique to me because I understood it through my own idiosyncratic psychospiritual context and I wasn't able to explain or relate to things in the language that 7 Cups usually uses. The other thing is that just in general I tend to just write and explain things in a way that sounds very different than how other people explain things. And I had a lot of prior experiences on this site interacting with listeners who were more of the "sugary sweet" type--and they seemed to be the most vocal/active group and have a bit of groupthink and some blind spots when it comes to toxic positivity and trauma sensitivity, so I found that a bit alienating. I also interacted with a lot of listeners who IMO had a shallow understanding of listening and equated it almost entirely with strict application of verbal skills while having absolutely no awareness of the broader goals or processes of listening. So between all of those things, I came away feeling very much like an outsider--and having a mixture of a superiority complex (thinking that i'm a better listener than others) and an inferiority complex (feeling like I'm doing something weird/defective that isn't valued by other people). And those attitudes pervaded my entire experience on this site as a listener for years.

L: Because you didn't see your own attitudes as a listener being expressed as articulately or practiced as rigorously by other people, you came away feeling like you were an outsider as a listener. But based on what you've said above, these attitudes might be more common and more respected than you thought they were.

M: Yeah, that's right. I feel like there are certain things that are unique about my understanding, but they are enhancements or advancements rather than digressions or irrelevant/heterodox speculations.

L: What things do you feel are unique?

M: I feel like the things that make me most unique in terms of my understanding of listening are:

• I have faith in a process that is beyond anyone's control. (You can call it God if you want, and I definitely find Christian metaphors to be one of the easiest and most reverent/appreciative ways to express it.)

L: Sort of like the things that make you a bit weird or different are actually things that make you better rather than things that make you worse.

M: Yeah, it makes me wonder what exactly happened or changed. I've had certain people trying to tell me for years that I'm valuable but I never actually believed them despite being told it so many times. I don't know what exactly is different about this situation where it feels like that is now an experiential certainty rather than just some optimistic platitude of "Oh you should like yourself" or "Oh you should trust yourself". Somehow, right now I feel like I've actually gotten some kind of evidence or demonstration of my own value.

L: You're wondering what explains the fact that now you feel like you're weird in a good way rather than being weird in a bad way. Like you're superior/special rather than inferior/alienated. Like you're someone who has uniquely valuable things to offer rather than being someone marginal on the fringes.

M: It's so hard to embrace because I feel like to some extent it's only socially conditioned. Like, maybe if other people behave differently or I go somewhere else, all of that confidence might crumble.

L: You feel like maybe it's context-specific where it might exist only with this group of people.

M: Yeah, but at the same time, I guess it's like... I've usually found a few allies here and there who might take my side or support me. But it always kind of felt like... weirdos empathizing with weirdos. It doesn't mean anything if someone who is as f***ed up or alienated as I am is able to accept where I'm coming from. What I really want is to be able to blend in with normal people and make contributions there and have normal people be excited or interested in what I'm sharing or find it valuable.

L: So, being accepted as part of an in-group while still being able to make unique contributions on the basis of what makes you different.

M: I think the leadership roles satisfy this in a way that normal listening never could. Just being in a position where I'm receiving a seal of approval or recognition from people who are really central to the cultural norms, it feels different from getting that from someone who is on the margins. I guess I'm admitting that I'm attracted to getting approval from people who I know have a lot of power and authority. I realize that some people might be critical of that, so it's a bit uncomfortable to share. But for someone like me, it feels really significant and valuable.

L: To have someone who is respected or who is considered to have authoritative opinions on listening say that you're okay or on the right track and to give you recognition, it makes you feel like you have valuable things to say.

M: Yeah, I guess that's one side of it--getting approval from authority figures. And the other side is getting approval from normal people, like some of the brand new listeners I've interacted with who have found certain things helpful. What I'm noticing happening is that I feel like... some hierarchical grading process in me that was previously cut off is suddenly allowed to function again.

L: Like you're allowed to grade people?

M: Yes... I'm allowed to sincerely think of myself as being superior to other people at certain things and to trust my own assessment of how I'm doing relative to other people. Like I'm able to undo this sort of Nietzschean leveling in which I have to view everybody as being equal and always be skeptical of what I'm uniquely able to do by assuming that everything is relativistic and nothing I say/feel/think is actually true or important. I feel like it is justifiable and okay for me to look at myself and put myself near the top of the pyramid on certain things. I'm allowed to think highly of myself. If I'm a 13 on a scale of 1 to 10, I don't have to pretend that I'm a 7 just because I'm deviating by from the purported endpoint of 10.

L: You're able to view your differences as you surpassing expectations rather than being someone who's deviating from them.

M: I wonder what makes that possible. Like, I've mentioned that I received external social approval (from important people and normal people). But, I know that this isn't universal. There are parts of myself that I haven't expressed and that haven't received that approval yet. So, I find myself wondering, how do I expand this? What exactly did I do that made it possible in this particular instance to receive social approval?

L: You want to understand what went well in this situation so that you can try to replicate or generalize it to other parts of yourself that you know still feel like they're in the dark or sort of marginalized.

M: Yeah, I want to believe that it's partly within my control. I'm feeling tired, but this has been informative and I'm grateful for your time.

L: Sure, no problem.

M: My takeaways from this conversation I guess would be the following:

• Things have happened whereby I can now feel that certain parts of myself that were previously marginalized now embody something that is cutting-edge, innovative, or superior. I feel validated.
• This validation feels significant because it comes from authority figures and "normal" people.
• As a result of this validation, I feel like I'm able to trust my own impressions and have a sense of pride based on the re-establishment of certain hierarchical modes of experiencing that involve social comparisons (e.g. where I might grade myself as being better at something than someone else); I'm able to trust my sense of our positions as well as the value/worth of the dimension on which I am doing the comparison.
• This validation isn't complete; it doesn't encompass all parts of myself. But for a specific set of parts that are significant and important to me, this validation has occurred and in a pretty deep/powerful way.

L: If you had to guess, what do you think you did that made your contributions feel valuable to others?

M: I'm not sure if I can explore that here without going into details that would likely give away the identity of my listener account. I think the analysis here would probably center on two ways of looking at expressions and understanding the ways in which I do and don't deviate on each dimension:

• Substance - the core ideas or content being expressed ("what")
• Form - the manner in which that content is expressed or presented ("how")

L: Interesting, so sort of like you have an understanding (whether consciously articulated or intuitive) of what's considered acceptable, conforming, or ideal. And using that as a starting point, you add/modify elements that enhance what you're expressing and make it different but without being too radical.

M: Yeah, I think both dimensions have something like that going on. Like, if you understand what the cultural values are and are able to embody them strongly, then as long as your substance/form are consistent with those values, your expressions will be accepted. If your deviations or unique/different elements have the effect of making your content embody those values more powerfully or effectively, then your deviations will be accepted.

L: So it's like, as long as you're in-sync on values, you can do what you want.

M: I need to think about this more. Like, something I'm thinking about is why/how certain forms of alternative music are able to gain traction and become embedded into mainstream culture. (If you're able to do that without losing the integrity or substance of your message, I feel like that's probably the ideal way to transmit your message to have the broadest impact.) I'm really not used to thinking in this way though... I tend to focus more on individuals than on groups. It's almost like... if you do decide to deviate on one value, it has to be very clear that you're doing so in the service of a different value. Like, if the culture values A and B, and I'm doing something that gives me -5 points on A but through doing that I'm able to get +10 points on B... maybe. This is getting a bit abstract. Like I said, I feel like I can't really explore this fully without looking at some concrete situations and discussing details. I'm just thinking that some expressions are genuinely counter-cultural and yet still end up being popular/successful, and I feel like the only way that that would be possible would be if it were a case of there being a mixture of values where some are conforming and others are non-conforming, but the conforming ones are done so well or powerfully that those end up winning out and the work as a whole is accepted. And then as a result, the non-conforming values get to sneak in and exert influence over the culture.

L: So even if it's still speculative, the hypothesis is that deviance in both substance and form is acceptable as long as it doesn't hinder one's overall conformity (on balance) to cultural values. And those deviations will be highly regarded if they enhance one's conformity to cultural values.

M: Man, I'm really suffering right now from having never taken a single sociology course in my lifetime, lol. That seems like it would be helpful for understanding things like norms, conformity, deviance, authority, power, culture, values, etc. I'm approaching all of this naively like someone trying to play the guitar without understanding what musical scales are. It feels like sociology is probably a better context than psychology for understanding the causes of what I've been experiencing, which involves changes in my relationship to a group.

Below is an essay I wrote for my own personal pleasure in mid-August.

***

Fruits Basket Season 2 (2020) Episode 19

This writing explores the psychological dynamics of the character Rin in a specific episode of the Fruits Basket anime reboot. The interpersonal themes described are reminiscent of patterns associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Overview of Rin and Tohru

Rin is a Zodiac member introduced in the Fruits Basket manga and in the 2019-2020 anime reboot. (She was not present in the original 2001 anime series.)

Rin

Rin’s default emotional situation is that she feels desperately lonely, but she has also generally given up on people and distrusts them -- due to prior severe emotional and physical abuse from both her parents and Akito.

Rin encounters Tohru, who is basically a perfect, angelic caregiver or rescuer. Rin immediately recognizes Tohru as someone especially kind, compassionate, and sensitive who Rin might potentially be able to confide in.

Tohru

The simplest or most basic feeling that Rin experiences is an overwhelmingly strong desire to express her feelings/situation to Tohru and be comforted by her. However, this gives rise to a multitude of other discomforting, complex feelings and reactions for Rin.

Emotional dynamics for Rin

Defenses against vulnerability

Rin’s default situation is that she does not trust anyone to be able to handle her softer, more sensitive side with the degree of gentleness and care that she desires. All of Rin’s past experiences with emotions have involved her being grievously wounded by other people who were either abusive or neglectful when she was at her most vulnerable.

Therefore, Rin’s default coping strategy is to completely disown her own vulnerability as something impractical or impossible that cannot possibly be satisfied. In this view, the world is basically hostile, cold, and uncaring. This alternative persona Rin adopts expresses itself through cynicism, aloofness, and jaded practicality.

Self-hatred

Rin understands and experiences herself in the following way:

• Her core self is very vulnerable and susceptible to intense loneliness

• When she experiences the world through this self, bad things tend to happen; her own experience becomes very volatile, painful, and complicated

• Therefore, Rin sees her deepest, most basic/sincere self as being fundamentally bad

Fear of Tohru as someone who arouses vulnerability

This makes Tohru a very unsettling or uncomfortable person to be around since she is someone whose presence tends to soften Rin and evoke the more vulnerable side of herself.

Fear of harming Tohru through overdependence

Rin is fearful that if she expresses or acts on her impulses of loneliness, she will crush, smother, overwhelm, or destroy Tohru just through the sheer magnitude of her longing.

Fear of harming Tohru through corrupting influence

Rin sees her own feelings as a poisonous, corrupting force where anybody who comes into contact with them will be ruined in some way. Rin views Tohru as a very kind and compassionate person but also someone naive or inexperienced whose worldview and goodness have a flimsy or fragile foundation. Rin fears that by sharing her experiences, she might be the one who shatters Tohru’s basic goodness or trust in people.

Fear of being rejected by Tohru

Rin expects that she will hurt Tohru, and then Tohru will reject or refuse to stay in contact with her because she is too difficult, stressful, burdensome, or “high-maintenance” to be around.

Anger toward Tohru - reaction formation

Reaction formation is a psychological defense where a person attempts to bury a feeling by increasing the opposite feeling. In this case, Rin is afraid of the effects of her feelings of longing for Tohru, so she defends against them by alternatively experiencing and expressing anger, disdain, and contempt toward Tohru.

Anger toward Tohru - attempt at escape

Rin intentionally acts cold and hostile toward Tohru in order to try to make herself seem repellent and scare Tohru away -- as a means of escaping from the anxious situation of vulnerability described above.

Anger toward Tohru - impossible object

Rin is angry at Tohru for awakening a latent/buried desire for a womb-like comfort or salvation that Rin sees as being impossible to receive in actual reality. Rin is angry at Tohru, and her own feelings toward Tohru, for seeming to be an illusion riddled with futility and false hope.

Anger toward herself - impossible situation

Rin is angry at her own loneliness/longing for giving rise to an impossible situation where she feels she has to choose between two equally awful/unsatisfactory options:

1. Avoid acting on feelings: starve in isolation and loneliness

2. Act on feelings: cling to Tohru with all of the negative consequences described above

Wish fulfillment in Fruits Basket

One of the most satisfying things (for me) about Fruits Basket is that it tends to not only acknowledge but also satisfy many of the deep wishes that it establishes in its characters, and thereby also incites in its audience through empathy. In this episode, Rin is able to have a moment with Tohru where her deepest desires are actually satisfied:

• Rin is in a state of such severe distress that her distrustful, paranoid, defensive front breaks down in front of Tohru

• In this state of absolute fragility and neediness, she clings onto Tohru both emotionally and physically

• Contrary to Rin’s deepest fears, Tohru gives Rin the care and comfort that she desperately wants and does not seem to be injured, burdened, or repulsed by Rin’s outreach

Notably, by witnessing Rin’s feelings, Tohru is also able to receive a mirroring of her own unexpressed feelings of grief/loneliness related to the death of her mother. Tohru has generally side-stepped these feelings throughout the series by focusing on rescuing everyone else. But while comforting and validating Rin’s feelings, Tohru expresses her own loneliness in a genuine way that she has otherwise been afraid to do with other characters.

[No replies needed]

Utilizing aleatoric writing and story writing

(Blue font = reading through and commenting a couple hours after writing)

***

Hello! Welcome to the game. Please enter your name.
[xukerv - zucchini reverb]

(Commentary: The small bracketed text is the aleatoric bit. I'm generating 6 random letters. From looking at that, I associate and come up with two words. Then I use those two words as a point of inspiration for what I write. For example here, I probably looked at "xuk" and came up with the word "zucchini". Then I looked at "erv", rearranged them to "rev" and thought of the word "reverb".)

>> FloridAbode
[ggumoh - gush home]

I am the product of your imagination, so as a game I am capable of any experience you might imagine.
[pgzuyi - pegasus yin]

Do you have a direction where you would like this game experience to go?
[wqmxre - squirm remnants]

If so, I can follow your lead, and you are welcome to let me know at any time if something doesn't feel like it's helpful.
[yaednv - heaven naive]

If you feel like you'd prefer to leave it to me and just see what happens, I can also come up with something.
[pgvdum - peg mud]

The goal of this is to make things as comfortable and interesting for you as we can.
[vggmbi - veggie limb]

>> I leave it to you and trust in your wisdom.
[qhgjmq - qoph magick]

Great! The topic I've come up with for us to discuss is things that are uncomfortable to say.
[fukcjf - f*** fluid]

I'd like you to think about a situation where there was something you wanted to say but you didn't say it.
[jcwxha - jaw wax]

(Commentary: The association here from the two words was that jaw/wax made me think of like someone trying to talk but their jaw getting stuck as if it were made of wax.)

And I want for us to try to act out that situation.
[wapdrw - paw ward]

I'm this person - please speak to me as you would to them.
[bfqrdu - barf rugged]

>> I'm having trouble speaking. I'm sorry. I don't think I can do this exercise.
[vcdxho - voice hex]

No problem. How about you just free associate? Write a line of poetry and we can speak back and forth in poetry.
[nbtcof - nib coffin]

>> how shall I describe the fluids pulsing through the body when the motion of lighting the tongue to utter and frame the picture arrests the natural tide?
[wwseac - wow sea]

(Commentary: To translate to normal English, there are two activities being imagined that are in conflict. One is to watch one's feelings and physical sensations and try to remain in harmony with them by simply watching without altering anything. The other activity is to attempt to express or share things. The meaning of the statement above is that the act of expressing things involves exerting will in a way that creates a bit of tension or disrupts the bare attention of just noticing what is happening.)

do you feel like I am arresting the natural tide in your body by asking you to speak of what is happening?
[efvjbo - fever job]

(Commentary: I love this question. It's really nice that I decided to use the same language. )

>> I don't know whether I wish for people to comment on things that are happening with me. I have the option of prohibiting replies to this post. Or I could allow replies. Or I could hold it and keep it to myself in private.
[uvxtpk - venus pact]

(Commentary: So the three options are 1) share this post but say "please no replies", 2) share this post but allow replies, and 3) don't share this post.)

Could you imagine those three possibilities and describe how you feel in each one? Start with prohibiting replies.
[myaoxu - mine anxious]

>> I doubt the worth of this member account. There are three possible purposes. The first is self-exploration. The second is relationship. The third is altruism.
[mwwelv - mewl velvet]

(Commentary: This is trying to brainstorm possible benefits or aims of posting from my member account. While reading through this right now, I thought of two other possible aims. One is comfort. Another is responsibility. So just to summarize all 5 for my own benefit:
1) Self-exploration: writing in order to explore personal thoughts/feelings and obtain awareness that helps inform action or resolve internal knots/blocks.
2) Relationship: writing posts and allowing replies in order to create relationships with other people.
3) Altruism: writing in order to present expressions that are somehow helpful to other people, whether it be by providing solidarity, by presenting useful information, or providing inspiration to others in their own experiments/activities.
4) Comfort: writing as an act of meditation/improvisation whereby I am simply flowing through feelings and journeying in whichever direction feels most comfortable, and thereby experiencing increased peace from letting things go where they want to go.
5) Responsibility: writing as a means of planning or clearing obstacles to personal activities/chores that are necessary.)

>> I found it helpful to answer indirectly and side-step your question. There is a part of me where if I am asked to do something, before I do it I ask whether it feels helpful or valuable. And if not, I go off in whatever direction feels like it works best.
[tvmsmf - television mafia]

(Commentary: Trying to explain or justify the fact that the previous response basically ignored the original prompt of "imagine those possibilities and say how you feel in each one".)

For those three purposes, how does the option of prohibiting replies interact?
[dwvmrp - word wrap]

>> If I prohibit replies, I reduce the burden on other people. Though from the other side I have had the experience in the past of wishing very much to respond to a thread that was marked no reply and having no other means to communicate.
[pwpixn - pawn pink]

(Commentary: A benefit of posting with "no replies allowed" is that it eliminates the burden on other people to have to respond; if the option doesn't exist, then they need not feel any guilt or discomfort if they choose not to do it. A drawback is that it's possible someone else might really want to respond or say something but they feel stifled by the prohibition on responding.)

>> Member expressions in general create burdens.
[kcokjf - c*ck fork]

(Commentary: This is the most skeptical/cynical position with respect to utilizing my member account. The claim here is basically, "Anytime I post anything from my member account, I am causing suffering to other people.")

Imagine you are at a place and tell me what that place looks like.
[luqzua - lukewarm azure]

>> My imagination has wandered into the realm of sexual fantasy. I know the place but I cannot speak it.
[ufjjtg - tough fidget]

(Commentary: When asked to just free-associate any image, the one I came up with had sexual connotations.)

Can we be indirect and very sneaky and have you continue to imagine this scene and pursue what you wish to describe, but do it in a cryptic or coded way?
[pnvfev - pen fever]

(Commentary: In other words, asking whether I'd be comfortable writing about that scene that had sexual connotations, but doing so in a way that is so cryptic that other people won't really know what I'm talking about but I'll know what I'm talking about.)

>> My imagination has shifted to another scene, one that is equally unshareable because it is gross. I can describe it in summarization or abstract as a person being sick over a toilet. But to delve into the nuances and experiential subtleties would be distressing for anyone reading.
[chvrkk - chunk rock]

So, those are both examples of things that you wanted to say but felt like you couldn't - the sexual fantasy and then the vomit image. If you'd like, please explore one of those further, or feel free to describe a third image. And if you could tell me which scenario you're focusing on.
[lhpklo - help lock]

>> Third image, again unshareable, of a small girl lying in bed being cradled by another person caring for her.
[alejej - ale jejune]

What do you think might be a good question for me to ask you about these three unshareable images (i.e. sexual, vomit, bed)
[zwdkma - zimbra make]

>> Whether I see it as valuable to share these things, and if so then what the benefit is
[plncwa - plan claw]

Do you feel it's valuable to share these things?
[xcovlw - voxel vowel]

>> I experience pleasure in saying them
[fgdysu - fudge syrup]

(Commentary: Sharing unshareable things is pleasurable.)

Would you like to share more about any images, or are there other images that come to mind?
[soffdh - shofar death]

>> I'd like to describe the dynamics of the sexual images
[wgipyk - whip pike]

(Commentary: My recollection is that when I came up with the word "whip", I started thinking of different "personalities" when it comes to sexual expression.)

>> When the expectation arises that this description be something that can either be justified in terms of my mental health, or that it be something that benefits other people's mental health, I find that this sort of crushes any motivation to share.
[aotmnd - atom demand]

(Commentary: I lost what I wanted to talk about because it got interrupted by an imaginary question along the lines of, "Why the heck do you want to talk about sexual dynamics?")

When you feel a need to explain what you're doing or why you're doing it, it distracts from your feelings and the enjoyment of them.
[xlhfzs - excel fuel]

I'd like to go back to those three possible purposes for member posts that you mentioned: exploration, relationship, altruism. Let me know if anything comes to mind that you'd like to share regarding those.
[kscojs - school joist]

>> I think about Christ exhorting his followers to pray in closets rather than in public. And about the proponents of different types of magick telling practitioners that they ought to keep their rituals private. There are so many things that proceed best in secret or in private.
[dnboue - den imbue]

(Commentary: The thought here is to do "member" writing offline rather than sharing. Here's the Bible quote that came to mind: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." -Matthew 6:5-6)

>> There's a debate in my head about why things like prayer, writing, meditation, etc. might be considered valuable.
[upwjoo - upvote woo]

>> One idea is that they they give me happiness independent of anything else that anyone else might be doing. So for example, if my mood is at a 5/10 and then I do one of those activities and it raises it to a 7/10.
[ovhzqv - hover zircon]

(Commentary: This is the 4th aim of "comfort" I thought of. Basically just feeling good doing something, regardless of it having any other secondary benefits.)

>> Another idea is that there are certain activities that I do in daily life that are beneficial for other people. And if doing things like prayer, writing, meditation, etc. helps me self-regulate or recover energy, then it indirectly helps by supporting those other activities that are helpful. For example, if I have only gotten 2 hours of sleep, I am less effective than if I have gotten my normal amount of sleep.
[goxoev - govern oven]

(Commentary: And this is the 5th aim of "responsibility". Basically viewing these activities as forms of self-care that are helpful as a means to recovering/maintaining the personal resources to be able to do other actions/chores/tasks that are more directly beneficial.)

>> Neither of these conceptions of benefit (i.e. inherent self-benefit, instrumental/indirect other-benefit via conditioning actions that directly benefit others or minimize harm to others) requires that there be any sharing of these activities with other people or any awareness among other people that I am doing these activities.
[mdfqdu - muffled quad]

What do you think of these two benefits then?
[ujgptq - judge put]

>> Something I've been told by people is that I ought to share my ideas, that I ought to benefit other people, that I ought to express myself, and that other people are available if I want to share anything.
[fexwwu - fedex wow]

(Commentary: This would be the 3rd aim of "altruism", the idea that maybe there's something about my writing where just through sharing it, that can somehow be of benefit to other people who are helped in some way by reading it.)

>> I feel like there's one version of myself that is just privately doing things that work.
[rhxzbg - rhinestone bug]

>> With that version, people might not know what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. I am kind of just doing things that feel like they are okay or work, and I'm quietly fulfilling my responsibilities, and I go through life with nobody really knowing anything about me.
[vwayqr - way quark]

So with this, quietly doing the things you are supposed to be doing, perhaps with people not knowing much more about who you are or what you're doing.
[fqjgzp - quaff gazoo]

>> If I were to come up with some tricks or tools that work for me, or I have some understanding that helps me, those things would go to the grave with me. People would see the outward effects but never receive the core of what I'm doing.
[eebmts - bee stem]

People wouldn't ever really know who you are.
[lwqwyz - law way]

>> Do I want people to know who I am?
[jmqtjg - jam jet]

(Commentary: Phrased differently: "Would I feel lonely or like I had wasted my life if I were to pass away without anybody having ever really known who I was and the kinds of thoughts, feelings, concerns, etc. that I harbor--or without having manifested myself creatively?")

>> It goes back to the three ways of justifying sharing things.
>> 1) Exploration - maybe the activity of sharing will have some benefits for me in terms of growth or being able to go deeper into myself than if I held things to myself.
>> 2) Relationship - maybe the activity of sharing will create some kind of closeness or intimacy with other people that feels satisfying or enjoyable.
>> 3) Altruism - maybe the activity of sharing will have some benefits for other people.
[uqfvin - quill vine]

So you have three possible benefits for sharing (self-exploration, relationship, altruism) and two possible benefits even if you don't share (personal happiness, conditioning activities that benefit others)
[ofhikg - folk hike]

(Commentary: Exploring which of the benefits of writing can be had even without sharing that writing. In other words, if I did this "member" writing but kept it to myself rather than posting on my 7 Cups member account, which benefits would still be available?)

>> This is all operating within a framework in which I claim to understand what's happening with me or have control over it and everything is a bit rational and logical or linear. It's a framework in which I have a plan or strategy and then I execute it.
[mwaiqc - whim quick]

>> I feel a bit stuck
[sfyefk - fish key]

How about you describe an image that you're thinking of?
[muvbne - muck been]

>> I'm thinking about the fact that there are so many people who are able to attend church, pray together, and feel connected both spiritually and interpersonally in that setting.
[jdkxwf - jedi wax]

(Commentary: At this point I became distracted and lost the will/desire to continue writing.)

I had an astonishing experience today. I talked with someone who reminded me very much of my ex-boyfriend from a couple years ago.

• Their intelligence/depth/insight was through the roof.
• I had a pleasant feeling like this was someone who could dive into the core of me and instead of feeling afraid of my complexity they seemed to be attracted to it.
• I found them a bit intimidating but alluring, like they were someone who seemed to understand me so well that I was dancing in the palm of their hand.

Something else that was similar about them:

• I felt a bit afraid of them because of how single-mindedly they seemed to be searching for the truth of who I was.

Crucial difference from my ex-boyfriend:

• When I reached the point at which I wasn't comfortable answering their questions (because I wasn't planning on opening Pandora's box today), they accepted my "no" instead of trying to interrogate that "no" or dig beneath it in search of a root/justification. Which I really appreciated because it kind of destroys my faith in humanity a little bit anytime someone responds to boundary-setting by asking trying to get an explanation of why boundaries are worth respecting. I found it refreshing that this person accepted my "no".

I'm feeling aware of a certain dimension that I'd maybe describe as "respect for defenses".

• Low respect for defenses: "You need to uncover the truth as quickly as possible, and if it's painful or it shatters your ego or has some other unpleasant consequences, then that's a price I'm willing to pay in order to expand your awareness."
• High respect for defenses: "I don't want to push through anything or force you to engage with something before you feel ready and comfortable. I want you to feel safe at all times."

I feel like this probably has significant overlap with trauma sensitivity.

I'm going back and forth on this a bit. Something I'm realizing is that there's a sort of thrilling feeling in talking to someone who is not only insightful but also curious and willing to ask probing questions at the risk of maybe digging pretty deep or touching on something sensitive/risky. Sort of like a pleasant feeling of unpredictability as though I was going on an adventure.

I was able to get to a pretty deep level very quickly, and I had a feeling like there was no limit to how far the other person was willing to go. But once I reached the point at which my resistance kicked in, it seemed pretty insurmountable because they hadn't established the trust/rapport for me to feel like they would be caring/supportive/comforting if I crossed the threshold into vulnerability (as opposed to talking about vulnerability from a safe distance) and something went wrong.

It makes me realize though that as a listener I rarely ask questions that encourage a vertical shift toward greater depth. Maybe people don't grow as much or as quickly through talking to a listener like me who's very "slow and steady"? I'm not sure--I feel like maybe it isn't necessary. People tend to naturally move toward whatever level of depth feels comfortable for them to work at. If someone really wants to talk about vulnerable stuff, they'll naturally move the conversation to that place. If someone's a bit more cautious, they might still spontaneously move the conversation to a deeper level by first saying something a bit more vulnerable as a test, and if they get the reflection/validation they'll feel like, "Okay, this person's safe" and then they'll continue to express/consolidate at that deeper level.

I had a dream this morning. Below is what I wrote upon awakening. I typed this with my eyes closed and then went back and corrected spelling errors but otherwise have made no changes to the content. Any writing in bold/blue is my own present commentary or reactions reading through my own writing after the fact.

With respect to the structure of the writing, the first two paragraphs were an attempt to faithfully document what happened in the dream. The remaining writing was an attempt to explore the meaning of the dream. (In psychological terms, manifest and latent content respectively.) I have added a line "***" to differentiate these sections

Since I find it cleaner to use line breaks when providing commentary but there is also some meaning or wisdom to the original line breaks, I have indicated line breaks in the original writing by adding "//".

8:49 am

//was in school trying to get to next class which was gym. got there after being chased by a girl into wrong locker room.

I have had an uncountable number of dreams that involve a recurring motif of me wandering through a school trying to get to my next class. This is a typical dream pattern for me whenever I am either going through some type of transformation or am feeling confused by something. Just a general indication of stress.

To clarify the "chased by a girl into wrong locker room", in real life my social identity is cisgender male--

I'm recalling now more about the dream. Prior to being chased, I was standing in a line with other students, but I gradually was getting pushed or drawn to the side of the line. Before I knew it, there was a clean/perfect line that had formed with one student after the other, but I was outside of that line looking at it--and despite being near the front of the line, I was markedly out of place and would be considered as someone who was standing in the wrong spot or trying to inappropriately butt into the front of the line (because I wasn't properly in line but was trying to pretend that I was).

I believe what ended up happening was that I met another girl who was also outside of the line, and the two of us socialized, and we were in a hurry to get back, and in our rush to get to gym, we were playfully chatting and not paying much attention. When it was time for us to depart, I impulsively went into the first locker room I saw, which happened to be a female one. She assumed I went into the correct one and entered into the remaining alternative, which was the male locker room.

went back to male locker room, left but went down a strange corridor which had college graduates from theatre class doing a bunch of acts.

They were doing a full multi-act performance that seemed like it was directed at me. During the dream, I was wondering if those people were permanently there, like it was their full-time job to stand there and wait for people to wander the wrong way and they'll be serenaded by this performance... or if in some way, they had managed to do a 3D capture of the original performance and it was just being played back on command.

exited and walked out of a rural household. walked outside and saw i was far away from the school. walked back in and asked the person there to get back to school. he explained to his wife what was happening.

His wife was really confused that there was a student in their house. And the husband reassured her by basically saying, "Oh, it's just another student from the university who got lost."

//he asks me to close my eyes which i do. he does a magic incantation and the desk i'm in front of starts to shake. then he says that a very necessary part of the process is to throw up. and he says that he has never had someone fail to throw up even if they tried not to during this process. i asked if it was okay to throw up on his desk. he says of course. i stand there waiting for it to happen, noticing an energy coursing through my body, but nothing happens. finally i wake up and my body is a bit hot/sweaty.

For context, I have a slight IRL phobia of vomiting--and it has actually been over 23 years since the last time I vomited. (That is a common trait of emetophobes, that they tend to have absurdly long "no-vomit" streaks, which they often brag about and have some pride in, lol.)

Upon awakening, I had a sort of feeling of, "Now wait a minute dude, you told me you would help me get back to class, but you never said anything about vomiting until we were already halfway done... that wasn't part of our agreement, lol."

During the dream, I was on the fence about whether to allow this vomiting to happen. It didn't seem to me like something that would be terrible. I was at the same time curious whether the magical powers he was using would actually follow through in commanding or forcing me to vomit.

I'd say even after I'd woken up, while I was still a bit groggy, there was a period of a couple minutes where I was still wondering if the magic that he had cast in the dream might translate to real life and affect my real-life body.

***

//my interpretation of events is that there had to be a disencumbrance of things in order for my body to enter into a state where it would be possible for it to travel back to the realm where it is doing work and proceeding according to plans.

I have two associations with vomiting when it comes to that being a dream symbol or something approached metaphorically.
1) Sometimes in more nightmarish dreams, it'll represent someon being "sick" or "ill", so it's representing that something isn't quite right.
2) In this case, it has a meaning closer to that of real-life vomiting when people do ayahuasca rituals or certain types of breathwork--vomiting as a physical manifestation of a psychological release. "Purgation" in the psychological sense of releasing feelings that have been trapped.

So, taking the dream symbols thus far and putting them into a more literal form:

• I was trying to get to my next class (i.e. do the tasks I need to do for everyday life that are associated with a sort of masculine/hard-working persona) but I got lost (i.e. I became unable to continue doing that)
• This spiritual guide in the rural place told me that I need to vomit in order to return, i.e. I need to connect with and release emotional things that are preventing me from being able to do work: this is the "disencumbrance".

in other words, i got there because of a psychodrama and i needed a further psychodrama to return. the psychological process by which i traveled was one that was musical, theatrical, and dramatic. it involved fantastical places and things and a process that shouldn't have been possible.

Basically, there was a sort of Alice in Wonderland effect where things suddenly became surrealistic or expressionistic. They don't make sense in a normal way, but there is something poignant or impactful about dream contents. The literal events of the dream don't make sense in a real-world way, but in emotional or poetic language there is some sense to them. The mode of expression is indirect but the meanings expressed by that medium can thereby be more profound.

it is noteworthy as well that there were gender aspects of the initial displacement where the reason i got away from the male locker room in the first place was because i wandered into a female one.

I'm presently understanding this gender identity sort of element as follows:

• Male = normal/workaholic/productive/aloof/controlled self
• Female = sensitive/emotional/personal/vulnerable/erratic self

It's Taoist or Jungian dichotomies. Perhaps there is some association with real-life gender roles but it is a bit more abstract or psychological than something like whether or not a person wears types of clothing.

Though it is interesting that I would mention that now when clothing is something I've been thinking about, the way that one's style of dress expresses a certain kind of personality, identity, or public image. And asking what sort of public image I am now trying to present. At some point, I made a decision to convert my daily wardrobe almost entirely to black clothing. At the time, I viewed it as manifesting a sort of "goth" aesthetic. Black is a color that can be associated with death/suffering but also with a kind of strong power. It's a bit ambiguous whether the black is referring to some kind of deep woundedness in the feminine element, or to the sort of intrepid/independent/alienated explorer who stands amidst the wreckage of the repressed feminine and proudly asserts themselves and is able to thrive despite this.

Prior to switching to black clothing, black was one of three types of clothing I wore. In terms of the personality system, black was 1 (masculine) & 2 (expressionist), I had some soft (in image) clothes that were 3 (vulnerability), and I had some more colorful clothes that were 4 (playful sanguine).

For me, "goth" and "metal" musical aesthetics are deeply similar and it is only a matter of mode. Musically, I have always been fascinated by the fact that when the "noise" of metal is increased to a certain level, there are some genres like atmospheric sludge metal (or to use a more common example though it isn't metal, My Bloody Valentine and the shoegaze genre as a whole) where noise is increased but leveraged in a way that has an overall effect of being calming or neutralizing. Sort of like the intensity or energy creates a wall of sound. It is as though at a certain point, if one keeps increasing, eventually there's an overflow error of sorts and one ends up at the opposite end of the spectrum in "ambient" music. Like in some video games where if one walks off one edge of the screen, the screen wraps around and one ends up on the other side.

I'd say that what makes music ambient (and by analogy, what makes psychological experiences have a feeling of equanimity) is that there is a sort of stability or concentration to them where they change relatively slowly. In some cases, it is a matter of looking at what's there and trying to find something stable that unifies the changes. In a musical context, it is as though there is one dimension on which things are droning (i.e. remaining largely the same) and then there is an independent dimension of level of energy on which maybe ambient tends to be low-energy/low-tension while certain atmospheric forms of metal might be high-energy/high-tension. But they both have the same type of stability, and that's what makes them both atmospheric--the relative lack of change or "joltiness" to them.

What's fascinating is that with music, even joltiness can become something that one habituates to. If one is listening to atonal or sharp/aggressive music, at a certain point that starts to feel normal and it is as though the intensity levels out and becomes something that feels comfortable. In a dietary context, it feels a bit like enjoying spicy food. And because one habituates to that thing, one wishes for things to stay at that level. If one were eating a meal that was spicy and suddenly the spiciness disappeared, one would feel as though something were missing or had been dropped that was meant to be there. In the same way, when listening to very intense/noisy music, I feel as though there's some disequilibrium if suddenly the music changes to something less intense or less dark or whatever.

So musically and psychologically, what I value if I'm approaching things from this aesthetic is flow/equanimity or minimization of bumps/jolts. But there are different ways of thinking about this. One is to prefer things that are calm over those that are intense. But the broader view that I tend to subscribe to is to prefer whatever is there--and then wait for it to transform into something else. Because there is this habituation that I mentioned above where if I'm feeling very intense, that intensity is actually experienced as something pleasurable or positive if I'm able to identify with it. It actually ends up feeling abrasive to try to repress, repel, or undermine that intensity. If I have a desire to listen to death metal, it feels "abrasive" emotionally to listen to something that is more calm or upbeat.

It's like there are two different conceptions of health or well-being:

1) Decreasing negative feelings and maximizing positive ones

[i.e. try to do actions that tend to create emotional/physical states in which one has an innate preference for calm things and is able to experience equanimity through those calm things)

2) Flow through what is there and trust that it has healing potential irrespective of its level of intensity or positivity

(i.e. experience equanimity by approaching whatever one presently desires that is of the same level of intensity as one is; peace is experienced through identifying with what is there. E.g. if you have a desire to listen to abrasive metal music, then you feel pleasure when you listen to that.)

The first strategy is cognitive-behavioral: do and think things that tend to increase positive experiences and reduce negative experiences. Apply problem-solving, planning, and preventative measures to gradually experience control over one's mental states in the long-term. (E.g. if I know that I feel miserable when I get only 4 hours of sleep, then try to plan a life situation in which I'm able to get more sleep.)

The second approach is psychodynamic/humanistic/experiential (and in my own associations, also spiritual/religious). Apply humility, reverence, trust, faith, acceptance, creativity, love, open-mindedness, intuition, etc. to harmonize with what is there and reach a state of flow or unity that is more generalized or less dependent on the specific contents of one's experience. (E.g. if I feel good, then it is what God has given me. If I feel bad, it is what God has given me and I am grateful for the unforeseen growth potential, wisdom, etc. that is latent in that.)

These are different styles or approaches to listening as well.

but when i got back to the male one, everything was where it should have been and the problem was when i left the male locker room in order to proceed out into the world. then at that point, i wasn't able to find the gathering point where everybody else was. so it was something i was able to simulate perfectly in private, this locker room addition of the male persona, but when i tried to enact it publicly, something broke down or stopped working.

I don't feel a strong emotional pull or attraction to what I've written here. I'm understanding it as saying something along the lines of, "I'm able to act out the masculine persona pretty well in private but when I try to do it in public, it feels like it's almost too dishonest and at that point the charade/facade starts to become a source of stress/anxiety".

Maybe there's a different way of understanding this that makes more sense. Like, something that comes to mind for me is, I was okay with being pretty dishonest and task-oriented at my workplace... but in recent months as that's started to become the *primary* way in which I engage with people on this site through my listener account... by leveraging a sort of task-oriented, organizational, logical/rational vibe... maybe there's something about that that's a bit stressful, if I had some idea prior to joining this site that both my listener and member personae would be embodiments of a certain kind of vulnerability or softness. To have my listener account becoming pretty bland and institutionalized, like the sensitive and chaotic elements have been stripped from it and now it's just a husk of a business suit performing tasks and following/submitting orders, maybe that feels like a problem.

//the necessity of vomiting is the necessity of purgation. which in this case and situation refers to the split between the masculine and feminine when it comes to 7 cups and work tasks.

I already explained this above.

in the case of 7 cups i have been adopting personae that are different in two ways. first, instead of a caring figure, i have become a tyrannical workhorse of an organizational bent. but people have been unresponsive.

Oh, yeah this is exactly what I was just talking about.

The part about people being unresponsive is probably just a complaint that other people aren't as extreme on the J dimension of MBTI as I am, or that they haven't yet attained the same satori of peak OCD, lol.

The genuinely ironic thing is that I have been completely floundering in my real life work for weeks, maybe I'd say even months. If I'm being honest, it corresponds to when I rejoined 7 Cups on the listener side. As soon as I started taking that on, my energetic commitment to my real-life work decreased, and also my 7 Cups tasks increased. So, the bursts and excess energy tend to be directed toward 7 Cups rather than my job. My work productivity has plummeted in general, though it's arguable that some of that is also attributable to the coronavirus and being in a personal space full of distractions where it is easy to not do work.

So, there's admittedly a bit of hypocrisy where I'm a bit unhappy with others' lack of productivity on the 7 Cups side, yet at my IRL job I've managed to stay afloat based on others' forgiving/trusting attitudes toward me in assuming that I will do the work that I need to (and me riding on my own coattails of past experience with being very responsible and good about getting things done).

This week, I've been obsessively following the election and I know yesterday, I had a sort of attitude of, "Once the election is called, I will have a burden lifted and I'll be able to work freely," so I tethered my productivity to the hope that the networks would call the election--as it is basically statistically settled at this point and the only possible deviation from that expected result would be some kind of legal [or illegal] challenge to the results or the broader voting/election system. But the call never came, so the coiled-up spring never was given permission to uncoil.

I'm frustrated with myself for how unproductive I have been in my real-life job. My personal to-do list has been in shambles for weeks, but I've finally yesterday found a new organizational system for it which I will experiment with. Instead of a .txt file, I remembered that I have Outlook installed on my personal computer. So, I'm able to have an actual calendar like everybody else living in the 21st century, which allows automating recurring items. For tasks that aren't as set-in-stone or deadline-driven, I'm able to use the Tasks feature of Outlook (which I have never used) to create a series of lists with rich text formatting, which is fantastic. And everything is very easy to view.

I suspect that my having implemented this organization system is one explanation for why I had a dream at all. One theory would be that I haven't had very many dreams for weeks/months because my mind has been cluttered with unorganized to-do list items. And now that everything is written down somewhere, I am free to forget about it and trust that the system will track everything, so by dumping my conscious worries to an "external hard drive" of sorts, suddenly there is a lot more space to roam around in and I'm beginning to have dreams again in which my mind is free to roam around.

secondly, i have been attracted to my listener account instead of my member account, precisely because of the lack of intimacy or vulnerability that occurs on there.

I think I described this above as well. The fact that my listener account started off with the idea of being an outlet for an emotional/feminine part of myself. But in actual practice, that has been relegated almost entirely to my member account (and even that is debatable lol) and my listener account is now an extension of my IRL work persona.

It's not necessarily a problem and it may be very good, because my work persona has some very admirable and helpful qualities. But, it would mean that things are operating in a way that's different from what I expected.

Perhaps listening or helping on this site isn't so much me caring for others through leveraging some existing sense of vulnerability, but rather at least in the roles where I am and the activities I'm currently doing, it is something much more similar to a job where there are simply things to be done and a pretty ruthlessly perfectionistic/organizational/left-brained/strategic approach is suitable.

it is a bit of a faceless presence. i am able to engage with the contents of others' vulnerabilities and process them but as in psychoanalysis, the therapist himself remains neutral and unknowable. although i do try to communicate through my actions and words that i am someone who is not simply standing there as a stone statue ready to strike and be cruel or violent toward the person who is vulnerable, but that my default position is one of nurturance and acceptance. which is in some way a positive presence. reflection has these qualities, but warmth can be added or subtracted in good measure. i've had listeners who were very intelligent and excellent at understanding but who lacked something when it came to reassuring me or being warm and comforting insofar as impressing upon me that they wouldn't attempt to alter or reshape what i was saying. it had the feeling of someone using a vacuum to gather information out of me which they would then use to harm me or do god knows what else. and at a certain point, i felt that it couldn't continue. even if their questions were provocative, even if they were to try to justify it in the guise of helping me explore or learn more about myself, i can't do it if there's someone there who can't be trusted to leave the results of that process alone. and that trust is established primarily by validating or aligning with the contents and expressing that there is something acceptable about them.

There's empathy in the sense of being able to follow or understand what someone is saying. And then there's unconditional positive regard in the sense of establishing a feeling that you're not going to try to destroy/damage what is there or do anything that might unduly hurt the other person.

My point is that some listeners are incredibly psychologically minded and very good at understanding what other people are saying and drawing insights. But, at least from my own biased position, if the unconditional positive regard is absent, then it's difficult to trust them.

An alternative way of conceptualizing this would be to include both of these ideas into the concept of empathy and say that their empathic understanding didn't go far enough. They were able to understand the things that were being said, but not the context behind the scenes of the fragility/vulnerability associated with the things being shared, and the potential risks to the whole person of wandering into that territory.

//i understand the reticence or reluctance to do this as aligning with the contents of someone's psyche could in some cases contradict the listener's own values. furthermore, it could be seen as trying to enable things that are unhealthy. but i feel that there is something inherently problematic about the stance of assuming that a person is unhealthy and then trying to solve, react to, or uproot the unhealthy thing. i see there as being a couple different positions from which one can do listening. and one position is one in which all things are healthy and it is simply a matter of balance, calibration, prioritization, or allowing things to flow and move in the ways that make the most sense. the other position is to say that there some things that are genuinely not good or intrinsically not helpful.

This is contrasting cognitive-behavioral values with humanistic values.

CBT values: Unhealthy things should be fixed/corrected, even if that process is painful or goes against what you want.
Humanistic values: Refusal to impose fixes/corrections because it violates values of personal freedom/autonomy, and because it's a jerk move to hurt people

I've thought before about psychodynamic values as being aligned with humanistic values in being depth-oriented but being aligned with cognitive-behavioral values in sometimes being callous toward suffering and prioritizing insight/awareness over supportiveness. But this is all just my own head-canon. All three types of therapists can possess all of the positive qualities of any of the others.

But I guess I now have a list of the dominant positive traits of each of the different systems:
1) Cognitive-behavioral: helping people solve problems, feel better, feel a sense of control
2) Humanistic: helping people feel safe, accepted, okay with themselves [I got a warm/cuddly shiver up my spine just writing that haha)
3) Psychodynamic: helping people gain insight/awareness

If someone presented with suffering that seemed to be because of unhealthy behaviors, the CBT person would probably be more likely to point out the causal connection between the behaviors and emotions and try to strategize how to change them. The humanistic person might recognize that pattern too but they'd abstain from mentioning it unless if the other person spontaneously mentioned it, and they'd focus on just trying to align with whatever the person's concerns are. The psychodynamic person would take the same tactic as the humanistic person. Those two seem like they're really joined at the hip on some things and it's just a matter of technique. Maybe it's just that some approaches are contraindicated for some problems/persons.

//but i suppose the two positions could be unified by the belief that in some cases, there are imbalances or things that are out of proportion or happening in an extreme way, and there will be natural currents or energies or forces that conspire to move things back toward whatever direction is completionist or helping the picture to work as it wishes. one conception of this process is to see it as something fatalistic, as though it were a god or divine force controlling the person, that the unconscious is dominant and that it cannot be permanently defeated, that the submerged powers will always find a way to prevail, and that it is often good if this is allowed to happen, so then the process of listening or helping is that of walking with a person as they go through this journey, empathizing with everything that is happening, and allowing them to behave in whatever way they wish toward the incipient forces, but never trying to discourage them if they spontaneously have a desire to explore or dive into the feelings that are there, and when these feelings do come, being accepting of them.

I wore myself out writing the last bit. I feel like this type of understanding is predominantly spiritual rather than psychological. It is something that I'm only able to describe well through a Christian lens. Psychological approaches involve a certain amount of strategizing. Spiritual approaches entail surrender and trusting in something unknowable. What makes it unknowable is the fact that you can't strategize it and you can't describe it in a way that is going to remain truthful.

So, there's a dimension of attitude toward the unknown or what is natural/not human. To use the masculine/feminine distinction again, masculinity tries to conquer it through reasoning, action, and power. Femininity adores or reveres it and tries its very best to avoid obstructing its beauty. In masculinity, action and thinking are positive so long as they achieve positive results. In femininity, there is a recognition that even constructive attempts at action and thinking sometimes falter or have a way of spoiling or staining natural things. There are some positive results that can only be had by having faith and trusting something that isn't readily understandable.

But this sort of assumes that the natural forces are always good or worth yielding/acceding to. And that's where the debate is I guess.

I hadn't thought about it, but perhaps this connects back to debates in Protestantism vs. Catholicism with respect to individual revelation. Or even within Catholicism, I remember reading about the quietism heresy. The view of Guyon, Fenelon, Molinos, etc. (called quietism) was that one can simply entrust oneself to divine inspiration and abandon oneself to the will of God. The view of the more orthodox/mainstream Catholic tradition is that this is heretical insofar as one still has to follow external rules, one can't necessarily trust that the incoming impulses are divine (i.e. it could be Satan whispering into your ear), and so while there is still absolutely a place for individual mysticism and it is the heart of religious experiences, religious practice is fundamentally grounded in obedience/submission to a set of laws or rules.

It's an interesting debate and one that I haven't thought about for a while. It definitely is the main dividing point between theologically conservative and liberal positions. The conservative view tends to trust written words, rules, laws, and teachings and use those as a starting point to try to build up a consciously controlled course of action. The liberal view is more likely to begin primarily from inner experience and trust in that even if it leads in directions that contradict scripture/teachings/laws. This is oversimplifying things because I don't have a theological background and just am a hobbyist (and very out of practice at that), but it's interesting. The problem is that if you're liberally minded, religion tends to be inherently conservative; criticizing or disputing the value of scripture or certain passages in scripture tends to not go over well. I can't really call myself a Christian if I don't believe in the inerrancy of scripture or if my point of reference is predominantly inner experience and the external code of conduct and laws/rules are something that I might glance at occasionally but otherwise I am largely improvising and doing my own thing. That type of approach is more Satanic (i.e. individualist anarchist/libertarian), and if I had to choose whether to identify as a Christian or a Satanist, I'd probably sooner call myself a Satanist.

//the second position or other stance or approach to listening would say that these forces are sometimes not entirely good. there are some evils in the unconscious which can be called evil in that they may represent completely unsolvable problems or feelings where the more that one explores them, the more liable one is to become completely buried in them or fall entirely underwater into a depth that one cannot extricate oneself from without first rejecting or distracting from the unconscious forces. the metaphor of a jungle that one wanders through to reach the other side is then rejected. there are some jungles that are simply too dense, too terrifying, or too dangerous to wander through safely, or the cost of achieving that passage is too great for a person to pay without tremendous changes occurring that would upend what little stability is still remaining.

Yeah, this is basically the position of, "Some feelings really are unhealthy, and if your instincts are molded through experience, you intuitively know when those start occurring that you shouldn't really trust them or indulge them because it just tends to not go well."

The counter to this is that it's impossible to permanently squelch or suppress anything. If you start from the position of "This feeling is unhealthy so I vow to never experience or identify with it," then it's giving that feeling increased power and it will eventually increase to the point where all of one's identity structures collapse gloriously and one has no choice but to accept the unacceptable and allow it some breathing room.

Addictions seem like an area where this type of conflict would be especially relevant, and the CBT-esque arguments feel stronger. The purest humanistic approach would say that like, if a person wants to shoot heroin and suffer an unfortunate accidental demise in the process, that is their choice and they should be allowed to freely do that, although it still remains unfortunate and something possibly avoidable. The CBT approach would be to try to do everything you can to figure out a way to get that person to stop. The middle ground would be to have a preference toward stopping but recognize that the journey to getting there might not be direct or straightforward, and that probably there has to be some acceptance or identification with the principles and feelings that promote drug usage, and there has to be a two-sidedness to it. It's not just "drugs are bad--don't do them" but relating to and empathizing with the impulses, feelings, and thoughts associated with the drug use and understnding the ways in which drug use makes a person feel good or happy or whole. In other words, having an actual Socratic dialogue in which all options are permitted--rather than the outcome being predetermined of like, "You must quit drugs and it is my job to get you to reach that point."

For the record, I am not using drugs, though I definitely have some behavioral addictions.

I remember talking with a friend of mine who worked in a hospital, and he'd describe to me how there were patients who had to be given drugs or put into restraints. And he took the position that it was necessary, not just to protect the hospital staff, but based on a kind of disdain toward the psychological processes, as if there were something very deeply unhealthy there that had to be restrained, crushed, or cured. I can understand where he's coming from but I can't fully agree with it. E.g. psychologists like R.D. Laing and others were able to approach schizophrenia as something human and find ways of relating to it and stepping into its perspective and drawing a bridge between that reality and consensus reality. The fact of the matter is, there are often very good reasons to prefer unreality over reality, lol. What I love about Laing is how he is able to empathize with the very human and understandable reasons for psychosis--of course psychosis feels like something necessary if you look at how rotten the alternative is.

//the spiritual schools that aspire toward a sort of ego death or identitylessness, even if one were to interpret them in emotional or psychological ways rather than in mystical or metaphysical ways, would align themselves with the view that this type of deconstruction as it occurs by wandering in a vast jungle, is something positive. i am sure though that some of my friends who have experienced depersonalization episodes would likely disagree with this. it is no comfort to lose all of one's bearings, and the resulting state of being absent of a clear sense of who one is is not necessarily healthy. here it is that authoritarian psychological influences could intervene and say that the suffering experienced in this state is irrelevant and that it should be considered healthy on account of its inherent properties, or those stated by wise people who have ventured forth. and therefore that if a person distrusts it, it is only because of their own delusion.

Alluding to some kind of gap between psychodynamic and humanistic approaches. Described some of this above. And this kind of gap exists in some spiritual approaches. There are very sharp approaches where it's like, "If you're being tortured, then that's necessary and you just have to deal with it as a means to an end toward spiritual awakening." And gradual/supportive approaches that might be more like, "Uh, that looks really uncomfortable and like you're biting off more than you can chew. I don't want you to suffer too much."

Hm, but as stated that way, the gradual approach might sometimes contradict a person's will. If they really want to go into a deep, scary, dark place and explore those feelings... then yeah, respecting their freedom/autonomy ought to entail that you say, "For sure, if that's what you want to talk about, I'd be happy to join you there." I guess maybe what I'm questioning is attitudes or approaches in which "awareness/insight" is given precedence over "freedom/autonomy". So, people like my ex-boyfriend who believe that it's completely good and fine to tear people open and try to make them "realize" things for the sake of expanding their awareness--even if those people don't feel comfortable doing that.

But you could ask about how this plays out on a social/political level. If someone has a "delusion" and you believe they're misperceiving something, do you have a right to correct them? Does that right only exist if the person's actions are injurious to others--if so, how do you define that or where is the line between personal preferences and dangerous social harm?

//this is a stance or position that i find extraordinarily repugnant. the implication is that people cannot be trusted to evaluate for themselves what is good for them. which is returning to the original problem of whether listening is something that involves trusting a person or something that involves trying to take some parts of the person and amplify them or diminish other parts. a third conception that is still more suggestion or directively based would be to see listening as something where a listener is permitted to make some suggestions or offer new options or possibilities in response to what the client has shared, but that the client retains the freedom to accept or reject these propositions without being coerced or persuaded or pressured to accept them.

I'm recalling reading something by Barbara Brodley, a respected person-centered therapist/theorist, saying that if she has a client ask her for her opinion on something, she'll oblige and provide her opinion--and she feels like that's consistent with humanistic/client-centered principles of non-directivity in that you're respecting the client's wishes. She'll also do CBT exercises, provide homework, etc. if that's what the client wants. The key thing is just "if that's what the client wants". The broad principle from what I'm undersatnding from this is just to respect people's freedom/will/autonomy.

[I see that the presidential election just got called. LOL, good. One less thing to worry about. I can put it on my calendar to stress about the Senate come late December/early January when the two runoff elections are happening and there are all kinds of polling/modeling/predictions happening there. I think what people are most upset about with the polling isn't that the result was wrong but that it offered a false reassurance--with significant confidence--that the result would be a landslide/blowout and a repudiation of Trumpism. When in fact the opposite occurred: the D's lost House seats and they probably won't win enough in the Senate to be able to implement their agenda, assuming that a R-lead Senate would have McConnell employing the same tactics as he did in the latter Obama years of preventing any D-leaning legislative priorities from passing.)

//but i have some disagreement with this. if a person who is in a position or role such as listening asks a client to entertain or consider a possibility, what they are doing there is already persuasion.

I mean sure. I don't want to say that suggestions are universally appropriate. But maybe if you have befriended someone and you do feel like you know them and their inner mental situation pretty well, you start to have increased authority to speak supportively to try to offer what you feel synchronizes best with their wishes as you understand them. It wouldn't pure client-centered counseling for sure, but I guess that's where you have to decide whether you're most interested in being an orthodox counselor or being an effective counselor. (Which is a pretty slanted way of expressing it. But basically I feel like the rules are general rules of thumb, and I ought to be able to follow my gut feelings and do what feels right.) In much the same way that the listener training says, "Always try to ask open questions." But then if you look at the listener primer, it's mentioned in there that some people just don't respond well to open questions or if they're saying repeatedly "I don't know" (like having them answer an open question is a huge imposition), then closed questions can be more effective. So, I like that kind of stylistic flexibility or fluidity or eclecticism... where maybe 80-90% of the time, a certain vanilla approach works pretty well, but in the cases where it doesn't, then your instincts kick in and recognize "this isn't going quite the way it normally does" and making adjustments.

Someone else I was talking to criticized me for being too slow to make those adjustments and getting too stuck in a certain style or mode of listening that wasn't situationally appropriate. I don't really trust their opinions on this though. When the roles were reversed, they didn't demonstrate to me that they had the same level of competence as me in doing the "vanilla" approach. They're right that it wasn't an ideal situation, but there were a lot of confounding elements. (I'm being vague but discussing private chats in a public setting is a no-no. This actually happened a really long time ago, so it's not a recent event. It's just something that still sticks in my mind a little.)

perhaps they could preface it by expressing that these thoughts, strategies, or perspectives are strictly their own and that they wish for the client to reject them immediately and at their own pleasure if it seems as though it is something unhelpful. that connects to the distinction between advice-giving and suggestions. advice-giving is coercion with a sense of absolute power or imposition, as if to say, "this is objectively the correct thing and you ought to do it based on my better or superior understanding of the situation." whereas the suggestion option would be something more along the lines of, "these are my own reactions or interpretations or feelings or responses after having absorbed and understood what you have described, and while trying to interpose myself into the emotional situation and imagine how i might react or respond. but, it is to be understood that these are nothing but my own responses and that there is no objectivity or absoluteness to them. i am a person on an equal plane with you, and perhaps i may have some experience in grappling with emotional situations or in making decisions, or i might have some experience with the process of trying to resolve and explore conflicts. in that sense, perhaps i have something to offer, or i might be able to explain or describe the problem in insightful or evocative ways that help provoke a feeling of escape as though suddenly the complex or mystified problem becomes something tangible, intelligible, expressible, and ultimately seeable by another human being and it ceases to have the same quality of desolation or alienation or irresolvability. But you understand that in this situation, i am still a co-traveler, and ultimately i have to have an attitude of reverence toward the conscious and unconscious forces at play in the other person's mind, as they do not belong to me, and i am only a visitor rather than someone with a scientific or doctoral pedigree who has been given permission to tamper with what's there.

Yeah, I've already covered all of this. I think in general, there is sometimes but not always a conflict between "what is healthy for a person" and "what the person freely wishes to do". And in nearly all cases, the best starting point is to trust the person's free wishes. More often than not, if you give a person space to express why they want to do something really unhealthy/destructive, they'll turn around and in the next breath start taking the opposite side of telling themselves why it's wrong. So things are rarely as one-sided as they seem to be.

//in this view of reverence, the vast jungle is still a dangerous place perhaps and something to be feared, but one can still marvel at the variety of species of life in the rainforest. it is a vast, dense, deep place. there is so much happening that is to be seen as inspiring and deeply holy. the natural creatures and plants and all else are doing what they need to do. everything is there without human effort.

That's what I'm calling the "spiritual" perspective I guess, though as described above there's a lot of diversity in spiritual perspectives too.

9:19 am

Current mood: crushing it.

<--- actual photograph of me getting work done. You can tell I'm focused when my eyes glow red.

I won't complain, lol.

I'm really grateful for this thread at the moment. There are things I want to say but which I can't say on my listener account because it contradicts the ideal of a listener account basically being primarily altruistic. These things are very self-centered.

I had something overwhelmingly positive happen today--I got some of the highest/best praise I've ever received in my whole life... let alone on this site.

I've been "struggling" with my reactions to that. Which is just to say that I've been torn between so many different directions.

***

1) I had an initial burst of excitement, kind of like "Wow, holy **** this is amazing."

2) And then something kind of like wanting to share the news with a bunch of people (that I got this insanely positive praise), almost like a child being really proud of a picture and wanting to show it to their parents and have them hang it on the fridge.

3) Then, I started having all kinds of counter-reactions. (I really like the Buddhist/Christian understanding of humility as something that is grounded in a deeply held belief or empirically based understanding that certain self-conceptions are unrealistic or unhelpful.) Things along the lines of:

• What this person said is temporary
• It's easier to be yourself and be natural if you don't take this praise too seriously
• This isn't actually happiness identifying with this because this isn't something you can keep or continue to be

4) Then a sort of deep feeling in my stomach (where I can't entirely discount the possibility of sleep deprivation or weird diet as a contributing factor)... that I feel is almost like, the re-awakening of a certain feeling of loneliness. Sort of like, the thing that I craved is suddenly here, so it becomes okay to acknowledge that I want it. Now that it's raining, it's safe for the earthworms to go above ground. (Though again that makes it unsafe on the listener side because that loneliness is really powerful and also really self-centered, so I'm a bit afraid of it.) I have someone who understands my values/ideals and appreciates them as much as I do.

There's always been a conundrum in my life that I've pictured allegorically as "Van Gogh's paintings collecting dust in an attic"--the concept of someone doing something really extraordinary/superlative but having it be viewed by other people as complete rubbish or indistinguishable from things that are so much worse. Like "pearls before swine"--giving a 5-year-old the most sublime food and having them prefer chicken nuggets instead. It's unbelievably rare to have someone not only understand what I'm doing but benefit from it. It's rare for me to feel like some of the peaks that I've reached (that feel so necessary for me) might also be something overwhelmingly valuable or irreplaceable for someone else. Like there are things that only I am able to do, and my presence in the world is a boon to the other people who are also looking for exactly that thing and haven't been able to find it.

5) At some point I had a reaction that I can only describe as objectivity... reading the praise that had been given to me as if it weren't about me at all. Like a sort of smooth serenity of being able to read it and not have any unsettling feelings, and feeling like I was able to maintain a macro level focus (i.e. how does this sort of thing affect people in general, how is this helpful to the world) without feeling any sort of sharp personal reactions.

6) Then various fears about keeping all of this complexity to myself and giving a sort of shallow response of gratitude to the person who praised me that isn't adequately acknowledging how many things I've been feeling.