V. Going For It
In an attempt to understand why people do things, the field of psychotherapy has developed many models that they later found out simply weren't the case. However, many psychologists continue to hang on to them. We still have people who are looking for Ids and Egos, and they're as likely to find that as a "parent," a "child," or an "adult." I think that most psychologists must have watched too many horror movies when they were children. "You have a parent, an adult, and a child inside you that make you do things," It sounds like you need to be exorcised. People used to say, "The devil, made me do it." Now they say, "My parts made me do it."
"Well, you're just saying this because your 'parent' is talking.
"No I'm not; she's all the way back in New Jersey!"
Transactional Analysis is a device for separating behaviors into three parts — a little like multiple personality, except TA is supposed to be a cure. If you're really advanced, you get to have nine parts, because each of the first three parts has a parent, adult, and child inside of them] I never liked TA because only the child got to have any fun, and only the adult could be reasonable. Everyone has to have exactly the same parts, so there's no room for any individuality. TA is also a segregated society: my adult can't talk to your child, it can only talk to your adult. Why can't my child talk to your parent? It doesn't seem lair. But boy, can you convince people of that. How many of you bought that idea? Somebody explained it to you, and you thought, "Oh, yeah." Not everybody in the world has a parent, adult, and child that argue with each other. You won't find much of that in Tahiti. You have to go to a therapist to learn to have those problems.
How many of you have a "critical parent" voice inside you that berates you and tries to coerce you into doing things? If somebody suggests to you that there's a voice inside you that criticizes you all the time, and you start listening for it, guess what? You can install one. One interesting thing you can do is to agree with that critical voice, over and over again, until you drive it crazy. Another thing you can do is to change its location. Find out what happens if you hear that same voice coining out of your left big toe, . . . That change in location certainly changes the impact of that voice, doesn't it?
However, keep in mind that your critical voice could be right about what it's saying. Maybe you ought to listen to what it says, instead of just feeling bad. I'd like to show you what you can do with a critical voice that makes you feel bad; who has a nice loud one?
Fred: I've got one all the time.
Good. Can you hear it now?
Fred: Yes, it's criticizing me for speaking up.
Great. Ask if it will tell you what it wants for you that is positive, and listen to what it answers. Does that voice want you to be protected in some way? Does it want you to be more competent? There are many possibilities.
Fred: It wants me to succeed; it criticizes me when I stick my neck out.
OK, I assume that you agree with its intention. You want to succeed, too, right? Fred: Yes. Sure.
Ask that voice if it believes it has good information that would be useful for you to have and understand. . . . Fred: It says, "Of course."
Since it has good information, ask that voice if it would be willing to try changing the way it talks to you, if that would make it easier for you to listen and understand, so that you could succeed better. . . .
Fred: It's skeptical, but it's willing to try.
Good. Now, Fred, I want to ask you to think of ways that voice could be different, so that you would listen to it better. For instance, if it used a different voice tone that was soft and friendly, would you be more apt to pay close attention to it? Would it help if that voice gave you specific helpful instructions about what to do next, rather than criticize what you've already done?
Fred: I've thought of a couple of things it could do differently.
Good. Ask the voice if it would be willing to try those out, to find out if you actually do listen better if it talks to you differently. . . .
Fred: It's willing.
Tell it to go ahead and try it out. . . .
Fred: That's amazing. It's doing it, and it's not a "critical parent" any more. It's more like a friendly helper now. It's a pleasure to listen to it.
Sure. Who wants to listen to a voice that yells and criticizes? Real parents should try this technique too, when they want their kids to listen to them. If you use a nice tonality, children will listen to you. They may not agree with what you say, but at least they'll hear it. This procedure is something we've been calling "Refraining," and it's the basis for a set of negotiation skills that are useful in family therapy and business, as well as inside your own brain. If you want to learn more about it, read the book Reframing. The point I want to make here is that Fred's voice had forgotten its outcome until I reminded it. It wanted to motivate him to succeed, but all it was actually accomplishing was to make him feel bad.
While the women's liberation movement has had much positive impact, in some ways it has done the same thing. The original goal was to motivate people to change the way they think about and treat women. Women got educated about what kinds of behaviors are sexist. Now when someone else makes a sexist remark, you have to feel bad! It doesn't strike me as progress that now the "liberated" people have to feel bad when someone else uses a sexist word! What kind of liberation is that? That's just like being a kid, and when someone called you "stupid" or "ugly," it was time to feel bad and cry. People used to use sexist words and nobody noticed; now when they use those words, it's time to groan. Some liberation! Now you have a new set of reasons to feel bad. I used to go around to night clubs and pick out women who would react that way. "There's a good one. Watch this. I can make her feel terrible." "Hi chick." "Arragon!"
If you don't want people to use sexist language, it makes better sense to make them feel bad when they do it. That's a lot more fun, and a lot more effective, . . . and a lot more liberated, too.
One thing I like to do is go after women when they make sexist remarks.
A woman will say, "Well, the girls in the office — "
"How old are they?"
"Huh? They're in their 30V
"You call them girls! They're women, you sexist pig! Do you call your husband a boy?"
If you do something to make people feel bad when they make sexist remarks, that at least puts the motivation to change where it belongs—in the person whose behavior you want to change. However, criticizing and attacking people really isn't the best way to get them to change. The best way is to discover how they already motivate themselves, and use that.
If you ask a lot of weird questions, and if you're persistent, you can find out how anyone does anything, including motivation. Many people are troubled by "lack of motivation," and one example of that is not being able to get up in the morning. If we study those people, we can find out how not to wake up, which could be of use to insomniacs. Everything that people can do is useful to someone, somewhere, sometime. But let's find out how someone wakes up easily and quickly, without drugs. Who in here regularly wakes up easily in the morning?
Betty: I get up easily.
OK. How do you get yourself up?