For the paper, I'm working on a way to present my "technique", which
mostly involves me stubbornly not believing clients when they say "I (or
someone else: boss, friends, parents, etc.) could have done otherwise".
My hypothesis is that by undermining that FW belief of theirs, especially
around areas connected to their neurosis, they can feel better and do
better.

Most people aren't up for full-blown determinism, at least at the
beginning. Often determinism is the end result, after a long time in
therapy, after ample evidence that it's getting the client somewhere. In
practice, I resort to convincing people that the most useful, practical
healing assumption is that they could not have done otherwise.

I think a dialogue form might be best. Since my technique can best be
described as directed conversation, it's best illustrated by a real-life
example.

I'm not really calling "dibs", this could be the theme we all choose, we'll
all have different enough approaches to make it interesting.

Maybe I could ask a client if I could tape a session, and get their
pemission to release it. Bob and others, do you have any experience
with this?

Bob: I agree with Tom, it's a good idea but let's do the other paper
first, if you're willing.

Ken



-- In cfntherapy@yahoogroups.com, "twclark2002" <twc@n...> wrote:
>
> Ken,
>
> What you've suggested below about limiting the scope and claims of
> the paper looks good. I guess I see my role as helping with the
> background/intro sections on naturalism and in editing, while the
> therapists (you, Bob, Clay, and anyone else that's interested) take
> on the nitty gritty of saying exactly how they use
> naturalism/determinism in their practice.
>
> Re this latter bit, perhaps we need some vignettes, case studies,
> scenarios, etc. that illustrate the sort of language and techniques
> employed, so we make it concrete. If each therapist contributed one
> such element, it would help flesh out the paper.
>
> The other thing that needs doing is a literature search so that the
> paper is put in context of other work heading in the same
> direction. Anyone want to take that on? A beginning is the paper
> I've put in the files section, and Bob did some preliminary work on
> this a couple of years back when we first started corresponding.
>
> The other thing I just did was to go over our posts thus far and to
> 1) extract relevant ideas in bullet format (necessarily just my take
> on what's most important) 2) paste in preliminary sketches and
> elements and prior work (Herb's) from posts and 3) start an author
> and reference list. I put this document in the files
> section "Therapy Paper Notes."
>
> Clay, we're thinking of you, and hope you beat this thing quickly.
>
> Tom
>
>
> --- In cfntherapy@yahoogroups.com, "Ken Batts" <ken@k...> wrote:
> >
> > Tom: Your comment about our significant overlap, moving past our
> > differences, and Clay's comment about the complexity of our
> > determinants inspired a thought:
> >
> > The good aspect of post-modernism is the one which recognizes
that
> > it's not as easy to know things as we thought it was way back in
> modern
> > times. Maybe we should build this into our model of therapy and
> frame
> > it rather more modestly than our modernist brains want to. I think
> this
> > will make the model and the paper more useful. For example, the
> paper
> > could take the following form:
> >
> > Intro consisting of two sections:
> >
> > 1) A discussion of naturalism and specifically NFW ism and how we
> > think it implies certain things for human behavior (change the way
> we
> > think of blame, retribution, causality, morality and truth,
> science and
> > scientifically informed inquiries into why people do what they
> do. We
> > can "borrow" from your writing on the subject. This to be
> followed by
> >
> > 2) a discussion of naturalism/nfw and therapy, how the former can
> > inform the latter, since the issues dealt with in therapy overlap
> with
> > those dealt with in philosophy of naturalism (meaning of life,
> dualism,
> > morality, perception of reality, nature of self). Rather than
> rigidly
> > describing a model which we all agree on, we each write a section
> on
> > how we feel NFW has informed our practice of therapy, Clay may
> want
> > to concentrate on his ideas on self-help, and in your case your
> > discussion of the topic as a philosopher.
> >
> > In order to avoid internal conflicts, we refrain from making the
> following
> > claims:
> >
> > NFW is necessarily central or sufficient in our practice of therapy
> >
> > NFW is necessarily not central and not sufficient in our practice
> of
> > therapy.
> >
> > None of us can or need to support either of those claims in order
> to
> > write a useful paper.We do apparently agree that NFW is important
> to
> > our practice of therapy.
> >
> > We would limit our discussion to NFW and naturalism, not needing
> to
> > discuss our therapy as a whole.
> >
> > We don't need, and I believe we can't, construct a useful, neat
> and
> > complete "modern" model to be carefully followed and which
> > supposedly is internally consistent. I think this approach would
> be called
> > Positivism, you know more about this than I do, but I think we
> don't
> > need to go there, and are better off not claiming anything we
> don't
> > need to.
> >
> > One advantage of this form for the paper: I think it could be
> written
> > relatively easily and quickly, as we each can work independently
> once
> > we agree on the framing of the discussion. We would all need to
> > approve of all parts of it before it gets sent into the world, at
> least if
> > our section is to be included and our name put on it.
> >
> > In order to get going right away, I suggest we each go to your
> website,
> > review your outline of the benefits of naturalism, and write or at
> least
> > outline our sections, then see if they can be sewn together and
> topped
> > off with a unifying intoduction, and viola we'll have written
> something.
> >
> > Or something like that.... I'll give my section a shot soon, I
> find I never
> > know unless I actually sit down and write it.
> >
> > Ken