THINKING THE ULTIMATE LEVERAGE POINT

A long time ago (or so it seems) I entered into the field of psychotherapy. In the 1970s I began a search to understand human nature—my own and others. Not knowing any better I began with Sigmund Freud and read everything he wrote. That led me to Alfred Adler and all of his writings and from there I began dipping into Jung and many, many others. I liked Adlerian psychology best. That was the 1970s and Transactional Analysis was the new big thing— so I read extensively in TA as well as attended various TA conferences and trainings. The leverage point of change and the possibility of renewal in psychoanalysis and its many divergent forms was “Where Id is, let ego be.” To achieve that there was dream analysis, uncensored thought expression, exploration into unconscious connections, etc. A basic idea was that by understanding what happened and why, one could be cured. And that was valid— to a limited degree.

In the early 1980s as I was working on my first book on emotions, I came across RET and Cognitive Psychology. That opened up a new leverage point for change— to what people were thinking. That shifted the problem to beliefs— limiting beliefs, toxic beliefs, misunderstandings, cognitive distortions. And the primary means for dealing with this was arguing against the belief and/or challenging the cognitive distortions. That was a significant step forward. The leverage point changed. It was no longer understanding the past, it was what you are thinking today. The content of your thinking— that’s the problem. And that also was valid— but again, only to a limited degree. It is true that sometimes getting better information and more updated information is the answer.

When I discovered NLP in 1986, NLP filled in the details of the Cognitive Psychology model as it gave the details of thoughts— the representational systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.) and the meta-representation system (language). Now I had more precision in getting to the leverage points for change. It is not only what a person thinks, but also how a person thinks. The problem may be how you are representing something. Change that, and everything changes. And this is also valid— to a much greater degree.

But there was also a problem in that—it does not address everything that needs addressing. By highlighting the importance of structure, NLP (in the hands of many people) dropped the importance of content altogether. They wanted no content at all. A big mistake. Sometimes ... the problem is content, and not structure. If you believe a false and erroneous idea— a cognitive fallacy— you have a problem and merely changing its form (structure) will not fix that.

NLP began fixing this with the discovery of Meta-Programs— thinking patterns. Sometimes a human problem arises from the content filter that a person is using. I then contributed to the NLP model when I modeled the structure of self-reflexive consciousness because this highlighted the structural role of the relationship of thought-upon-thought which creates higher level frames of mind (like meta-programs). And with this the leverage point for transformational change became more balanced—the combination of what and how a person thinks.

All of this highlights the ultimate leverage point for transformative change— thinking. Thinking itself is the ultimate human phenomenon that creates our experiences, our emotions, our mental models of the world, our communications, our beliefs, understandings, decisions, memories, expectations, future anticipations, etc. This goes back to the most ancient of wisdom: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7. "If you are pained by an external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you—but your judgment about it." (Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, 121-180 A.D.). “Man is not disturbed by things, but by his interpretation of things.” (Marcus Aurelius) “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing their inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” (William James)

Yet thinking is much more than just representation. That is but one form of thinking. There is also considering, questioning, doubting, choosing, selecting, foregrounding, believing, understanding, concluding, framing, meaning-making, discerning, imagining, etc. Why is this? Because thinking is stratified — thinking comes in layers. That’s why all thinking is not the same. What we call “thinking” takes many different forms as it occurs at different logical levels.

As the leverage point for change, thinking includes both what you are thinking and how you are thinking. This now provides a much fuller description of the leverage point for renewing your mind. It begins with awareness (“Where Id is, let ego be.”) so that you develop sufficient mindfulness to take charge of your life. Next you become mindful of the content of your consciousness– what you are thinking. And as you do, becoming aware of the structure of your consciousness— how you are thinking.

For further reading: Executive Thinking (2018) Winning the Inner Game (2007) Neuro-Semantics (2012)