The Lack of Reality in Psychotherapy

by Tim Brunson, PhD

Frequently a person undergoes psychotherapy due to their inability to integrate life's experiences in a healthy and productive way. This is caused by problems with their values and beliefs, which are the patterns that they use to filter reality. I see these values and beliefs functioning as a lens, which both limits options and gives a rather incomplete and inaccurate view of the universe and its unlimited possibilities – which is the ultimate reality. Such a person regularly and inadequately accommodates and assimilates their perceptions, which survive the filtering process. This leaves them ill prepared to handle the breadth of life's experiences. Although psychotherapy should help a client or patient overcome this problem, too often it can contribute to its perpetuation.

I would hope that the psychotherapist would help a client become free from the consequences of limited perspectives that are caused by dysfunctional values and beliefs. However, the flexibility to alter one's lens – hence the "think outside the box" cliché -- is critical, but can be insufficient. This is provided that they are encouraged only to accept an altered one without gaining a better sense of the totality or wholeness of reality. Thus if the practitioner's goal is merely to replace one set of inflexible pattern filters with another – especially their own – then they may only be providing a temporary, quick-fix rather than a lasting solution. They are not empowering their client. Rather, they are merely making him or her reliant (i.e. dependent) on a new crutch that may and most likely will eventually fail to provide adequate answers.

One example of this can be found when destructive addictive behavior, which filters the subject's perceptions through their limbic needs, is replaced by a strong dogmatic belief system. For instance, going from chemical dependency to a faith-based belief system is frequently used to assist and rehabilitate illegal drug abusers. Indeed, there are two such popular institutions within a fifteen mile radius of my home. While I see the positive value in substituting harmful drug addiction with a religious one, when I have encountered graduates of those programs, I rarely sense that they are happy, productive, and adequately mentally integrated. Normally, I detect an intensity in which they grasp their new filters with the same dogmatic enthusiasm with which they formerly embraced their old ones. Any exposure to belief systems that compete with their newly adopted ones are too often met with unjustified resistance bordering on pathological viciousness. Unfortunately, as soon as they find that their new filters are universally inadequate, they are very likely to return to their previous destructive patterns.

Another dangerous concept that is very popular with psychotherapists is the promotion of an increased level of self-efficacy. Yes, even I do – and will continue to do – this as a part of my clinical hypnotherapy practice. However, we should be careful lest this newly installed feeling of self-worth create a monster-like personality with irrational feelings of grandeur. So, while self-efficacy is important as it immediately counters a victim-mentality, the therapist's job must not stop there. To the contrary, there is a need to continue treatment so as to free the client from their limiting filters AND give them adequate tools to adapt and see reality in the clearest terms possible. In other words, the clinician's goals must be both to free them of their limiting lens and to install tools, which help give them adequate abilities to adapt to – that is, accommodate and assimilate – changes in their environment.

While merely providing a client with a new filter may make sense at first, the goal should always be to create a situation in which they have the requisite capability to alter their values and beliefs as needed while having a better sense of reality. No, providing them a new set of illusions and delusions – even if they provide a better set of symptoms than those with which they arrived – must never be the therapist's goal. (I include here the cardinal sin of hypnotherapists – which is coning the subject to expect that their wonderful subconscious mind will always provide the best outcome.) Conversely, clinicians must help clients realize that limiting beliefs are merely a matter of external programming, which they have allowed to happen. Therefore, they have the choice of changing their beliefs, values, and their resulting self-image when suited to the circumstances.

Once this process-ability is installed in the client, the next step is to help them more accurately perceive as much of reality as possible. For instance and to the contrary, imagine a judge or auditor making a condemning conclusion based only on less than one percent of the facts. Unfortunately, when prejudicially held beliefs and self-images restrict one's ability to accommodate and assimilate – that is, organize perceptions into new conclusions regarding form, structure, and order – a one percent level of awareness may be pretty amazing. However, I don't see that as satisfactory.

So how do we and our clients begin to see more of reality than we presently perceive? Indeed, while I doubt that we will ever recognize 100% of reality – especially as our visual ability can only detect less than one percent of the light spectrum – I think and believe that vast improvements are still possible.

The late David Bohm, a popular quantum physicist and author who once worked with Albert Einstein, promoted the role of pattern interference. He stated that a researcher perceives reality either through a lens – which I call limiting beliefs and values – or as a hologram, which literally means "writing the whole." A lens creates a distorted view of reality by allowing only a part of it to enter the human brain/mind and thus become subject to the accommodation and assimilation process. This means that we are constantly mentally processing very limited factual data and deluding ourselves that we are making rational decisions based upon an adequate perception of reality. Unfortunately, this leads to both individual and mass delusions and various forms of psychoses. As an alternative, the holographic process does not include a distorting and deleting lens. Rather, it allows all – or, at least a wider expanse – of realty to be sensed with the exception of the portion that is blocked or interrupted by an interfering pattern. So, if psychotherapy is to do more than merely replace one filter with another, it must serve the role of providing an interfering pattern. Fortunately, there are many accepted approaches to coaching, psychotherapy, and hypnotherapy that take this concept into consideration.

For instance, despite my frequent criticism of some of the attitudes and statements of the late Dr. Milton H. Erickson and his ardent followers, this is an area in which the good doctor excelled. The predominant value of Ericksonian hypnotherapy is that it helps a person break free of their lens and begin actively seeking alternatives. This is done through linguistic and other more explicit techniques. These intervene with patterns that force the subject to begin looking beyond their limitations for new input. It is from studying Erickson that I learned the value of pattern interrupts as a therapeutic tool – although I initially had no idea why they worked.

Essentially, Erickson's pattern interrupts provided an uncharacteristic or contrary behavior or belief system that created a sense of cognitive dissonance, which is an uncomfortable feeling that happens when someone attempts to hold two or more conflicting feelings simultaneously. Cognitive dissonance proponents say that this takes advantage of a person's drive to reduce dissonance. From an ANNH perspective I would say that the interrupt causes a need for the subject's patterns to re-harmonize. While it would seem that we are both pretty much saying the same thing, it is important to realize that the significance is in realizing that the antithetical condition caused by the intervention is intended not necessarily to get the subject to convert their beliefs and values to those being promoted by the clinician. Rather the initial goal is to disrupt the stranglehold of patient's patterns.

From there, Erickson would propose that their unconscious mind would naturalistically come up with a hopefully more functional alternative. While from an ANNH perspective I would say that this is a rather inefficient and sloppy approach, I understand why he would promote this methodology. However, I still think that this misses the point and feel that there is a need to go back to Bohm for a clearer explanation.

A pattern interrupt not only serves to shake up a client's adherence to an often dysfunctional view of reality, it also helps them to perceive more of it. Their previous perceptual limitations as provided by their previous lens are no longer sufficient to allow their patterns to re-harmonize. In order to resolve this level of discomfort they have to begin seeking out more sensory input – thereby perceiving a larger proportion of reality.

While Bohm was actually discussing the limitations and approaches to contemporary physics research – and not necessarily psychotherapy – his thoughts are quite fitting to the present discussion. Psychotherapists – to include hypnotherapists – should seek to promote a state in which their client is more capable of functionally adapting to an ever changing reality. In order to do this, they must have flexibility in their choices and base their adjustments upon the largest number of inputs as possible. Merely indoctrinating another person in the clinician's idealistic thoughts, self-identity, etc, should absolutely never be the goal. (Unfortunately, I see that this is a way too common approach among licensed psychologists, counselors, teachers, ministers, and even hypnotherapists.) Rather, clinicians should realize that replacing their client's dysfunctionality with their own brand of psychosis does not represent progress. The ideal goal should be to encourage others to be resilient rather than more dogmatic. Using pattern interrupts appropriately to steadily train clients to develop adaptive skills while simultaneously and constantly questioning their limited view of reality, makes them more empowered and capable individuals and a contributing members of our community.