I’ve mentioned that, as a clinician, there are certain theoretical takeaways of RFT that help me in the therapy room. The main one concerning self- as- context has been to understand the experience of conceptualized self as a learned behavior— and further, that the ability to contact and observe our experience and self- descriptions can also be learned. Being very clear on this idea helps me detach from the conceptualized self and help others do the same.
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Advanced ACTFor me, this is not the same as saying that we learn who we are. In fact, one thing I’ve come to realize is that I don’t know what I am constructed of (some miraculous combination of energy and matter, I suppose). I only know how I experience my Self. This requires not only a certain perspective, but the ability to identify that perspective. In RFT this ability is called deictic framing, briefly mentioned in chapter 1. There I provided an example of how easily my daughter could develop an identity around being the “worst dancer” in her class. Through derived relations, “worst” means something that is then related to something else, which is then related to something else, and so on. But this explanation doesn’t address how my daughter even knows to think of herself as an “I” (as in “I am the worst dancer”). This was also learned. But how?
What we have learned through many years of applied research (and some inge- nious research designs) is that it is only over time and many repetitions that we learn to identify the locus of perspective called “I.” Furthermore, we must learn it from others. We have to learn from somewhere what it is that we are experiencing. We have to be taught to identify that particular perspective and to call it the “I.” This is tricky because it is our perspective and we are the only ones who can experience it. That is, no one can point to it and say, “This is your perspective.” But when those around us repeatedly refer to this locus of perspective, we gradually deduce what it is that they are referring to. We have learned to identify the “I.”
For example, when a parent asks, “Why are you crying?” or “Do you like that?” or makes such statements as “You just spilled your milk,” there is one common denomina- tor. Through many such examples the child learns that the “you” being referenced is the locus of perspective that was the common thread throughout these experiences. Gradually, a distinction is made between the entity experiencing this perspective and others. Deictic framing refers to this derived relation (for example, “I” versus “you”), as well as to the related frames of “here” versus “there,” and “now” versus “then.” These frames are related because they require that same locus of perspective. Just as we need a certain locus of perspective to distinguish between “I” and “you,” we need it to dis- tinguish between “here” and “there,” and between “now” and “then.” It is one common locus of perspective that experiences “I/here/now” as distinct from “you/here/now.” It is that same locus of perspective that can distinguish between “I/there/then” and “you/ there/then” (or “other/there/then”).
There is another sort of framing thought to be going on here: hierarchical framing. This is the ability to relate things as being part of a class, such as my daughter’s ability to lump peas and other yucky foods into the class called “vegetables.” This ability allows us to identify all the different experiences, observations, and awarenesses as viewed from one locus of perspective as belonging together. All the observed and felt experiences have been experienced from an I/here/now perspective and thus in a sense “belong” to this locus of observation (I am not my thoughts, feelings, and emotions; I have thoughts, feelings, and emotions). So self- as- context can be seen as a “concep- tualization of the self based on deictic framing and hierarchical framing, in which the continuous perspective I- here- now and the psychological processes there- then are conceived as a container and a content” (Villatte, 2013).
The Conundrum of Self- as- Context
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For me, an interesting implication of all this is that while we do our best to find ways to describe, interpret, and otherwise work with the experience of being human, we aren’t even close. Whatever labels and deictic frames we have come up with are at best representations of aspects of being human. While it may seem that we are learning more and more about ourselves when we learn to apply such terms as “girl,” “daughter of Mary,” “sister of Tom,” “brunette,” “tall,” and so on, we actually make our- selves (whatever that is) smaller. Each description draws an ever- narrowing boundary around the mysterious combination of energy and matter we have learned to experi- ence and identify as the “I.” In recognizing this process, particularly by detaching from the conceptualized self, we can come closer to freeing ourselves from these verbally created constraints. In recognizing that our self- identity is a luck- of- the- draw construc- tion (we could have been taught that we are worthless, or we could have been taught that we are magnificent), we are free to decide who we want to be in this moment and the next.This approach to the experience(s) of self suggests ways to work with these pro- cesses. As therapists we can use these same language processes to help clients defuse from rigidly held, unworkable self- concepts (such as “I never finish what I start”) while strengthening the link between behavior and more workable self- concepts (such as “I am someone who values good parenting”). We can help clients build self- as- process such that they are in contact with the contingencies of their lives (not just what their minds hand them) so that they might move away from unworkable behavior toward behavior that brings meaning and vitality to their lives.