On the plethora of Therapeutic modalities. 
There's a genre of book that's the therapy modality book. They're all the same. They go
I was a therapist and what I was doing wasn't working, and then I discovered <specific technique the book is advocating> and then it cured me and all my clients and now things are great and we just need to teach everybody this technique.
So many therapy books are like this. Focussing, the IFS book, the EFT book, to name a few. The various ACT books. Waking the Tiger.
And the specific technique is different from book to book. Radically different. And even contradictory.
So what's going on here? Apart from probably there's some book somewhere about how to write a therapy book, or some ghostwriter that's cranking these out?
If we take these stories as more or less true, how do we make sense of these seeming contradictions?
This is not a rhetorical question! I'm going to give you my best guess below, but please take a moment to think of your answer, and ideally post it in the comments for everyone to see. I am very much interested in other answers here.
Ok, my best guess (at least, the guess that I find most interesting):
What works is having a therapist who believes they are helping. It's like the placebo effect. If the doctor handing you a sugar pill is like "Yeah, idk, people told me this is helpful. lmk what you think", my guess is, you're not going to get much placebo effect out of that pill (actually they've done research and you do still get some but not as much iirc).
So when the therapist is out of school, they're doing what they were told works, but for a certain kind of mind, that doesn't give them confidence. So then they have to go on a big heroes journey, and come back with some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in.
Now they're back, and they believe it works, and low and behold, it does!
It's like Dumbo's magic feather.
"some technique, some approach, that for whatever reason they believe in."
So why do they believe in the technique they chose? Because they love to do it. Because, when they're doing it, they feel most like themselves, and they feel most connected with the person they're working with. Or they feel most connected with what they consider important, about a mind, about a heart, about a life.
And maybe this gives it some extra sauce too. Maybe this love of themselves, this intrinsic interest, radiates out, and reminds their clients that they too can love themselves, love life, be enthusiastic, and intrinsically interested.
Or maybe that last part is just what I have come to believe works ;)
how do i browse all the conversations? This might be an obvious question but I don't understand....
Is there a way to just see all the threads by date?
I see the two tabs for Top convos for you and Your Timeline and I also see Your Topics. But are all the threads showing up in one or all of them?
How much are you Uptrusting? Downtrusting? I mean pressing the green and red arrows on peoples posts and comments.
Just curious how people are using this feature, as you can't directly see who has Up and Down trusted a post.
Currently, my threshold is reasonable high. I hit UpTrust if something is well thought out/I like the thought process behind it, and/or if it presents something novel that I like/agree with/find plausible.
That means something like 1 in 10 things I read, I hit the green button. Maybe? That's very approximate, it's hard to gauge without measuring it.
And I've been using the site regularly for a couple of months, and I don't remember having downtrusted a single post/comment.
BTW, this is very much not advocacy! I've no idea if this is how I should be operating, or it would be better (for any of numerous versions of "better") for me to be doing something differently.
Trust scores. Brand new, but the onboarding info suggests Trust Scores reflect how much a post's source "reflects my worldviews"? I'm not really looking for an echo chamber platform and had assumed these scores would focus more on good faith, or even veracity, as opposed to viewpoint alignment. I could totally see upvoting something/one I completely disagree with as long as I see them as using logic and rationality to support their good faith views. Am I misinterpreting?
How is AI being used in legit positively transformative ways? I'm curious to hear about folding proteins, curing cancer, or personal examples like a recent I heard from @brian of Claude helping him get better at yoga.
My feed is mostly filled with things that feel like unconscious optimization processes run amok. More AI marketing slop, selling AI tools to be better at marketing AI tools, and weird recursions like that, and I'd love to get more of the optimistic, positive alternatives.
thanks @david this kind of stuff is exactly what i'm looking for. Looking forward to watching this!
Postmodernity is too egocentric. This includes current “spiritual” trends.
Here’s what an alternative can look like: Yesterday Dara asked Jason to install a window A/C unit in Val’s room; he came over and did it. Last night a participant shared struggling with a contract at work, and a lawyer in the session volunteered to help her redline it. My sister watches the kids while I help my brother-in-law move their furniture to make room for the new baby. If this doesn’t sound special, that’s the point. You’re already doing this, that’s also the point.
I’m not writing to admonish us to “get rid” of the “ego”—a particular self-identity*. I think it’s too hard for modern Americans, steeped in a culture of individualism. I love life, people, experience, and I think a good life includes a sense of “me.” Instead, I want to expand the sense of self to go much beyond the concept of “my body, my history” to see the larger whole these are part of. One upshot of this is gratitude, even for what I usually think of as “Jordan’s”—like these thoughts thunk in English. I needed English to think ‘em, so how much are they ‘mine’?
Automated & consensual narrative lock-in
We know that social media exacerbated this. Many studies show narcissism and loneliness increasing faster with mass adoption of social media, especially after 2012. Young kids don’t want to serve as a fireman or doctor anymore, they want to be adored as an influencer (We’re working on this social media problem by launching UpTrust).
Now I worry that AI is exponentiating this self-reification trend to unprecedented levels.
Last week I met four people who were convinced that their personal ChatGPT interface, molding its “personality” to respond based on their unique interactions, was a sentient being. If you think our filter bubbles are bad now, imagine what it’s like when we have 8 billion of them? Each individual’s personal collection of bots reinforcing whatever identity feels special, safe, and comfortable, no matter how limited and delusional?
There’s nothing wrong with specialness, safety, and comfort, but neither is there anything wrong with ordinariness, risk, and discomfort. Transformation, life, intimacy, and play all demand both. Are we bleaching the color of life in pursuit of maintaining a self? What are we so afraid of that we hide from becoming? Life is transformation. Relating requires and changes our uniqueness. Other people providing friction and challenge—that’s a service, freely given to all at birth.
Perhaps the trap isn’t narcissism. It’s any reification of identity via any narrative frame, especially spiritual ones, designed to parade as if they’re narrative-free. And the cost is ordinary love.
Transcend and exclude often means we fall back into less maturity
I’m still trying to get my mind and language around this, so I’m going to highlight the contrast to see the phenomena more clearly. Does your coach / (AI) therapist / culture / practice help you:
Express more gratitude? Become more forgiving? Be more accepting of others’ flaws? “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court”?
Or say you should be treated a very particular way (reifying a victim identity?)
Build infrastructure that’s super helpful but unsexy? Do things that are good for others without recognition? Feed those who are hungry? Do mundane things for the local whole like pick up trash that’s not yours?
Or build a marketing funnel that will help you promote yourself and perpetuate the ‘me’ ‘me’ ‘me’ cycle?
Love your friends and family better? Accept being misunderstood? Show up to their events and support their successes? Take care of them when they’re sick? Be more generous? Patient, humble, respectful, loyal, temperate? Maintain commitments regardless of feelings?
Or emphasize your in-the-moment desire above all else, calling impulsivity and self-centeredness ‘surrender’?
Develop boundaries as expressions of love and connection? Face challenges with grace and acceptance? Take responsibility for your pain, flaws, mistakes, shadows, and limitations?
Or use "boundaries" to control others and force them to change according to your preferences?
Admit ignorance, learn from criticism, hold your beliefs lightly, speak simply about profound experiences, work steadily without needing dramatic breakthroughs, notice your defensive patterns without performatively announcing them, contribute to social understanding, love others as they are?
Or position yourself as having rare insights to help others transcend their limitations through your techniques and advice?
This list can go on; I wish I could speak to the connection and community side more but I’m stuck in my own bias.
I’m not saying it’s easy, we of course need guides, mentors, feedback–it’s so complicated! Nor am I saying its special—all of this has been said for thousands of years! I’m trying to highlight a healthy version of one pole and unhealthy versions of another on purpose to get more clarity on where we are deeply unbalanced today. This is especially true of ‘spiritual’ hotbeds like San Francisco, Boulder, Ubud, Amsterdam. Austin is somewhat counterbalanced by its Texas-ness—cowboy culture still emphasizes family, duty and sacrifice to a greater good beyond ‘you’. Plus our immigrants are a little more integrated.
What’s up with me?
Anyway, I ask myself: Why do I care?
Sure, practices purported to transcend ego instead teach self-absorption. But it’s in the name— "personal growth" and “self-help.” What’s got me?
Because I’m guilty of all of this.
Sometimes despite my best efforts, I’ve taught people to ignore their minds in order to stay with the sensations of their bodies (rather than integrating them); to ‘surrender’ to their feelings-in-the-moment and ignore larger consequences or agreements and the greater wholes that hold them. I’ve corrected a lot of these mistakes, made amends, even evolved the practice and training. Yet I still can’t quite escape the selfishness of ‘wellness’ culture. Prime example: a couple years ago we hosted a “Give Fest” at the Relateful Studio in Austin with a reverse silent auction, where people bid on what they wanted to give to a local nonprofit. Even my wife and I didn’t follow through on what we ‘won.’
Let us redefine wellness and self-development. Let us change the metrics to gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance of our and others' flaws, showing up for family, friendship, and our greater communities. Let us celebrate unglamorous, unwitnessed interdependence.
Three alternatives: what is it all for?
Burning Man is actually a great example of a positive alternative. The economy is about gifting—and after your first year, it’s well known that to get the most out of the experience, you need to give. People camp in communities, build massive art projects and cars together, and give them freely without credit, burning them at the end. It’s all about creating for the whole, being present with each other in non-transactional relating. All of this disrupts the self-reification loops in such a way that people are consistently shaken from long held encumbrances, and come out of the desert transformed. I say this as an admirer but not a fanatic—I went to Black Rock City in 2012 and 2014, and then didn’t go again.
Relatefulness
Relatefulness, especially in Level Up ⬆’s Leadership Program and the The Relateful Coaching Training, does not fall into these problem nearly as badly as almost every other community I’ve seen. We claim our directionality of truth + love. This means the personal can’t be number one—individual expression and growth is always in service of something greater. Of course we make mistakes. (For example, the Level Up structure highlighted individualism. We’ll be returning to a cohort-only model this Fall—more on that in a future email). But we’ve done a really good job focusing on being with what is, especially relationally and communally.
We don’t abandon compassion and honesty in service of making sure people feel seen, heard, cultivating a ‘safe space,’ or maintaining instagram-defined-trauma-therapy-norms. This is hard, because I not only want people to feel seen, heard, safe, and heal, I think it’s crucial for a healthy community and for the true pursuit of truth and love. It just needs to be in service of love/truth, rather than an end unto itself. It needs to come authentically from the moment, not as a script or status signal or performance. We run into generative friction embracing the seeming paradox of this polarity all the time, and it is incredibly demanding of our facilitators to walk this tight rope. It demands that we are always changing, individually as leaders, as a community, and even the practice itself. Even our coaching teaches revealing identity commitments, inherently making the self an object in a larger self that can choose “yes” or “no” to, versus reinforcing a self and an existing worldview.
And even as we teach people how to meta-narrate as a way to witness and disembed themselves from unconscious habits that have been running them, we recognize that the compulsion to name and categorize experiences—spiritual or otherwise—often becomes a form of conceptual possession, serving self preservation rather than self-transformation.
(continued in comment)
(this will be sent out to my #TTT email in a couple of days, but UpTrust gets the early exclusive ;) )
Something like an introduction. This platform seems like an awesome idea, but I still mostly don't understand how it works which has kept me from landing here very often.
This post is something of an experiment for that reason. I wonder if someone will see it and respond. I wonder if that happens, whether I will know unless I specifically come back from time to time to check.
Then again, I do often put a lot of effort to write meaningful things on platforms like Facebook and find myself disappointed in the response. I'd love to discover an online space that felt generative rather than just practicing resiliently swimming upstream.
By way of introduction, I do many things, but they all boil down to various questions of relationship - all the relationships that can be imagined between self, other and world. When my attunement feels the way I like it to do, everything is like music to me, so I call that 'musicality of being.'
Above all these days, I'm focused on the art of listening - in all the ways that one might imagine what "listening" means (I'm trying to further diversify my own definitions.
I recently wrote some "Notes on Listening":
https://open.substack.com/pub/sethdellinger/p/notes-on-listening?r=p5zo5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
If you took the time to read this . . . thanks!
https://sethdellinger.substack.com/