ANDThe concept of a human being that each psychotherapist has will generate their reasoning, cuts and actions. Hence there is no single way to do psychotherapy.
For Constructivism, human beings are beings in process, beings in project; because life is a project. We are prospective beings, we look towards a possible future. We are beings with history who seek to create their own history. That is why authorship and active and committed participation in the construction of one’s own history are of interest. For its part, our mind is an active builder of possible futures and reconstructor of the past. Movement, in all its forms, accompanies us.
In this process, meanings are constructed. And while this happens without interruptions; each person builds themselves and also builds; partially her reality and his own reading of reality. Process that gives rise to what we call Identity.
Model presentation
The experiential
Two people look at the same cat. One of them imagines it as a pet; the other, chasing the mice in his warehouse. What is the difference?: the meaning constructed from the vision of the cat: company or hunter. The two people experience, they experience the presence of the feline. But the vision, the experience is not the same because the experience is never innocent. The experience is never plain and simple, pure and innocent. As if we could affirm that “you do not see what is in front of your eyes, but you see with what is behind your eyes.”
A person who betrays a certain disorganization in his clothing and presentation, was imaginatively directing an orchestra that plays on nearby loudspeakers. A couple watches the scene. Neither of them misses the way of presentation of this “conductor of the orchestra”. The scene observed, lived, is the same for both.
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The quasi-dialogue that develops between the two is as follows:
HE: I must be crazy.
SHE: He is not happy.
He associates his clothing and his actions, and expresses his opinion. But she, differentially, focused her attention on the happy face of the person being observed. Of course, what matters here is not “who is right,” but rather “what cut and what reading of reality that cut generated in each one.” Or what is the same, what meaning does each one give to that reality.
For Constructivism, human beings are beings in process, beings in project; because life is a project
The experiential is the place where meaning and valuation come together. The thing is that without meaning and valuing, there is no experience in human terms. The quasi-dialogue cited above confirms this articulation. And if this combination is present in this simple quasi-dialogue, it will also obviously be present in all the stories lived and told.
So let’s borrow for a moment, the myth of Ariadne’s Thread. The death of the Minotaur without Theseus’ successful exit from the Labyrinth would have been a half-successful action. A sustained action always points to an end that allows the action started to be completed.
Therefore, the foundations of a model for Constructivist Psychotherapy include: the experiential + the meaning + the assessment + the action, depending on a change.
Deconstructing the model
I will try to deconstruct this “formula” for your better understanding.
Construct meanings:
Constructing meanings is an activity that human beings never stop doing (whether they realize it or not). From the development of the Central Nervous System until the last of the days of life, from waking up to sleeping (perhaps dreaming too), meanings are constructed. Let’s imagine that someone comes across a certain object in the middle of the street. Whether it is known or unknown is indifferent to us because the construction of meanings is carried out in any way. If it is an unknown object, the construction of knowledge to come to meaning, implies a processing of information that is predictable: doubts and questions arise and speculation with its comings and goings until reaching a conclusion, it can be monitored and even, a posteriori, to be recounted.
If the object is unknown, the process will obviously take longer than if it is known. If the object is known, recognising it also involves a work of meaning, although invisible and fleeting.
Memory as identity; They are finally the combination (never free of contradictions) of the meanings constructed throughout life. And, depending on the level of analysis we use; The construction of meanings will be individual, group and social/cultural. For this reason, for example, we talk about collective memory and cultural identity.
Furthermore, and to complete the idea: could someone deny the self-interpreting nature of homo sapiens? Topic that, in research, leads to the problem of consciousness.
The need to give meanings occurs, in principle, on three levels: in the outside world, in each person’s own labyrinth and in the interaction between these two worlds. In the latter case, is where the labyrinthine and complex attribution of intentions to others occurs. A process that always appears to us full of interpretive misunderstandings. Unlike this difficulty and by way of comparison, persecutory delusions and erotomanic delusions manage this process with maximum efficiency.
Every phrase, every idea conveyed, every dramatic or humorous story; It is full of meanings. When someone tells something that happened (to them), for this story to make sense to the listener, it is necessary to know what meaning the person telling it gave to what happened/experienced. Without the meanings, it is just an impersonal story, something that happened to a third party that means nothing or matters.
In Constructivist Psychotherapy, meaning is always contextual (text and context). It is developed based on the moment in the patient’s life, based on the rest of its meanings, and based on the social and cultural context in which that person lives and acts. Any decontextualized meaning is clearly arbitrary. Human complexity cannot be blithely simplified just to speed up or facilitate its understanding. Simplifications are always seductive. Meaning cervical pain as a mind-body disconnection or lower back pain as going through a pivotal moment; They are simplified and decontextualized versions that are very common to find in those who play with meanings like a board game.
The construction of meanings is also that capacity that deteriorates in some neurological pathologies and that transmits a feeling of dehumanization in those who suffer from them. And in disorganizing pathologies, meanings are presented to us arbitrarily linked.
So far: the experiential + the meaning.
The valuation
What is also interesting; is that the constructed meanings are reasons for suffering and satisfaction. And this is due to the presence of the evaluative dimension. A simple example to understand it better. If a “no” is meant when you hear it, like “I have no interest in talking to someone as deplorable as you”; The suffering generated is proportional to the valuation that accompanies the non-meaning as rejection. That is, to the meaning (“rejection” for not received), an evaluative dimension is added (being deplorable). Assessment that was not necessarily present in the person who said no.
It is impossible to find these separate dimensions in people. Every meaning is accompanied by an evaluation. And every assessment always assumes a quality (good-bad) and a magnitude of that quality (a lot-a little-nothing). In conversation, it is the difference between “what he said” and “how he said it.” In the couple with the very brief quasi-dialogue, the difference was evaluative: he valued the misaligned image and the atypical behavior to draw conclusions from it; and she appreciated, to get her own, the crazy man’s happy face. The madman, obviously, was the same. Like the story of the cat.
Every phrase, every idea conveyed, every dramatic or humorous story; It is full of meanings
Differences in value are the cause of great disagreements and discussions. It is common to find that in an argument, anger is not produced by the differentially attributed meaning, but by the evaluation (when the other does not value, positively or negatively, what was discussed, in the same way). And that is where the phrase “he doesn’t understand” appears: the other person values the same fact differently. This does not mean it should be concluded that the other does not understand what is being talked about. Which refers to the so-called “value blindness”. Blindness that occurs when one does not believe that something is possible to happen. Its existence or the possibility of it happening is not denied, but rather the probabilities are minimized.
In conclusion, we could affirm that experiences and sensations, meanings and evaluations occur in a unity, which is only separable by a reflective deconstruction.
So far: the experiential + the meaning + the evaluation .
The action
Actions are the product, the final result of the process of meaning and valuing. People mobilize when something has meaning and value for them. If a situation experienced means nothing and has no value, there is no subsequent action. Nobody acts when something “does not matter.” He must move you, mobilize you, make you uncomfortable, “make noise” to you, please you or displease you. Motivate him to do something, we would say.
The move to action generally occurs spontaneously. When a change occurs in meanings and valuations, this change automatically generates changes in actions. If, for example, a person or situation begins to have more value or less value (for whatever reason); Behaviors change spontaneously. It may also happen that this order is reversed. In the clinic it is possible to promote an action, to question the meaning and assessment of an event that occurred and that works as an inhibitor. It is also common to recognize the change in people, because their actions are not the same.
In Constructivist Psychotherapy, the objective is not to modify behaviors per se. The changes in actions are of great value, but contextualized in the aforementioned process.
So far: the experiential + the meaning + the evaluation + the action the emotional.
Our determinants as humans are diverse: we are rational beings (or rationalizers), beings of flesh and blood, temporal beings aware of the unidirectionality of time, social beings, cultural beings, and obviously also, emotional beings. The latter, lately recognized, valued and theorized.
Baruch Spinoza stated: “People believe they are free simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes that determine those actions.” Said in current terms: human beings are only aware of the final product of their thinking,…