From time to time, when thinking about the difficulties that I have in explaining the "intricacies of simplicity" relating to affectology, I'm reminded of something Winston Churchill said about Russia in a 1939 radio broadcast. And I reconstruct the words here to apply to our work: ...

"It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is trusting your subconscious."

The other key is that once you get to know more about those intricacies - not of clinical affectology, but of the human mind - then everything becomes simpler.

The paradox of philosophies in Affectology

Throughout the structure of our philosophy, there are a few instances that seem to be oxymorons in approach and term.

As a clinician, I have always been aware that the system of 'helping with self-help' is an oxymoron in itself. So I'll start this 'conversation' with that topic, then move on to the self-contradictory nature of Transderivational Search.

The CONTRADICTORY NATURE OF THE CLINICAL AFFECTOLOGY PARADIGM

There's a philosophical dissonance in much of what affectology says about itself. Its basis is very simple, but requires a complex explanation.

MY PERSONAL DICHOTOMY (Ian).

Philosophically, I am guilty of a severe dichotomy in my thinking about affectology.

The contradiction exists on two levels: one, the philosophical, regarding the two men I admire in history - and the other as regards the explanations about my work.

My philosopher 'heroes' in history might well be Horace, the Roman statesman who said “Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio (When I labor to be brief, I become obscure)” and Father William of Ockham who said, "other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." This latter led to the term “Ockham’s Razor”.

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CLINICAL AFFECTOLOGY - ITS PARADOX

The paradox, for me, is that I know affectology – as it has been my own development over 20+ years – to describe a path toward human betterment that is immensely simple.  Because I see that the mechanics of affectology are quite straightforward and logical, occupying a similar space as a person 'changing their mind', albeit in an unusual territory of mind, then I live by Ockham’s stance.

THE SIMPLE

The simple principle comes with realizing that this facility for any person to 'change their mind' or in more salient terms, 're-learn anything they’ve ever learned in the past given new information and new realization' lies within all of us, and like the automatic dynamic of Transderivational Search, is something that we are doing continuously in order to live life cybernetically.
_(cybernetics is the science or study of automatic control systems in organisms, organic processes, and mechanical or electronic systems – Encarta Dictionary).
_ The important (simple) point is that if you can change your mind about anything, you can also change your mind about other things.

The trick is to get your unconscious to automatically change your mind for you -- even while you sleep.

And that’s the role of the clinical affectology process – to bring together your natural 'change your mind' process with a learning that is obsolete and is in need of a 'mind-change'.
_[The 'simple' procedural dynamic comes out of an 'assisted realization' from the practitioner or program whereby the natural and automatic process of 'mind-change' is directed along a path that has been hitherto hidden to the client, and the mind-change paradigm is encouraged to combine with a dissociated preverbal initiator in order to allow that initiator to mature (through its act of auto-realization). While within the chaotic nature of the human mind system, this MAY be something that can take effect through the getting of information, knowledge and acknowledgement of the problem, it must be remembered that it is likely that this is also through an act of conscious, willful directive, and as such, rarely successfully plays out in the realm of the unconscious.]
__In order for a correct and useful 'reminding of the mind' to take place, the task must be carried out as a direct communication to the unconscious. In our work, this takes place by assisted realization offered by the practitioner through the auspices of transderivational search (and its non-interference by conscious processes). 


THE COMPLEX

Yet, we live in a modern world whereby “men are prone to take the most simple of things and overly complicate them in order to try to understand them.” This, coupled with being faced with a society that must be led toward a re-education about the social myths about the business of mental ‘healing,’ and CANNOT accept the simplicity of affectology's paradigmatic naturalness, I am required to explain too much about the preparatory aspects and the processes. This, then, echoes with Horace’s comment. Yet, it appears necessary to remove the cloak of mystery from clinical affectology.

So I appear doomed to spend the rest of my professional life over-explaining the simple.

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TRANSDERIVATIONAL SEARCH - ITS PARADOX

The TDS paradigm – its contradictory nature.

The dynamic that we call transderivational search is in itself a rather uncomplicated way of explaining how we humans ‘understand’ language and words: give them meaning. Automatically.

THE SIMPLE

I hope that my explanation about TDS reveals itself as straightforward and commonsense in how the human unconscious mind takes words and language (incoming communication) and cannot – CAN NOT – avoid searching for and finding an internal match within the landscape of unconsciously-stored memory in order to make sense of the communication.

It ‘makes sense’ as it's received and processed at the unconscious level, while there is, indeed, the risk of conscious recognition of the findings being corrupted by established prejudices, judgments, biases and misinterpretation by the time that conscious recognition of the words and language takes place.

That, right there, is a lot of words, but the automatic process itself is a simple system of operation.

THE COMPLEX

We never learn such material. Most of us are blithely ignorant of the neuro-mechanics of TDS. In fact, most of us don’t care. Why should we?

But in order for the nuances and intended 'reminding' that characterizes clinical affectology to take place and be successful, it is desirable for clients to at least comprehend the TDS phenomenon and apply it to the process. And to clarify, that realization relates to why, in our work, we can say that
  1. it does not matter what you (your conscious mind) thinks occurs during sessions; what matters is what new realizations the unconscious has achieved, and
  2. the so-called “required” trance and hypnotic states of receptivity that many other approaches expound are completely unnecessary – redundant – obsolete as an operating paradigm.

Quality communication that brings about success in the dynamic of reminding the mind of its inherent ability to 're-associate the disassociated' – 'grow up preverbal parts' – 'mature hidden drivers' – is what is required; not deep states of trance or anything else. The intricate means by which clinical affectology brings about the process is what makes it such a successful approach. The trick is to apply the process in a way that does not corrupt or interfere with the simplicity of TDS by over-thinking.

And IMPORTANTLY:
The complexity of explanation about TDS seems to automatically bring with it a misconception that TDS is something that you can do - 'set into train to find hidden data stored at unconscious level'.  It must be understood that TDS cannot be 'done' - it is 'done for you', and as is stated on the TDS page, the more you try to 'make it happen', you may just be interfering with the perfect goal of TDS and the affectology program.


If you think you know what’s wrong, where it’s from or what’s currently happening in the unconscious, you’re probably wrong. Let it happen.