Impacto de los desastres naturales

Noticing / Observing (self-as-awareness) The Conceptualized Self

All the beliefs, thoughts, ideas, facts, images, judgments, memories, and so on about “who I am”

Fusion

Figure 10.1

In figure 10.1, the person is fused with (attached to) the conceptualized self. And whether this conceptualized self is positive or negative, fusion with it is likely to be problematic. Fusion with a positive self can easily lead to arrogance, narcissism, intolerance of others, and refusal to acknowl-edge negative feedback; fusion with a negative self can lead to depression, anxiety, feelings of worthlessness, and so on. In either case, lack of self-awareness and psychological inflexibility result.

For example, consider what impact it might have on a manager if he is fused with “I work hard and I don’t tolerate fools gladly.” Or suppose a police officer is absolutely fused with “I am an officer of the law”—he bases his whole self-worth on this identity, and then one day he becomes perma-nently disabled and unable to work. He will then struggle to accept and adapt to this significant life change, and his conceptualized self may now contain elements such as “Without my job, I am nobody.”

Pure Awareness

The Observing Self

Noticing / Observing (self-as-awareness)

The Conceptualized Self

All the beliefs, thoughts, ideas, facts, images, judgments, memories, and so on about “who I am”

Defusion

Figure 10.2

In figure 10.2, the person is defusing from thoughts that make up her conceptualized self. Those thoughts then have less influence; they still come up, but they “take up less space.” She is no longer clinging to her self-description/self-image/self-concept; instead she “holds it lightly.”

All the beliefs, thoughts, ideas, facts, images, judgments, memories, and so on about

“who I am”

The Observing Self

The Conceptualized Noticing/ Observing Self

(self-as-awareness)

Defusion

ACT Made Simple

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In figure 10.3, the person is in the psychological space of self-as-context; from this perspective, there is maximum defusion. The conceptualized self is recognized as a construction of thoughts and not “the essence of who I am.”

Who Am I?

At times, when you’ve taken someone through a self-as-context experience, a client will ask,

“Well, who am I then?” It’s easy to get bogged down in deep, philosophical questions at this point, and for our purposes in ACT, we don’t wish to do that. We’re coaches and therapists, not philoso-phers, gurus, or meditation teachers. So I usually reply along these lines: “‘Who am I?’ is a big ques-tion. There are many different senses of self. In our society, we tend to focus on two main senses of self: the physical self—our body—and the thinking self, more commonly known as ‘the mind.’ What we’re aiming to do here is recognize a third sense of self. The ‘observing self’ can observe both our thinking self and our physical self, but it is distinct from them. You are comprised of all three of these selves, but whereas the thinking self and the physical self change continuously, the observing self doesn’t. It’s like a safe place inside you that’s always there—a place from where you can observe what’s happening in the mind or the body without being harmed.”

IS THIS THE SOUL?

At times, clients may ask if this is the soul. My response is simple: “That’s not a word I would personally use, but you can call it whatever you like. Whatever words you use to describe it, this is the part of you that notices all those words.”

THERAPY VS. MYSTICISM

If you were to “stay in the space” of self-as-context for a prolonged period, you would have the

“mystical experience”: there is no individual self, “everything is one.” We are not trying to create mys-tical experiences in ACT; it is not some religious or spiritual path to enlightenment. With prolonged mindfulness practice, we can “stay in the space” of self-as-context for longer periods, but from an ACT perspective, that’s not actually necessary.

In practice, most people get only brief “glimpses” of this space, and then they quickly get “pulled out of it” by their thoughts. However, that’s more than enough to serve our purposes. We simply want people to experience that there’s a powerful psychological resource within us, a resource that is readily accessible, a place from which to observe and make room for our painful thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, it is a psychological space that frees us to make conscious choices about what we do. How so? Because from this perspective, we can “clearly see” that our thoughts and feelings are transient events that don’t define who we are or control our actions.

Pure Awareness

A TECHNICAL POINT

In the scripts of some ACT exercises, you may read comments like this: “The observing self is there your whole life—from the moment you’re born, until the moment you die.” For the purposes of coaching or therapy, it’s fine to talk this way, however please keep in mind, it’s not technically accurate. RFT (relational frame theory; the theory of language and cognition on which ACT rests) explains how we develop this transcendent sense of self, typically around age four, through a process called “deictic framing.” This is just one of the many fascinating things you will learn about if you should choose to delve further into RFT.

HOMEWORK AND THE NEXT SESSION

There are two ideas for homework already in this chapter: the first involves contacting self-as- context, and the other involves defusing from the conceptualized self. And, of course, we can make the Good Self/Bad Self Exercise more specific: it could be good mother/bad mother, good therapist/bad therapist, or even good cop/bad cop.

Here’s another simple option: we suggest that our client continue with any previous mindfulness practice and we add the instruction, “From now on, as you’re doing that, from time to time check in and see if you can notice who’s noticing.”

You could also ask clients to practice mindfulness exercises that are explicitly oriented toward self-as-context. This is more effective if you have recorded the exercises in session, or if your client has a commercial CD (for example, track 5 of my CD Mindfulness Skills: Volume 1 is a recording of the Continuous You Exercise).

As for the next session, traditionally we would move on to values and committed action. We would continue to bring in self-as-context experientially as needed as an aid to overcoming any psy-chological barriers (that is, to facilitate defusion or acceptance).

HOMEWORK FOR YOU

 Read all these exercises and metaphors out loud, and practice them as if you were working with clients.

 Pick two or three cases and identify thoughts, beliefs, judgments, and other self-descriptions that comprise the conceptualized self. Consider how you could introduce self-as-context work with these clients—both brief interventions and longer ones.

 Try these exercises on yourself. In particular, pull out an index card and do the Good Self/Bad Self Exercise, and carry the card around with you for a week. If possible, have