2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
“A curious paradox arises - when I accept myself as I am, I change. I think this was taught to me by the experience of many clients, as well as my own, namely: we do not change until we unconditionally accept ourselves as we really are. And then the change happens imperceptibly."
- from the book by Karl Rogers "Becoming a Personality".
Arnold Beisser says the same in his famous article "The Paradoxical Theory of Change":
"Change happens when a person becomes who he is, not when he tries to be someone who he is not."
What is it about? At first glance, some kind of nonsense. "When I accept myself as I am, I change" - but how?
Let's go in order. Why doesn't change happen when a person tries to be what he is not?
When we want to change, we have in our head some image of who we want to be and an image of who we are now. It's like there are two parts, and one part is trying to change the other.
Frederick Perls, the founder of Gestalt therapy, called them "the dog on top" - "the dog below." This is how he describes them:
- The dog from above always tells you that you have to do this and that, and threatens that if you don't …
However, the dog from above is very straightforward. And the dog from below is looking for other methods. She says: “Yes, I promise, I agree, tomorrow, if I can only …” So the dog below is a wonderful frustrator. And the dog on top, of course, will not let her stay with it, she welcomes the use of the rod, so the game of self-torture or self-improvement, (call it what you want), continues year after year, this way and that, and nothing happens. In a conflict between two dogs, the lower one usually wins.
Sound familiar? Now it is clear why there are no changes? Just because it doesn't happen. This confrontation between two dogs lasts and lasts, albeit with varying degrees of success, but in fact, everything remains in place. Because the force of action is equal to the force of reaction.
Now about how the changes take place.
Usually a client comes to therapy who is dissatisfied with himself and his life and he wants to change in order to become happier. Then they, together with the therapist, begin to explore how he organizes his life. What exactly were his needs, and what did he take for his own, but in fact, his mother just so wants. How he stops himself from satisfying them and deal with it. So a person, step by step, begins to get to know himself, better understand himself, accept, respect. And so it changes. And often these changes may not be exactly the ones he expected coming to therapy, but exactly the ones that he really needs and that make him a happier and more complete person.
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