Mindsets

I have been reading an interesting book lately, ‘Mindset - how you can reach your potential’ by Dr Carole Dweck. It explores two basic mindsets that we as humans have and how they shape our lives. 

The one is a fixed mindset where we believe that basic things about ourselves can’t change, for example our intelligence. The other is a growth mindset where we stay curious and keep learning and exploring through every experience.

It’s an interesting book because it challenges some fundamental beliefs I did not even realise I had - such as the intelligence I was born with was in essence a fixed ‘quantity’ and therefore put a ceiling on how far intellectually I might go. Now with neuroplacticity we know that this is just not true and that new neural networks can form with attention to something particular and that we CAN learn to be more intelligent and skilled - we can indeed change. What a gift to know that!

Does it mean that I can be a world class mathematician...? Probably not!

Parenting and Presenting!

We had a Parenting Day last week and I had the experience of co-presenting with a lovely man who I admire a lot. But here’s the thing….we have never presented together before and in many ways it was a wonderful metaphor for two people plunging into the adventure of parenting with both people confident and anxious!

I found myself wondering at times if what I was saying might be different to what he believed or practised - especially given that he was, in my mind, by far the more ‘expert’ one.

To do this adventure together we had to come face to face with both our expertise – together we had 9 children, 8 grandchildren and some 45 years jointly as therapists in relationships of all sorts – and our sense of inadequacy both as parents and presenters.

Yet it is exactly this blend of expertise and inadequacy that makes both parenting AND presenting such an adventure!

Individual Paradigm vs Relational Paradigm - Where do you fall?

So back to the exploration of the difference between the Individual Paradigm and the Relational Paradigm.

Is the locus of control in the individual who pursues healing and growth through insights as they are relevant to his or her world? Or are those experiences of growth and healing more readily available in the interaction between two people – in the space between?

I like what Dr. Dan Siegel has to say about this:

‘And as a ‘we’ is woven into the neurons of our mirroring brains, even our sense of self is illuminated by the light of our connection.’

Helping Create Conditions for Healing and Growth

In his thought-provoking book, Mindsight, Dr. Dan Siegel says:

‘The brain is a social organ, and our relationships with one another are not a luxury but an essential nutrient for our survival.’

How does accepting this new neuro-biologically driven insight change the ways we sit with our clients? For me it puts the focus squarely on the fact that the brain is the only organ that can be regulated from the outside eg. by another human being. We grow best in relationship to others and we can grow stunted in isolation. 

Given that, then surely the primary goal of the therapist/coach is to continue to find ways to increase their attuned presence with another knowing that in doing this we help create the conditions for healing and growth.

So Let's Find the Locus of Growth...

So where is the locus of growth - does it reside in the individual or does it reside in the interaction, the space between two individuals?

There is an assumption that underlies the individual paradigm i.e: each individual, in a committed relationship or not, needs to become autonomous, differentiated and self-reliant. While these characteristics can contribute to healthier individual functioning, they ignore our fundamental neurobiological wiring for connected interpersonal experience. In light of this, a broader approach incorporating the relational paradigm is called for.

So how does the relational paradigm as I am talking of it, differ?

Well this relational paradigm has an understanding that it is only in meeting you, loving you and being triggered by you that I meet myself. In other words, we experience ourselves in the connection with another – and indeed neuroscience is rapidly and thoroughly providing evidence for this.

The Locus of Growth

“The dominant cultural paradigms and therapy practises continue to support the primacy of the individual as the locus for change and growth.”

So says Surrey and Jordan in their thoughtful book ’ Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy’. 

This sentence really echoed in me because the more I work in the relational paradigm the more I see how en-cultured we are with thinking and acting in the individual paradigm.

So what is the difference between the two paradigms and surely as relationship therapists / coaches we know how to be relational and how to help others to be more relational?! And my answer to that is a resounding,” Of course we do!”

And yet ….it’s such an important question,” Where is the locus of growth?”

What are you imagining?

I read recently in a NLP book that we actually experience everything twice - once in the imagining / thinking of it and then in the actual doing of it. Although it initially sounds a bit exhausting (!) I can see what they are saying. 

We automatically think that something happens out there to us and then we respond to the happening. Buddhist practitioners will say that whatever happens is just what happens - it's our stories about what's happening that makes it good or bad....and  that's how  we construct the world around us.

I got curious about just how true this is in couple work, that in essence so much of what the couple has experienced comes from their stories that exist inside them and often the imagined becomes the real. 
The irony is that in the early days the imaginings are so positive and full of hope but by the time a few conflicts have happened then a different reality is beginning to grow between them. 
Focusing on the positive that is there alongside the negative can have a powerful re-balancing effect in the couples bodies and in their minds.

I have a choice in what I imagine and what I create...it sounds so simple! Why would I create a double negative of imagining then doing.....it's quite a thought!