> From: Fred Kompass <fkompass@voicenet.com>
> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 14:25:48 -0400 (EDT)
> ....
> It's more than that from my perspective, Jeff. You also give up the locus
> of control. If the other guy is resisting, what can you do, except to try
> to make him stop resisting. Whis is just as likely to make him resist all
> the more. I too have come from the therapy world and I've tossed out the
> idea of resistance. Rather than say the other guy is resisting my efforts
> to change him or her, it would be just as accurate to say that I am
> resisting the client's efforts to stay the same.... But the important
> fact of the
> matter, to me at least, is that if I stop seeing resistance I am led back
> to look at what I am doing that isn't working and change that. And that
> is the only place I have control - I can control what I am doing. Another
> way to put this is that if I stop seeing resistance and look at what I am
> doing and how I may change that, I suddenly have more options.
========== and ==========
> From: Dale Emery <72704.1550@CompuServe.COM>
> Date: 30 Sep 96 16:37:53 EDT
> ....
> Yes, the "resisting" part is experienced as outside the self. I think
> that's one of the consequences of using the word "resistance." It puts
> distance between me and the part (whether it's a part of a client or a
> part of me). Or perhaps I put distance between myself and the part first,
> and that's what allows me to take an external view of it so that I can see
> it as "resisting." Either way, where there's resistance, there's
> separation.
>
> This is the central reason I don't like to use the word. It adds distance
> between me the part, person, system, or organization I'm trying to work
> with.
> ....
Fred & Dale,
This is beginning to remind me of the "Unlearning" thread, and I was on
the other side in that discussion! Given this parallel, I'm going to give
up on "resistance" as a useful term. If we were to look at this
phenomenon within a systems framework, we might equate "resisting" with
activating a balancing loop. What if we labelled this phenomenon
"balancing"?
Fred, I think you're right in focusing on control, but I think giving up
_some_ control is important here. If we're dealing with a truly
autonomous other person, then we don't have all the control. By
emphasizing the active nature of "balancing" one can help the other person
recognize and accept that they have some control in the situation.
There's no guarantee that the other person will do this, of course, but
then we might wonder (with the other person) why they avoid taking
responsibility for themselves.
To change a balancing loop one has to change the set point. I'm thinking
about how we might describe this learning process. How do we change a set
point? Do we have to slow down the cycle time for the balancing loop? Do
we have to stop it completely for some period of time? Is this what
silence and/or reflection do? I don't have any answers at the moment -
just musing....
Regards,
Jeff
--Jeff Brooks <BrooksJeff@AOL.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>