second, my voices often wanted to do things other than say words, often scream, but sometimes emitting pictures or poetry, etc.
I haven’t explicitly tried doing something like the full CFAR IDC procedure, but I’ve done something vaguely inspired by it and which seems to sometimes work. It’s a little intuitive so I’m not sure if a verbal description accurately catches what I’m doing, but translating stuff said by the parts into some kind of mental imagery, rather than having it be just words, seems like a core component in making it work.
The basic procedure seems to be something like… “listen to the part that wants to do something, and translate its desired action and expectation of the likely consequences into a form that you can run through your innersimulator. While doing so, listen to any sense of objection or disagreement coming from your other parts; try to translate that objection into a language that the first part can understand, or which could be used to modify the inner sim simulation”.
(This also automatically incorporates your first tweak, since you never need to decide in advance how many voices you’re listening to—you just keep doing it for as long as you get a sense of an objection, and it doesn’t matter whether the objection comes from a voice you’ve already found or a new one. Kind of like doing Murphyjitsu.)
I’m not sure whether “translate the objection into a language that the first part can understand” and “see if you could use the objection to modify the inner sim” are two different things or the same thing expressed in different words—that is, whether the inner sim is the common language of the parts into which it’s enough to translate everything, or whether different parts have more unique languages into which things need to be tailored for. But the fact that mental contrasting works to reduce anxiety in at least some cases, seems to suggest that the inner sim is the common language—again, at least in some cases. E.g. I’ve used the technique described in the below excerpt, and found it to at least occasionally be very useful:
Think about a fear you have about the future that is vexing you quite a bit and that you know is unjustified. Summarize your fear in three to four words. For instance, suppose you’re a father who has gotten divorced and you share custody with your ex-wife, who has gotten remarried. For the sake of your daughter’s happiness, you want to become friendly with her stepfather, but you find yourself stymied by your own emotions. Your fear might be “My daughter will become less attached to me and more attached to her stepfather.” Now go on to imagine the worst possible outcome. In this case, it might be “I feel distanced from my daughter. When I see her she ignores me, but she eagerly spends time with her stepfather.” Okay, now think of the positive reality that stands in the way of this fear coming true. What in your actual life suggests that your fear won’t really come to pass? What’s the single key element? In this case, it might be “The fact that my daughter is extremely attached to me and loves me, and it’s obvious to anyone around us.” Close your eyes and elaborate on this reality.
Now take a step back. Did the exercise help? I think you’ll find that by being reminded of the positive reality standing in the way, you will be less transfixed by the anxious fantasy. When I conducted this kind of mental contrasting with people in Germany, they reported that the experience was soothing, akin to taking a warm bath or getting a massage. “It just made me feel so much calmer and more secure,” one woman told me. “I sense that I am more grounded and focused.”
Mental contrasting can produce results with both unjustified fears as well as overblown fears rooted in a kernel of truth. If as a child you suffered through a couple of painful visits to the dentist, you might today fear going to get a filling replaced, and this fear might become so terrorizing that you put off taking care of your dental needs until you just cannot avoid it. Mental contrasting will help you in this case to approach the task of going to the dentist. But if your fear is justified, then mental contrasting will confirm this, since there is nothing preventing your fear from coming true. The exercise will then help you to take preventive measures or avoid the impending danger altogether.
One caveat: mental contrasting is most appropriate for unjustified fears that are strong and debilitating. A great deal of research has shown that a total lack of anxiety detracts from performance, just as extreme anxiety does (especially when the task in question is complex). If you’re a student who experiences debilitating anxiety around taking tests, mental contrasting can help you approach the object of your fears so that you can perform better. But if you experience only mild to moderate anxiety, you may benefit from feeling a bit of anxiety, and mentally contrasting your fears may leave you feeling too relaxed and not sufficiently motivated to prepare. When trying mental contrasting to approach your own fears, I advise that you first make sure to honestly evaluate whether your fears are unjustified, or whether they might not spur you on to more effort and better performance.
Note also that this application of the technique could by itself be considered a kind of mini-IDC by itself: you look for a source of anxiety, run its prediction in your inner sim, then look for a reason for why it wouldn’t go this way and run that counter-prediction in the sim. This will either cause your anxious part to update, or it will let you know that the anxiety is founded and that you should tackle it in some other way.
I haven’t explicitly tried doing something like the full CFAR IDC procedure, but I’ve done something vaguely inspired by it and which seems to sometimes work. It’s a little intuitive so I’m not sure if a verbal description accurately catches what I’m doing, but translating stuff said by the parts into some kind of mental imagery, rather than having it be just words, seems like a core component in making it work.
The basic procedure seems to be something like… “listen to the part that wants to do something, and translate its desired action and expectation of the likely consequences into a form that you can run through your inner simulator. While doing so, listen to any sense of objection or disagreement coming from your other parts; try to translate that objection into a language that the first part can understand, or which could be used to modify the inner sim simulation”.
(This also automatically incorporates your first tweak, since you never need to decide in advance how many voices you’re listening to—you just keep doing it for as long as you get a sense of an objection, and it doesn’t matter whether the objection comes from a voice you’ve already found or a new one. Kind of like doing Murphyjitsu.)
I’m not sure whether “translate the objection into a language that the first part can understand” and “see if you could use the objection to modify the inner sim” are two different things or the same thing expressed in different words—that is, whether the inner sim is the common language of the parts into which it’s enough to translate everything, or whether different parts have more unique languages into which things need to be tailored for. But the fact that mental contrasting works to reduce anxiety in at least some cases, seems to suggest that the inner sim is the common language—again, at least in some cases. E.g. I’ve used the technique described in the below excerpt, and found it to at least occasionally be very useful:
(from Gabriele Oettingen: Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation. Penguin Group US.)
Note also that this application of the technique could by itself be considered a kind of mini-IDC by itself: you look for a source of anxiety, run its prediction in your inner sim, then look for a reason for why it wouldn’t go this way and run that counter-prediction in the sim. This will either cause your anxious part to update, or it will let you know that the anxiety is founded and that you should tackle it in some other way.