Lots of other folks have commented on things like conflict framing, but I haven’t seen anyone mention this, so I’ll throw it in there.
In the past decade or so that I’ve been teaching people how to use memory reconsolidation processes (and using them myself), the number one obstacle that comes up (after identifying a suitable memory to use), is something I call “false belief change”, and it may have some overlap with what you’re describing here.
A false belief change is what happens when we imagine what happens in a memory to be different, without imagining our assumptions to be different first. It comes about from trying to script an alternative experience instead of either reinterpreting the experience or presupposing an alternative causal model and then simulating the result of that model.
And scripting usually reinforces the existing belief instead of changing it.
A common example: somebody is trying to change a belief they got from something they got yelled at over as a kid, or were treated in some obviously neglectful or abusive way, but in a frame where this was “for their own good”. Typically, someone’s first attempt at reconsoldiation is to imagine the parents acting lovingly and supportively. Good idea, right?
Nope. Invariably, this first attempt makes things worse, because on careful reflection, what they’re usually imagining is the parents’ behavior being changed on the outside, but leaving their internal model of the parent alone… which results in an interpretation like the imagined parent thinking, “I need to treat this evil/incompetent/idiot child in a loving and supporting way so they can stop being such an annoying little shit.”
As you can probably imagine, this does nothing to improve the person’s self-esteem. ;-)
Re-premising and Reinterpretation
The trick to making a reconsolidation of this type work is that you either have to reinterpret the situation, or re-premise it.
An example of re-premising might be to imagine the parent if they didn’t think you were annoying, evil, incompetent, whatever, and then see what your mental simulation generates as how they would have acted with this new premise.
An example of re-interpretation might be to realize that the parent was acting selfishly to get rid of something that was annoying/upsetting to them rather than acting in your best interest, or that they were mistaken about the best way to motivate you, or that in fact they didn’t really give a shit about you at all and there is no particular reason for you to give their opinion any weight to begin with. (I sometimes call this the Bigger Asshole Theory.) As with re-premising, the idea is to allow your mental simulation to play out with the new premise, but in this case you are playing it out with the premise that your attitude is different, rather than theirs.
In neither case is “scripting” the reconsolidation target a good idea. It can be helpful to have examples of helpful behaviors or unflappable attitudes or compassion or whatever, but this is more as a vehicle for one to find their way back to the modeled internal schema that people with those behaviors have, that can then be used to premise a new mental simulation to be run “forwards”.
When done this way, the necessary contradiction that plays out comes as a natural result of simulating different inner models of people, and naturally leads to an actual change. It also forms a natural checkpoint for iteration, in that if you can’t get a simulation to play out by itself and feel natural, then you know you haven’t gotten a solid enough model of the schema you’re trying to change to yet!
Lots of other folks have commented on things like conflict framing, but I haven’t seen anyone mention this, so I’ll throw it in there.
In the past decade or so that I’ve been teaching people how to use memory reconsolidation processes (and using them myself), the number one obstacle that comes up (after identifying a suitable memory to use), is something I call “false belief change”, and it may have some overlap with what you’re describing here.
A false belief change is what happens when we imagine what happens in a memory to be different, without imagining our assumptions to be different first. It comes about from trying to script an alternative experience instead of either reinterpreting the experience or presupposing an alternative causal model and then simulating the result of that model.
And scripting usually reinforces the existing belief instead of changing it.
A common example: somebody is trying to change a belief they got from something they got yelled at over as a kid, or were treated in some obviously neglectful or abusive way, but in a frame where this was “for their own good”. Typically, someone’s first attempt at reconsoldiation is to imagine the parents acting lovingly and supportively. Good idea, right?
Nope. Invariably, this first attempt makes things worse, because on careful reflection, what they’re usually imagining is the parents’ behavior being changed on the outside, but leaving their internal model of the parent alone… which results in an interpretation like the imagined parent thinking, “I need to treat this evil/incompetent/idiot child in a loving and supporting way so they can stop being such an annoying little shit.”
As you can probably imagine, this does nothing to improve the person’s self-esteem. ;-)
Re-premising and Reinterpretation
The trick to making a reconsolidation of this type work is that you either have to reinterpret the situation, or re-premise it.
An example of re-premising might be to imagine the parent if they didn’t think you were annoying, evil, incompetent, whatever, and then see what your mental simulation generates as how they would have acted with this new premise.
An example of re-interpretation might be to realize that the parent was acting selfishly to get rid of something that was annoying/upsetting to them rather than acting in your best interest, or that they were mistaken about the best way to motivate you, or that in fact they didn’t really give a shit about you at all and there is no particular reason for you to give their opinion any weight to begin with. (I sometimes call this the Bigger Asshole Theory.) As with re-premising, the idea is to allow your mental simulation to play out with the new premise, but in this case you are playing it out with the premise that your attitude is different, rather than theirs.
In neither case is “scripting” the reconsolidation target a good idea. It can be helpful to have examples of helpful behaviors or unflappable attitudes or compassion or whatever, but this is more as a vehicle for one to find their way back to the modeled internal schema that people with those behaviors have, that can then be used to premise a new mental simulation to be run “forwards”.
When done this way, the necessary contradiction that plays out comes as a natural result of simulating different inner models of people, and naturally leads to an actual change. It also forms a natural checkpoint for iteration, in that if you can’t get a simulation to play out by itself and feel natural, then you know you haven’t gotten a solid enough model of the schema you’re trying to change to yet!