Re: Defining

PM Bouquet: I am in fundamental agreement with Joe Weiss’ description of testing, but, I offer that Dr. Weiss’ comments do not necessarily contradict the comment made in the other forum that suggests tests are, “to see whether the other person will fit into our scheme or plot or structure of how the interpersonal world should be organized.”

Commentator: Within the framework of CMT, "tests" are passed when the person passing the test helps the tester leave behind existing schemes or plots or structure in favor of finding better ones. The comment made in the other forum suggested that a test is PASSED when the person reponds in a way that confirms existing unsatisfying schemes or plots or structure.

PM Bouquet: Within the context of CMT, as the pathogenic beliefs are slowly undermined in the supportive and empathic atmosphere of treatment fostered by the CMT therapist,
the patient will (possibly) begin to lower his or her guard, revealing those things that are frightening, and, if so, likely in a progressive manner (from least to most frightening/abhorrent).

Commentator: Exactly so.

PM Bouquet: Those beliefs are frightening and abhorrent because the patient lives in a world that is as it should not be, and the patient has awareness of this on some inner level.

Commentator: The word "this" apparently refers to awareness that one's world is not what it should be. Or perhaps it refers to both awareness that beliefs are frighening and abhorrent and that the world is not as it should be.

PM Bouquet: I have heard Dr. Weiss put it this way, and I paraphrase, “a child knows innately that it is painful to be
rejected by his/her parent, and the child knows that this present state is somehow not how the world should be.”

Commentator: Good quote.

PM Bouquet: The child’s “scheme or plot or structure” of how the interpersonal world should be has been upset, and, the child knows that it should be otherwise.

Commentator: Now here there is some confusion. PM Bouquet says that the "scheme or plot or structure" has been upset. But this does not seem accurate. The scheme or plot or structure is not upset. The scheme or plot or structure is stable but unsatisfying. The child is upset because the child has formed a stable but unsatisfying scheme or plot or structure that PM Bouquet correctly states just above to consist of innate awareness at some level that the child's world is not as it should be and/or that the child's beliefs are so abhorrent and frightening.

PM Bouquet: I develop pathogenic beliefs because the world is not as I intuitively know it “should” be, and, I find a way to rationalize the bad experiences I am collecting by mis-assigning guilt, etc.

Commentator: "A way to rationalize" is precisely the sheme or plot or structure that is unsatisfactory (the underlying pathogenic beliefs and their defenses)and is known at some level to be not suitable for the way the world should be. "A way to rationalize" thus refers to major aspects of the pathogenic beliefs that the child (and later the adult) seeks to have corrected in experiences with others who will pass tests to help in the correction.

PM Bouquet: Joe Weiss suggests that testing "may be unconscious." I would question whether there is really
any other source for the material of such tests than the unconscious urge for homeostasis.

Commentator: Here the word "homeostasis" has an unclear meaning and so I cannot comment on that. So I can only say that CMT principles in general, as reported often in the CMT literature, are very clear in positing that tests are designed to find discomfirmation for pathogenic beliefs--to find persons who will behave in ways unlike the ways others have behaved in one's life so that the schemes, plots, and structures formed from these pathogenic beliefs can be left behind since they are so unsatisfactory and since, as PM Bouquet correctly also makes clear, the person knows at some level to not be suitable for the way the would necessarily is.

PM Bouquet: Should a patient decide, consciously, upon a test for the therapist, the "test" in this case is not
truly one that is oriented at discrediting pathogenic beliefs, at least, not in the way that the
patient has intended it.

Commentator: This would be my reading of the CMT literature, too. That is, my reading suggests to me also that conscious tests indeed would be unlikely to be tests designed to disconfirm pathogenic beliefs. In fact, in thinking about CMT, I would not understand the use of the word "test" other than as an unconscious test.

PM Bouquet: Similarly, the brutish character described in the additional quote tests consciously something that has much more to do with underlying and unconscious beliefs and
feelings than has it to do with what he believes he is “testing.”

Commentator: The story of the brutish character described in the additional quote was originally presented as an instance of a kind of testing that is discussed by Jessica Broitman at the Control Mastery Forum. Thus the test of the brutish character was presented at the other forum as an instance of a CMT type of test. Thus it was represented as an unconscious test designed to disconfirm unconscious pathogenic beliefs.

There is of course no reason that PM Bouquet should not feel free to now introduce a novel interpretation of the testing of the brutish character in the original example. But in so doing we should keep in mind that this changes the subject matter under discussion.

PM Bouquet: The comment, “You’re lucky I came along to protect you,” does not demonstrate the speaker’s understanding of a set of underlying beliefs that have convinced the speaker to interpret the world as a violent arena.

Commentator: This is a novel subject under discussion. The orignal topic of dicussion had to do with the interpretation offered at the other forum stating that this example was an illustration of the kind of testing presented by CMT at the Control Mastery forum.

PM Bouquet: Rather, the speaker “knows” only the predatory nature of his “world.” The test to the pathogenic
belief is not conscious because the pathogenic belief does not truly reside in the speaker’s consciousness, or, at very least, the speaker is unable to find words to put to his pathogenic beliefs.

Commentator: Here it seems we are asked again to understand the brutish man's dating line as a possible test of an unconscious pathogenic belief. That is, PM Bouquet says "The test to the pathogenic belief..." so presumably the implication is that this date-seeking line is to be considered a CMT test. And PM Bouquet accurately describes the way CMT unconscious tests cannot be put into words and do not reside in the speaker's consciousness.

PM Bouquet: My experience suggests that a patient does not ever consciously choose which pathogenic beliefs to test with his/her therapist; rather, the patient gains awareness of the pathogenic beliefs that were "tested" only in retrospect to the test itself.

Commentator: This seems entirely compatible with all the literature I know of on CMT's approach to the concept of testing.

PM Bouquet: Consciously developed beliefs may be tested in a conscious manner; unconsciously developed beliefs are tested in an unwitting manner. It is through the helpful discourse with the therapist that the patient (and the therapist) can come to understand what has been at issue during the history (recent and long term) of the patient’s therapy.

Commentator: Also compatible with CMT.

PM Bouquet: The "brute" described in the earlier letter is testing, certainly, and on several levels. The level of
testing that is most near the surface of his consciousness is as much a desire to find a certain “homeostasis” as is the test to his pathogenic beliefs that are removed from his consciousness.

Commentator: Probably so, if I make allowance that we have common undestanding of what PM Bouquet has in mind with the word "homeostasis," which is now understandably put in provisional quotes. However, keep in mind that the posting that originated this discourse concerned the interpretation given at the other forum in which it was said that CMT's interpretation of the brustish man's comment was the way to understand what the man was saying to his potential date. If the man's comment is a CMT test of an unconscious pathogenic belief, the lady who accepted the demeaning identity assinged her failed his test. At the other forum she was presented as having passed his test because her comment fit with his scheme, plot, and structure. On the contrary, in CMT, when a test results in someone responding in a way that fits one's existing plot, scheme, and sturcture (one's pathogenic beliefs), the person's response fails the test.

PM Bouquet: Tragedy exists in the understanding that an individual will have a much easier time accepting the
response that feeds his pathogenic beliefs,

Commentator: Indeed so; changing one's existing structure is almost always more difficult than keeping exising ones even though existing ones are unsatisfactory and even though, according to CMT, persons will continue to seek others who one hopes will help change existing unsatisfying structures, others who will pass, not fail, CMT tests by doing precisely that which is NOT easy to do.

PM Bouquet: rather than the one that suggests his pathogenic beliefs are born of his fear and isolation.

Commentator: Exactly. That's why tests are so difficult to pass--it is almost alwasy easier to accept others' failing our tests but more unsatisfying in that such failures fit existing unsatisfying schemes, plots, and structures. And this is why the original example at the other forum was an example in which the lady failed the man's test precisely because she did respond by not risking his awareness of his discomfort born of his fear and isolation.

PM Bouquet: Until, that is, his personal level of pain becomes intolerable.

Commentator: True. It's easier to pass tests when persons are most desperate to find someone who will pass them.

PM Bouquet: It is then that the unconscious plan for healing has the greatest opportunity for success, but, it is not likely that there will be qualified help available to guide him to a peaceful resolution of his fears.

Commentator: Exactly. Good help is very hard to find, especially when one is so much troubled as the brutish man in the original example. Help for him is so hard to find because many pesons will fail his tests--just as the lady failed in the original example by accepting a demeaning identity assigned her by the brutish man.

Replies:

Re: Defining , by Jessica Broitman, 4/10/00

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