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Concrete vs Abstract Authority: Psychology · Acedra
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Concrete vs Abstract Authority: Psychology
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0:04
Concrete authority comes with rules and it also comes from other wiser or more mature people who know better than what we do. Right, when we're born into this world,
0:13
we're born into a family, into a unit.
0:16
Now granted some people have a more positive parental experience than others, all right?
0:23
But when we're young, as we're children, our parents generally I'm sure, I'd like to hope anyway, do their best to keep us safe from harm and guide us and steer us and direct us and will teach us the difference between right and wrong. They're going to set us up on a useful path in life. Some people are going to be saying, 'Yep, that sounds like my parental experience.' Others are going to be saying, 'My goodness, where did you get parents like that from?' We all have a different experience,
0:50
some better, some worse. But here's the basic idea.
0:55
If we're off a concrete authority mindset, what we're essentially assuming, especially when we're interacting with other people, is that other people are wiser than us, they're smarter than us, they have more authority than us. Authority within itself is just a perception. It's kind of like an abstract idea.
1:18
Some people, for example, wait within their careers for years for someone who's in a position of authority to promote them or raise them up. And all this within itself is just a perception, getting promoted, getting raised up. People think that they're climbing up the food chain or climbing up the ladder of success. That's not what actually happens. There is no climbing up. There's just kind of sidestepping into different roles with different responsibilities and things like that. Alright.
1:48
So you might see me as some form of concrete authority. Alright. Because, come on, I'm in front of you right now. I am teaching. I'm doing my best to articulate some of these concepts. And if you've bought into some of them, if I'm communicating in a way that makes sense, you might see me as the expert or the guru or as this concrete authority who knows best. And if you allow this perception to become established or rooted in your life, then what you're essentially setting yourself up to
2:23
be is never as great as I, but just in your eyes. All right, concrete authority comes with rules and from other wiser, more mature people who know better than what we do. So we look up to people who we perceive as being in positions of authority. Right. Sometimes some people will do their best to associate with people who they perceive to be in positions of authority. Kind of like we think that if we and this is really interesting. OK, so I'm going to undermine some parts of the
2:52
cognitive psychology industry here just a little bit. Right. So there is such a thing called accrediting organizations. You get certifying organizations, you get accrediting organizations who would sometimes. Work very hard into marketing themselves as being the ultimate authority so you can have some organizations who define themselves as being the ultimate authority when it comes to cognitive behavioral therapy. That's kind of like saying that an organization
3:20
which is essentially within itself just an entity which is made up of imperfect people, imperfect human beings. It's kind of like saying that an organization is the authority on what it means to be a human being. Right? Um, Which human being or which organisation in the world would you say just practically has the authority on what it means to be human? Who has the final say in this? Who's the expert at being human? Now, when we stop to think about this, it's a crazy idea, isn't it?
3:54
But how many people from all around the world will spend thousands and thousands of pounds training with organisations who they think or who they believe to be the authority? All right. And then you'll have some organizations will not employ people unless they've been certified by the authority and have accreditation to show that they've remembered some information or developed some skills and so on and so forth. This whole thing of authority. Here's the basic idea.
4:18
Authority is non-transferable. Some people are going to, you know, be really happy with what I'm about to say. So, you have a terminology. It's a protected title in many parts of the world, in the UK, some countries throughout Europe, especially in America. Clinical psychologist. Right, how would you feel about sitting opposite and engaging in a conversation with a clinical psychologist? What would you think? Would you think that a person who carries a title such as clinical psychologist,
4:47
you'd like to think that they would be the absolute authority, right? The authority in what life? Psychology, whatever that means. Okay, well, a clinical psychologist is essentially a clinician who has received a degree of training in psychology, focusing on the abnormalities of the human mind, who's developed a degree of insight in some psychological schools of thought, perhaps psychoanalysis, but will use some concepts and discuss some concepts in a clinical medical setting.
5:21
The problem with discussing psychological concepts in a medical setting is that if a person has already been medically diagnosed as having a physical or biological disorder, then that means that the problem is physical or it's genealogical and that cannot be resolved. Cannot that cannot be resolved through having a conversation with someone who's just been trained in matters of the mind who understands the relationship between thoughts and emotions all right so disorders
5:55
mental disorders emotional disorders there are some organizations who call themselves authorities who make up these titles who make up these definitions alright so then you'll have people who step into protected titles define themselves as being concrete authorities who then seek to address or who claim to be able to resolve biological matters of the brain physical matters of the human body under the banner of psychology which is a little bit deceitful and it's a little bit distorted because
6:33
psychology as a field of study was founded as a means by which to understand human behaviour. Not diagnose it not cure it not heal it not right, I don't know if you're even following right. Listen this, what we're talking about here. This isn't just a social facade that applies to the field of psychology or cognitive therapy or cognitive psychology. It generally happens in most industries. All right, this term 'authority' and within itself is just a facade-it's just a concept.
7:12
There is no such thing as authority. As long as we assume that there is authority above us, we forever will be down beneath someone, which completely removes equality from relationships in organisational culture, in social structure, through society at large, within families. If you've got an authoritative mother or father, again, it removes all equality. And what is it that leads people to open up and trust people? Life's equality not hierarchy or authority so you
7:47
can take from all of this what you will all right it's interesting um so why am I saying any of this what am I talking about here I'm talking about here you moving out of inflexibility and about a stepping into a place of abstraction, right? Abstraction abstract authority comes. As we no longer look to people in positions of authority to have the answers for our lives as to how it is that we can be better or grow or mature or develop or fix ourselves or fix society. Instead,
8:25
from a place of abstraction, we commit to the process of taking responsibility for creating and generating the results and the outcomes and the consequences that we want to see happen. We essentially become the solutions to our problems, the managers of our tensions, from a place of abstraction where we're no longer waiting for someone else to do things for us or fix things for us. We're no longer reliant on someone else telling us that we are okay, that we've got it all.
8:59
We don't need a bit of paper from another organization. Even even though they're nice to have to hold in a, you know, a certificate hold holder up on a wall somewhere, but we don't actually need it; it doesn't make any difference. Alright, abstract authority comes as we hold ourselves to account in response to us fully owning every single aspect of our lives, of our relationships, and our growth. So we have triggers in life, activating events – right, activating events. This is our 'a'
9:26
way, then we then have beliefs that we naturally operate out of. People are either going to be for us or they're going to be against us. People are either going to have positive intentions for us or malintention towards us. So the core belief essentially then feeds into the thinking style. I think this person's for me. I think this person's against me. I think I'm doing well here. I think I'm not doing so well here. I think I'm getting it right. I think I'm smart enough,
9:55
I think I'm not smart enough. I think I'm good enough. I think I'm not good enough. I think I think I think some people spend their whole lives inside of their heads thinking. Not doing too much. I spend the whole lot of life holding onto the life, thinking and sometimes feeling as well. Because thoughts trigger feelings and emotional states. Feelings and emotional states trigger behaviors, reactions, and responses. Behaviors, reactions, and responses determine the results, the consequences,
10:20
and the outcomes of our lives through behavior, which then provokes us to have more thoughts. And this is the perpetual cycle that is life. This is it. So, the question is, where does the intervention come into play? Because we need an intervention. Either we develop our own intervention strategy or we are going to be forever reliant on an authority figure to be our intervention, and this is why much of society today exists in a completely disempowered way.
10:58
That's why I don't know about where you would live in the world, but here in the UK, in Scotland, the waiting list to speak to an NHS mental health worker who isn't even necessarily trained in psychology or CBT. They've just taken like a, you know, a training course to help them understand all the various disorders and conditions, right? So they're not even trained to necessarily address people's primary concerns or issues in life. But if you want to speak to one of these people,
11:29
one of these non-experts who certainly aren't an authority, you might have to wait around about 12 months, six months, you know, at least. Or you can go private. You can speak to a counsellor. Now, it's only going to be useful for you to speak to a counsellor as long as they're trained in cognitive psychology. Because if they specialized in psychoanalysis, unfortunately, you might end up spending years and years and years talking about the dysfunctional relationship you had with your parents.
11:55
Or you might end up focusing on a problem that you had back in your past for anything up to two years, three years.
12:10
Progress-oriented, right? People tend to focus more on the positive goals and outcomes that they want. So I would generally kind of apply the principles that I understand that are kind of cognitive psychology based in the context of a coaching relationship. Now, there's no rules, right? There is no authority that’s determining what can and cannot be done, all right? Once you gain an in-depth understanding of the human experience, of human behavior, Guess what? If you apply this stuff,
12:41
it is your experience that becomes the source of authority in your life. Not information, not a textbook, not some organisation over there. It is our experience in life that becomes our authority. It becomes the authority from which we communicate. It becomes the authority from which we speak. On whose authority? On the authority of our experience.
13:07
For this is how education is structured. It's where cognitive psychology is a field of studies come from. People's experience. Not academic scholars who were just literally regurgitating information that was created from someone else. Academia doesn't create expertise or authority. Experience creates expertise.
13:32
And authorities' experience. So, you can't go to any organization and buy some of their authority. It's a scam, all right? Right, so why do I say this? I say all of this because it's essential that we learn how to dissect our human experience like this. Once we can do this, and bear in mind here, I'm not teaching you to be an expert. I just wanted to give you an overview.
13:57
Because as a CBT practitioner, you learn how to become absolutely grounded in this, apply it in the context of your own life, and also guide other people through this process of self-regulation. So you might be asking the question here, well, where do we intervene? Where does the intervention take place? Well, it can only happen here. It can only happen here. In fact, what I'm going to do, I'm going to change my pen colour just a little bit. Technology is fantastic these days, isn't it?
14:27
Right, look at that! Have you ever seen any technology quite like this before? So this is where the intervention happens in our thinking now. There is more information that I need to give you because this might not make complete sense just yet, but we're going to get on to that. We need to understand the different patterns of thinking that we can habitually succumb to in life right? We all have thinking patterns. For example, for some people their default setting when it comes
14:57
to thinking is negative. It's doom and gloom. It's catastrophic.
15:02
Some people think in black or white. Good and bad. Happy, sad. Without the 50 shades of grey in between. And I'm not talking about that movie with that guy and that girl that came from the books. I'm not talking about that. Of course I'm not. We're talking about the 50 Shades of Grey of life. The cause and effect principle.
15:20
Right rather than just saying 'today I'm happy' or 'today I'm sad', right? Okay, I'm feeling this way but there's a reason for this, let us explore why. Let us kind of delve into the 50 shades of grey when we can understand the patterns of thinking that people have come to in life only through becoming self-aware within ourselves as we grow in self-awareness of our own thinking styles, we can then begin to naturally identify the thinking styles other people have come to hence the
15:49
reason we gain the insight and the understanding and the discernment to be able to address the thinking styles that people don't even know that they have. If this sounds quite complex, it's not, it just requires a little bit of hard work, quite a lot of discipline and for one to become completely self-aware which is possible, it doesn't take long, it's a choice all right, it's a choice. So, a cognitive dissection of the human experience we understand the intervention happens here if we can
16:21
influence a person's thinking, we can influence a person's feeling. If we can influence a person's feeling, we're going to influence their behaviour. And as we influence their behaviour, guess what? We naturally go on to influence the consequences, the results, and the outcomes of the experience in life. Simple as that. Interesting stuff, eh? So, this is a helpful model for highlighting and raising self-awareness within a person. Now, it's not that people need therapy.
16:49
It's not that people need counselling. I want to boldly propose here that it is not possible. To counsel someone in something that they have not first been trained in, all right, honestly, if I had my way, models like this would be getting trained in higher education systems and schools all around the world. All right, my goodness! Could you imagine how society might look if instead of foreign languages and um, you know, geography and all that stuff's important,
17:19
but I question how important geography or history or humanities is in comparison to self-awareness and communication skills and social skills and people skills and understanding how it is that we're actually wired as human beings. Because if self-awareness was being taught and people were learning this from a young age, my goodness! People would be learning how to manage and regulate ourselves right away. Half the therapists in our nations would be out of
17:55
work, but this would be a good thing this wouldn't even be a bad thing; it would be great to be. Phenomenal! Right half the pharmaceutical companies would be over well money, but then they'd probably just go and make up some new terminologies that people couldn't be able with instead which is tends tends to be what they do anyway. So this is a helpful model for highlighting and raising self-awareness in a person or to assist the expansion of social awareness amongst the individuals
18:19
within a group. These are the six phases. Just to highlight, nothing stands alone in isolation. No feeling comes about without a cause. There's always going to be a trigger. Stage number one: Triggers.
18:37
Feed into beliefs right, beliefs are always in are already in place all right, and we start developing beliefs, beliefs are just guesses, their ideas kind of like an emergence of ideas and guesses and hopes and aspirations and sometimes you know whacked out thinking right. Remember some people believe in Santa Claus until they're like 10 years old, some people believe in Santa Claus maybe until they're as old as you who knows.
19:04
So beliefs come from somewhere else. We start developing beliefs from the minute we're born. Beliefs are like the foundations of our life, the best assumptions and decisions that we've been able to arrive at about how life is. So, triggers fuel beliefs. Beliefs fuel thinking styles, habits, patterns that we develop over a lifetime. These thinking styles and habits trigger emotional states for better or for worse; emotional states have a knock-on effect and influence our behaviors
19:37
be they emotional reactions or well-considered responses, right, the mature option, or the less not so mature option; and obviously how we behave has a knock-on effect on the consequences that we experience in life. So, this essentially gives us a model for self-awareness. Now, you can debate with this. You can disagree with this. It's entirely up to you. It doesn't make any difference. But it's still the model that has been applied and presented and used for over 60 years now that has
20:08
enabled possibly millions of people all around the world to better understand themselves, and in turn, better understand and relate to their fellow human beings.
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