Link - [[Books Index]] # 202009071534 Notes Reading [[Wittgenstein and psychotherapy. From Paradox to wonder. John M. Heaton]] Source: Book: Wittgenstein and [[psychotherapy]] From Paradox to Wonder John M Heaton [[0_PARA/💡 Resources & Themes/Wittgenstein/Ludwig Wittgenstein]] ___ **Content** 1. Introduction 2. Paradoxes ^0b0d64 3. Scientism 4. Logic and Meaning 5. Initiate Learning 6. The Self and I 7. Trust and Wonder --------- # Preface Natural order - are natural things. Human orders are like ability to reason, language. Most medicine and surgery is concerned with the natural order, while psychiatry and [[psychotherapy]] are mostly concerned with the human order. We can point to a disordered liver or brain, but not a mind or to a reason. [[202011011305 The difference between natural and human order]] **What is natural can be named and translated into different languages easily, but mental illness (human order) are hard to translate. Because different cultures, use of language in different time are different.** "There are enormous difficulties in translating the word ‘mind’ even into languages close to English such as ancient Greek and Sanskrit. It is impossible in archaic languages such as ancient Egyptian and exotic ones such as the Australian aboriginal languages. But we would say all these people had minds!" We cannot look at disorders of the mind or reason and assume we are talking about the same thing. (Subjective? Interpretation?) - [[27-04-2024]] - ![[Book - The Birth and Death of Meaning An Interdisciplinary perspective on the problem of man#^06f0fd]] [[202011011314 Words that describes become labels and dogma]] **We come out with different words to describe our mind or inner experience, we become distressed or confused when we are too fixed to those labels. Becoming dogma.** "In talking about the mind and complaining about our own minds we use suggestive metaphors, models, and other theoretical fictions. These fictions are not true but may be useful for certain purposes. Dogma arises when we take our fictions for truth and they become frozen into doctrines, theses, ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’. We become confused and distressed." **What if there is no one way of solving a problem? But we insist on there is only one way? Like a psychological theory. Then people are forced to only resolve their problems in a limited way.** [[202011011315 They are more than one way to solve a problem]] "I agree with Freud and many others that mental disorder is a state of conflict, but I disagree that dogmatic theories will help in relieving it. For example, psychoanalysts believe that there must be an unconscious containing mental objects. Freud even stated that if you do not believe in it then there is something wrong with you! Now this dogma may be useful with respect to some problems, it is dramatic and has influenced many to seek psychoanalysis for help. But when treated as a dogma it may prevent one from finding a satisfactory resolution to psychological problems that do not need it." **Therapist should act like a mirror with no doctrines, theories, diagnosis, and simply reflect what is before it. A mirror does not determine anything, so therapist does not determine anything.** [[202011011317 Therapist should act like mirror, do not pre-determine anything.]] "An aim of this book is to show that [[psychotherapy]] works best when the therapist is seen to act like a mirror and has no doctrines, diag- noses, or any dogmatic ‘musts’. A mirror simply reflects what is before it. It does not determine anything. So the therapist does not deter- mine anything. She is not out to prove anything, neither that she has a technique or a theory nor the absence of them. This statement applies to herself. She neither asserts she is a mirror or tries to be one nor does she deny it. We are using a metaphor." **The therapist mirror back what client’s presents, and he learn to recognize the reason for his unhappiness come from how he sees, created the problem. They come out with their solutions?** [[202011011320 Therapists mirror back whatever client presents aids in problem exploration]] "However with skill, the misleading trains of thought and feeling, false analogies, ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ will be precisely mirrored to the patient so they can acknowledge them as the expression of their thoughts and feelings. The patient learns to recognize the reasons for his unhappiness, he comes to see that his problems are absurd and his answers to them are outside the bounds of sense. This contrasts with the psychiatric and psychoanalytic orthodoxy where the patient is given a diagnosis, a technical term coming from the therapist and his theories, which may not make much sense to the patient." The cure is IN the relationship between therapist and patient rather than on their points of view, theories, and techniques. (Original quote) - That is something I agree in. ___ # 1. Introduction After decades of research, we learnt much about the brain but little on the whys and wherefores of mental illness. In [[psychotherapy]], no clear pattern on which approach is better. **What seems to be important are insight on placebo effect, quality of therapeutic rapport, and non-specific factors.** "In [[psychotherapy]] no clear pattern of superiority for any one treatment has emerged. What emerges is that the placebo effect, the quality of the relationship between therapist and patient, and other non-specific factors are what are important." [[202011011324 What works in therapy are rapport, placebo and other things]] Why are there lack of reason in some part of our life or a loss of reason in madness. What is the nature of reason and of sanity **What are the way we operate words, to make sense or not make sense.** "In this book I return to a traditional understanding of mental distress. That is, what is central is a lack of reason in some part of our life or a loss of reason in madness. The nature of reason, of sanity, the way we operate with words to make sense or fail to, are central themes." **What define a therapy as effective is not in the data/statistics but in whether both therapist and patient can make sense or not their mutual sanity, which involves recognizing the limits of reason.** [[202011011327 Therapy works when it make sense for both therapist and patient.]] "The evidence for the effectiveness of therapy is not empirical, nor does it depend on the value we put on the pictures we are prone to believe with their limited satisfaction and manifold frustrations. The evidence lies in whether therapist and patient can make sense or not, their mutual sanity, which involves recognizing the limits of reason." **[[psychotherapy]] is about going back to the root, to understand how learnt, how we form the way we understand things, to resolve paradoxes and despairs.** "By going back to the roots of how we make sense we may come to see the place of pictures in understanding the way psychological concepts function. By this means the paradoxes and despairs that characterize much of our psychological life may be dissolved." [[202011011330 We help patient to retrace their steps, to figure how they understand things]] **Before we can understand the mind, we have to have the language to describe and talk about the mind. Before we can make sense of mathematical objects, we have to be able to use mathematical language. That is how a child develop a concept of the mind, inner world and mental processes, only after she learn how to express her feelings, perceptions, thoughts.** "In empirical science we discover facts about physical objects but in [[psychotherapy]] we can only become cognizant of the mind, mental processes, the self, consciousness, feelings, when we can use psychological language. A child has to be able to express her feelings, perceptions, thoughts, before she can develop a concept of the mind, inner world, and mental processes. Psychological language does not make sense because non-sensory ‘things’ like the mind, internal objects, consciousness, existed before psychoanalysts. Rather we can only understand models of the mind because we can use psychologi- cal language. The heart of [[psychotherapy]] is not theories of the mind but concrete problems as to how we make sense or fail to. In this way it is similar to mathematics, where before we can make sense of mathematical objects and create new ones, we have to be able to use mathematical language." [[202011011332 Human uses language to develop the mind as a continuous circle.]] **Therapy is about reminding people of, how they make, or fail to make, sense. Not about making new discoveries, behaviour, or relationships.** * “I will seek to show that therapy should not be in the business of making new discoveries about the mind, behaviour, or relationships, but be concerned with paying attention to, and reminding people of, how they make, or fail to make, sense." [[202011011428 Problems not about lack of new knowledge but fail to make sense.]] “We easily lose touch with the ground on which we stand and from which we grew and this can lead to suffering” [[202011011432 Don't forget where you come from]] **People are constrained by idealized pictures of the relation between language, thought, and reality.** * "[[psychotherapy]], understood as a talking cure, is an exploratory, non-dogmatic practice in which people are helped to free themselves from the constraining effects of idealized pictures of the relation between language, thought, and reality." [[202011011433 People are constrained by idealized pictures of the relation between language, thought, and reality.]] ^78c98b **Theories compound the original confusions. - This author, like Steve De Shazer, both said that theories are limiting.** "Attempts at further theory construction are not a creative response but compound the original confusions." [[202011011434 Theories can be limiting and compound original confusions]] **In therapy, we see people show up with confused reasons, because their thinking are fighting themselves. Reasons contradicting each other. Locked up.** "In the talking cure we show that people have developed confused pictures of reason because thinking, for them, has become exclusively contrastive, a matter of agreement and disagreement, so no wonder they struggle to become free of it" [[202011011438 People faces with contradictions and get locked up]] There is a “picture of reason” and reason? ^9ff227 **We try to make sense with patients, but we do not know what is that sense to make.** * "For when we are confused about reason we lose the ordinary felt unity and coherence of our life. Certain experiences, or perhaps our life, do not make sense. But it is impossible to specify into sentences just what sense we feel they ought to make. There are no rules we must follow to make sense of our life or anyone else’s, yet rule following is a basic human activity." [[202011011440 We try to make sense with patients, but we do not know what is that sense to make]] ___ # Chapter 2. Paradoxes. A paradox is a heightened ambiguity. There are many types of paradox - What we are are concern about is related to language and understanding ourselves and others. ## Randomness **The paradox of order and randomness is important in both mathematics and [[psychotherapy]]. [page 18)** * — I am thinking of the seemingly need for “structure and order” in [[Systemic Thinking]] lens of family, and in individual intrapsychic phenomena, but there are randomness, chances, and serendipities happening all the time that influence this order. [[202011011441 Order in randomness, and randomness in order]] Mathematics is the study of order and patterns. Yet the concept of randomness (the complete absence of order) is the most fruitful concept in quantum mechanics, theory of evolution, and theory of chaotic systems. Biology systems is found on boundary of chaos (chances in evolution). Freud’s unexamined assumptions was determinism and that mind was a machine. Free association is an approach of randomness, but they believe that associations are determined, and they use their theories to determine and impose interpretations. So the interpretation depended on theories, instead of allowing sense and meaning to freely develop. * — thus feel rather restrictive, so call “Free associations” are not really free, as it’s interpretations are based on the theory, which was based on determinism. [[202011011444 psychoanalysis, free association are deterministic]] ## Frege's paradox - Frege - The difference between objects and concepts. - Objects exist independently of talk. - Empirical answers to problems involve objects. - Concepts are created through linguistic practices. **- In counseling we are are solving conceptual problems, not real world objects.** - "The talking cure, too is concerned with problems and so we develop concepts to clarify them. We observe the expressions and manifestations of the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of people, but these are not objects to be theorized but concepts that may need elucidating." Page 19. [[202011011447 In counseling we are are solving conceptual problems, not real world objects.]]^1 ^b466e1 - "We have to learn to dance with these concepts and not trip up." **People get tripped up by concepts and ways of thinking** "We tend to confuse objects with concepts and so believe that we are the content of our thoughts, opinions, beliefs, feelings, instead of seeing that these are all concepts not empirical objects. Thus, if I believe and feel, ‘I am a failure’ and act accordingly, what needs understanding is the way I have confused myself with the concept ‘failure.’ For the subject of this psychological attribute is not my mind or body but myself as a whole." Page 20" [[202011011448 We have to learn to dance with these concepts and not trip up.]] ^a32f8d -- Concepts, theories are simply that, concepts, not empirical. Don't be too attached to theories. Is there a "one way" to work, to work with concepts? A concepts to work with concepts. - Mathematics are concepts, the concept of '0' was an invention, earliest record was in India, 468 CE. ## Psychologism - Freud in 1926, wanted to come out with 'technical knowledge' to guide the field of psychology. **Psychologism view thought processes governed by law of thought, is on same foot as laws of nature.** - Psychologism is the belief that the study of reasoning is in both subject matter and methodology a psychological discipline. Thinking and thoughts are its subject matter and it seeks the law of thought that are the laws in accord to which we think. It understands thought processes and their laws as on the same footing as the laws of nature. [[202011011450 Fallacy to think that thought processes are natural laws]] - Truth is objective and independent of the psychological make-up or anyone thinking it. Logic does not concern itself with cognition or individual cognizers. [[202011011452 Truth is objective and independent of the psychological make-up or anyone thinking it.]] **We must be careful to differentiate our thoughts, ideas, views from truth. Truth are external, and regardless of the people.** - Most of us confuses our ideas with truth, hence the many psychologies. The psychoanalytic literature is full of Freud and Klein’s ‘views’ on this and that, their ‘models’, their ‘concepts’, their ‘thoughts’. But very rarely do we get any objective or empirical evidence for them." p23. [[202011011453 We must differentiate truth from opinions and views]] **People form judgments according to their psychological conditions, which are coherent by themselves, but may not relate to truth.** They claim to be doing empirical investigations, yet fail to see that although each judgment we make is causally conditioned, it is not the case that all these causes are grounds that afford a justification of truth. For these causes act in accordance with psychological laws but have no inherent relation to truth, they know nothing of the opposition of true and false. [[202011011454 People think what they think because of who they are. May not be Truth]] **To say that something is true, require the use of judgment and that involves making sense. (p23)** To recognize something as true is to make a judgment and this involves making sense. [[202011011457 To say that something is true, require the use of judgment and that involves making sense.]] **Logic is the attempt to make sense, not of things but of sense. And sense cannot be subjective but shared with others. Only when others also grasp the same sense, they can understand an expression in the same way, and convey their thoughts to one another.** Logic is the attempt to make sense, not of things but of sense. Sense cannot be subjective for it is only when two people grasp the same sense, and know that they do, that they can understand an expression in the same way and so convey their thoughts to one another. p23 [[202011011459 Logic is the attempt to make sense, not of things but of sense]] **When people cannot agree on sense, or clarify how they make sense of sense, they use different words, and has their own ideas.** Not recognizing this, has resulted in there being more warring schools of [[psychotherapy]] than before. Each school has its own ideas and names for psychological phenomena but fail to clarify how they make sense of sense. [[202011011501 People make sense of things differently, they uses different words to describes it. Thus confusion.]] **Greek philosophers view of universal law, or logos. Yet people live differently?** Heraclitus in about 500 BCE wrote: ‘Therefore one must follow the logos, that which is common to all. But although the logos is universal, the majority live as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves’. [[202011011504 There may be a universal truth or law, yet people interpreted that differently and individually.]] ## Paradoxes of meaning The myth of Tantalus in hell, wild with thirst yet standing in water, but unable to drink is a picture of this experience. **How can we know what will fulfill our desire, when that desire first arise? The fulfillment of a desire is not on the same level of the creation of the desire?** These people are unable to intelligibly resolve this potentially productive ambiguity. They take wishing to be a mental event that occurs now, then wonder how it is possible to know now what will fulfill it. The fulfillment of the wish has not yet come so how can the present wish determine this non-existent thing that will fulfill it? Imagining this, they feel tense and strive to fulfill this ‘gap’ between the two ‘items’: one’s wish that is in one’s mind now and some extra-mental event that is the fulfillment of the wish. They are unable to understand that the fulfillment of a process is not on the same level as the process; we require metaphorical understanding to conceptualize a completed process (PI, para. 437–50). - page 24-25 [[202011011505 The mind that created the problem cannot come out with a solution.]] **Wishes are not physical objects that appear for real. Wishes are an expression of a desired state. How we express, or describes the wish will depend on the use of language (how we were introduced to language). A person can have many wishes, or expressed many wishes, but the "wish behind the wish" speaks of the desired outcome/state.**[[020.300 Solution Focused MOC]] Wishes are not items that occur in the mind or anywhere; this is one of the illusions of psychologism. We give expression to wishes. If we are asked what we wish, we do not look into our mind and describe what we see but express what we wish; they are expressions of our cognitive nature and their meaning depends on our initiation into language. Wishing as such is endless, the fulfillment of wishing is not. p25 [[202011011510 Wishes are expression of desired states. Ask the wish behind the wish.]] ## The paradox of despair When I don't have something, I want it, once I have it, i am anxious that I may lose it. ## Aporia Aproria are contradictions. **Neurosis cannot be solved by reason as it is not empirical, but due to an internal contradictions. Interpretations, giving explanation of symptoms is not helpful. but rather, patients need clarity to see their contradictions. [[psychotherapy]]** In both paradoxes and in neurosis we are confronted by problems that we cannot solve by reasoning, they are not empirical but aporetic....Psychotherapists and psychiatrists are well aware that an abstract logical analysis of neuotic or psychotic problems rarely has much effect. People struggling with them in their lives need to understand the aporia from within, in the way that they themselves have come to experience them; they need clarity not knowledge. (p26) [[202011011515 Neurotic and psychotic problems cannot be solved by reasoning.]] **Bolzano first see that the root of problems are in our assumptions of how things must be. Focus on clarifying what is said, and context of it being said.** [[psychotherapy]] Bolzano (1781–1848), a Czech priest, was the first to see that a morass of ==problems in and about science and philosophy could be resolved by a careful study of how we come to mean.== His approach held that the root of much confusion lies in misunderstanding the nature of the a priori; of what we think must be. He studied meaning, what we say, rather than what things and processes there are in the world. It involved reduction into reference rather than experience. Its purpose being the clarification of what was said. So his approach involved paying close attention to concepts, propositions, senses – to the structure and context of what we say – as opposed to the psychic acts involved and the experiences they describe. -- Link [[202009101947 Reading notes Asking useful questions. Suicide#OPENING QUESTIONS]] - page 41. Table on shifting assumptions. Reminded me how patient's arrive at their problem because of the underlying assumptions. [[202011011547 Focus on clarifying underlying concepts, propositions, structure and context of what is being said]] **Mathematics seen as the most certain of all sciences, yet there are paradoxes in mathematics.** Most of us are not troubled by the mathematical paradoxes although Russell, Wittgenstein, and others were. The mathematical paradoxes are interesting as mathematics is commonly believed to be the most certain of all sciences, so to discover paradoxes at its foundations is disturbing. These aporia seem to be statements of insuperable difficulties. p27 [[202011011550 Mathematics seen as the most certain of all sciences, yet there are paradoxes in mathematics.]] Many mathematicians became mad. Cantor, Gödel, Turing. Logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic#Semantics became the basic tool for philosophy as it could reveal some of the confusions underlying our ordinary use of language. p27 "Wittgenstein initially thought that philosophical problems can be solved or dissolved by piecemeal logical analysis." Page27 "Logic became the basic tool for philosophy as it could reveal some of the confusions underlying our ordinary use of language." Page 27. **It is not about having a clear, common language, and like a dictionary of language. Because how we use language is not neutral. There is no "dictionary". More of context?** "It seemed that if we had a clear symbolic notation, an ideal language then all philosophical problems and paradoxes would be solvable. We would just have to translate the apparent logical form of our ordinary language into the ideal one and we would be home (TLP, para. 4.1213). Genuine philosophy would be a critique of language (TLP, para. 4.0031). This ideal is similar to the psychoanalytic ideal of a perfect analysis. The analyst is neutral, detached from everything the patient presents verbally, non-verbally, consciously, unconsciously, and pre-consciously; he has been perfectly analysed. From this position the analyst listens and gives judicious and well- prepared interpretations based on psychoanalytic theory, which lead the patient from irrationality to reason. Unfortunately this ideal collapsed for both Wittgenstein and psychoanalysis. In psychoanalysis it became clear that how we decide what is neutral and unprejudiced is far from neutral both in theory and practice." page 28 [[202011011552 How language is used is not neutral (like numbers), context is the focus.]] Wittgenstein came to realize that language has many uses besides representing. **If it can be explained, then it's not a paradox. But sometimes, we just cannot explain why certain things is, it is a paradox. Can we just accept that is that?** Paradoxes need not result in despair. If we understand the lim- its of our language and do not confuse them with our limitations, then we may come to see that what we experience may not need interpretation. We can trust it. This thought can lead to wonder. A tradition going back at least as far as Plato and Aristotle holds that the source of philosophy is wonder and astonishment (Aristotle, n.d., para. 982b10). Wittgenstein was part of this tradition. He spoke of ‘wonder at the existence of the world’ (PO, p. 41), ‘puzzlement’ or ‘puzzles’ (LWI, para. 1094–6), ‘agitation’ (BT, p. 416), ‘disquiet’ (Z, para. 44l, BT, p. 431), and ‘seeing the world as a miracle’ (PO, p. 43)..... Wonder may happen when we are struck by something but have run out of understanding or explana- tions and can think of no set of answers or a grand theory into which it fits.- page 30 [[202011011556 Sometimes can we just accept that certain things are a paradox]] ==not the clearest== "But what is it to explain a paradox? What we need here is clar- ity rather than explanation. A paradox emerges when reason fails to explain, whereas an explanation brings something into the space of reason. So an explanation of a paradox would take the paradox away and then it would appear there was no paradox. It would reassure and show the person in the grip of a paradox that he was in error. It would be the way a superior and humane person would behave towards an ignorant one. But supposing it becomes clear that the paradox shows the limit of thought and language? This could enable us to grasp ever more deeply what the paradox is and that it is a paradox. The failure of explanation would then not express a relative difference between more or less gifted people but could show the difference between those with a thirst for satisfaction and certainty and those who seek clarity." page 31 **Language and logic in culture lead to paradoxes. So call professionals are not freed from paradoxes (neurosis). We have to recognized that human behavior are paradoxical.** The importance of paradoxes for therapy is that they show that what has led us to perplexity is not just personal blindness. Rather it is confusions prevalent in our culture about language and logic that can lead us to perplexity and perhaps despair. That is why people can understand the difficulties and discussions of it without having had a training analysis or any other technical introduction to what are believed to be the diseases of neurosis and psychosis. Technical training may lead the psychotherapist to consider her- self to be free of all paradoxes, of all neurosis. But this training rarely takes into account the paradoxes of thought and certainty. The alternative is to realize that the human condition is paradoxical but some may be more helpful than others in our coming to terms with it. page 31 How can we be relieved of the grip of paradox? ‘The philosopher strives to find the liberating word, and that is the word that finally permits us to grasp what until then had constantly and intangibly weighed on our consciousness’ (BT, p. 302). **Remove the "idols", that obstruct how one think, or not think. There is no need to create new theories or new system. Removing, reducing is better** We could say that the philosopher deals with bugs but intangible ones. ‘All that philosophy can do is to destroy idols. And that means not creating a new one – say in the “absence of an idol” ’ (BT, p. 305). He does not claim to make new discoveries such as the occult or the unconscious and mental processes; he does not claim and advertise that his system of therapy is the best by definition; but works ‘by assembling what we have long been familiar with’ (PI, para. 109). **As long as people agree on how to use language and the rules of the language game. Then the therapist can be like a mirror to help client make sense for himself what he meant.** The sentences: ‘I believe or think or feel that 2 + 2 = 4’ are not mathematical sentences but may interest a psychologist; whereas ‘2 + 2 = 4’ is a mathematical sentence. It could be like this in psychotherapy. So that a liberating remark neither depends on a particular community with its rules of proof, nor on the shared theories and beliefs of a group of therapists. It is agreement in judgments that is important, where the people concerned agree in the language games they use and in their form of life. This allows the therapist to be used as a mirror in which the patient can recognize his thoughts and feelings. (page 31) **When a sentence is spoken, it's more then the words that's used, but the context of (the unspoken that's expressed) as well. Can it be replaced by another set of words to mean the same thing?** We speak of understanding a sentence in the sense in which it can be replaced by another which says the same; but also in the sense in which it cannot be replaced by any other. (Any more than one musical theme can be replaced by another.) In the one case, the thought in the sentence is what is common to different sentences; in the other, something that is expressed only by these words in these positions. (Understanding a poem) (PI, para. 531) (page 32) # Chapter 3. Scientism [[202009142025 Each life moment is both cause and effect. Life is not a linear sequence of events]] **Our lives are does not go in a linear sequence. Life's interactions are interpenetrating, with moments both as a cause and effect. The stories we tell ourselves are often misleading (Reminded me of Narrative therapy)** Many stories are monologue, words put down in solitude. If they are case histories, written after the events, they depend on memory. So a case history often falls into a linear sequence, hence the attrac- tion of causes: ‘And then...and then...and then....But our lives as lived are not like that. It is the context of interpenetrating relations that gives meaning and structure to human life. Thus, if A causes B and B causes C then B can be seen as both the effect of A and the cause of C. It is both cause and effect. The stories we tell about ourselves are often false and misleading. Many stories have a beginning and a conclusion but does life? Well, one day there will be no tomorrow; but do you remember when you began? (Page 34, "Wittgenstein and Psychotherapy") ## Scientism Scientism is when we claim that there is only one version of reality, which is the scientific one. This is a misunderstanding of science. "Scientism arises when we claim there is one order to reality, the scientific one, and so reduces life and art to this order as a priori. Scientism misunderstands science." (page 34, "Wittgenstein and psychotherapy") **Psychiatry and psychotherapy pretend to be scientific. However the concepts that are used have not even been defined accurately.** Much psychotherapy and psychiatry is scientistic. It claims that the phenomena of ‘mental disorder’ are susceptible to non-empirical theory construction orientated, like science, to the discovery of simple regularities and deep explanations. But the very notion of mental disorder is unclear. Is it a disturbance in reasoning? If so, how do we understand reason and recognize the lack of it? Is reason a matter of the opinion of a majority? If not how is it to be decided? (Page 35) **Psychiatry diagnosis is based on opinion, not science.** According to the empirical approach, if there are sufficient phe- nomena at a sufficient threshold, a mental disorder is said to exist. Thus, mild and ‘harmless’ obsessions may be seen as within normal limits but if they may cause harm or interfere with work then they become pathological. This is alchemy not science. ==It can be said that if one consults a psychiatrist, psychologist, or psychotherapist for one’s suffering then one has a mental illness; if one is religious, loses faith, and consults a priest, one is a sinner!== **Wittgenstein pointed out that one of the source of confusion in modern world is misunderstanding nature of science, we confused it to scientism. We view the world as if everything has been explained, and there is a natural law, which cannot be changed. And everything need explanation.** Wittgenstein pointed out that one of the main sources of confusion in modern world is misunderstanding the nature of science - scientism. (page 35) At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. (TLP, para. 6.371) So people stop short at natural laws as at something unassailable, as did the ancients at God and Fate. And they both are right and wrong. But the ancients were clearer, in so far as they recognized one clear terminus, whereas the modern system makes it appear as though everything were explained. (TLP, para. 6.372) What is disastrous in the scientific way of thinking (which today rules the whole world) is that it wants to respond to every discomfort by giving an explanation. (MS, para. 219.8) (page 36, Wittgenstein and Psychotherapy) **Not everything can be explained. Not everything can be understood by "science". Science cannot promise that human despair, paradoxes and suffering in life will disappear. There is a limit to reaons. Life is messy.** #Karl_Jasper ? Explanations come to an end somewhere, the task is to see their limitations rather than fall for the scientistic illusion that one scientific method will explain everything and so, if we follow its methods, paradoxes, human despair and suffering will eventually disappear. Reason has limits; human affairs are untidy, have their ups and downs, that is their nature. **Scientism is different to science. Science explore the unknown, and seek to make sense. It reveal paradoxes. Scientism is attached to sense of security; when empirical theories are not supported by their data. (wrong interpretation of data?)** Science is concerned with making sense and, when properly under- stood, can help in the awakening of wonder. Science and mathemat- ics can reveal paradoxes, and patterns and processes that we have never dreamed of. Evolutionary biology can show the awe inspiring improbability that we have evolved as we have, the individual exis- tence of each one of us is a historical contingency of tremendous improbability. We are contingent to the core. This can be a powerful source of wonder. Scientism is attracted to the search for safety and security, rather than truth. It ignores the logic of science; for exam- ple, failing to understand that empirical theories are undetermined by their data. (page 36) ## Explanation **What does it mean to explain something? It is a story to make something puzzling less so, it offer an account to some phenomenon. In explanation, it attempt to identify causes to what has happened. Having an explanation gives ability to control and predict an phenomenon.** What does it mean to explain something? There are many different views on this. It is a story that makes something puzzling less so. Ideally it offers a complete, systematic, precise, and basic account of some puzzling phenomenon. Often it involves identifying relevant causes of that which is to be explained. This may give us the ability to control and predict, as in the bacterial explanation of certain dis- eases. An explanation may involve probability theory and statistical relevance. (Page 36) **Theories are attempt to explain something.** **Psychoanalysis is a theory based on assumptions about "unconscious mental processes, theory of resistance and repression..." to explain neurotic phenomena.** Freud introduces psychoanalysis thus: Psychoanalysis is the name 1) of a procedure for the investigation of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other way, 2) of a method (based upon that investigation) for the treat- ment of neurotic disorders and 3) of a collection of psychological information obtained along these lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline. (Freud, 1916) He tells us that the ‘corner stones’ of psychoanalytic theory are the assumptions that ‘there are unconscious mental processes, the recog- nition of the theory of resistance and repression, the appreciation of the importance of sexuality and of the Oedipus Complex’ (Freud, 1926a, p. 243). These assumptions, or hypotheses, form the basis on which he explains neurotic phenomena. (page 37) **What is "simple" to one person may not be "simple to another".** Simplicity is not a simple notion, what is simple to one may not be to another. (page 37) **The difference between "natural beliefs" (maybe be factual) and "dogmatic beliefs" that are based on inferences.** Psychoanalytic theory ignores the difference between natural beliefs, which are states that are the result of being effected by something else, for example, ‘I feel cold’, ‘Honey tastes sweet’, ‘I feel sad’; and dogmatic beliefs that depend on inferences, for example, ‘There is an unconscious’, ‘There is an inner world containing objects’, ‘There are archetypes’. There is a vast literature, ancient and modern, on the evidence for and importance of these distinctions (Bett, 2010). (page 37) Psychoanalyst pick and choose events, materials from the patient's past to explain what is happening based on the inferences (based on assumptions), to seek to explain things. Such explanations allow us to imagine that it makes sense of things. It seeks to satisfy our thirst for sense but does it clarify the nature of reason and unreason? (Elder, 1994, pp. 199–203). - page 37 **There is a difference between explaining to clarify how things really are, and explaining to satisfy us to feel that we are incontrol, and things makes sense.** Such explanations allow us to imagine that it makes sense of things. It seeks to satisfy our thirst for sense but does it clarify the nature of reason and unreason? (Elder, 1994, pp. 199–203). - page 38 **Freud theory cannot be test and proven, like rigorous sciences, such as mathematics and physics.** Psychoanalysts often try to persuade us that their theories are of value and are true. In the rigorous sciences, such as mathematics and physics, their propositions do not say they are correct; it is for the propositions to be judged. Either a person sees their value or he does not. (page 38) **People want to confirm their views and beliefs, even psychotherapists, and this create self-reinforcing subjectivity. (They see what they want to see). They ignore anomalies that doesn't fit their theory.** Instead of showing that human life cannot be subsumed under a theory, and so including anomalies in their accounts, many psychotherapists are addicted to a thirst for their sense. They are riddled with enthusiasm, a self-reinforcing subjectivity that refuses to examine its own grounds. (page 38) **Progress in science are made when anomalies are taken into account, so concepts can be revised.** Many important discoveries in science have been made precisely because anomalies have been taken into account and so new concepts had to be devised. (page 39) **We must consider how we make sense of how we make sense.** **Psychoanalytic way form their belief about what make sense, but rarely consider how they make sense of those beliefs. So whatever that does not fit their way of making sense are rejected. It is a narrowing view.** The psychoanalytic way of making sense of neurotic conflict rarely considers how we make sense of sense in contrast to how they do with their theoretical beliefs. They construe the evidence for their beliefs about what makes sense in terms that depend heavily on those very beliefs. So their way of making sense of conflict and despair pre- supposes a narrow conception of what it is to make sense of these experiences. Therefore, some people who use an unfamiliar way of making sense, do not, on this narrow conception, count as attempts to make sense of things. (page 39) **Diagnosis is one way of making sense, but it is different in diagnosing the human order and natural order. There is no established biological marker in psychiatry for mental illness.** #Mental_Illness #Diagnosis Diagnosis is one way of making sense. But diagnosis in the human order is very different from the natural order. The World Health Organization (2001, p. 3) defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being’. This sounds great but gets us nowhere for what is human well-being? To be like the Buddha? Is a person dying naturally unhealthy? There is no established biological marker in psychiatry for mental illness. (page 39) **Mental illness diagnosis is an attempt to make sense of the human order. The classifications are decided by people, it should not be treated as a universal standard as if a natural order.** #Diagnosis #Mental_Illness #DSM Classifications for mental disorder depend on the interests, concerns, and values of the people making them. The great danger is the attempt to give them a universal application as if they were disorders of the natural order (Bhui, 2013). - p39 **There are all sorts of ways to make sense.** ^eadb65 **What we think of ourselves can be usually different from how we act and are seen by others.** ‘Our disease is one of wanting to explain’ (RFM, p. 333). A big temptation in psychotherapy is to think that our therapy is the best and so our explanations will fit this thought. But thinking, especially thinking about ourselves, is profoundly contextual. There is no such thing as a consciousness transparent unto itself. A great gulf separates our pre-experiential reflective thoughts about ourselves and our lived experience, how we actually act and are seen to act by others.- page 40 ## The Disengaged Attitude. **Seek to clarify to describe rather then to explain. Because explanation is imposing.** It is basic to Wittgenstein’s way of clarifying confusions of sense, thought, and meaning to describe rather than explain. ‘And we may not advance any kind of theory. There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. All explanations must disappear, and description alone must take its place’ (PI, para. 109). (Page 40) **There must not be any preconceive notions when we clarify. Only seek descriptions. Without judgment.** There must not be anything hypothetical in our considerations. All explanations must disappear, and description alone must take its place’ (PI, para. 109). Page 40 **We are mistaken if we think that we can be truly objective and seperated from what is happening around us. We cannot be separated and not be affected/influenced by our world. We cannot not be. Who we are will interfere with our perceptions.** He shows that confusions particularly arise when we imagine we can take a disengaged theoretical stance towards the world, as if we could float above it and from there, explain our paradoxes and confusions. - Page 40 **When we explain, or seek to form impressions of what patient is saying, we are privileging a theoretical model, and way of explanation instead of clarifying what the patient is trying to communicate. We close off certain possibilities.** Patients emphasize their experience, telling their story, often in stuttering, meagre, and unsure language that expresses their feelings and confusions accurately. If experts translate this, as if they were the sole masters of language, they are dictating and interpreting the ‘real’ meaning. This happens when they use idealized models of disease, such as abnormalities of structure and function causing symptoms, and so making what was uncertain and explorative definitive. The relation of theory to practice is not examined. (Page 41) **Why do we need to interpret the unconscious? Why is that important? Ordinarily, people do not listen to each other in a psychodynamic way, but we converse with each other to understand each other.** We do not ordinarily listen to ‘material presented to us’ in order to interpret it, but we converse and do things with people and in this way come to understand them.(page 41) **The psychodynamic analyst interprets the conversation based on what the theory tell him.** The analyst, on the other hand, focuses on the interpretation of psychical reality, or this is what his theory tells him to do. This is a very particular task. Just what is ‘psychical reality’ and why must we always interpret it? Why must this be therapeutic? - P41 **What patient says may not be what therapists says. Experts has it's theories, but patients express themselves.** It is clear that there is an absence of any one-to-one relation between what patients say and what the experts say. Similar degrees of pathology generate different amounts of suffering. Thus, homosex- uality was once thought to be a perversion with complicated mental processes causing it, and needing years of psychoanalysis to cure it. But now when it is not considered a disorder, we do not hear of these processes. Does homosexuality cause suffering? It may do but so can heterosexuality. Is homosexuality irrational? Sometimes perhaps, but the same could be said for heterosexuality. Experts highlight nat- uralistic explanations depending on contemporary beliefs, whereas patients express themselves. This incommensurability of the perspec- tive between clinician and patient suggests that we attend to the concept of seeing-as. They have different views for different purposes and neither view is the correct one. - p41 **Truth and Reason are independent of one's ego.** Reason, as understood in logic and mathematics, does not depend on an individual ego. p42 **Theories are different discourses on how reality are revealed. Not the only way.** Psychoanalysis is a particular discourse that reveals only particular aspects of the patient’s reality. When it is treated as the way in which reality discloses itself, then it is like the joke of a man, who searches for his keys not where he dropped them, but under a street lamp where he could see better. P42 **Animals have fixed calls. Human fit language to specific contexts and intentions.** Wittgenstein sought to remind us of differences. Humans are the only species with language whose main characteristic is variation, not homogeneity. Unlike velvet monkeys who merely produce fixed calls, humans fit their language to specific contexts and intentions. **Wittgenstein sought to remind us of differences in humanities, how can one single theory cover all of these?** The use of language differ from contexts, intentions, culture, era. Gesture and eye contact are integral components of communication, and differ in different culture as well. The pitch and tone are important as well. There are differences in cognitive variations between cultures as well. Spatial cognition, color perceptions varies Notion of self and reason differs. East Asia, interdependence of the self and holistic reasoning is paramount. North America, independence of the self, and analytic reasoning is paramount. How can a single psychotherapy cover all these? (Wittgenstein’s critique of theory in therapy (Lloyd, 2007; Kuusela, 2008; Bhui, 2013) (page 43) **What evidence is there for the patient that the therapist is neutral and have no personal interest? If the therapist is indeed neutral, his words have no human meaning. It is desire that helps give words meaning.** What evidence does the patient have that the analyst is neutral and has no personal interest in what is said if the analyst simply defines himself as neutral. If this were so his words would have no human meaning as desire helps to give words meaning. - Similarly, no one is truly a "Free-thinker", there is a way of thinking. **When we think we are neutral, then we are deceived** It is precisely when we believe we have avoided all presuppositions that assumptions sneak in, as it is on the basis of these assumptions that our methods seem desirable. What is needed is careful unravelling of the intricate steps of confusion and self-understanding by which we came to persuade ourselves that we could be in a position of complete neutrality towards others. (page 44) **Wittgenstein's notion of therapy is "descriptive", it does not diagnosis or labels experiences in "another word" which add to confusion, it is up to the patient to judge. It is about unpacking false analogies, misleading train of thought and pictures that lead to conflict.** Page 46 - Wittengenstein and Psychotherapy. Psychotherapy depend on the human capacity for language, to make sense of things in the world. People understand each other because we have common shared experience, our ordinary language communication. Scientists create new word to describe and explain various phenomena. They teach students how to use that word specifically. Psychotherapists, may exclusively use ordinary language in therapy, then what's the point of technical language? While some only use technical language labels, etc, what does that mean; their technical language superior to our ordinary language? - Can that can be translated into ordinary language then why do we need technical language? Reading page 47-48 ## The Ancient City **Describe, do not explain. Be curious.** =="Instead of giving historical reconstructions and explanatory formulations of people's behavior he recommended we try to see the point of what they say and do and respond appropriately. He sought to rekindle an attitude of wonder and respect in those of us who have succumbed to a scientistic attitude." - page 51== Reading on [[22-02-2021]] **Think of how we acquire language as a city where there are ancient and modern district. Ancient are early childhood (unconscious?)** "The language that concerns him is our language and our city... it is made of two districts: one ancient, which is the soil from which our basic attachments and aversions grow and are expressed... one modern, where we entertain ideas, explore, create hypothesis and theories, do science, and much business. - page 52" **Ancient district is about our origins, the way we learn to speak and make sense.** "...but instead of reminding us of our origins and the way we learn to speak and make sense with someone... " p52 **In communication, we are not just referring to something that could be verified (facts), we also makes something visible, of how things are meaningfulness.. and reveal what is desired by people involved.** "In a conversation we do not merely refer to something that could be verified and communicated by other means, it also makes something visible in the how of its meaningfulness. It involves the context of understanding the desires of the people involved to whom the subject matter means something (Rhees, 2006)." - page 53 **Related to family rules. We learn about rules in family through regular practice and repetition. [[family_therapy]].** "Our ability to follow the rules of the new part of the city depends first of all on regular practice and repetition, which we first meet in the family: the ritual of changing nappies, meal time and bedtime rituals, telling stories, playing games." # Chapter 4: Logic and Meaning File: Calibre or OneDrive. PDF ## Chapter 4: Logic and Meaning To understand anything, we first need to have Logic. "But to understand the concept of cause, ourselves, and the place of the brain in human life we need logic and a turn to mathematics." Page 55 Chapter 4: Logic and Meaning_ There is no agreement on the cause of mental conflicts. "Empiricism in the study of mental conflict has resulted in a sort of shattering of thought about it. We have psychiatry with its different schools, psychology with its different schools, and psychotherapy with its hundreds of different schools of thought. On the side lines we have religious thought, which at one time had a lot to say about mental conflict." _Page 55 Chapter 4: Logic and Meaning_ The notion of a cause. The law of causality, seems to be illogical "Bertrand Russell, in his celebrated essay, ‘On the Notion of a Cause’, wrote, ‘The law of causality, like much that passes muster in philosophy, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monar- chy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm’ (Russell, 1912–13). It flourishes in psychiatry and psychotherapy, for example, with its empirical claim that motivation is causal." Page 56, _Chapter 4: Logic and Meaning_ Before we can understand of the world, we first need to make sense of our sense, that our thinking is clear and true, then we can make discoveries and theories that are true. "Logic is concerned with the laws of truth, that is, how we make sense not of things, but of sense. To make sense of the world we need a rigorous account of what sense and reason are and how they function. We cannot make sense of what is actual except by doing so rationally. We need clarity of thought before we can start making significant discoveries and the- ories. A truth is a thought that is true. But we easily think we are thinking when we are not. The point of logic is clear thinking." Page 56. Our language does not increase the truth-ness of truth. Truth does not depends on the nature of it's discovery, our judgement and inferences or recognition of it. The conception of truth is imminent within our making judgements and inferences, our recognition of truth. It is the encompassing framework of actions, institutions and practices that hold our judgements in place that enable recognition. Freud said that he discovered a technique of free association where patients make association by words to surface the unconscious. However, the interpretation is according to Freud truth not patient. So how is that "free"?