A structured approach is useful when you don’t know what to do next. It offers a formal way of finding the resources you need to get moving again. It increases your flexibility of mind so that you no longer need to stay stuck in one point of view. Once you stand back, you can evaluate the experience, explore future consequences, and find the resources you need in order to intervene appropriately.
However, the PWS who is stuck finds it extremely difficult to simply step outside the block and go to another position. Therefore, I encourage them to practice this maneuver using the anticipatory anxiety of fearing an upcoming block. Once the PWS can step outside a block at will, they are well on their way to normal fluency.
In using perceptual position thinking for myself, I first associate into the system in first position, and then go to the third position to view objectively my position in relation to others in the team. Then I go second position to each person in the team and then to fourth position to explore the consequences. I switch back and forth through whichever positions I deem appropriate. I love using the fifth position for therapeutic purposes. For people who hold spiritual beliefs, their fifth position is ultimately their spiritual place. Because I am a Christian, when I go to fifth position, I view myself as being with Jesus. I am way “up there” with Him looking down on myself way down here.
If you hold spiritual beliefs, think of some event in the past that you still have negative emotions about when you recall it. Now imagine yourself leaving your body and going up and being with God, or Spirit, or whatever you call this concept. Once you are up there viewing things from your fifth position, seeing yourself down here, how does that affect the negative emotions around that experience? Going “up there” is most relaxing and calming to many people, and far better than Prozac!Most PWS when they get into their fifth position become much more fluent – and many become totally fluent. The clinician’s job is to teach them how to access that state at will.
In the following exercise you will be leading the PWS to move among the five different positions. I suggest you begin by having them to recall a major time they blocked. Direct them to go through the following steps asking them the questions in quotation marks:
Exercise 3.8: Changing perceptual positions
First position – Recall the last time you blocked. Notice how you feel inside the block.
Second position – Float out of your body and into the other person’s body. Experience that blocking from the other person’s perspective.
Third position – Dissociate or “pop out” of your body and observe the situation from this objective viewpoint.
Fourth position – Imagine watching these two people in front of you from the point of view of the story that is unfolding.
Fifth position – Float up out of your body to your highest level of thinking. From this position become compassionately aware of that “you” down there all full of fear and anxiety.
First position – “Recall the last major time you blocked when in the presence of another person.”
“Associate into your body (first position) by seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, and feeling what you felt.”
“Do you still feel the same negative emotions you felt then?” (They probably will.)
Second position – “Now imagine yourself floating out of your body and floating into the body of the person you were talking with. Stand (or sit) as they are standing (or sitting). Looking through their eyes at that person who looks like you, notice how you appear while blocking. What are the key things that you are aware of? Staying in role, as this other person, notice how you feel about that person in front of you who is blocking.”
A major part of the problem of blocking is that the person places too much emphasis upon what other people might be thinking. However that is more of a mixed second and third position judgment, rather than a true second position experience. It is important to gather information by adopting the other person’s actual perspective rather than projecting your own story onto the other person and assuming what you think they are experiencing.
Third position – “Now, dissociate yourself from that event. Mentally step back so that you can see both yourself and the other person during the blocking episode. How do you respond to that you who is doing the blocking? What judgments are you making about that situation? And as a result of making those judgments, what emotions are activated.”
“As you look at both yourself and the other person, did you really have a justifiable reason to be all tense and fearful?”
“Was your tension justifiable? Was the person really a threat to you? Or, did you just imagine that the person was a threat?”
Fourth position – “Now imagine that you are watching a story unfolding in front of you. You know who the characters are – but why are they behaving like that? Is that the story you want to be watching? How would it be if you were to tell the story another way? Could you make it into a comedy, rather than a tragedy? There is a saying, ‘One day you’ll look back
