1. copyright, ed young, PhD 1 LESSON 4 ACHIEVING ACADEMINIC GOALS REQUIRES OVERCOMING INNER CONFLICTS AND ORGANIZING TIME UNDER CONSTRUCTION Presented by THE NATURAL SYSTEMS INSTITUTE

2. copyright, ed young, PhD 2 Multiple Criteria for Fulfillment and Teaching the Teen the Organization of Time

3. copyright, ed young, PhD 3 What Are Criteria for Fulfillment and What Is Their Role in Teens’ Personality and Behavior? A criterion for fulfillment is an inner sense of how one wants to feel and how one wants things to be or look when a goal or some stage on the way to the goal is reached or when some completed version, or preliminary phase, of an external event appears. Only the person themselves knows when their criteria for states or conditions have been met. When their criteria have been met there is a unique feeling that makes the person feel like saying, “‘Yes!’, ‘Ah ha.’, ‘I did it.’, ‘That’s it.’ ‘Mmmm.”, whether it is the way something was done, exactly what one was looking for, the exact nature of a triumph, a searched for sound, the taste of a food, or an infinite variety of other things in life that keep one entrained until the ‘just right’ was attained, found, or occurred. As the person develops, these criteria expand in an almost exponential manner. No one is seeking after them all simultaneously, but rather all but an infinitesimal fraction are lying fallow waiting for their season, for the conditions that evoke them. Many criteria are aligned or queued on an inner schedule. For any particular goal, there may be multiple criteria for aspects of the goal or stages on the way. Many criteria are related to one’s inner cognitive acts, feeling or ego states, personal growth, behavioral skills and have little to do with anything outside the person. Many others have to do with happenings or way things are going outside the self such as the pattern of behavior of a team, the ripening of a crop, the performance of a musician or one’s child in a contest. The crucial factor is that these criteria guide one’s behavior or perception. They are the regnant principle organizing the brain, the mind, the personality. As there are many, so there are many levels for any goal or aspect of one’s life and many that can exist in competition or conflict. These conflicts can pull a person apart inside or immobilize them. Even criteria within and across levels directed toward the same goal there can be competition and conflict. Most of the time people can not give an account of what criteria they are pursuing and often do not, themselves, know until they have been reached. These hidden criteria are the main sources humans misunderstanding of one another. It takes a knowledge of their existence and that they have their own dynamic principle for humans to begin to patiently try to understand exactly what is motivating the other person. It is only then that we rise above the too familiar feeling that the other is irrational, crazy.

4. copyright, ed young, PhD 4 Multiple Competing and Conflicting Criteria for Fulfillment in Relation to Goals Multiple competing criteria Multiple conflicting criteria I want to play in the game. I want our team to win. I want to be the best player. I want my girl to think I am a hero. LEVELSLEVELS OFOF CRITERIACRITERIA I want to pass my school test. I want my parents to be proud of me. I don’t want to study. I want to avoid feeling stupid I don’t want to fail my school test. I don’t want to be kicked off the team for failing. StudyStudy PlayPlay Don‘tDon‘t PlayPlay Don‘tDon‘t StudyStudy I want my team to win the championship for my school, my family, and my town. I want to pass, go to college, have a profession, get married, have kids. I am the kind of person that has great ability and is superior to others as an athlete. I am a hero to my peers, parents, town, and girl. I feel obligated to play and I long to play. I love working with my team mates and striving to win. But, I feel guilty and anxious about not studying. I am in an impossible dilemma. I hear my peers pressuring me to forget about the studies and come on and play and I want their approval. I hear my teachers saying I’d better study and pass or be kicked off the team for the rest of the season and I want to avoid the negative consequences.. Tension I love the feelings of running like the wing, eluding tacklers, dodging in and out, hitting hard, catching impossible throws of the ball, hearing my girl cheering and feeling her hugs. GOALSGOALS GOALSGOALS I love seeing our team work well together a beating the rival. I love seeing our score go up, seeing my girl boasting about me, but, I love finishing the exam and seeing a passing grade.

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6. 6 I. CYCLING THROUGH PROXIMAL TIME IN THERAPY AND THE RETROFLEXIVE PROCESS Study the flow chart below to see how we relate to time when we are faced with a problem behavior or situation. 4. Immediate Future 3. Present 2. Recent Past After Beginning with the Reflexive Process. In therapy and the retroflexive think aloud process, people typically begin with a current problem and begin to reflect on it using a sequence of steps that approximate the reflexive process with the aim being to use problem solving. Eventually, there is a switch from the current problem situation to recent past circumstances that may have contributed to the problem. After gaining a rudimentary understanding and proposing plausible solutions and strategies, we switch to envisioning use of these new strategies in the immediate future.

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8. 8 II. CYCLING THROUGH THE FUTURE TO THE RECENT AND DISTANT PAST IN THE RETROFLEXIVE PROCESS 4. Immediate Future 3. Present 2. Recent Past 1. Distant Past At some point, after the reflexive process breaks down and there is switch to the retroflexive process, there begins a search for deeper roots of the recalcitrant problem. In many cases, sticking with the proximal-time- oriented reflexive, problem solving approach does not work since, not understanding and resolving the behavior’s origin, the old, self defeating behaviors inevitably reassert themselves. The switch, then, is toward searching the distant past for origins and after finding them, restructuring one’s perception and interpretation of the original scene and reconstructing new, experimental responses. Often, it is necessary to traverse the distant back to the recent past, and back and forth, in order to grasp these persisting and increasingly elaborated patterns. When the scene of origin is recaptured, in order for the process of working through to be effective, there needs to be a recovery of the total experience: physically, conceptually, emotionally, behaviorally, and interpersonally. Each or any aspect could play a role in the possible persistence of the problem if they are not recovered, restructured, and reconstructed.

9. copyright, ed young, PhD 9 III. CYCLING BACK FROM THE DISTANT AND RECENT PAST TO FUTURE IN THE RETROFLEXIVE PROCESS 1. Distant Past 4. Immediate Future 3. Present 2. Recent Past Grasping and restructuring the past and then beginning to reconstruct viable responses for the future, one begins the step in the retroflexive process called projecting. Initially this involves traversing and cycling through from the distant past, recent past, present, and immediate future. Periodically, the question arises, concerning new experimental strategies: are these solutions really suitable for me, are they consistent with what I have been like in the recent and distant past, am I making too big a break with the patterns from my life history? Then one can sometimes engage in a reinterpretation of the past patterns to bring them into consistency with what one is beginning to want for one’s future. The crucial question here is whether there will be a superficial redefinition of one’s past or will there be a thorough going restructuring of the past and reconstructing the future that is integrated and resolute. This latter position requires a high degree of patience and persistence in the therapeutic process.

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11. copyright, ed young, PhD 11 IV. Phase II. Journalizing and the Think-aloud Method: Implicit Other 5. Distant Future 1. Distant Past2. Recent Past The Implicit Others Self Retroflexive Journalizing : Envisioning and Implicit Others. Implicit others exert the predominant influence over intentions and interpretations of one’s past. Emotional independence, emancipation, and extracting implicit others and their influence are the major goals of therapy if the person wants to achieve inner freedom, happiness, and serenity.

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13. copyright, ed young, PhD 13 V. Envisioning, Perspectives, Setting Criteria for Fulfillment, Decision Making, Foreshadowing, Goal Setting, Planning 5. Distant Future 3. Present 4. Immediate Future