MIND MELD PSYCHOTHERAPY HOW TO
We take it that most folk beyond a certain age have sufficient competence to know how to walk and stand still, even when chewing gum. Most of us learn red means stop and green means go-we fudge a bit on yellow. People with color blindness are expected to know which color is where. We take for granted the usual human condition that our eyes are sensitive to the light’s color. We both live in a community where red and green lights on street corners have specific purposes.
Your stopping and going make sense to me. I watch you walk to the intersection, stop at the red light, wait, and cross when it turns green. Your private experience is beyond my ken, but your actions show and tell.Ī simple example. I cannot know directly how you experience things, but I can recognize what you are doing. We speak of things that make a difference to us, a difference we can act on. Their meanings, as Wittgenstein (1953) pointed out, follow their use. Our communities’ practices have corresponding locutions. Verbal behavior is meaningful because it reflects, accompanies, and is part of our shared social practices. (I take it on empirical grounds that none of us are mind readers who know how to perform a Vulcan mind meld If I am wrong and some of us do, it will only add to the list of skills, sensitivities, and perceptions that can inform observation and thought.) This is informed by your deliberate verbal behaviors including what you tell me when I ask what’s on your mind. What I have are my thoughts and understandings of what I observe you do. Not being a mind reader, I have no direct knowledge of your experience. Intentional actions understood as social practices provide the pragmatic basis of our ability to understand each other. Observation, Performance, Meaning, and Significance and Some Preliminary Connections to Verbal Behavior