[Ailist] Life Lie/Faking It

[Howard Ditkoff]

I think that this issue is an important crux of all positive change and 
growth, so I wanted to weigh in. A few things come to mind just to frame the 
issue and show how the specifics of this are crucial to whether it's healthy 
or not:

1) A highly narcissistic person is someone who usually has deep insecurity 
and so instead, to make up for it, they act as if they are much more secure 
and important than they actually are. There is a case of acting as if that 
I'm sure we don't want to emulate.

2) An alcoholic is taught to act as if when they start recovery, but that is 
only at the start in order to get things moving. They can't maintain 
sobriety over the long haul based just on this. This is just a trick to get 
them into and through withdrawal. The process of going through withdrawal 
itself is where enormous growth happens as they are forced to face painful 
realities they have been blocking out with alcohol. The alcohol has actually 
helped them "act as if" their life wasn't falling apart around them. We tell 
them to act as if they are sober in order to get them into withdrawal where 
it is crucial that they stop acting as if and start facing reality and 
dealing with it. If you look at the later steps of the 12 Steps they clearly 
have to do with facing an often painful reality.

3) I really appreciated Rob pointing out that in AI, acting as if doesn't 
come from out of the blue. It comes from past stories of success. And it can 
be broader than just one's own success. One's own success in the past is 
often the best example, but a success of someone you know can also help. In 
AA, this is used by acting as if while modeling that from the other people 
in the group who are proven successes at getting sober. Seeing through real 
life stories that something can actually be done is what gives the acting as 
if its power. If not your own story, then at least someone else who you can 
relate to who can be a role model of what is possible.

To me, the power of AI is that it blends the benefits of the Dream phase 
(acting as if in an imagined future that you want more of) with the power of 
Discovery (making sure those dreams are not pie in the sky, but are based on 
stories of real life success that increase the odds that these things can 
actually work).

Social constructionism to me does not mean we can construct anything we want 
without limit. It means that our realities are constructed through dialogue 
and are emergent.

I am fond of saying that the person who believes in a complete ability to 
construct reality will have a sorry awakening on the pavement when they try 
to construct the reality that they can fly off a building. On the other 
hand, a person who is unable to stretch their current reality a bit will 
never grow. Children naturally grow by acting as if. They play different 
roles, try them on. But they also throw away the ones that don't fit and, if 
healthy, end up in one that is authentic for them.

This balance of constructionism and acceptance of reality is the combination 
that makes for healthy positive change I believe. If we ever become like the 
narcissist, using constructionism as simply a way to avoid accepting painful 
realities, we are in trouble. If we become like the alcoholic who uses 
alcohol to construct a world of fantasy and avoid going through painful 
withdrawal, we are also in trouble. But if we use it to take the best of who 
we are and stretch it incrementally, and making sure to eventually decide if 
it's working for us, then we can grow. And if we accept painful realities 
and then reframe them to focus on what we want to improve in those 
situations, then we can take an appreciative mindset in without using 
constructionism as an excuse for denial.

Incidentally, the issue of withdrawal has plagued me ever since I learned 
AI. For many people, recovering from addictive processes requires a period 
of pain. AI often wants to skip this, however in many cases it is the very 
attempt to avoid that pain that has driven the addiction. So this is 
something that has always made me realize there are limits to where the 
positive principle applies. Sometimes the wholeness principle seems to 
require going through some things that are not pleasant or positive in order 
to get back in touch with reality. And given the fact that I believe 
addictive issues are present in far more situations than we realize - even 
addictive relationships or addictions to money and power that go on within 
organizations - this withdrawal issue raises a real concern on a wide scale 
in our society.

Best,
Howard Ditkoff
Emergent Associates, LLC
http://www.emergentassociates.com