* Multiple Levels of Communication and Being

Fink

Shall we tell Dr. Erickson your first complaint? She is not learning anything.

Erickson

And no flowers tonight.

Subject

No, no flowers.

Erickson

Is there anything here you don’t like?

Subject

No, I don’t think so.

Erickson

So you haven’t learned a thing? What do you mean by that?

Subject

I thought I was going to learn something about psychiatry or psychology, but so far I haven’t learned anything.

Erickson

Do you want to bet?

Subject

No.

Fink

I asked her that. I don’t think she wanted to bet even with herself.

Erickson

Why not? Do you think perhaps you have learned something?

Subject

There it goes again. I want to think no and say yes. But you can’t think two things at the same time. Or can you?

Erickson

So you have learned something?

Subject

Yes, I suppose that’s one of the things I have learned.

Right? That it’s possible for people to think two things at the same time, in direct opposition.

Erickson

She has learned something on an unconscious level but she doesn’t know it consciously yet.

Rossi

Yes. This session takes place two months after the previous one, and Miss S apparently has an amnesia for your work with her as the February Man. Her complaint that she has not learned anything comes from the conscious level that“wants to think no,” but something else within her wants to “say yes.” So she certainlyis experiencing at least two levels or two opposite response tendencies at the same time.

When this sort of thing spontaneously happens to people during everyday life, they tend to experience it as a disturbance or conflict. It might better be understood as an opportunity to tune into their own different levels of being rather than simply identifying with their most superficial persona experience of apparent conflict. Confusion and conflict are actually manifestations of the new states of being that have developed spontaneously within on an unconscious level and are now interfering with (conflicting with) the old established attitudes, states and identities of ego consciousness.’”