This blog post is an example of how to use open-ended questioning and the Five Whys in a dialogue with yourself, in order to get the the root cause of feelings.
As part of autopsychotherapy, it can be a great technique for finding out why you’re really upset. This is particularly helpful for analysis before taking action in an emotional state – in other words making sure you don’t react to something unnecessarily, or go off half-cocked.
Below is my case study and example of how the Five Whys helped me get to the cause of my emotions, and stopped me posting something dumb online.
How it Started
Tonight Pedro Pascal broke my heart.
I love Pedro, and I think he’s brilliant, so I watched the Saturday Night Live (SNL) episode he hosted. I’m not that big of a fan of SNL, so I don’t normally watch it, but this was an exception. Some of it was funnier than I expected, and like everyone else, I thoroughly enjoyed the the Last of Us / Mario Kart parody.
But then two sketches happened which sapped all the joy out of it, and in my overexcitable manner, had me in tears.
The first was the “Luis’s Mom” sketch, in which a son’s ADD diagnosis is unfavourably viewed by his unhappy mother (who was played by Pedro). A son introduced his girlfriend to his mother, and from the moment the girlfriend offered “vegan sliders” to contribute to dinner, ‘Mama’ was against her. The conversation continued from bad to worse, until the girlfriend mentioned she assisted her boyfriend in getting an ADD diagnosis, and medication. Hearing the words “normalise ADD” emerge from Pedro’s mouth with disdain (even though done in jest) hit me like a truck.
The second sketch that followed the above was the “Big Boy Chilli” sketch, where the waiters at an Italian restaurant picked on and singled out a woman who was dining with group of her friends. Pedro, this time playing a waiter, called every woman at the table beautiful, until he got to the last in the group. There he levelled the first insult – “smart”.
A jab at neurodivergence (ND), followed by a jab at intelligence (and vicariously, giftedness)? Why on earth did these atrocities have to come from the handsome lips of my favourite actor?
The Mess
My overexcitable brain went into overexcitable overdrive. Thoughts whirred through my head. Emotions raged. Thoughts about how poorly ND and giftedness are portrayed in the media. This was just another example of giftedness and ND being demonised and misunderstood! Misrepresented! <Add in a heavy dose of anger and angst… ARRRHGGGHHH!!!>
As far as I was concerned, it was yet another example of how being smart is still very much a laughing matter, especially if you’re a woman. Don’t these people realise that by saying it’s OK to laugh at intelligence, they’re just perpetuating the gifted trauma that still lingers with many of us? Don’t they understand how many of us were bullied over stuff like this as kids, and it stays with us forever!? And now we have to sit and watch SNL laugh about it decades later! The indignity! Oh, the humanity!!
I stormed up the stairs, intending to send a tear-laden Instagram post in the direction of the internet void asking “Why, Pedro? Why?! Why did you do this to me???”
But I didn’t – I caught myself just in time…
Wait?… What exactly am I expecting of the world? Stop making fun of everything? Anything? Predict everyone’s trigger points? Stifle comedy until it dies? Where does the line get drawn, when we can’t make comedy for fear for upsetting everybody? Am I just too close to the subject matter to see things clearly? And why the fuck would it be Pedro’s fault? What was I really angry about? What had really upset me so much?
This was a really good time to do the Five Whys.
About the Five Whys
The Five Whys is a root cause tool, which is based on the Socratic method. I’ve mentioned it before as part of my autopsychotherapy toolkit, and I highly recommend it. It involves asking “why” sequentially – usually five times, but as many as necessary – in order to understand the underlying causes of a problem. You’ll see how an answer to one “why” feeds the next question.
I’ve touched on it briefly, but I’ve never really given you a good case study, or shown you how it’s done. Time to change that…
Note that I often go well beyond five, and I don’t always stick to why-based questions. Sometimes I like to use my imagination, and take that conversation beyond the borders, and have a full dialogue with myself. This has been one of those cases. So you’re not just getting five whys – you’re getting the full potential of where this kind of open questioning can lead.
Below is the back and forth between ‘questioning Emma’ and ‘answering Emma’. You’ll see I’ve used the strict “why” formula for the first three questions, and then wandered into different territory. But I didn’t stop until I got to the bottom of my feelings, and I kept asking questions, until I knew in my heart I had hit my authentic truth.
The Dialogue
| Questioning Emma | Answering Emma |
|---|---|
| Why did those SNL sketches bother me so much? | Because they were making fun of ND and giftedness!!! |
| Why does making fun of ND and giftedness bother you so much? | Because it just shows no one understands us!!! |
| Why does the general population not understanding these things upset you so much? | I don’t know… why are you so frustrating?!!! |
| Stay focussed. Do you expect them to understand you? | No… I guess not… |
| Then I’ll ask again – why does it upset you not to be understood? | Because it makes me feel so fucking lonely! I hate that feeling… |
| Why are you feeling lonely? | Because I can’t find actual people like me in the media! The stereotypes for gifted people are so stupidly inaccurate! Why can’t we be reflected there? |
| Why do you need mirroring in the media? | I don’t know… |
| Do you have mirroring elsewhere? | Yeah. I do. Through the work with the Dabrowski Centre, the podcast, Facebook groups. Actually, I have lots of places I can get that mirroring. I mean, we may be outliers, but we’re still out there. And people have been really supportive. It’s a really good mirror. A beautiful one. |
| So, again – why do you need mirroring in society and media? | Because… I don’t know… it would just be nice to find a place where we’re collectively understood. |
| But you said you don’t expect them to understand. You’re an outlier, with a different experience of the world. Do you honestly expect them to understand that outlier experience? | No… Actually, I don’t expect that. It’s not reasonable, because they can’t… |
| Can you understand their perspective? | Yeah, I guess I can. |
| Do you think you can talk to that perspective? | What?… What do you mean? |
| Do you think you can speak about your experiences, to someone who isn’t gifted or ND? In a way they can understand? | Um, yeah I suppose I can… |
| And isn’t that your job? Isn’t this the path you’ve chosen? To share your experiences so that others know they’re not alone? Because there’s a gap in this kind of dialogue? | Yes… But it was so other people with overexcitability can see they’re not alone… |
| I get that, but why are you so surprised there’s a knowledge gap, when it’s part of your mission to fix some of that gap? Albeit a different part of the gap… | I guess I’m not that surprised. |
| So, knowing there’s a knowledge gap, and understanding that not everyone can come to your perspectives and experiences, can you empathise with the people who wrote those sketches? | Yes, I guess I can. They can’t know what it’s like. I can try. |
| Re-watch the sketches. Be empathetic. Now tell me – are they really that bad? | No. |
| Then why are you really upset?… Think this out, Emma… | I see nuance in these sketches others won’t because I’m close to the subject matter. I have pain associated with it… |
| And…. | So it’s my pain that has triggered this, and that’s why I am upset. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with the sketches… It’s making me see things in it. Things other’s can’t. I see my pain in it. |
| And… | I can’t force people to understand my perspective, but I can use empathy to understand theirs, and the people who wrote these sketches just wanted to make people laugh… I mean it’s SNL. It’s comedy. I bet they upset people inadvertently all the time, but it’d be pretty fucking boring if they didn’t do what they do. And I don’t want to rain on that parade. |
| And… | It’s OK that I am overexcitable and I got upset, and that I am having that experience… I have to have as much forgiveness for myself for own intensities. |
| And what about your mirroring?… | I don’t need to see myself reflected everywhere. And I won’t. Being an outlier, I never will. That’s an unreasonable expectation. But I do get mirroring, and I get it where it matters, in working with the theory of positive disintegration, and doing the podcast, and this blog, and my videos. There’s a great community of people out there, all talking about being gifted and neurodivergent, and I’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting and talking to some of those amazing people. |
| And what else? C’mon, bring it home… | I can provide that mirroring to others. To the overemotional, overthinking, intense, sensitive, overexcitable people out there. To the gifted people. To the people who feel like they’re alone and no one sees them. To the people who break down and cry when they feel their pain triggered by something they see on TV. To everyone who’s trying to perform their own autopsychotherapy, and improve themselves a little bit each day in those moments of mini-crisis. |
Final Thoughts
The outcome of all this? I still find SNL funny. I appreciate being an overexcitable outlier, even thought it sometimes makes me cry over dumb shit. I love my little mirroring community of fellow outliers. And I’m really glad I stopped myself sending an angry Instagram post over something that I’m no longer upset about. Oh, and I still love Pedro Pascal to bits…
Instead of creating another useless social media post, with no purpose other to vent my feelings (which could potentially hurt someone else) I learnt something valuable about myself. And I’ve shared it, so hopefully it helps you somewhat, and shows you where you can take the Socratic Method and the Five Whys and apply it to your own autopsychotherapy. I honestly think it’s one of the most useful tools I have – and it’s not even a psychology tool, it’s actually something I picked up in project management.
And finally, I hope I’ve been a mirror for you in some small way, even if it is a slightly cracked and grubby one. We’re never going to find ourselves accurately represented in the media. But we don’t need to, not as long as we’ve got each other.