Autopsychotherapy. It’s a topic I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while, but was struggling with how to articulate it.
However, I had some expert help – Dr. Chris Wells (my cohost on the Positive Disintegration podcast) sent me some quotes and bits to help me writing this, and we also recently did an episode on Autopsychotherapy and Self-Leadership, with Kate Arms (You can access the podcast from here on both Substack and YouTube, or find it on Apple or Spotify).
So thanks to my expert pals, I think I’m now ready to explain this to you.
The Challenge
Why is it so tricky to explain? Well, autopsychotherapy is hard to define for an individual. I mean, the idea of “DIY therapy” isn’t that difficult of a concept to get your head around, and Dabrowski’s definitions are common sense. The problem is that Dabrowski didn’t say exactly how it should be done. That’s because in practice, it looks different for everyone.
It’s like trying to describe hair. I can tell you what hair is – it’s a keratin based substance that grows out of the follicles of your skin. Easy. But what does your hair look like? I have no idea. That’s individual to you. However, I can tell you what my hair looks like, how I style it to suit me, and what my preferred brand of shampoo is.
So, while I’m not going to tell how you should perform your own autopsychotherapy, what I can do is two things – give you the basic concepts and definitions according to Dabrowski, and tell you how I do it. We’ll take a sneak peek inside my personal autopsychotherapy toolkit (and if I do say my self, it’s practical, simple, and quite chonky). You can then decide if you want to give any of the tools a try for yourself, or go looking for new tools based on Dabrowski’s specifications.
What is Autopsychotherapy?
First, let’s look at what Dabrowski had to say about the defining features of genuine autopsychotherapy. I’m going to give you quotes from Dabrowski’s 1970 work Mental Growth through Positive Disintegration to explain his position.
Autopsychotherapy is the process of education-of-oneself under conditions of increased stress, as in developmental crises, in critical moments of life, in neuroses and psychoneuroses.
Dabrowski 1970
Right here we have two key points – autopsychotherapy is educating yourself (about yourself), and it is supposed to be done in moments of increased stress (i.e. as your shit is going down). But what else has he got to say?…
Autopsychotherapy is an indispensable component of the dynamism education-of-oneself. This is so because before the individual can reach secondary integration he experiences various inner disturbances and conflicts. These conflicts occur not only in relation to the external environment but also in the inner milieu. Although we recognize that these conflicts have a positive side to them insofar as they result in the development of personality, still the individual has to cope with them. The ability to cope with such conflicts constitutes the dynamism of autopsychotherapy.
Dabrowski 1970
Another point – it is developing the ability to cope with your stresses. We’re learning about ourself, and learning how to cope with our stresses, including coping during times of stress. But Dabrowski’s aim for autopsychotherapy made it so much more…
The dynamism of autopsychotherapy controls and transforms mental disturbances.
Dabrowski 1970
Transforms? Transforms into what?…
As man’s development comes closer to secondary integration, conflicts that would earlier produce neurotic and psychoneurotic symptoms are dealt with by the dynamism of autopsychotherapy in such a way that these very conflicts become the creative medium of self-perfection.
Dabrowski 1970
Ah ha! Self-perfection. For Dabrowski your perfect self was not perfect as society sees it. Perfection is developing an authentic personality. Your personality being defined by you, and created from a process of determining your own values, and being expressed authentically through your actions.
In summary, autopsychotherapy is working on yourself, with the aim of:
- Recognising that the crisis and conflicts are necessary and essential for growth and development
- Coping with, and controlling mental disturbances
- Transforming mental disturbances into learning and development
- Using this crisis-induced transformation as a way of perfecting yourself
And remember that for Dabrowski, your perfect self is your authentic self, when you live truly according to your own self-defined values. Savvy?
Why is it Important?
Can we work towards self-perfection without the stressy parts? Can we transform without the mess? Well, yes, but the whole point is to ensure we are preparing ourselves to be able to do these things during the stress. If you think of it the same way as sport, a “season” is more than just games, you have training, workouts, strategy sessions, warm ups, and rest periods all outside of the actual games themselves.
So practicing these things and skilling up, in preparation for your next difficult moment, is just as important as remembering to execute on game day (when your shit is going down). Like Dabrowski said above, it is conflict which gives rise to development of personality. Conflict is necessary for growth. Game day is game day.
In his 1973 work, The Dynamics of Concepts, Dabrowski names a number of other dynamisms which need to also take place for autopsychotherapy to occur. These include things like dissatisfaction with oneself, shame and guilt, and positive maladjustment (which means not adjusting to society, but in a good way). You can’t do it without the conflict. For Dabrowski, you need to be unhappy with ‘what is’ and break it down, in order to make way for ‘what ought to be’. This is the very essence of positive disintegration.
Here’s the thing – if the conflict within is going to happen, then it will do so whether you like it or not. You cannot control that. However, the good news is that if you are going through a process of disintegration, autopsychotherapy presents a way to resolve those conflicts. Cope with them. Learn from them. Leverage your disintegration to become your authentic self and develop. If you are in a space of multi-level disintegration, where you are starting to see the way you “ought to be” then autopsychotherapy gives you a way to act upon those realisations.
Autopsychotherapy is how we move forward. Dabrowski’s ‘medium of self-perfection’. As the Mandalorian would say, “This is The Way.”
My Toolkit
With that in mind, here’s my personal toolkit in no particular order. Some of these things are one-off items, some get done as needed, and some are ongoing practices.
Self Help
Kate Arms mentioned this as an integral part of her journey when we did the podcast. Seeking information on how to deal with specific issues is and important way to find tools you can use for autopsychotherapy. I myself prefer the internet. Let’s face it – books are probably better quality and more in depth, but they cost, and there is a shitload of self help material on the web if you just want a small bit of information immediately. Developing empathy, anger management, trauma, understanding being gifted… whatever the topic, there’s material out there. Hell, you can even do what I did and start by searching “Self Therapy” and see where that rabbit hole leads.
Autobiography
Chris Wells recommends (if you can) writing out your own autobiography. It doesn’t have to be War and Peace, but examining your past may help you understand what and who is important to you. When you understand your priorities in life, and the relationships which mean the most to you, you come closer to understanding who you are in truth, and uncovering parts of your authentic self. It might also help highlight past traumas or behaviours, or even patterns of behaviour, you need to deal with. I haven’t done this in full, but I have written about certain life moments, and I have given a lot of thought to my path and how I got here, which has been helpful. If you can’t make sense of your own journey in your head, writing it down may be the solution for you.
Educate Yourself
Dabrowski said development needs to involve ‘education of oneself’, and that includes broadening your own intellectual base. For me, understanding Dabrowski’s framework and the theory of positive disintegration has been an important component of that, as well as reading up on the philosophy which underpins it (like Plato). Every time I learn something about the way humans think in general, I learn more about myself.
Journal
If you’re figuring out stuff about yourself, capture the discoveries! I have four journalling principles which ensure I maximise my autopsychotherapy experience. These four principles ensure that I don’t stray off track, I make the most of my time, and I keep a record of profound realisations without retaining the rubbish. My journalling is pretty much the mechanism which supports the autopsychotherapy toolkit. My four principles can be found in full here: https://tragicgift.com/four-journal-principles/
Value Statements
I mentioned in the podcast that I had value statements, which I approached like a business writing a mission statement. Basically, I was trying to define who I wanted to be. Who I “ought to be”. Stuff like “act with love”, “speak the truth”, and “let go”.
I heard Simon Sinek once say that the values of any business should be written in a way that that are actionable. You know, rather than just saying that your company’s value is “Integrity”, writing something that staff could actually follow and apply in their jobs like “We will always speak the truth, and act honestly”. So I sat down and wrote out my values, then wrote a page on each one and what it looked like in practice. Here are the questions I asked myself to get mine done:
- What qualities do I want to have as a person?
- For each quality, how do I need to act to embody this?
- Looking at the required actions, what do I need to change in my current behaviour?
- What key messages can I tell myself to help me remember the “ought to be” actions (and change my behaviour in the moment to align with my new values)?
This last point is important, because remember that Dabrowski wants us to be able to do these things during moments of stress, not just when things are calm, or after the fact. You’re preparing for the next time you have a moment, so you can row your boat in the direction of your authentic self.
Five Whys
This is a technique used in business to find the root cause of a problem. It is based on the Socratic Method, and simply involves asking “Why?” a number of times to find the cause behind the previous statement. Each new answer forms the basis of the next question. So “Why did I yell at the person? Because I was afraid…” leads to “Why am I afraid?…”. You can find a good explanation and a simple example here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys
Ask WHY. Why do I feel this way? Why did I act like that? Keep asking why until you get to the root cause of an issue. And don’t let the name “Five Whys” stop you from asking it six, seven, eight…. well, as many times as you need to. Beautiful thing is, because it’s a simple technique you can do this during your conflicts as they happen.
Priorities
Sometimes it just feels like you don’t have a purpose in life. Sometimes you just don’t know what it is that you want to do with yourself. In the same way an autobiography can help you get a handle on what is important to you, you can also think about your priorities for the future more directly, and let them inform your values.
Ask yourself these ’No rules’ questions. They free us from worrying about judgements and restraints. As you answer these, try not to think too much about it – whatever jumps into your head first is normally best:
- What do I absolutely love in life?
- What have I achieved in life so far that I am most proud of?
- What issue or cause would I champion if I knew nobody would judge me for speaking out about it?
- If I had a billion dollars, what would I do?
- If my life had no limits and I could have it all, what would I choose to have and do?
- Who do I admire most in the world, and why?
Now look for patterns. You might get to the end of this and find you have mentioned “helping people” several times, or maybe you talk about animals, the environment, or family a lot. Whatever your pattern is, it’s a clue to what’s important to you. Again, this is about taking some time to define who you ‘ought to be’ so that you can slowly work your way towards it.
Creative works
Sometimes I need something abstract to deal with things, when I can’t yet tackle them head on. Poetry, creative writing, and visual art have all been ways for me to express things that are too upsetting to directly talk about. There’s something about creative works which makes the truth shine through in a way I’m not always ready for, and they always seem to dredge up more things than I expect. They are also a great way of expressing positive emotions in a way that allows me to pause and appreciate their beauty – they make happiness less fleeting and more tangible.
CBT Process Flow
Do you engage in a lot of negative self-talk? Instead of coping with negative emotions and conflicts, are you escalating them?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) was honestly not my favourite thing for dealing with negative self-talk. I found the process was lacking and faulty. So I fixed the CBT system with a process flow, and now I’ve made it work for me. At times when my brain is throwing a negativity tantrum and telling me I’m a useless sack of shit, I find this CBT flow helps me gain some perspective. Once I’ve removed untrue, over-blown and negatively charged thoughts, I can focus on tackling the real issues underneath. I have a video which explains the whole CBT process flow and how I use it: https://youtu.be/bxxBn1deYXY
Meditation
Relaxing my mind seems to be a good way to prompt it to have realisations about things. It’s really the same principle as why people have great ideas while they’re in the shower – a relaxed mind (without all the worry and stress) can sometimes see things a turbulent one can’t. It’s also part of that whole ‘coping thing’ Dabrowski talked about, and helps you diffuse negative emotions. More than that, meditation helps you focus on what your heart is trying to tell you about your inner truth, by allowing your mind (and all it’s worldly concerns) to become quiet.
Visualisation
I use visualisation to preplan conversations and responses to tense situations. It allows me to practice how I will answer difficult questions, or respond in a crisis. My brain then has a go-to plan in heated moments, rather than letting my emotions take over. It’s a great way to make my imaginational overexcitability work for me, and by re-examining these thoughts and responses, I can decide if they align with my authentic self.
Write it away
When I can’t quite put my finger on why I feel bad (i.e. the Five Why’s just failed me because I am really not sure of the ‘why’) I write about it in a stream of consciousness way, until something concrete appears. For me, this works especially well with complex feeling about my childhood, because often what hangs on in your mind is often vague, multilayered, and hard to define.
For example, until very recently, a common setting for many of my bad dreams was the house I grew up in. I’d find myself back in this old house, one which I found uncomfortable to live in as a kid, but which should have been well behind me since I hadn’t lived there in over 25 years. So I wrote about it. I uncovered all sorts of feelings, including stuff I didn’t need to hold on now because they were no longer valid. Stuff like shame over being poor, feeling trapped, anger at my mother, and other weird shit I’m not getting in to because I don’t know you well enough… look, the point being, I didn’t know how I felt until I wrote about it and put it into words. I’ve dealt with it, and now the dreams have stopped. Wish I’d done it sooner.
Practice
Part of autopsychotherapy (according to Dabrowski) is controlling and transforming mental disturbances, but you can’t really control something if you don’t practice that control. On the podcast we talked about the importance of practicing your autopsychotherapy techniques in times of low stress, so that when times of high stress roll around, you’re equiped to deal better with them. Makes sense – if you think about sports, you don’t try out new moves on game day. You practice with the team in training first, and use that low pressure environment to develop new skills. Then once you have sufficiently mastered the new moves, you can break them out in a game when the pressure is really on. It’s also important to apply everything you have learned broadly, in as many situations and directions as you can. Treat it like Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ and address all your ghosts – past, present and future.
Final Thought
If you’ve never attempted autopsychotherapy, this might seem like a lot. But don’t worry – as Dabrowski would say, “little by little”. Just take one small step. That’s where it starts. Working on yourself is a long and ever-unfolding journey, but you will make progress. You will start to create your own toolkit that works for you, and over time, with practice, even the harder work will become easier. The more you do it, and the more progress you make, the more you will start to like it. So, little by little, step by step, keep walking your path to your authentic self!