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Paul Grobstein's picture

disability: deconstructing and reconstructing

I too think it is important to attempt to distinguish, as clearly as one can, between features of one's cognitive unconscious that are directly disturbing to one's story teller,  and aspects of one's cognitive unconscious that are disturbing to one's story teller because they are disturbing to other people.  The two may be difficult to untangle (see Looking in the Mirror), but doing so empowers one to respond differently to what are two distinct issues (one's  acceptance/unwillingness to accept features of oneself and one's acceptance/unwillingness to accept judgements of other people).  David may well, for example, be happy with his color choices even if they aren't the ones others would have made.  As he (and others) may be comfortable with mood variations having amplitudes greater than those with which other people are comfortable.

More generally, I'm impressed with David's five fold model (and pleased Serendip was able to contribute to developing it).  Yes, it has aspects of some forms of both psychotherapeutic and meditative practices and it intrigues me that David could come to it along a different path,  Since people get to it in different ways, there must be a there there.  But it puts, for me at least, a particular emphasis not on finding out what is wrong and fixing it, but rather on reflecting on internal conflicts and their sources, and then creating a new story about onself that makes those particular conflicts go away.   That seems to me a quite generally useful skill for people to acquire, rather than one targeted either at particular problems or at "disablities," a skill we could also stand to further develop.

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