Learn to separate!

How we separate the event from the meaning we make from it

Last week I talked about ‘perspectival knowing’, developed as we exercise autonomy, in its guise of situational awareness.

The basis for most psychotherapy involves helping people to separate the meaning they make of events from the events themselves.  This is another expression of perspectival knowing and, if well developed in young people, could well avoid the later need for therapy (either formally or as self-medication with alcohol or drugs).

When we fuse an event (something bad happens to me) and the meaning I make of it (this is because I am not good enough) then we get existentially con-fused and lose our agency.

Yet, we have more control over the meaning we assign to things than we think, and we have less control over events than we believe.  By separating them – this event occurred, which is unfortunate – and the meaning I make of it - I am just as capable now as before it happened, we can handle life’s contingencies with greater equanimity.

Developing this capacity is important for a healthy life.  This ability does not come from the curriculum, nor from the pedagogy but from the relationship teacher-student (or adult-child in other contexts), if the relationship is set up to create it.

It is the relationship that supports the development of autonomy in our young people that allows the development of perspectival knowing.

We know there is more to learning than facts and figures but getting at the full spectrum means relationships in schools that are authentically and richly human.

You can download a pdf version of Why We Teach here.  Click here to sign up for a 60-minute Q&A on 15th October titled: Why support students' autonomy?

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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