Steve Andreas > Books Authored > Six Blind Elephants > Chapter 12

Nesting categories

When someone has a firm categorization that seems to be unshakable, you can accept that, and describe a new category as being nested inside the one that would be difficult to change.

An ex-soldier announced that he was an extremely traditional person who did not even believe women had yet earned the right to vote. He believed that a family should run on discipline and that it was his wife’s attitudes that were undermining his authority such that the children were running wild. It was clear he had come to see the therapist in order to prove to his wife that therapists could be of no help.

The man was asked whether he saw himself as being like a First World War general or a Second World War general. He asked for clarification. It was explained that the former had learned little over four years and seemed to have had little interest in the morale of their troops or in saving lives. At the end of the war they were still doing the same things that had clearly shown themselves to be totally ineffective right from the beginning of the war. The latter, however, learned from their experiences, paid considerable attention to matters of morale and to the limiting of casualties, and were adaptive to changing circumstances. After considering the question for a few moments, the man thoughtfully admitted, “I guess I’ve become a bit like a First World War general.” (20, p. 71)

Nesting a new category inside an existing one means that you don’t have to contest the existing belief, you just work inside it, at a lower logical level. In contrast, most therapists would probably try to challenge this man’s belief that he should run his family as if it were a military unit. This would be very difficult and take a long time— even assuming that the father would be willing to come back for more sessions!

Generalizing from this example, if someone is very sure that they want to get a divorce, you can respond, “OK, what kind of àdivorce would you like? Some people are really nasty with each other, try to get every last penny out of the settlement, and end up spending most of their money on lawyers. Others do their best to understand each other, so that they can reach an agreement more cheaply and easily, with much less anger and resentment. Or perhaps there are other alternatives that would be even better for you. What is it that you want?”

Once they are committed to a positive outcome for the divorce, opportunities will arise where it would be appropriate to suggest that they at least consider the possibility of staying together. Since those possibilities occur within a context that presupposes that they will divorce, they can freely consider it. As they discuss the many difficult aspects of the divorce, that provides a context in which thinking of staying together may begin to look much more attractive than it did earlier.

Whenever someone is firmly committed to a category (X), consider working inside it by asking, “What kind of X is it that you want?” or “Do you want this kind of X or that kind of X?” Accepting the category X avoids conflict, and within the smaller included category you can usually offer alternative possibilities that otherwise would be summarily rejected.