Unreality Therapy

unenlightened

Let's invent Unreality Therapy. A mind content with reality will neither think nor act.

1.0 Behaviour is the (attempted) realisation of fantasy.
1.0.1 Behaviour is intentional if it is fantasised before being performed.
1.1 Desire is an urge to make reality conform to imagination. I imagine eating a cheese sandwich that does not exist, and head to the kitchen to realise it. Or else I imagine the tiresome effort required, and do not.
1.2 Therapy is the (attempted) realisation of a fantasy of the client being someone that the client is not.
1.2.1 The therapist has a fantasy of the client to realise, and the client has a fantasy of themselves to realise.
1.2.2 The degree to which the therapist's and the client's fantasies of the client coincide is the degree to which they will agree about the success or failure of therapy.
1.2.3 The therapist whose fantasy is that the client will become more proficient at realising their own fantasies, is likely to realise his own fantasy (of being a successful therapist with satisfied clients) more often than one whose fantasies are independent of the client's fantasies.

2.0 A fantasy is realistic if the imagined behaviour realises it when acted. If no behaviour can be imagined to realise it, the fantasy is impotent.
2.1 The fantasy of the Unreality Therapist in relation to the client is that the client's fantasies become more potent. His intentional behaviour will attempt to realise this in the client.

Deleteduserrc

Sounds like reality therapy in everything but name?

Shawn

Given that the import is what hasn't been said here, then does't that necessitate the unavoidable-that is reality?

Otherwise, solipsism.

Deleteduserrc

to clarify : Reality therapy - from what I've gleaned since posty's post -focuses on getting *needs* met. The idea being that meeting needs takes place in the *world* - reality. So reality means 'the real world' in common usage, as opposed to the suffering of an isolated self, whose problems are like a psychic tumor or knot, which can be extracted or untied without broaching the bigger social frame. If we talk about needs as involving fantasy (the fantasy of having our needs met) then there is an unreality involved. But then you could even call oncology work unreal in the sense that cancer sufferers have a fantasy of not having cancer.

Shawn

Reality therapy - from what I've gleaned since posty's post -focuses on getting *needs* met. — csalisbury

I would go further than that, and say that the point of reality therapy is the identification of actual from perceived needs or otherwise called 'fantasy'. That seems like the logical conclusion. However, this thread tends to present fantasies and ideas as apparent and real to both the patient and doctor, reinforcing their significance to the patient.

If we talk about needs as involving fantasy (the fantasy of having our needs met) then there is an unreality involved. — csalisbury

Pretty much.

unenlightened

If we talk about needs as involving fantasy (the fantasy of having our needs met) then there is an unreality involved. But then you could even call oncology work unreal in the sense that cancer sufferers have a fantasy of not having cancer. — csalisbury

Exactly so. If I have cancer, then my not having cancer is a fantasy. It is not real, because really, I have cancer. Me and my oncologist have the same fantasy, and he has a fantasy of our behaviour (him giving treatment, me undergoing it) that he hopes and expects to realise our fantasy. If he is a competent physician, his fantasy will be potent, whereas my fantasy is impotent, because I have no idea how to realise my own fantasy.

Reality therapy - from what I've gleaned since posty's post -focuses on getting *needs* met. The idea being that meeting needs takes place in the *world* - reality. — csalisbury

Meeting needs, and not meeting needs takes place in the world. We say I need treatment that will cure my cancer, and the treatment happens in the world, or I don't get effective treatment and I die in the world. There is a meeting or no meeting of the world and my need - which implies that my need is not of the world. At the point where it meets the world, it ceases to exist; The treatment works, my needs are met, I no longer have cancer. I need no more treatment. Or else I die, and no longer need treatment.

I deny the reality of needs in order to emphasise the importance of fantasy, imagination, the unreal. What this does, that I think is useful, is it allows me to distinguish psychology, that operates on the imagination, from politics, which operates on the world. Both can be employed to the same end, but it is not the case in general, that doctors can prescribe a raised income, though it may be the most effective treatment. There's nothing like having loads of money for getting your needs met.

Shawn

I deny the reality of needs in order to emphasise the importance of fantasy, imagination, the unreal. — unenlightened

Therefore psychological solipsism?

unenlightened

↪Posty McPostface

No, fantasies can be shared. Let me tell you about this psychological theory I made up, for instance. (Hope you liked the Witty format). I was going to put in your thread, but I thought it might get too confusing.

Shawn

No, fantasies can be shared. — unenlightened

But, I don't know what your fantasy looks like unless I contrast it with reality. And, needs aren't fantasies, puh-leeze.

unenlightened

... needs aren't fantasies, puh-leeze. — Posty McPostface

Yes they are.

X needs A, when X does not have A.
One does not say, while eating a sandwich, "I need a sandwich to eat." One's need is for something that is not there, except in the mind - which is called a fantasy. Thus one goes to the kitchen, or the shop, and realises the fantasy. Or, if one has no money for the shop, and no kitchen because one is homeless, then perhaps one's need remains unrealised, and one dies. It is the same when an architect draws the plans for a building that does not exist, and then employs builders to realise his dream, which he communicates to them with 'working plans'.

Fantasy is important, it runs reality for humans to a huge extent.

Shawn

X needs A, when X does not have A. — unenlightened

So, you say that needs are fantasies; but, still use the word need when talking about needs. Is this some category error?

One does not say, while eating a sandwich, "I need a sandwich to eat." One's need is for something that is not there, except in the mind - which is called a fantasy. — unenlightened

A man dying in the desert out of dehydration has a legitimate need for water, not a fantasy.

unenlightened

A man dying in the desert out of dehydration has a legitimate need for water, not a fantasy. — Posty McPostface

Of course it's legitimate, if he doesn't get water he will die. But there is no water in the desert, so he dies. The water that he needs is a fantasy - there is no water.

Shawn

Of course it's legitimate, if he doesn't get water he will die. But there is no water in the desert, so he dies. The water that he needs is a fantasy - there is no water. — unenlightened

Again, solipsism.

unenlightened

Again, solipsism. — Posty McPostface

No really, you can go and look at his bones, he needed water but there was no water; he died.

Shawn

No really, you can go and look at his bones, he needed water but there was no water; he died. — unenlightened

So, then he had an actual need, then that was never realized? I don't see how you can frame this issue then as a fantasy.

unenlightened

So, then he had an actual need, then that was never realized? I don't see how you can frame this issue then as a fantasy. — Posty McPostface

Right, I see what you mean. There are physiological needs, food, air, water, shelter, required to sustain life, regardless of what anyone thinks. Reality is such. This is an external view. One might equally say that a car needs petrol and oil and air to function. The thing doesn't work otherwise, in space, or under water.

Or, and do consider it, we could say that we can manage to function without a car. The car has no fantasy, it merely functions or does not function, just as the desert has no fantasy and no needs of its own.

I need me to live, therefore I need me to have water. Do you see how this is a different sort of thing? Externally, I don't need water, I can perfectly well die just as a car can run out of petrol and simply stop running. There are necessary (needed) conditions for life but life is not necessary for anything things are necessary to life.

What is needed for anything is a matter of fact, of limiting conditions. What is needed by someone is an internal condition.

Shawn

↪unenlightened

I understand what you're saying; but, I don't like where this is going. If everything we do is to satisfy psychological and physiological needs, then this reduces everything to egotism of sorts, and hence the self-serving solipsism which I keep on bringing up.

Or, and do consider it, we could say that we can manage to function without a car. The car has no fantasy, it merely functions or does not function, just as the desert has no fantasy and no needs of its own. — unenlightened

I'm still not getting your point here. I'm quite confused why are you conflating inanimate objects with animate ones.

I need me to live, therefore I need me to have water. Do you see how this is a different sort of thing? — unenlightened

They are one and the same.

Externally, I don't need water, I can perfectly well die just as a car can run out of petrol and simply stop running. — unenlightened

Again, that solipsism.

There are necessary (needed) conditions for life but life is not necessary for anything things are necessary to life. — unenlightened

OK, well none of that follows. If I identify my needs apart from wants, I think that's a better way of treating life, and knowing the limits of what is attainable or not instead of living in some fantasy world of some sort.

What is needed for anything is a matter of fact, of limiting conditions. — unenlightened

Which, I place the emphasis on, as I hope anyone else does.

unenlightened

If I identify my needs apart from wants, I think that's a better way of treating life, and knowing the limits of what is attainable or not instead of living in some fantasy world of some sort. — Posty McPostface

I think I can agree with the general sense of what you are saying here. Our dispute is more a matter of how to think about things, and how to name and classify. So when I say 'fantasy', you think of a disconnected dream world. I m calling that 'impotent fantasy'. A common entrance to such an impotent fantasy is the question, "what would you do if you won the lottery?" A fairly harmless and enjoyable fantasy to indulge in now and then, as long as it does not fill up time that ought really to be spent making plans for more likely life-events.

A more likely life-event is that I will arrive at the crossroads, and I might consider "what will I do when I reach the crossroads?" This is a potent fantasy, because I am very likely and quite capable of getting out of the chair and getting there in less than a minute.

Perhaps you would be happier if I was talking about 'possible worlds' and 'modal logic'. Possible worlds are unreal worlds.

Shawn

Perhaps you would be happier if I was talking about 'possible worlds' and 'modal logic'. Possible worlds are unreal worlds. — unenlightened

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasser%27s_choice_theory

That's the part left out of when talking about 'reality therapy'.

Dumbledoof

Where does the fantasy come from? I'd rather say that fantasy proper is always post-hoc referential to reality in some form. So, the crossroads one minute away from you. I have no idea about that at all. So, lets say we begin with this landmark reference to shared experience. And we create a sound for that, for reference so that we can meet there. THE crossroads -- then though, we must move from "the" to "a". Rather than suggest a universe feature, I'd rather say that a, refers back to the. The difference is though, remove enough of the reference, and I only have access to "a", and this is truly where fantasy begins, and reality gets lost.

No amount of construction, representation, recreation of a crossroads will ever get me back to the crossroads. I die of thirst next to a fresh water lake, because there is no coca cola in sight. I cannot bridge the gap, that water is coca cola, because I am moving from fantasy to reality, as you suggest, rather than the inverse. I learned everything I know from books, written by people that learned everything they know from books.

References of references, that never reference reality. Rather, unreality theropy wishes to make reality resemble a symbol, which originally itself was designed to reference reality, and how it does so is entirely unclear, and not generalisable itself. Only the symbol is generalisable.

unenlightened

That's interesting, I haven't come across him before. But the exposition on wiki is a bit of a dog's breakfast. It's fun though that you can come up with a psychology at the drop of a hat with a few posited psychic entities, and a couple of broad principles. And then start a school to implement them.

Shawn

That's interesting, I haven't come across him before. — unenlightened

Glad you liked it.

But the exposition on wiki is a bit of a dog's breakfast. — unenlightened

I'll try and research some more about him. But, the main gist should be apparent more or less.

It's fun though that you can come up with a psychology at the drop of a hat with a few posited psychic entities, and a couple of broad principles. And then start a school to implement them. — unenlightened

Yeah, haha.

Arne

↪Posty McPostface

Now that you mention it, maybe I should. . . . Gotta run!

Arne

I enjoyed reading this thread.

Shawn

↪Arne

Join my more realistic thread, if you want to. Haha.

Unreality Therapy

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