This material deals with long-term psychological conflict, specifically internal conflict that people find themselves dealing with. These kinds of conflict tend to appear as frustration, anxiety, desperation, stuckness, or chronic behavioural challenges. Conventional treatments often deal with surface-level symptoms without influencing deeper, systemic causes of internal dissonance. The issue, as explained in Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), is that conflict not worked through is maintained by higher-order goals in the person’s control hierarchy.
This article presents the Method of Levels (MOL), a method based on PCT that takes advantage of natural fluctuations in speech and awareness in order to lead people to the root of their internal conflict, thereby being able to effect real and enduring change.
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Finding the Right Place for the Tool
How can reorganisation be shifted? From the outside, we can’t actually dictate where reorganisation occurs. But we can help to move it around. The core principle is that reorganisation follows awareness. Whatever is the focus of a person’s attention at any point is the place where reorganisation is most likely occurring.
Conflict, in PCT, happens across at three levels of the control hierarchy. When individuals are in conflict, they most likely maintain their attention on the symptoms, like irritability, frustration, despair, and anxiety (first level). At other times, they might be focussing on one of the goals at the middle level, like, for example, “I just want to be accepted by others.”
While the individual is thinking about these lower levels, that’s where reorganisation will be directed. Reorganising these lower levels, however, has minimal long-term impact on the conflict. For reorganisation to be able to eliminate a conflict, attention needs to move to levels above the conflicted goals.
But where is this higher-level system of control? No-one knows. If the client knew what the source of their conflict was, their attention would already have been there and the conflict would probably be resolved. We don’t know where the source is. That’s why MOL conversations are explorations and discoveries.
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Role of the Therapist or Supporter
On the sidelines, our job is to guide people’s attention upwards—never to a particular level, but merely higher than what they are already concentrating on. If they’re at war, their awareness must go up.
Luckily, nature provides us with an in: when individuals are speaking or thinking, they tend to have short, natural breaks in their dialogue—transient moments that can manifest themselves as pauses, hesitations, or tone changes. These disruptions to their speaking, though minimal, can be highly significant.
They might, for instance:
- Pause in the middle of a sentence
- Smile or shake their head
- Slow or accelerate their speech
- Change volume
- Judge their own words: “That sounds really silly.”
These small interruptions in the speech rhythm indicate that the individual’s awareness might have temporarily increased to a higher level. From a PCT viewpoint, this is gold. It’s now that we are able to assist them in remaining at this higher level, through gently encouraging them to look at what they did.
Facilitating Reorganisation Through Awareness
Reorganization follows awareness. Changes in awareness may be seen through interruptions in speech. We are there to assist the individual to focus for a greater length of time on what just came up.
This may be achieved by using simple, present-tense questions such as:
- “What’s making you smile?”
- “What’s going on in your mind right now as you slow down your speech?”
- “What arose for you right then when you broke up in speech?”
By asking them about the disruption as the disruption occurs, you keep the person in contact with the higher-level system. If you delay too long, the insight will dissipate or disappear, and the person won’t remember where their attention briefly jumped to just a moment ago.
Your Turn (If You Want One)
Give disruption spotting a go. Put on the news, a talk show, or a sports interview. Observe someone speaking about an issue. Politicians, sports stars, or people in the public eye being interviewed are ideal for this.
Can you pick up on times when the speaker’s attention may have switched?
- Did they momentarily glance away?
- Did their tone or rate change?
- Did they pause or censure what they said?
Practice mentally asking the sort of question you could use in an MOL session:
- “What made you stall at that moment?”
- “What crossed your mind when you glanced away just now?”
Why Lower-Level Reorganisation Fails
Trying to reorganize the lower levels of conflict is ineffective. The hierarchy of control works by what is controlled at any level, dependent on receiving signals from higher levels and adjusting the signals sent to lower levels.
Shifting the bottom level without breaking through to the higher-level system is analogous to the tail attempting to wag the dog. A long-term fix only happens when the topmost level sends new harmonious signals downward. That’s the reason attention has to be brought upward.
The Value of Disruptions in Speech
It’s worth emphasizing: PCT did not create disruptions. Such moments occur independently of theory. What PCT provides is a model for noticing and utilizing them. From that knowledge, the Method of Levels (MOL) was born—a method that assists individuals in tracking these disruptions to the point of origin of their inner conflict.
MOL is respectful, optimistic, and honours the client’s own process of awareness and reorganisation.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: What type of problems does MOL assist with?
A: MOL is especially beneficial for individuals with inner turmoil, worry, depression, or uncertainty, particularly when more conventional behavioral strategies fail to alleviate the problem.
Q: Do I have to be a therapist to utilize MOL?
A: No. Therapists apply it professionally, but anyone can utilize MOL principles in dialogue to assist others by directing attention upwards at times of interruption.
Q: What’s a disruption and why is it important?
A: A disruption is a temporary interruption in the stream of thought or speech, usually disclosing a change in awareness. Observing and investigating disruptions allows individuals to access deeper, frequently unconscious, control systems.
Q: Why doesn’t solving surface problems solve conflict?
A: Because they usually are symptoms of unresolved, deeper goals or control systems. Reorganization must occur where the issue starts—in the upper levels of awareness.
