Co-constructing subjective experience:
A constructivist approach

This paper was presented at the Mind-4 conference, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, on August 17, 1999.

[02] In exploring the differences in approaches to subjective experience in our respective fields, it became apparent that cognitive science assumptions and methodologies were based primarily on a positivist paradigm, while Mary's work in family therapy was based on a constructivist paradigm. Seeing the hard problem of consciousness through this lens, it became clear that the positivist paradigm, by virtue of its assumptions that knower and known are separate and uninfluenced by each other, a priori situates the study of subjective experience outside the limits of what can be known. We wondered what the implications might be if cognitive scientists were to step inside an alternative thought system and rework questions like the hard problem of consciousness, starting with a new set of assumptions.

[03] The purpose of this paper is to contextualize the study of subjective experience within the constructivist epistemology, ontology, and methodology. We will view this process through the lens of constructivist therapy/research, providing an example that may be translated to other fields, most particularly that of cognitive science. We begin by contrasting positivist and constructivist paradigms according to Lincoln and Guba's (1985) five differentiating axioms. Secondly, we present evidence of the constructivist paradigm currently emerging across many disciplines (Schwartz & Ogilvy, 1979), but seemingly to a lesser extent in the hybrid field of cognitive science. We present Varela's (1996) fourfold classification of research approaches to the study of the hard problem of consciousness, noting that his phenomenological approach most closely approximates our own.

[04] We then discuss constructivism as it has evolved in the field of psychotherapy. We give particular attention to Lincoln and Guba's (1985) premise that for constructivist inquiry to be meaningful, it is crucial that the paradigm, the model guiding the inquiry, the inquirer, and the methodologies, be congruent. Therefore, the guiding premises of the constructivist model must be embodied or lived, not just thought or spoken about. We explore a number of assumptions regarding the use of a constructivist approach and illustrate such an approach with exemplars drawn from Mary's psychotherapy practice. In her practice, the therapeutic process is synonymous with that of qualitative research, and the therapist/researcher herself is the primary research instrument. We then present new distinctions and categories for describing subjective experience in a holistic manner as subsystems of congruence or flow. These categories may serve as a basis for further research.

[05] We conclude that questions regarding the hard problem of consciousness might be usefully re-examined in light of the constructivist-informed methodology. This alternative view might serve as a means to question the efficacy of the positivist presuppositions that have been guiding much of the consciousness research in cognitive science. We argue that constructivist assumptions and methodologies might open up areas that have been impossible to reach from within the positivist thought system, and we offer some case exemplars drawn from the family therapy field as potential starting points.

[07] Varela (1996) classified proposed solutions to the hard problem of consciousness into four categories. The first, neuro-reductionism (Churchland & Sejnowski, 1992; Crick, 1994) "seeks to solve the hard problem by eliminating the role of experience in favor of some form of neurobiological account which will do the job of generating it" (Varela, 1996, p. 333). The second approach, labeled functionalist (Baars,1988; Calvin, 1990; Dennett, 1991; Edelman, 1989; Jackendoff, 1987), "relies almost entirely on a third-person or externalist approach to obtain data and validate the theory. Its popularity rests on the acceptance of the reality of experience and mental life while keeping the methods and ideas within the known framework of empirical science" (Varela, 1996, p. 333). The third approach, mysterianism (Nagel,1986; McGinn, 1991) concludes that, based on intrinsic limitations of the means through which our knowledge of the mental is acquired, the hard problem is unsolvable.

[08] The final approach, phenomenology, gives an explicit and central role to first-person accounts and to the irreducible nature of experience (Chalmers, 1996; Flanagan, 1992; Globus, 1995; Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1999; Searle, 1992; Varela, 1996). Within this approach, a great diversity of proposed methodologies can be found. Phenomenology is Varela's methodology of choice for approaching the hard problem of consciousness, as it is congruent with his view that "any science of cognition and mind, must, sooner or later, come to grips with the basic condition that we have no idea what the mental or the cognitive could possibly be apart from our own experience of it" (Varela, 1996, p. 333).

[09] Our inquiry presented in this paper goes beyond methodological and pragmatic concerns, challenging the positivist world view or paradigm from which the hard problem of consciousness is formulated. Our research is guided by a constructivist [note 2] paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Schwartz and Ogilvy's Seven Characteristics

1. Movement from simple to complex realities: It is no longer possible to view systems as merely the sum of their parts; as systems become more and more complex, they develop unique properties that cannot be accounted for or predicted from the properties of parts.
2. Movement from hierarchic to heterarchic concepts of order: Emergent thinkers have come to believe that if there are orders, many of them exist side by side.
3. Movement from mechanical to holographic images: The earlier predominant mechanistic metaphors are too simple to complement related concepts of complexity and heterarchy. Instead, holographic images are emerging:

With the holographic metaphor come several important attributes. We find that the image in the hologram is created by a dynamic process of interaction and differentiation. We find that the information is distributed throughout -- that at each point information about the whole is contained in the part. In this sense, everything is interconnected like a vast network of interference patterns, having been generated by the same dynamic process and containing the whole in the part (Schwartz & Ogilvy, 1979, pp. 13-14).

4. Movement from determinacy to indeterminacy: Heisenberg's Indeterminacy Principle demonstrated that, at subatomic levels, the future state of a particle is not predictable, and the act of experimentation to find its state will itself determine the observed state.
5. From linear toward mutual causality : The concept of feedback is extended by the concept of feedforward, which blurs the distinction between cause and effect, introducing the notion of mutual causality.
6. From assembly to morphogenesis: Morphogenetic change occurs suddenly and dramatically, operating in such a way that lower forms create higher order forms.
7. From objective to perspectival views: Objectivity is an illusion, but subjectivity in the usual sense is not the only alternative:

We suggest that perspective is a more useful concept. Perspective connotes a view at a distance from a particular focus. Where we look from affects what we see. This means that any one focus of observation gives only a partial result; no single discipline ever gives us a complete picture. A whole picture is an image created morphogenetically from multiple perspectives (Schwartz & Ogilvy, 1979, p. 15).

Lincoln and Guba's Five Axioms

[12] Axiom 1: The nature of reality (ontology)

• Positivist paradigm: There is a single tangible reality "out there" fragmentable into independent variables and processes, any of which may be studied independently of the others; inquiry can converge onto that reality until, finally, it can be predicted and controlled.
• Naturalistic paradigm: There are multiple constructed realities that may be studied only holistically; inquiry into these multiple realities will inevitably diverge (each inquiry raises more questions than it answers) so that prediction and control are unlikely outcomes, although some level of understanding may be achieved.

• Positivist paradigm: The inquirer and the object of inquiry are independent; the knower and the known constitute a discrete dualism.
• Naturalistic paradigm: The inquirer and the "object" of inquiry interact to influence one another; knower and known are inseparable.

• Positivist paradigm: The aim of inquiry is to develop a nomothetic body of knowledge in the form of generalizations that are truth statements both time- and context-free; they must be true anywhere at any time.
• Naturalistic paradigm: The aim of inquiry is to develop an idiographic body of knowledge in the form of "working hypotheses" that describe the individual case. Inductive learning leads to grounded theories that are context-dependent generalizations.

• Positivist paradigm: Every action can be explained as the result (effect) of a real cause that precedes the effect temporally.
• Naturalistic paradigm: All entities are in a state of mutual, simultaneous shaping so that it is impossible to distinguish causes from effects.

• Positivist paradigm: Inquiry is value-free and can be guaranteed to be so by virtue of the objective methodology employed.
• Naturalistic paradigm: Inquiry is value-bound in at least five ways, captured in the corollaries that follow:

[14] Pioneering her own tradition of family therapy, Virginia Satir contributed both a holistic model of congruence and wellness and a clinical methodology congruent with the model. She, like Erickson, emphasized peoples strengths, and like Erickson, used herself as the primary instrument. Both relied primarily on tacit (intuitive) knowledge and informal interview to understand clients' subjective experience in a meaningful way. Thus, the therapeutic processes of Erickson and Satir quite closely paralleled what Lincoln and Guba (1985) describe as the flow of naturalistic inquiry:

The human instrument builds upon his or her tacit knowledge as much as if not more than upon propositional knowledge, and uses methods that are appropriate to humanly implemented inquiry: interviews, observations, document analysis, unobtrusive clues, and the like. Once in the field, the inquiry takes the form of successive iterations of four elements: purposive sampling, inductive analysis of data obtained from the sample, development of grounded theory based on the inductive analysis, and projection of next steps in a constantly emerging design (pp. 187-188).

Contrasting Therapies Informed by Positivist and Constructivist Approaches

Table 2. Contrasting Positivist and Constructivist therapies (after Lincoln & Guba,1985, p. 37)

Constructivist Theory in Psychotherapy and Research

[18] In psychotherapy, the term "constructivism" generally refers to an epistemological perspective where people are seen as actively participating in organizing and developing their own lives and meanings. While there are variations of constructivism (see Lyddon, 1995, for a comprehensive review of constructivist perspectives in psychology), they generally seem to sort themselves out in terms of issues regarding whether or not there is an objective reality, and if that reality exists, is it knowable. If the assumption held is that there are only subjective realities, the questions center on whether that experience exists only when it is (co)-constructed or, if it exists only when it is invented. The invented reality position suggests that nothing exists outside of our own inventions.

[19] Modern versions of constructivism have evolved from the philosophical traditions of Vico (1725/1948), Kant (1791/1969), and Vaihinger (1911/1924), as well as the seminal contributions of Piaget's (1926) genetic epistemology, Bartlett's (1932) constructive analysis of human memory, and Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory. Constructivist thinking has emerged as a major perspective in several areas of psychology including cognitive and narrative psychology (Bruner, 1990), psychotherapy (McNamee & Gergen, 1992), social psychology (Gergen, 1982, 1991), and family therapy (Hoffman, 1985; 1990a; 1990b; Keeney, 1983; Watlzlawick, 1984).

[20] Constructivism has been defined by family therapy in three major ways: radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld, 1987), social constructionism (Gergen, 1985; 1991), and constructivism (Varela, 1979). Radical constructivism presupposes that there is an external reality and that a person (or other organism) perceives the world only indirectly through a complex series of neurological transforms. The organism is viewed as being capable of proactivity and the basic unit of perception is individual, rather than social.

[21] In the social constructionist view, the basic way of knowing is also intersubjective or social, rather than neurophysiological. Instead of perception being a function of externally based construct, knowledge is thought to be a moment-by-moment, co-created, communicative artifact. "Social constructionist theory posits an evolving set of meanings that emerge unendingly from the interactions between people. These meanings are not skull-bound and may exist inside what we think of as an individual ‘mind.’ They are part of the flow of constantly changing narratives. Thus, the theory bypasses the fixity of the model of biologically-based cognition, claiming instead that the development of concepts is a fluid process, socially derived" (Hoffman, 1990b, p. 3).

[22] Varela's (1996) constructivist orientation views consciousness as social and treats the mind and the world as mutually overlapping or embodied. Varela (1979) "emphasizes that the observing system for him always means an observer community, never a single person, since we build our perceptions of the world not only through our individual nervous systems but through the linguistic and cultural filters by which we learn" (Hoffman, 1990a). We share the social constructionist, epistemological view and also the experiential, intersubjective perspective which includes the body in the description. Thus, if we were to label our position, it might be called "social constructivist". For the purposes of this paper, however, we will continue to reference our view as simply "constructivist."
 

Translating Theory into Practice

[24] Many comprehensive examples of honoring clients' frames of reference and theories of change are immanent in the work of Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir. Probably the closest overt reference to this process is Erickson's (1958) notion of "utilization." Utilization refers to the general "process of incorporating aspects of the client's current behavior and perceptions, current and past relationships, life experiences, innate and learned skills and abilities into the therapeutic change process, noticing an individual's uniquely personal responses, resources and skills, and then utilizing them to help clients reach their goals" (Dolan, 1985, pp. 6-7). While Satir did not give a particular name to the process Erickson referred to as utilization, she embodied it. However, unlike Erickson, who never attempted to describe the model characterizing his work, Satir did provide detailed and highly explicit accounts of how she translated her intuitive knowledge of wholeness into the moment-by-moment experience of doing therapy. Other than Satir's writings, most references to the process of how to incorporate the client's worldview and theory of change are vague and illustrated with abstract concepts not directly translatable into action. Thus Satir's writings provide important clues for how to bridge thought with action, and action with thought; inherent in her detailed descriptions of the joining process is her tacit sense of the flow of wholeness.

[26] Constructive therapy, as the first author (Hale-Haniff) has practiced and taught, is an attempt not only to think about the assumptions and implications of constructivist methodology, but also to live them. As an example of an enacted research paradigm, Hale-Haniff has attempted to consciously and congruently be the research instrument. In doing so, she has acknowledged the importance of value-congruence across the choice of approach to inquiry, assumptions of the inquirer, and choice of model as vital to the experience of meaningful inquiry.
 

Congruence in Patterns of Consciousness

[28] The major differentiating characteristic between positivist and constructivist paradigms is the notion of wholeness. Satir translates the awareness of wholeness, which is largely a fixed, spatial metaphor, into temporal form, expressed through the infinite continuity or flowing movement of attention. Her concept of congruence refers to holistic patterns of consciousness in which attention flows freely and continuously (Satir, 1967; Satir, 1988; Satir & Baldwin, 1983; Satir, Banmen, Gerber, & Gomori, 1991). When all bits of information in consciousness are congruent with each other, there is flow, and the quality of experience is optimal; when they conflict, the attention pattern becomes blocked or repetitive, and experience is painful. Satir attended to congruence or lack of congruence at multiple simultaneous levels: values, intention, attention, and behavior.

[29] Satir (1967), attempting to cut through the barriers of disciplines and models, examined basic processes that occur in all human relationships. She believed that "the future of human relations disciplines and modalities lies in the integration of their various partial views of man in relation to the four basic parts of self, which are: a.the mind, b.the body, c.the report of the senses (the interaction between the mind and body), and d.interaction with others (social relationships)" (pp. 178-179). Thus, the aim of therapy was integration of the whole person, achievable by the process of becoming more congruent with self and others. For over twenty-five years, Csikszentimihaly (1978; 1990; 1997) studied optimal experience, or flow states, in hundreds of individuals from around the world, as they engaged in many different activities. We see an isomorphic relationship between the pattern and structure of Csikszentmihaly's flow states and Satir's description of congruence. Both reference the inter-relationships among the subsystems of values, goal setting or intention, attention, emotion, and behavior. Diagram I summarizes the relationships among these subsystems of subjective experience.

Diagram I: Relationships among the Subsystems of Congruent Subjective Experience (Hale-Haniff, 1989)

[31] An unconflicted or unified intent presupposes clearly prioritized values supported by compatible or unconflicted assumptions, and in patterns of attention where people are predisposed to notice that which is congruent with goals. This alignment of values, intention, and attention, supports those emotions and behaviors that are congruent with the objective. On the other hand, conflicted or split intentions presuppose unprioritized values and/or conflicting beliefs which result in patterns of attention that include both relevant and irrelevant stimuli, and are accompanied by mixed emotions, and inconsistent or dissonant behaviors.

[32] There is also a relationship among intention, attention, and emotional experience. Negative states are those in which disorganization of the self impairs its effectiveness. The opposite condition, flow, is experienced "when information coming into consciousness is congruent with goals, and psychic energy flows effortlessly" (Csikszentmihaly, 1990, p. 39). According to Csikszentmihaly (1997), negative emotions, like boredom, anxiety or fear, produce a state from which people are not able to use attention to effectively deal with external tasks. Instead, they must turn their attention inside to restore order. Conversely, when people experience states of positive emotion, like confidence, joy, or strength, attention is no longer fixated internally, and thus can flow freely both internally and externally. "Flow helps to integrate the self because in that state of deep concentration consciousness is unusually well ordered. Thoughts, intentions, feelings, and all the senses are focused on the same goal" (Csikszentmihaly, 1990, p. 41).

[33] All subjective experience is not value-driven; news of a difference (Bateson, 1972) can enter the system from any point and move in any direction. However, psychotherapy as we practice it, is a value and intent driven phenomenon. Just as we have implemented well-formedness conditions (de Shazer, 1991) as guides for setting outcomes, we have integrated Satir's principles of congruence as a well-formedness template for integration of human systems. When all subsystems of a person are aligned or congruent, he or she experiences a centered state or flow state. Satir's model can serve both longitudinally as a model for personal growth, and situationally as a guide for adjustment of intra and inter-personal communications.

[34] We have already conceptualized congruence at a larger level in the descriptions of relationships among the values, intentions, attention, and behavioral subsystems, and will now turn our attention to ways in which varying degrees of congruence may be reflected within the subsystems. Descriptions will highlight visual and kinesthetic ways of knowing and communicating that are perceptible in lived experience on a moment-by-moment basis.
 

Congruence in Value Subsystems

A value is simply a criterion or touch stone or perspective that one brings into play implicitly or explicitly in making choices or designing preferences. In this sense values would encompass all of the following: assumptions or axioms, theories or hypotheses, perspectives, social-cultural norms, personal-individual norms.

Values

[38] These criteria are so consistently referenced that we develop deep, strong responses when accessing them. A person can express what is important to them in any and all sense systems. Visually, most important items tend to be at the top of a list and descend on a scale to least important. What is important is larger in size and more clearly focused, while that which is not is smaller and less in focus. What is of importance tends to be relegated a central position, and what is not, a peripheral one. Gesturally, people tend to use upward hand gestures to indicate what is more important and downward gestures for what is less important, wide arm gestures for what is most significant and small hand and finger gestures for what is trivial. Gestures tend to be emphatic and precise when referring to highly held criteria, and looser and more random for what doesn't matter much.

[39] Verbally, we use language patterns that often parallel visual and gestural communications. For example, we speak of high and low priorities, of issues being of central or peripheral importance, of large and small issues, of making mountains out of molehills, and of focusing or bringing into view what is really important so we don't get lost in the details. We also speak of deeply held values and core values. Linguistically, we often use changes in tonality, loudness, and rhythm to stress what matters most to us. In addition, importance is sometimes indicated by repetition of certain themes, words, or content.

[40] Kinesthetically, what is important is indicated by using the hands to weigh two sides of an issue, with the most important tending to have more weight. On the torso, value-based kinesthetics tend to be central or midline and to be very deep body sensations. These are often indicated gesturally with two hands, palms facing the body and fingers pointing to where the kinesthetic sensation is located. Generally, there is always a change from baseline affect as indicated by what is said, how it is said, and body language when a person is communicating something that is important to them. Values tend to be highly enduring over time and reflect an integration of thinking and feeling processes.

[41] Congruence in value systems is correlated with people sorting out what they do value from what they think they should value as well as sorting what they do want from what they don't want. The former involves separating social mores from personal ones, or at least making conscious decisions of what we as responsible adults wish to embrace. This supports looking at old values to reevaluate and update these past learnings based on whether they are congruent for us at this time (Satir et al., 1991).

[42] It is also important that what people want (or positive values) be clearly sorted out from what they don't want (or negative values). This is important because deep kinesthetics are associated with both positive and negative criteria, and feeling drawn to and repulsed from at the same time leads to emotional conflict with excess attention in the emotional arena, and less attention on criteria for deciding what action might be useful to take. In goal setting, people must be able to access positive values to chart a direction for themselves and establish feedback loops that allow them to adjust their behavior in order to achieve the desired outcome. For example, a person whose goal is not to smoke is stating a negative value. This will provide movement or motivation, but not direction or feedback. So adding positive criteria like, "I want to be able to run up both flights of stairs without puffing" and "I want my home and fingers to smell clean," reference positive criteria and provide a course of positive action and feedback indicating that the goal is being approximated.

[43] Besides sorting positive from negative values, it is important that values are prioritized from most to least important. This leads to more consistent motivation, decision-making, and planning, and also brings forth patterns of attention and emotions which support intentions. Split or conflicted intentions can result from values that are not clearly prioritized, but also can be a function of conflicting beliefs or assumptions.

Beliefs

[45] Another way to discern beliefs is by our emotional responses. Emotional responses provide cues that one or more of our (conscious or unconscious) expectations are being violated. For example, when someone else has violated an important belief or expectation, feelings of disappointment, anger, or hurt often ensue. Because these emotions serve as signals of unmet expectations, they can serve as catalysts for identifying unconscious expectations or beliefs. In this manner, a person can be in a position to either reformulate his expectation to be more "realistic," or adjust other aspects of the relationship. If the expectation happens to reflect a very deep value, the person may choose to re-evaluate the nature of relationship rather than to be incongruent with himself.

[46] When we set expectations for ourselves and do not honor them, we typically experience an emotion like "guilt" Conversely, when other people do not meet an important expectation or violate an important value, "anger" is often the emotion experienced. The significance of this discussion is that reoccurring emotional responses may be harnessed as useful tools for helping people identify and shift key beliefs or expectations. In addition, when feelings are accessed with reference to key expectations and values, the balance of attention between emotional experience and thinking maintains flow states of attention.

[47] In contrast to values which are typically communicated gesturally by referencing a vertical continuum, ranging from what is most to least important, beliefs range on a side-to-side continuum ranging in relative degrees of doubt or conviction. An important determining factor in the perceived strength of a belief is the presence or absence of coexisting conflicting beliefs. Firm convictions are by definition, unconflicted; weak; "wishy-washy" ones generally either presuppose the presence of conflict, or a very low level of importance. For example, an individual may believe that she deserves the day off, but also believe she should go to work because of responsibility to coworkers. She may eliminate the conflict by identifying the values attached to both of the beliefs (valuing mental health versus taking responsibility). Then she decides which value is of highest priority given the bigger picture of her mental health, general pattern or responsibility plus her guiding vision and mission. If part of her vision and mission is to live life based on principle, those principles will temper the shorter-term situational emotions or preferences that otherwise may have led her to make a less congruent decision.

Values and beliefs

[49] The integration of value and belief systems into a congruent whole is not without its challenges. One reason for this is because people learn and generalize (and sometime over-generalize) as fast as they do. For example, if a young child touches a hot stove and generalizes that experience to "never touch a hot stove again," we might call that a useful generalization. However, if that same child is burned in a relationship and generalizes never to trust again, we call that an unuseful belief or over-generalization.

[50] Another reason integration has been somewhat difficult is that we have all received mixed input over the course of our growing up. Different teachers, relatives, parents, television and movie heroes and heroines have all have provided us many varying messages across time, which have led to many conflicting beliefs and expectations. The variation of degree and type of value systems has increased in the information age we live in and perhaps much conflict is a function of the "cross-pollination" of our belief and values systems. This has been occurring in this country and many other parts of the world as well. While people used to grow up in the same town surrounded by the same families who embraced similar belief and value systems, we now have families relocating (and relocating) on a frequent basis. With the dawn of the information age, we have access to input to many different cultures. Globally, many professions are challenging what were bedrock beliefs in Western culture's predominant ways of thinking and being.

[51] All this is providing input to challenge our existing belief and value systems. The key word here is systems. Beliefs and values operate systemically, and are held together by certain cornerstone beliefs and foundational principles. When people receive mixed input regarding what were previously considered to be "unshakable" beliefs, the entire system begins to lose its sense of stability. It is during this time flux that revisiting and reclarifying key beliefs and values is becoming essential.
 

Congruence in the Intentional Subsystem

[53] The co-creation of a shared intention or situational goal defines client and therapist - in a very literal sense - as an inseparable unit. It is the joint intention that manifests the axiom that knower and known are inseparable; client and therapist moving together as one mind toward a shared goal. When joined in intention, there can be no perception of resistance or lack of cooperation (de Shazer, 1984; 1985; 1991), since the very notion of resistance presupposes separate goals and intentions where one "resists" the other. Particularly important, the process of establishing clear, joint intentions automatically predisposes therapist and client to notice stimuli useful to the achievement of their goal. Therefore, setting joint intentions functions as a frame which operates much like any model: it helps to accentuate certain aspects of communication and not others (Bateson, 1972).
 

Congruence in the Attentional Subsystem

[55] Rapport is an ongoing, mutual-shaping phenomenon: In the positivist view, rapport is generally described as a set of instrumental activities a therapist does at the beginning of a session to "gain" cooperation and access to information (Jorgenson, 1995). In a constructivist view, however, rapport is an ongoing, moment-by-moment process, developing and maintaining communicative fit with the client system. This process of developing fit is characterized by the therapist adjusting him or herself to enhance fit with the client system. Conceptually, the goal is to continually accommodate oneself to the client's world view and theory of change (Duncan et al., 1997), thus maintaining a communicative fit between client and therapist. This process is shaped by the joint intention of therapist and client; each is predisposed to notice and approximate aspects of each other's behavior in line with that intention.
 

Congruence in the Behavioral Subsystem

Sensory distinctions

[58] Attending to the sense system presupposed in clients' language is based on the assumptions that sensory experience or "the report of the senses" reflects the interaction between body and mind, and that one can attend to communication behavior as a simultaneous manifestation of sensory experience (Satir, 1967). By carefully attending to communication behavior in an ordered manner, Satir was able to help clients co-construct new emotional experiences. These behavioral cues fit into the general categories of what you say, how you say it, and body language (Satir, 1967). Table 4 summarizes examples of communication behaviors by the sensory modality they presuppose.
 

		Visual	Auditory	Kinesthetic
What you say		visual predicates	auditory predicates	kinesthetic predicates
How you say it		higher pitch; less variety of inflection; quality may be nasal or strained; higher rate of speech	mid-range pitch; varied & melodic inflection; moderate, rhythmic rate	lower pitch; longerpauses, breathy slower rate or higher pitch; few pauses, shrill, faster rate
Body Language	Breathing	Breathing high in chest, shallow, and more rapid	Breathing mid-chest; and moderate rate	Breathing low in abdomen, slower rate or holding breath or whole body heaving with breath; & exaggerated rate
	Eyes	May squint or defocus; eyes may converge to a given point in space, upward eye movements	Side to side eye movements	May lower eyes
	Arm, hands, & fingers	Gestures toward eyes; upward movements of arms; may gesture to particular spatial locations	Gestures around ears and mouth; may cross arms; snap fingers; place hand on chin (telephone position)	Gestures toward lower abdomen, mid-line of torso or heart; hand gestures with palm facing body; fingers may move in sync with rhythm of body sensations; Arm and hand gestures may trace sequences of body sensations.

Table 4. Three Levels of Behavioral Cues for Noticing Congruence Across See-Hear-Feel Modalities (Hale-Haniff, 1986)

Submodality distinctions

[60] In constructive therapy our goal is to utilize co-creations of subjective experience to help people change. Paying attention to these process-based distinctions requires detailed attention to "differences which make a difference" for co-constructing new experience. Like any distinction, submodalities become more evident by comparison. To illustrate this, if a client presents with a desire to feel more confident and less fearful in public speaking, the present state would be "fear" and the desired state "confidence." The therapist would note differences between the client's distribution of attention in modality and submodality experience across the two different states: fear and confidence. The fear state might be characterized by a general internal orientation of attention to negative self talk, uncomfortable kinesthetics like high shallow breathing, a weak feeling in the limbs and butterflies in the stomach, with almost no conscious visual experience. On the other hand, the confident state might be characterized by an external orientation of attention, visually focused on the entire audience, auditorally focus on the way the speaker's own voice and phrasing is modulating as a function of audience response, and a feeling of relaxed awareness coupled with a sensation of being ten feet tall. Thus, the therapist's attention to categories of experience help client and therapist co-create order and pattern from chaos. In addition, the accompanying physiological and behavioral cues provide further feedback to client and therapist guiding communication shifts away from the problem state and toward the solution state.
 

Congruence in the Teaching/Learning System

Enhancing the Person of the Therapist/Researcher

[63] We acknowledge that acquiring the skills we are describing in this paper is a distinctly different process from actually using them. Learning each skill involves conscious repetition of listening, observing, and performing the skill to a point that it becomes a fixed, and unconsciously automated pattern (Hale-Haniff, 1989). Later, when the therapist is actually doing therapy, skills are accessed "naturally" as a function of unconscious pattern recognition. This type of learning has previously been described by M. C. Bateson (1972).

Honoring Other Ways of Knowing and Communicating

[65] It is the positivist view which tends to fragment human experience and emphasize the rational aspects. Thus, emotions have generally been conceptualized as separate and apart from the rest of human subjective experience. Most of us have been socialized largely according to positivist thinking, conceptualizing emotions as sudden and intense experiences that come and go at certain times; something that a sane or balanced person learns to keep under control so that rational thinking and control can prevail. On the other hand, the holistic, constructivist view depicts emotional experience as ongoing, simultaneous with and supportive of, the rest of experience. Here emotional experience may be understood as another way of knowing - one that is significantly different from more conscious and deliberate ways of knowing.

[66] Kinesthetic experience occurs holistically in concert with other mind-body experience; it is ever-present (although not always consciously accessible) in form of "feelings of emotion" (emotions being changes in body states), or in form of "background feelings," which correspond to our "body states prevailing between emotions." The latter contribute to our moods, to our proprioception, introception (visceral sense) - in general to our "sense of being" (Damasio, 1994, p. 150). It is important to note that experience that is kinesthetic to the person being referenced (in this case, the client) is accessible primarily visually to the facilitator (the therapist). For example, as I feel my face get hot, you might notice me blush. Or, as I feel a sense of pride welling up in me, you might notice me taking a deep breath as I square my shoulders. Thus learning to detect new categories of sensory experience in oneself and others involves enhancing perception of new categories of both kinesthetic and visual experience. Becoming more consciously aware of categories of sensory experience other than auditory-verbal, the therapist enhances her ability to accommodate to clients.

[67] The therapist uses this information in various ways, depending on the outcome of the session. However, regardless of outcome, information calibrated is always fed back to the client to test for accuracy and recognition. If the therapist's hypothesis is not accepted by the client, it is revised and communication is recalibrated. Information is always compared to something to contextualize and give it meaning. For example, changes in posture, physiology, or affect are detected by first having calibrated the client’s overall attitude or stance during that session. Modality and submodality experience of the problem states is only useful when compared to that of the resource state. When people present in unresourceful or stuck states, they are temporarily unable to perceive a difference that makes a difference that would allow them to regain free flow of information. Well-being is a function of free or varying information flow within and between people.

[69] Although cognitive science is a hybrid discipline that comprises many different fields and even though research emanating from many of these fields is becoming progressively more grounded in the naturalistic paradigm, we don’t see cognitive science overtly and explicitly embracing it. Many cognitive scientists have been calling for new methods to study subjective experience; however, we frequently find ourselves situated epistemologically somewhere on a continuum between positivist and naturalistic paradigms. One difficulty is that the positivist paradigm is highly eminent in "everyday" thinking. Although we are committed to a new paradigm, it still remains a daunting task to leave behind a way of thinking and living that is ingrained in our culture, and socio-political environments: "If it is difficult for a fish to understand water because it has spent all of its life in it, so is it difficult for scientists to understand what their basic axioms or assumptions might be and what impact those axioms and assumptions have upon everyday thinking and lifestyle" (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p.19-20).

[70] Following are some examples of approaches to the hard problem of consciousness, reflecting varying positions along the positivist-constructivist continuum:

• Chalmers' own work (1996) seems to be particularly congruent with positivist thinking. For example, the conceptual formulation of the hard problem of consciousness assumes linear cause-effect dependencies, a separation between the observer and the observed, and the existence of an objective reality that is structured in a manner that makes the observed unknowable by the observer. We also see positivist assumptions presupposed in references to "structural properties of experience" as objective entities, there to be "accessible and potentially reportable" (Chalmers,1996, p. 212). In addition, Chalmers' principle of organizational invariance states that "any two systems with the same fine-grained functional organization will have qualitatively identical experiences" (p. 214). Chalmers' notion of functional organization is not context-sensitive; the principle presupposes a dichotomy between cognition functions and subjective experience.
• Shear (1996) explains the hard problem of subjective experience as "a huge conceptual gap between the subjective nature of our ordinary conscious experience and the nonsubjective nature of ordinary (i.e. unconscious) physical objects. [...] In short, while qualia, the characteristics of conscious subjective experience are essential, if not the essential, feature of consciousness, they play no role at all in our scientific accounts of the objective physical universe" (p. 54).
• Lowe (1995) challenged Chalmers'division of consciousness problems into easy and hard ones, arguing that such a division "rests upon a misrepresentation of the nature of human cognition and experience and their intimate interrelationship" (p. 266).
• Hut and Shepard (1996) note that "quantum mechanics seems to preclude any meaningful interpretation in terms of a single objective reality that exists prior to any attempt to measuring it" (p. 317). Questioning the cause-effect relationship presupposed in the hard problem of experience between the physical and the subjective, they conclude that "everything we experience (whether 'out there' or 'in here') is, alike, a part of our experience" (p. 318). While Hut and Shepard (1996) "do not deny (as Berkley did) the possible existence of a world behind the phenomena we directly experience" ­ such as Kant's world of noumena, they choose to "treat any notions about such a world as hypotheses that are useful to the extent that they predict and explain regularities in our experience" (Hut & Shepard, 1996, p. 319).
• Velmans (1995) wants to "sow a few seeds of doubt" (p. 265) into the belief that physical states are public and objective, while conscious ones are private and subjective.
• Searle (1992) talks about the ontology of the mental as being "an irreducibly first-person ontology" (p. 95) and, taking this further into epistemological considerations, notes that "where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observer and the thing observed" (p. 97).
• Shear (1996) hints at the possibility "that matter and consciousness are much more similar, perhaps surprisingly so, at their bases than ordinarily thought ­ however these bases ultimately turn out to be related" (p. 68).
• Varela (1996) rejects the assumption "that there is some kind of well-defined standard for what should count as real or normal experience" (p. 346). Varela's (1979; Varela et al., 1991; 1996) "orientation differs from representationalism by treating mind and world as mutually overlapping, hence the qualifying terms embodied, situated or enactive cognitive science." He recognized the "intrinsic circularity in cognitive science wherein the study of mental phenomena is always that of an experiencing person," and claimed "that cognitive science cannot escape this circulation, and must instead cultivate it" (Varela, 1996, pp. 345-346).

[72] There are those who question how the constructivist-informed inquiry relates to the traditional concept of science and scientific method. To them we respond by quoting Varela:

This is not a betrayal of science: it is a necessary extension and complement. Science and experience constrain and modify each other as in a dance. This is where the potential for transformation lies. It is also the key for the difficulties this position has found within the scientific community. It requires us to leave behind a certain image of how science is done, and to question a style of training in science which is part of the very fabric of our cultural identity (1996, p. 347).

[74] We illustrated the constructivist research methodologies by way of our work in constructive psychotherapy. Constructive therapy was used as an example, as the first author (Mary Hale-Haniff) practiced it, of an attempt to take the presuppositions and assumptions of the constructivist research methods and live them. It is an example of an enacted research paradigm with the researcher attempting to be consciously and congruently the research instrument. Our descriptions encompassed 1) contrasting psychotherapies informed by positivist and constructivist paradigms, 2) an explicit model of wholeness expressed by congruence as flow 3) deconstruction of subjective experience into subsystems of congruence, 4) deconstruction of congruence into subsystems of values, intention, attention, and behavior, and 5) categorization of subjective experience into sensory, process-based, rather than content-based distinctions.

[75] The significance of our work is both practical and conceptual. Both therapist and clients have reported an amplified awareness of their experience as ordered, patterned processes. As a result they have been more able to access positive flow states when needed, and to experience more choice, with respect to unpleasant, chaotic, or unuseful experiences. Besides cross-contexualizing resources within people to help them move away from pain and more toward optimal experience, sensory-based distinctions can be implemented to assist transferring excellent skills and resources between people.

[76] Our work has implications far beyond clinical psychotherapy. It has demonstrated how the paradigm that a researcher embraces shapes her value system--not only in her work, but also in her life. Value subsystems also shape our intentions, use of attention, and behavior in any given context. In this way, our work becomes one with our lives and our philosophy becomes a lived philosophy. Because the constructive research paradigm is a lived paradigm, people who wish to embrace it need to engage in special teaching-training procedures to help them internalize the distinctions such as those which were presented in this paper. Becoming a more exquisite research instrument requires integrating the categories in our bodies--not only in our heads.

2. What Lincoln refers to as the naturalistic paradigm (Lincoln & Guba,1985), she later (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994) refers to as constructitvist. Therefore, we use the terms interchangeably in the text. [Return 2]

3. As this monograph was privately published and may be accessed only at significant expense, we have relied on Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) quotations of Schwarz and Ogilvy’s (1979) paper rather than the original. [Return 3]

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