Diagnosis or Gnosis?
| Time for an Age of Gnosis? Uncovering the Motifs of Genderism & Analysis |
| (c) 2008, all rights reserved, by Angus Cunningham President, Authentix Coaches angusc@authentixcoaches.com |
Many people recall the song “Killing me softly with his song”. It was a hit a couple of decades
ago and is still today (April 2008) a regular on popular music radio shows. The singer is always
a woman and the song enables her to give voice to a strange complaint: her man’s way of being
is seriously suppressing hers -- but in such a mild way that she can scarcely protest.
“I’m just a guy whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”. A hit at
about the same time as Killing me softly, the man singing this song gives voice to quite another,
but still equally strange, plea: for release from the agony of having his good intentions
disastrously misinterpreted.
In the traditionally held gender stereotypes of the psychology of the 20th Century, women were
widely assumed to know their emotions and to be oppressed by men who didn't, and men were
equally assumed to be thinkers whose thoughts were often disconnected from their emotions.
How are these core motifs of genderism, or the "war of the sexes", unfolding in the first decade
of the 21st Century?
ago and is still today (April 2008) a regular on popular music radio shows. The singer is always
a woman and the song enables her to give voice to a strange complaint: her man’s way of being
is seriously suppressing hers -- but in such a mild way that she can scarcely protest.
“I’m just a guy whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood”. A hit at
about the same time as Killing me softly, the man singing this song gives voice to quite another,
but still equally strange, plea: for release from the agony of having his good intentions
disastrously misinterpreted.
In the traditionally held gender stereotypes of the psychology of the 20th Century, women were
widely assumed to know their emotions and to be oppressed by men who didn't, and men were
equally assumed to be thinkers whose thoughts were often disconnected from their emotions.
How are these core motifs of genderism, or the "war of the sexes", unfolding in the first decade
of the 21st Century?
Perhaps we can find clues in these two songs, each popular in the last quarter of the 20th Century. I have discussed
their motifs with quite a few people of each gender. Few women recall the man’s song. All of both genders recall the
woman’s song. All agree that the material lot of women improved substantially during the 20th Century and that
women’s thirst to escape the boredom women were experiencing in lives confined to the home has been substantially,
but by no means entirely, quenched. Many wonder whether, given the hectic pace of our currently market-driven lives,
this signal improvement won by women and the men aware enough to be their political supporters has gained anyone
participating in family life – whether as a parent, child, or grandparent – anything worth having. Most also wonder
why men continue to “feel misunderstood”.
A problem common to both genders may be that we live in an "age of diagnosis". What I mean by this is that our
habit of applying the tools and skills of objective science, a habit widely held to be the source of much progress, may
now be an under-recognized source of discord. Allow me, please, to elaborate.
The way of thinking and conversing practiced by objective scientists has enabled the Western-oriented world to have
great success in manipulating the world of objects through mechanical, chemical, electrical, nuclear, and electronic
means. So what could be more natural in our evolution as a civilization than for people to utilize a way of thinking and
conversing proven successful in manipulating the world of objects to addressing issues arising in personal
relationships, which is established as the field of experience in which most mental-emotional turmoil occurs? Indeed,
we began applying the techniques of objective science to this field in the 19th Century, and by the end of the 20th the
profession most identified with that approach -- psychiatry -- had grown to have great influence, especially in
countries where its diagnoses are at the centre of the profession's system of compensation by government.
A mind is not an object, however. Given this, then the convention of repeating the means, objective analysis, of
success we have had in manipulating the physical world is worth calling into question when we find ourselves doing it
with minds.
A Cambridge friend of mine tells me that the ancient Greek, Hippocrates, said that mind and body are not separable,
but that Plato and Aristotle maintained that they were. Today, although we frequently use the words "mind" and
"body", no scientist has ever been able to define in words the boundary between a physical body and a non-physical
mind. One might therefore wonder if, after glibly using these words for two thousand years since the fathers of
Western medicine, science, and philosophy disagreed over whether the mind and body are distinguishable
scientifically, we might today accept that, scientifically, they are not. Yet truth is that people, and not just lay people
but professional people like doctors and psychiatrists are still using the words "mind" and "body" as if these two
entities were actually separable. In the last generation or so, some writers, mainly from the fields of psychotherapy
and alternative healing modalities, have begun using the words "mindbody" and "bodymind", but this nomenclature,
although more reflective of what we actually do know scientifically, is only slowly catching on.
Why is this reality worth considering? I do not find the reason at all easy to explain, but let me begin by observing
that, to communicate abstract ideas, we often use metaphors derived from descriptions of concrete objects -- for
example, "he has a sharp mind". This common saying draws on our sense of a concrete object, in this case that of a
knife or a sword, to indicate a quality of a person's personality. OK, so we all know what a knife or a sword are, but
what would be the affect on a troubled person's experience in a relationship if he or she had been diagnosed by a
psychiatrist as "having a sharp mind"? How would your spouse's opinion of you be affected if such a diagnosis were
made of you? Well, your spouse might not care a whit how a psychiatrist might diagnose your mind, and I hope that
is your good fortune. But suppose you and your wife were having difficulty agreeing what schooling to give your child
and you had reached your wits' end trying to find common ground and then a psychiatrist diagnoses your mind as
being a sharp one? Would that affect the outcome of the issue you and your spouse were grappling with? It surely
would.
Following the tradition of the medical science out of which their profession was born, psychiatrists have invented ways
to categorize the habits of behavior and thought they perceive in people experiencing emotional pain into commonly
occurring psychiatric types. But, what are the habits of thought that are observable in another when thought is not
directly observable but only the outward consequence of some bodymind process, including often an emoto-linguistic?
Unless all the people involved in such an issue remain exquisitely aware of all these complex realities involved in
emoto-linguistics, there is a strong likelihood that they will try to repeat the 'successes by diagnoses' that our
civilization has had in the realm of manipulating objects by referring to each other as one or another psychological
type. And if that happens, they (which means you and I too in certain circumstances) can easily fall into the habit of
treating each other as having the characteristics of objects rather than personalities capable of creative evolution.
Psychiatrists are often ingenious in finding ways to transcend the linguistic limitations within which they and the rest
of us make use of the science of their profession. For example, Ron Charach, a Toronto psychiatrist, has published
eight books of poems -- the latest being "Selected Portraits" (available from Indigo/Chapters and Amazon) -- to convey
his healing messages to psychiatric survivors and their family members. But many if not most of the rest of us are still
at the stage of studying popular books on psychoanalytic theories and managerial psychology -- books in which the
linguistic limitations of psychoanalysis are rarely, if at all, made clear.
When one extends the skills of analysis derived from success in predicting what will be the consequences of actions
one takes in the objective physical world of houses, cars, kitchens, and machines, into desires for success in predicting
the implications of diagnostic categories upon another, one is dipping into mind-reading. Indeed, if one listens closely,
one finds much mind-reading occurring beneath the surface of much, if not most, of ordinary conversation today. To
return to the two songs with which we began: In the second song, a man aware today that the sensitivity of his male
predecessors to women's feelings was abysmal bemoans his angst that women so often incorrectly presume his
intentions, now much evolved from the days when man dominated public life, to be only as insensitive as were his
predecessors’; in the first song, a woman -- apparently assuming that power resides entirely outside herself -- has
anxiety about what men are thinking. Perhaps the woman is extending our species' traditional successes in predictive
thinking in the world of domestic objects by presuming intentions on the part of men that have not evolved much from
his predecessors. This, of course, is only a hypothesis. What the songwriters actually had in mind, we can only know
if we ask -- unless, of course, we believe in mind-reading.
In any case, mind-reading is always prone to error. Although our guesses of another's thinking can sometimes seem
to be true, rigorous testing of this notion invariably reveals that we cannot expect our guesses of another’s
intentions to be entirely accurate, no matter how widely and deeply we have studied psychoanalysis and its many
offshoots. Given this ineluctable truth, is it not now time to start letting go of diagnostic thinking in the evolution of
our approaches to developing and maintaining relationships in the realms of both healing and human development in
favour of developing the capacity for asking with empathy?
Well, yes, but how? Well, what about an "Age of Gnosis"? The term "Age of Gnosis" sounds quaintly and esoterically
pretentious to many. Yet, if you have read this far, I believe my presentation of it to you is worth considering. Gnosis
is a Greek word meaning an "incidence of knowing". Dia is a Greek word meaning "across". Thus the word
"diagnosis" is distinguished from the word "gnosis" as being an incidence of claiming to know what is in another's
mind. This being so, wouldn't your diagnosis of me, or my diagnosis of you, be prone to the errors of mind-reading?
Well, yes, of course, they would. So, why not share what is in one's own mind in preference to pretending to know
what is in another's? Let us henceforth leave diagnoses to the world of inanimate sciences like engineering and
physics and astronomy, and let's recognize the often insulting and unnecessary walls in relationships that unempathic
use of diagnostic skills erect. They block our best efforts to grow trust and intimacy in relationships of all kinds! Let us
instead express our own gnoses more often, our own authentic knowings. Let us try to regenerate gently the
ancient, and well-proven, paths of truth by practising empathic expression of only what we authentically know, our
gnoses, rather than diagnoses of others.
What might such an approach require of us? I have 'X state of being' now is the verbal expression of a gnosis.
Authentix Coaches has been testing this format for personal gnosis for a decade now, and we have found that not
only is it the simplest way of verbalizing one's own truth of the moment, it is also the safest way of being authentic
without presumption of what may be in another's mind. If it is indeed free of presumption, such expressions enable
one to be authentic without danger of insulting. Authentix Coaches have also found that use of I have 'X emotion'
now (IHXEN) expressions, where 'X emotion' is merely a noun, in challenging (and potentially explosive) situations is a
way of relieving emotional pressure while avoiding triggering distrust. Indeed we have invariably found that its use
always engenders a renewal of trust. In order to take advantage of this linguistic technique, most us will need to
expand our knowledge and use of the vocabulary of emotions, so following is a starter list of emotion nouns. They
denote states of being that many clients of Authentix Coaches have experienced and identified as gnoses while on
their way to profound and practical new insights into situations they had been experiencing as troublesome:
their motifs with quite a few people of each gender. Few women recall the man’s song. All of both genders recall the
woman’s song. All agree that the material lot of women improved substantially during the 20th Century and that
women’s thirst to escape the boredom women were experiencing in lives confined to the home has been substantially,
but by no means entirely, quenched. Many wonder whether, given the hectic pace of our currently market-driven lives,
this signal improvement won by women and the men aware enough to be their political supporters has gained anyone
participating in family life – whether as a parent, child, or grandparent – anything worth having. Most also wonder
why men continue to “feel misunderstood”.
A problem common to both genders may be that we live in an "age of diagnosis". What I mean by this is that our
habit of applying the tools and skills of objective science, a habit widely held to be the source of much progress, may
now be an under-recognized source of discord. Allow me, please, to elaborate.
The way of thinking and conversing practiced by objective scientists has enabled the Western-oriented world to have
great success in manipulating the world of objects through mechanical, chemical, electrical, nuclear, and electronic
means. So what could be more natural in our evolution as a civilization than for people to utilize a way of thinking and
conversing proven successful in manipulating the world of objects to addressing issues arising in personal
relationships, which is established as the field of experience in which most mental-emotional turmoil occurs? Indeed,
we began applying the techniques of objective science to this field in the 19th Century, and by the end of the 20th the
profession most identified with that approach -- psychiatry -- had grown to have great influence, especially in
countries where its diagnoses are at the centre of the profession's system of compensation by government.
A mind is not an object, however. Given this, then the convention of repeating the means, objective analysis, of
success we have had in manipulating the physical world is worth calling into question when we find ourselves doing it
with minds.
A Cambridge friend of mine tells me that the ancient Greek, Hippocrates, said that mind and body are not separable,
but that Plato and Aristotle maintained that they were. Today, although we frequently use the words "mind" and
"body", no scientist has ever been able to define in words the boundary between a physical body and a non-physical
mind. One might therefore wonder if, after glibly using these words for two thousand years since the fathers of
Western medicine, science, and philosophy disagreed over whether the mind and body are distinguishable
scientifically, we might today accept that, scientifically, they are not. Yet truth is that people, and not just lay people
but professional people like doctors and psychiatrists are still using the words "mind" and "body" as if these two
entities were actually separable. In the last generation or so, some writers, mainly from the fields of psychotherapy
and alternative healing modalities, have begun using the words "mindbody" and "bodymind", but this nomenclature,
although more reflective of what we actually do know scientifically, is only slowly catching on.
Why is this reality worth considering? I do not find the reason at all easy to explain, but let me begin by observing
that, to communicate abstract ideas, we often use metaphors derived from descriptions of concrete objects -- for
example, "he has a sharp mind". This common saying draws on our sense of a concrete object, in this case that of a
knife or a sword, to indicate a quality of a person's personality. OK, so we all know what a knife or a sword are, but
what would be the affect on a troubled person's experience in a relationship if he or she had been diagnosed by a
psychiatrist as "having a sharp mind"? How would your spouse's opinion of you be affected if such a diagnosis were
made of you? Well, your spouse might not care a whit how a psychiatrist might diagnose your mind, and I hope that
is your good fortune. But suppose you and your wife were having difficulty agreeing what schooling to give your child
and you had reached your wits' end trying to find common ground and then a psychiatrist diagnoses your mind as
being a sharp one? Would that affect the outcome of the issue you and your spouse were grappling with? It surely
would.
Following the tradition of the medical science out of which their profession was born, psychiatrists have invented ways
to categorize the habits of behavior and thought they perceive in people experiencing emotional pain into commonly
occurring psychiatric types. But, what are the habits of thought that are observable in another when thought is not
directly observable but only the outward consequence of some bodymind process, including often an emoto-linguistic?
Unless all the people involved in such an issue remain exquisitely aware of all these complex realities involved in
emoto-linguistics, there is a strong likelihood that they will try to repeat the 'successes by diagnoses' that our
civilization has had in the realm of manipulating objects by referring to each other as one or another psychological
type. And if that happens, they (which means you and I too in certain circumstances) can easily fall into the habit of
treating each other as having the characteristics of objects rather than personalities capable of creative evolution.
Psychiatrists are often ingenious in finding ways to transcend the linguistic limitations within which they and the rest
of us make use of the science of their profession. For example, Ron Charach, a Toronto psychiatrist, has published
eight books of poems -- the latest being "Selected Portraits" (available from Indigo/Chapters and Amazon) -- to convey
his healing messages to psychiatric survivors and their family members. But many if not most of the rest of us are still
at the stage of studying popular books on psychoanalytic theories and managerial psychology -- books in which the
linguistic limitations of psychoanalysis are rarely, if at all, made clear.
When one extends the skills of analysis derived from success in predicting what will be the consequences of actions
one takes in the objective physical world of houses, cars, kitchens, and machines, into desires for success in predicting
the implications of diagnostic categories upon another, one is dipping into mind-reading. Indeed, if one listens closely,
one finds much mind-reading occurring beneath the surface of much, if not most, of ordinary conversation today. To
return to the two songs with which we began: In the second song, a man aware today that the sensitivity of his male
predecessors to women's feelings was abysmal bemoans his angst that women so often incorrectly presume his
intentions, now much evolved from the days when man dominated public life, to be only as insensitive as were his
predecessors’; in the first song, a woman -- apparently assuming that power resides entirely outside herself -- has
anxiety about what men are thinking. Perhaps the woman is extending our species' traditional successes in predictive
thinking in the world of domestic objects by presuming intentions on the part of men that have not evolved much from
his predecessors. This, of course, is only a hypothesis. What the songwriters actually had in mind, we can only know
if we ask -- unless, of course, we believe in mind-reading.
In any case, mind-reading is always prone to error. Although our guesses of another's thinking can sometimes seem
to be true, rigorous testing of this notion invariably reveals that we cannot expect our guesses of another’s
intentions to be entirely accurate, no matter how widely and deeply we have studied psychoanalysis and its many
offshoots. Given this ineluctable truth, is it not now time to start letting go of diagnostic thinking in the evolution of
our approaches to developing and maintaining relationships in the realms of both healing and human development in
favour of developing the capacity for asking with empathy?
Well, yes, but how? Well, what about an "Age of Gnosis"? The term "Age of Gnosis" sounds quaintly and esoterically
pretentious to many. Yet, if you have read this far, I believe my presentation of it to you is worth considering. Gnosis
is a Greek word meaning an "incidence of knowing". Dia is a Greek word meaning "across". Thus the word
"diagnosis" is distinguished from the word "gnosis" as being an incidence of claiming to know what is in another's
mind. This being so, wouldn't your diagnosis of me, or my diagnosis of you, be prone to the errors of mind-reading?
Well, yes, of course, they would. So, why not share what is in one's own mind in preference to pretending to know
what is in another's? Let us henceforth leave diagnoses to the world of inanimate sciences like engineering and
physics and astronomy, and let's recognize the often insulting and unnecessary walls in relationships that unempathic
use of diagnostic skills erect. They block our best efforts to grow trust and intimacy in relationships of all kinds! Let us
instead express our own gnoses more often, our own authentic knowings. Let us try to regenerate gently the
ancient, and well-proven, paths of truth by practising empathic expression of only what we authentically know, our
gnoses, rather than diagnoses of others.
What might such an approach require of us? I have 'X state of being' now is the verbal expression of a gnosis.
Authentix Coaches has been testing this format for personal gnosis for a decade now, and we have found that not
only is it the simplest way of verbalizing one's own truth of the moment, it is also the safest way of being authentic
without presumption of what may be in another's mind. If it is indeed free of presumption, such expressions enable
one to be authentic without danger of insulting. Authentix Coaches have also found that use of I have 'X emotion'
now (IHXEN) expressions, where 'X emotion' is merely a noun, in challenging (and potentially explosive) situations is a
way of relieving emotional pressure while avoiding triggering distrust. Indeed we have invariably found that its use
always engenders a renewal of trust. In order to take advantage of this linguistic technique, most us will need to
expand our knowledge and use of the vocabulary of emotions, so following is a starter list of emotion nouns. They
denote states of being that many clients of Authentix Coaches have experienced and identified as gnoses while on
their way to profound and practical new insights into situations they had been experiencing as troublesome:
Awe, joy, rue, ease, hope, hurt, jeal, love, need, rage, bliss, dread, grief,
guilt, hurt, mirth, peace, poise, pride, trust, shame, shock, scorn, stress,
thrill, want, angst, fear, zeal, alarm, anger, anguish, askance, boredom,
challenge, complaint, concern, contempt, craving, delight, desire, disgust,
dismay, distress, envy, fury, fatigue, horror, hurry, panic, passion, pleasure,
regret, relief, resolve, sorrow, surprise, tension, trial, upset, worry, yearning,
agony, ecstasy, approval, assurance, buoyancy, defiance, dilemma, elation,
jealousy, potency, quandary, deference, gratitude, ignorance, injustice,
interest, impotence, lassitude, misgiving, suffering, confusion, dejection,
exhaustion, frustration, obsession, vexation, adamancy, expectancy,
ambivalence, despondency, difficulty, disapproval, pensivity, perplexity,
solemnity, tranquility, agitation, aspiration, expectancy, curiosity,
fascination, indignation, irritation, obligation, protestation, satisfaction,
anticipation, disconsolation, trepidation, equanimity, vulnerability.
guilt, hurt, mirth, peace, poise, pride, trust, shame, shock, scorn, stress,
thrill, want, angst, fear, zeal, alarm, anger, anguish, askance, boredom,
challenge, complaint, concern, contempt, craving, delight, desire, disgust,
dismay, distress, envy, fury, fatigue, horror, hurry, panic, passion, pleasure,
regret, relief, resolve, sorrow, surprise, tension, trial, upset, worry, yearning,
agony, ecstasy, approval, assurance, buoyancy, defiance, dilemma, elation,
jealousy, potency, quandary, deference, gratitude, ignorance, injustice,
interest, impotence, lassitude, misgiving, suffering, confusion, dejection,
exhaustion, frustration, obsession, vexation, adamancy, expectancy,
ambivalence, despondency, difficulty, disapproval, pensivity, perplexity,
solemnity, tranquility, agitation, aspiration, expectancy, curiosity,
fascination, indignation, irritation, obligation, protestation, satisfaction,
anticipation, disconsolation, trepidation, equanimity, vulnerability.
You can find more essays by Angus Cunningham on Authentix Coaches' website under sub-sections of the
Leader Services page. You can reach them by accessing the web site's Home Page, clicking on the Leader
Services navigation button there, and then looking for the Leadership Essays button.
Leader Services page. You can reach them by accessing the web site's Home Page, clicking on the Leader
Services navigation button there, and then looking for the Leadership Essays button.
Using this list to implement Authentix Coaches' IHXEN technique (one can pronounce it "Eye-Zen") of inner
exploration, and then sifting through the feelings that arise after one has labeled, with an IHXEN, one's emotion, one
has become one's emotion's witness rather than its soul. Our clients learn that they can arrive at remarkably
valuable insights by using this technique and its follow-on processes. A series of such insights enabled, for example,
one enterprise owner and CEO to win an offer of $3 million in a stalled debt recovery process. Another used the
technique to find a productive new role for an employee who had become locked in acrimonious personal
controversies that were stalling his company's productivity growth but in whom the company had invested 10 years'
learning in a rare specialty vital to the enterprise.
We can stimulate and accompany a shift toward a more gnostic focus with reciprocal expressions of curiosity
concerning what others' gnoses are. When we do this we are only doing what the Norman invaders of England did,
and what speakers of French and Portuguese, and perhaps many other languages, do today! More significantly,
Eye-Zens satisfy our need to know, if we seek emotional maturity, what our emotions actually are. When we know
that, we know most of what we need to know of our emotional "bias". Such knowing facilitates evolution of
relationships with a minimum of the painful divisions and crises that are so often triggered by the very common
cultural error amongst English speakers of projecting mind-reading judgments. By such means we can minimize the
distractions and dangers of serious misunderstandings. Moreover, by shifting the balance of focus from diagnosis to
gnosis, we acquire the skills both to express our own particular authenticities and to have our worries about others'
intents relieved by data replacing the fantasies of hasty mind-reading. In partnerships, we find new ways to grow in
skills of empathy and hopefully also of acknowledgement. In the Age of Gnosis now dawning, we just might find the
"war of the sexes" becoming, in due course, "the peace of gender coherence"!
Toronto, 080723-081108, excerpted from "Vitalizing Communications", to be published in 2009 -- Permissions
exploration, and then sifting through the feelings that arise after one has labeled, with an IHXEN, one's emotion, one
has become one's emotion's witness rather than its soul. Our clients learn that they can arrive at remarkably
valuable insights by using this technique and its follow-on processes. A series of such insights enabled, for example,
one enterprise owner and CEO to win an offer of $3 million in a stalled debt recovery process. Another used the
technique to find a productive new role for an employee who had become locked in acrimonious personal
controversies that were stalling his company's productivity growth but in whom the company had invested 10 years'
learning in a rare specialty vital to the enterprise.
We can stimulate and accompany a shift toward a more gnostic focus with reciprocal expressions of curiosity
concerning what others' gnoses are. When we do this we are only doing what the Norman invaders of England did,
and what speakers of French and Portuguese, and perhaps many other languages, do today! More significantly,
Eye-Zens satisfy our need to know, if we seek emotional maturity, what our emotions actually are. When we know
that, we know most of what we need to know of our emotional "bias". Such knowing facilitates evolution of
relationships with a minimum of the painful divisions and crises that are so often triggered by the very common
cultural error amongst English speakers of projecting mind-reading judgments. By such means we can minimize the
distractions and dangers of serious misunderstandings. Moreover, by shifting the balance of focus from diagnosis to
gnosis, we acquire the skills both to express our own particular authenticities and to have our worries about others'
intents relieved by data replacing the fantasies of hasty mind-reading. In partnerships, we find new ways to grow in
skills of empathy and hopefully also of acknowledgement. In the Age of Gnosis now dawning, we just might find the
"war of the sexes" becoming, in due course, "the peace of gender coherence"!
Toronto, 080723-081108, excerpted from "Vitalizing Communications", to be published in 2009 -- Permissions