techniques like IFS are in principle capable of addressing the underlying source of the anger; once you do that you don’t need to counteract it anymore, it just effortlessly happens less if at all. you’ve “delayered” instead of “layering”
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what kind of damage can you do to yourself the counteractive / layering way? let’s say you also have a strong inner critic, for example. when you notice yourself failing to properly counteract your anger, that can become another thing for your inner critic to latch onto
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“jeez look at you, can’t do anything right, can’t even stop yourself from being angry the way the therapist told you to”
part of the damage here is the idea that these techniques are supposed to solve your problem; easy to conclude that if they don’t then it’s your fault
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failed attempts at self-transformation can also produce resistance to future attempts at self-transformation, as various parts of the bodymind conclude that it’s unsafe and will not actually help them get their needs met. not a great place to be in! better to use good tech!
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further reading: UtEB is most of the core of my framework for analyzing and comparing and debugging techniques, would still highly recommend as a read for anyone who wants that:
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Me being triggered slightly by this thread and looking at what's at the core of that:
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I dislike the "layering vs. unlayering" frame because it perpetuates the idea that all we have to do is remove all our trauma and then we'll respond perfectly to every situation.
Even if you get rid of all your hangups with people, communication is still hard, skills are needed.
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Part of me feels like if I admit that any sort of skills are useless, than I've wasted most of my life learning stuff? But I also look at reality and think that the world is complex and we don't just have everything by default.
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I think the mindset of "my brain is infinite in wisdom and can figure everything out" is a slippery slope that gets you to "perception is reality" which then gets you to "I can read minds and float and shit" and I really want people to be able to handle their shit without that.
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I also really disliked framing this as "good techniques vs. bad techniques" even though I think there are better techniques or worse techniques, the real danger is in using techniques inappropriately.
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