Life is THE Dual Process Phenomenon

Life is a "dual process phenomenon."  I'm reading Martin Seligman's Learned Optimism (finally bought the Kindle edition).  This is volume one of what became a trilogy--with The Optimistic Child as the middle member and Authentic Happiness as the climactic book.  

How easily we forget that filling in holes is not the same as building up something (or someone).  Seligman writes,

"Curing the negatives does not produce positives...The skills of becoming happy turn out to be almost entirely different from the skills of not being sad, not being anxious, or not being angry."

We know this in terms of organizational consulting.  We can fill in all the "holes in the bucket" (to use the language, for example, of Natural Church Development).  That repair work will not, in and of itself, produce any real growth.  We still have to build something on top of the repaired foundation--to mix metaphors mildly.  On the other hand, we can identify all the strengths we want--following, for example, Kennon Callahan.  If, however, we are leaking out the bottom of our organization (or our psyche), we'll never get ahead.

Life is what is known in the bereavement psychology biz as a "dual process phenomenon."  Two complementary and sometimes competing sets of processes are usually going on at the same time.  One set of processes deals with the pain and debilitation and focuses on recovering.  The other set of processes employs the strength and hope and focuses (re)building.  These parallel processes require different resources, techniques and pathways.

Healthy life is always more both/and than it is either/or (notice that I did my best not to create an either/or statement here!).

Seligman was among those who observed that traditional psychology only focused on reducing pathology and did not spend any time at all on building resources.  Traditional psychology was great at reducing certain kinds of suffering.  "But," Seligman writes, "discovering the skills of becoming happier had been relegated to amusement parks, Hollywood, and beer commercials."  Too bad for those who didn't like roller coasters, sitcoms and brewskies!

This was my observation in the early days of my bereavement.  I found all sorts of sympathy for my loss.  I was inundated with resources for a sort of palliative approach to grief.  We would manage the pain until enough time passed.  I found almost no resources for using my strengths and building something new alongside of the process of surviving the trauma.  From almost the get-go, I found that lack to be distressing and frustrating.

I write the things I write because of this experience.  Life is THE dual process phenomenon.  A truly helpful approach to recovery attend to both sets of processes at once--to the amelioration of the suffering AND the building of hopeful resources and possibilities for the future.  I hope I am part of that duality here.