General Semantics: Null-Sanity

Welcome to Part 5 in my introductory series on General Semantics.

General Semantics and Sanity
In my own research, I generally don't approach it scientifically - I usually familarize myself with what is current and work my way backward. What came before or what influenced this idea until I find the very core of what I'm getting at or trying to fully understand. This was evident when I started to familiarize myself with NLP - neuro-linguistic programming. NLP is a set of "models", that was devised by two researchers, namely John Grinder and Richard Bandler, in the 1970s in order to find out how the techniques used by leading therapists such as the hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, gestalt therapist Fritz Perls and anthropologist Gregory Bateson (among others) could be replicated by others for achieving success and mental health (success being the buzzword there.)

In the opening paragraphs of one of the books I've read on the subject (and several since) were printed the words the map is not the territory. Bereft of any mention of where this idea originated, I went and discovered the linchpin that bound all these various therapies together - Alfred Korzybski and General Semantics.

Influence on Psychotherapy
Dr. Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Therapy was the first to apply Korzybski's General Semantics into a complete doctrine of psychotherapy. The most obvious link between GS and REBT is the consciousness of abstraction - that we miss the lower-order abstractions and "awfulize" almost through unconscious reflexes. (The Activating Event-Belief-Consequence model.) Ellis succinctly explains the link in his 1991 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture:

"[B]oth general semantics and [Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy] hold that if people think about their thinking, and minimize their "natural" tendency to overcategorize, they can significantly--though perhaps never completely--free themselves from some of their thought-language limitations and achieve a more self-fulfilling life."

Gestalt therapy, extemporized by Fritz Perls also owes a great debt to Count Korzybski, although he only gets a passing mention in his literature. One of his great "Gestalt experiments" that he asks his patients to perform are no less than Korzybski's own examples of the consciousness of abstraction!

For an illustration, let us consider such an ordinary object as a pencil...Notice first that the pencil is this unique thing. There are other pencils, to be sure, but not this very one. Say its name, "pencil," and realize vividly that the thing is not the word! The pencil as thing is non-verbal. (italics mine.)

It is no wonder that Perls and Bateson were used as models by Bandler and Grinder, as their therapies and theories all stem from the denial of the essence or "is" of identity and the consciousness of abstraction. They most importantly encouraged precise thinking arising from otherwise muddled and improper confusions of language. The idiom "map is not the territory" is simple enough to read and say, however when probed and explored for oneself, becomes a wondrous and powerful tool for inspiring and maintaining mental health and preventing "un-sanity."

References
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, 4th edition.
Language in Thought and Action: Fourth Edition, Samuel I. Hayakawa, Harcourt, 1972.
Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson, University Of Chicago Press, 1972.
A New Guide to Rational Living, Dr. Albert Ellis and Dr. Robert Harper, Wilshire Book Company, 1975.
"A General Semantics Glossary" by Robert Pula in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Dec. 22, 1993.
Gestalt Therapy: Growth and Excitement in the Human Personality, Dr. Frederick Perls, Gestalt Journal Press, 1951.
Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming, John Seymour and Joseph O'Connor, Thorsons Publishers
Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Dr. Milton H. Erickson, M.D., John Grinder and Richard Bandler, Metamorphous Press, 1996.
"General semantics and rational-emotive therapy: 1991 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture." by Dr. Albert Ellis, ETC.: A Review of General Semantics, Oct. 1, 2007.