Chapter 13

The concise slang used by young adults often includes the vivid description of the common low level of life quality as being "in the trash". This low level of the quality of life is the rule for most people in the modern and rich countries of the "first world" most of the time-regardless of social status or economic resources. For each one who is briefly "out of the trash" there are many more who are almost never clear of it.

Many of my trainees and I have recently become part of the minority which form the "exception that proves the rule". The "trash" simile adequately describes what each of us experienced before encountering the "General Sensate Focus" technique.

In commemoration of those bad days and in order to indicate the culprit, the programs one works on to improve the quality of life are nicknamed trash- programs. Actually, this nickname is not only used throughout the text of this book, but also as a regular concept in the work with trainees. We even use it regularly in our individual daily life when conversing with others familiar with its meaning.

There are about six main "families" of those "trash-programs". Sometimes, a subprogram or even a whole program can be allocated to more than one of the following groups or families as they are not mutually exclusive:

1. The most prominent family consists of programs which are responsible for prolonged pressure, distress, depression, tension, stomach pains, heart discomfort, low back pains, etc.
2. The second family consists of programs responsible for the relatively short and acute emotional feelings and sensations such as: anxiety attacks, rage attacks (accompanied by the will to hurt the offender), sporadic guilt feelings, shame, weeping, etc.
3. The third family consists of those programs that prevent the experience and/or communication of the felt emotions, sensations, moods, passions, etc. or at least attenuate their intensity. A few members of this family are indiscriminate and affect all levels and qualities of the emotions. The others are a bit more discriminate and have a more selective effect on the various aspects and expression of emotion.
4. The fourth family is the most destructive. Its members prevent us from executing essential behavioral patterns, or restrain us from executing actions we have already decided on, even when we know that they are vital to our well-being. The affects of these programs are usually felt as "internal resistance", inhibitions, lack of will power, personality factors and characteristics, etc. These programs delay, postpone, hinder, or even prevent the beginning of the execution of programs and plans. Sometimes, in addition or instead of the above, they "just" sabotage their progress.
5. The fifth family consists of programs doing the opposite with nearly the same damaging effects or even more. They execute prematurely behaviors we have already decided to delay, postpone, or even wish to prevent. They prevent us from the timely aborting of behavior and other actions found faulty during their execution. Programs of this family can "take us for a ride" that could be prolonged for life, or shorten our lives to suit their length.
6. The sixth family is the biggest of all. It consists mostly of emotional supra-programs that cause erroneous evaluations of circumstances and resources.

The programs of this group are of three main kinds:

1. programs that introduce errors that are relevant for one of the basic emotions.
2. programs that cause errors in certain circumstances that are relevant to mixtures of basic emotions.
3. programs that are responsible for widespread distortions in the emotional testing of reality.

Why are programs trashy?

a) First and foremost is the huge number of programs, chunks of information and other impressions stored in our memory which we have to deal with:

• We have a substantial number of innate programs that are hard to mold into more advanced and divergent forms.
• We have a nearly infinite number of memory traces of the activities of ad hoc programs registered which we have to refer to when relevant problems are encountered.
• We have a rich environment which changes constantly. This brings us face to face with new opportunities and dangers and force us to build and maintain a multitude of additional programs, most of them not executed in real life even once.

b) Second, in order but not in importance, is the limited capacity of our brain and mind processes responsible for the updating, mending, accommodating and adapting of the supra-programs of the mind.

c) The third reason is the built-in strategy of the brain and mind system when confronted with the "impossible mission" of managing real life. Because of these limits, most of the adaptation processes are initiated by it only when ad hoc programs are built, whether for internal use or for actual behavior.

(If the system tried to update, mend, accommodate and adapt all programs stored in memory, we would be stuck with those of the first months of life!!!)