Replying to LO24187 --
John,
Thanks for your reply. I'm not stuck with the word "unlearning," but it is
an accurate term. My experience does not agree with your statement: .
> The "old" learning still exists, but
> now with a different set of relationships to other knowledge. It is still
> known, but now as a 'simpler' or less 'valuable' concept and may be used
> by the learner as a heuristic towards the 'newer' more 'valuable'
> knowledge.
My experience is that it is possible to totally eliminate the "old"
learning. For example, a person may have learned as a child that "I'm not
good enough" as a result of his parents always being critical. We have
worked with over 1,000 private clients who have totally "unlearned" that
and other similar "facts" and who now believe (not just cognitively or as
an affirmation, but experientially) that "I am good enough." The
unlearning and new learning have lasted for many years without
reinforcement.
We have worked with thousands of service technicians who had learned that
their job was a technical one: to fix, maintain, and install. Given this
belief (this learning), talking to customers was an imposition, something
that got in the way of them doing their "real" job. Using several
processes we have developed to eliminate beliefs, these workers unlearned
what they knew to be a fact about their jobs. They then we able to learn
that their job was to satisfy customers. Their technical skills would
help them do that, but the purpose of going to the job site was to have a
satisfied customer, not merely to get the equipment working.
I realize that I am speaking (to some on this list) who have "learned"
that it is difficult if not impossible for people to totally unlearn, that
change is difficult, that people resist change. I don't think either of
these beliefs are true. We have developed several techniques that work
for private clients with personal issues and for organizations to totally
and permanently unlearn. By that I mean, eliminate the beliefs that
people are convinced are "the truth" and de-condition the feelings and
senses that are experienced as "the truth."
A description of these processes can be found on our web site. Please
feel free to use them or write if you have any questions about them.
Morty
Morty Lefkoe
For information about the Decision Maker(R) Institute or
Re-create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and Your World
contact: morty@decisionmaker.com or visit www.decisionmaker.com
> You're right. There have been threads on "unlearning" before. The
> problem with the thread was not the concept, but the name you've given it.
> I, for one, do not like the word unlearning. It is confuses the reader
> and the thinker. What is called unlearning is a special case of the
> general theory of learning. It is a case in which new evidence is
> presented which allows the learner to richen their mental model. In some
> instances, we suspend belief, in others, we expand it, in some, belief
> tranforms to disbelief and new belief. Something learned becomes
> something more, something different. The "old" learning still exists, but
> now with a different set of relationships to other knowledge. It is still
> known, but now as a 'simpler' or less 'valuable' concept and may be used
> by the learner as a heuristic towards the 'newer' more 'valuable'
> knowledge.
>
> Enough of these transformations and we have wisdom.
--"Morty Lefkoe" <morty@decisionmaker.com>
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