Info
I have been meaning to write about this idea for a long time, but I’ve been struggling with thinking about how to approach it and structure it. Today I asked ChatGPT to interview me about it. Originally my plan was to use my answers to its questions just as a foundation, but answering has taken much more effort than I expected, so I first ended up just putting them together, cleaning up a bit and publishing it. Afterwards, while writing (9) writing with chatgpt I have realised that adding ChatGPT’s questions and this disclosure actually felt much more honest.
I’m not super happy with the result, but as I said, it has taken a lot of effort, and since I have struggled so much to write about this I think it is worth publishing it as a first riff on this topic. After all, all the answers have been written 100% by me and it is pretty extensive, so I think it probably isn’t as bad as I may seem to me. There’s some good bits in it, and I hope I can rework this into a future essay on the topic that I feel really proud of.
what inspired you to think about “yes-and” in the context of integration? any specific experiences or observations?
There’s this rule in Gestalt therapy about avoiding the word “but”. The idea is that “but” invalidates everything that came before, and you should aim to validate both sides of the “but”. Another way of looking at it is, there’s a quote by Fritz Perls, one of the founders of Gestalt therapy, that says something like “when someone says ‘but’ I know I need to ignore everything they’ve said up to that point and really pay attention now, because that is the really important part”. Ideally, one should be able to replace “X, but Y”, with “X, and Y”. I have found in my personal experience that this is not easy to do, and usually when I force it it doesn’t help me very much, but, when I am able to do it I think it has been when I’ve been able to see both sides at the same time, hold space for both of them and integrate them.
can you give an example of two seemingly opposed statements or ideas that you’ve found to be compatible?
In general, I think when there’s a conflict you can see that usually both parties in the conflict are simultaneously right and wrong. It’s hard to think of an example, I could probably look at current events and try to show how in conflicts nowadays that is a thing, but I think it would be more useful/powerful if I can think of an example in my real life. At the moment, right now, where can I see this? Well right now I’m just about to move back to my childhood home with my parents because I have found a job back there that could be a good career opportunity. So, it is simultaneously true that “I’m taking steps back” and that “I’m taking steps forward”.
how do you see the concept of “yes-and” working outside of improv? like, in everyday conversations or decision-making?
I see this being useful in both conversations and decision-making. To be more specific, I think it is a useful frame to approach conflict, and both conversations and decision-making can be about conflict – some would say they always are. Starting off by trying to say “Yes-and” can highlight where the conflict is: when you say it, you can feel why it doesn’t feel right, where is the tension. At the same time, once you start trying to say it and thinking about it you can start finding all the ways in which these two opposite points of view could actually be compatible. This is all connected to infinite games, abundance thinking, and it’s about the difference in your stance from when you’re trying to add something vs when you’re trying to defend yourself. I think, ultimately, by looking at all the compatible points, and facing the tension that comes up when you try to say “yes-and” you eventually can get to the synthesis/catharsis/integration/resolution of the conflict.
do you think embracing “yes-and” can change how we perceive conflicts or disagreements? how so?
We tend to simplify the world in our minds, even when we try not to. After all, the map is not the territory, no mental model is ever perfect or fully correct, our perspectives will always be perspectives, and the world is infinitely complex with infinite causes and effects. Yet, we tend to think in terms of just one or a couple of causes and effects, because it’s easier, simpler, and we don’t have the capacity to understand everything perfectly. This can seem obvious to someone, and still there is no escape from it. Therefore, when we encounter a conflict, this is (usually? always?) the result of two incomplete models of reality clashing into each other. Neither is fully right and neither is fully wrong. This isn’t to dismiss the conflict, but to validate both points of view and, instead of one aiming to fully negate the other, actually aim to negotiate, find the common ground, the points of tension, and the best possible compromise. “Yes-and” is the result of this negotiation, and it can help you find the process to get there. Keeping it in mind reminds us that the world is much larger and more complex than we could ever begin to imagine, and “there is space for both of us to be wrong” (and right).
how would you explain the idea that “everything is a bit of everything and everything is partly true” to someone who’s skeptical?
The simplest version of this is the half-empty half-full glass, or the idea that “nothing is good or bad, just different shades of grey”, however, that’s not all there is. Let’s go to an extreme, let’s say you say the sky is blue, and I say the sky is red. Well, obviously I’m just wrong right? Not quite. To start with, there’s the matter of perception, your blue could be my red, and my red your blue, we really have no way to know. This can be fixed by being more specific, you can say the sky reflects light of wavelengths between about 450 and 495 nanometers, which is what we define as “blue”. To this, I would say, at what time of the day? Surely you’ll agree that during the sunset and the sunrise that isn’t the case right? You could think these arguments are not real, no one would say these things, but you would be missing the point. The point is that you’re misunderstanding me as much as I’m misunderstanding you, and the only way to reach integration/resolution is for both of us to really explore all the ways in which each of us could be right and wrong.
how does the idea of “yes-and” relate to other philosophical or psychological concepts you’re familiar with?
First, in yin and yang we have the idea of opposites and complements. We have all heard, there’s no light without dark. One could say yin and yang is actually about “yin but yang” or “yang but yin”, and they would be missing the point. The point is yin and yang, and the yin within the yang, and the yang within the yin. Even the light side has a bit of darkness in it. Dialectical materialism in marxism says that every new change is a response to the one before. The idea is that you have the current status quo, or thesis (which itself came about as a response to the previous status quo). This status quo has many characteristics, which are good and bad for different groups of people (X, but Y). Eventually, the frustrations may cause a revolution, a big change, that imposes a new world order, opposed to the one before, the antithesis. However, this new world order has its own inconveniences as well (Y but X), so we get to the next one (X and Y). That’s the idea behind the dialectics of Hegel and Marx. Through this kind of progress we would eventually get to the end of history, the perfect society, which according to Marx was socialism.
are there any potential downsides or challenges to always approaching things with a “yes-and” mindset?
Of course, you can always overdo anything. Here the first risk that comes to mind is being too agreeable. This is not bad in of itself, I don’t think you can actually be too agreeable or overdo “yes-and” but the risk comes when in validating the opposing point of view we forget about the original one. “yes-and” is about balance, it is about the “yes” and the “and” simultaneously, and you always risk doing too much of either. Furthermore, I personally find “yes-and” challenging because it’s not always how I feel, and as I said forcing it is not useful. “yes-and” only works as a mysterious guide and a symptom, but not as a set of instructions or panacea. It can be useful to aim for it but it’s a symptom of an integrated a frame and won’t make much sense in a conflicted frame. There is a reason the word “but” is in our language and I don’t think it is possible to remove it, however I think it will help us to notice when and why we’re using “but” and not “and”
Everything has a part of truth in it, and when we forget that is when we find ourselves in unreconcilable conflicts. Navigating conflict is about having the humility to recognise that our point of view will never be all-encompassing, and the best we can do is aim to understand how everything is actually compatible.