What About the Systems Part of Positive Systems Approach

2.       Imprecise, or "sensational", emotionally charged “editorializing”, indicative of "emotional reasoning", "gaslighting", or other forms of manipulative text or speech

Other terms for what some back in the day would refer to as “bullcrap”, propaganda, slander or libel, today other similar terms include “fake news”, “disinformation”, or "conspiracy theories". While almost all writing and speech could be said to contain an agenda, or plot, to convince the reader or listener of some point the writer or speaker is trying to make, it has become more and more difficult to “sift” information to obtain the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” about a topic. Once trusted news sources are being criticized for becoming more and more politicized, and more and more deceitful in their presentation of what was once considered by most to be relatively factual information. Either by constructing narratives in which facts are made to fit, by neglecting to present information that does not “fit” the narrative, or sometimes by making up completely, a so-called "news" story.

I first encountered this phenomenon (or at least became acutely aware of it) when I was writing social histories of once-institutionalized people with developmental disabilities, moving to a new community. This required poring through the institutional files to try to capture the “life lived” of the subject, so that this knowledge could be preserved when they left for their community homes. Here I saw terms such as “firesetter”, “violent and aggressive”, “can’t be trusted around little children”, and so on, referring to people I knew to be nothing of the sort, from almost daily experience over a period of years. Gentle, caring, agreeable and relatively easy to get along with people, made to look like dangerous and untrustworthy folks who should be locked up rather than helped to move back to a home in the communities they had been moved from. Naturally, I did not include such language in my social histories, unless there was compelling reason to do so, in which case I tried to also include context which would hopefully keep the reader from "jumping to conclusions" about the subject. Later, I had a similar experience dealing with a neighbourhood of people who objected to a girls’ group home locating in their neighbourhood. The girls were under the care of local Children’s Aid Societies; some were acting up in their families, others survivors of abuse, still others outgrew foster homes. Words like “juvenile delinquents”, “prostitutes” and “thieves” were used by some residents of the neighbourhood to describe the young women, although no such descriptions had any basis in available evidence.

Words of this kind can be seen as an example of “emotional reasoning”. Emotional reasoning starts from an emotional conclusion, judgment, perspective or "frame" and works backward, using what often looks reasonable and rational, finding or supplying reason(s) in line with the conclusion. Although this is a "logical fallacy" or "distortion", it is a feature of human discourse, not a "bug". There is altogether too much discrete information pouring in through our senses that our brains would soon become incapacitated by the sheer volume of "facts", so we develop "algorithms" for categorizing and sorting the information. In emotional reasoning, a person makes a pre-judgment, or feels the reality of something without it having any basis in fact or evidence. The most common feelings driving people's perceptions include:

• Feeling guilty about something

• Being fearful of something

• Being jealous or envious about something

• Feeling worthless or unworthy of something

• Being enraged or angry at someone or something

• Feeling lonely or abandoned

• Feeling unattractive, fat, ugly, or stupid

It should be noted that these "algorithms" are largely outside of our consciousness. In a sense, though mistaken forms of communicating accurately, they are, mostly, "innocent", or at least without malice aforethought. Not all emotional reasoning can be considered so benign, however. Emotional reasoning is often behind some of the most abusive uses of language. A popular term for a form of verbal abuse is called “gaslighting”.

Gaslighting is a form of communication that attempts to cause the recipient to doubt their own senses, thoughts, feelings, and experiences, usually including some version of a "put-down". Examples include "what? That's crazy! That's not what happened!"; "you're just too sensitive"; "why are you making such a big deal out of this?". It includes attempting to blame-shift, denying even demonstrably true or factual evidence, projecting one's own personal faults onto others, lying or prevaricating, or blaming the victim for either provoking, or failing to properly manage, someone else's improper behaviour. In most cases, gaslighting is invoked by a person to avoid accepting responsibility, or accountability, for something that has happened.

How does one separate factual and accurate reporting of events from more nefarious, manipulative or "conniving" language?

Here are some ideas:

• Remove adjectives to see if a sentence or statement is still grammatically correct, but see how it changes the "tone" or implied meaning of the statement. Think of other, less colourful, less exaggerated or grammatically still correct but emotionally less coloured, adjectives that could be used instead.

• See if, by re-stating in some less sensational way, something either heard or read, and whether the "gist" of a communication is still discernible, but changes meaning significantly from the original statement.

• Watch for obvious judgmental words being used, i.e. "lazy", "[whatever]-phobic", "[whatever]-ist", "crazy", "proven", "loser", etc.

• Watch for verbs that may be "hyperbolic", exaggerated, embellished, "stretching the truth", or otherwise being an "overstatement", i.e. "overwhelming", "eliminating", "destroying".

• Watch for nouns that have a history of pejorative use, such as "retarded", "idiot", "mental case", "delinquent". Are they necessary to use in the case in point?

• Ask yourself what, if any, information is NOT being supplied in the account you are reading or listening to.

Way back in time, when I visited larger group homes, nursing homes, or mini-institutions, I would try to make a point to speak to housekeeping staff and kitchen staff, to get a more true sense of what the place was like. Always, the "tour leaders" would be giving us the "royal tour" and rarely would this information be totally authentic or fully truthful about the operation.

Have any specific examples of headlines, statements or "narratives" that are based on emotional reasoning, that seem deliberately misleading, or otherwise might be manipulative or conniving? Send them along for analysis and evaluation.

Next up: 3. Triangulation: "Let's you and him [her] fight" (Berne, "Games People Play", 1982)