Patterns oj Human Behavior 183 



instrumental philosophy will, of course, encounter a universe which 

 will seem to him to validate that philosophy and that a subject 

 trained in a Pavlovian universe will correspondingly, as it seems 

 to him, encounter a universe in which the Pavlovian philosophy 

 is appropriate. 



It is a formal characteristic of this level that opinions about it 

 are, in general, self-validating, and, of course, a great deal of the 

 difficulty in psychotherapy occurs in wrestling with this particular 

 fact. The interchange between therapist and patient always seems 

 to the patient to validate those third level premises with which 

 he entered the therapy room. This is the phenomenon of "trans- 

 ference." The therapist's task is to endeavor to break up those 

 learnings at the third level for which the patient has been deeply 

 reinforced in the past, those learnings of which he is, in general, 

 almost unconscious and which necessarily have this characteristic 

 of being self validating ... no mean task. 



At this point, we are approaching a fourth learning level: the 

 problem of changes at the third level. I have said that this is no 

 mean task for the therapist, and I think it is worth noting that 

 this is a task in which considerable meanness, in another sense of 

 the word, may be a necessary ingredient. To change one's basic 

 premises at this third level is always in some degree painful and 

 always difficult, and the therapist may be compared, if you will, 

 to Mrs. Clorry. He must, of necessity, put the patient in the wrong 

 at the third level. It is therefore essential that psychotherapy shall 

 be double-binding in the sense in which the word is defined here. 

 Mrs. Corry is pathogenic because she goes on doing this without 

 mercy. The therapist is curative insofar as he does it with wisdom 

 and with consistency. After all, Mrs. Corry, is inconsistent even 

 in her inconsistency and can, therefore, always surprise her victim; 

 whereas, the therapist must instruct his patient, albeit by implicit 

 methods, so that new expectations may replace the old and may 

 be rewarded. 



This problem of fourth-level learning, of changes at the third 

 level, is a necessary part of human life. It obtains in courtship; it 

 obtains in initiation; it obtains in psychotherapy; it obtains, in 

 fact, wherever important reconstruction of relationship must occur. 

 We know very little about such phenomena, and I cannot tell 



