The Space

Consequence-Free Outwardly

What a decision-maker says within their own structure sets something in motion, even if it was only a first thought. Every word there has consequences: downwards as a signal, upwards as positioning, sideways as a shift in loyalties. This applies wherever others contribute to a solution or bear its consequences, for instance in the company, in the family or among friends.

A personal matter, too, is not heard as personal within one’s own structure, but read for its consequences. Such a matter can therefore only be clarified outside this structure, where what is said sets nothing in motion and thus remains consequence-free towards the outside.

Consequence-Free Inwardly

Whoever is allowed to ask questions or to interpret gains write access to the other person’s memory. In negotiations and in the questioning of witnesses, this is used as a matter of course: a question, a repetition, a passing interpretation, and the other person remembers differently without noticing. A conversation about a personal matter, however, must also be consequence-free inwardly. The way conversations are conducted at the Psychological Private Office is designed to protect the inner representation the person concerned has of a matter, rather than to alter it.

Memory changes even without anyone else’s involvement. Every account simplifies, because what has been experienced is stored with far more complexity than language can capture. With each account, the simpler version begins to overwrite the more complex one, not all at once but gradually, until one remembers one’s own account rather than what actually happened. This applies especially to preparing for a conversation, when one works out how to put something, and under certain circumstances to notes as well. The way conversations are conducted at the Psychological Private Office takes this into account.

Strategic Calm

Where a conversation is consequence-free both outwardly and inwardly, a space of strategic calm emerges, in which thoughts may be voiced before they have been thought through. Free of consequences does not mean without effect. Calm creates distance, and in conversation distance becomes overview: appraised with expertise, personal matters can be understood in context, and from this understanding the paths that lead further often emerge. Thus one’s own situation, too, receives what in business belongs to strategy as a matter of course: a structured view of the whole.

The Architecture
Security and Discretion

The Consequence-Free Space
Reconsolidation-Sensitive Conversation Architecture
The Science of Normality
The Conversation
Ethical Framework
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