Peter Limberg in the SPACE

Danger

Peter Limberg has been a big influence on my life for over five years. Peter is now at midlife, a dangerous time in my own life. His latest article, Dangerous Inquiries, resonates.

From time to time, with my inquiry partners, I encounter what I’ll call a dangerous inquiry—one that gets at hinge propositions, presses against the contours of their logical space, and tickles their metaphysics.

A deep inquiry becomes dangerous, or helpful, when it destabilizes our worldview, our core beliefs, and touches our soul.

For example, for twenty-five years I was a loyal member of a church on the fringes of mainstream Christianity. Certain events caused me to begin questioning and to begin doubting what I had been certain of. I resisted pressure to stop my inquiry. Surface questioning led to deeper and deeper inquiry. As I result I came to realize that I was in a benign cult, not the True Church of God.

Much of what I once believed True proved False. At first, that did not take me to a better place. For about five years, I suffered severe cognitive dissonance, a dangerous state for anyone to be in.

In 2016 my worldview was again disrupted by the election of Donald Trump. Once again I entered into a period of dangerous inquiry trying to make sense of what was going on in America and in the world. As a result, my belief in a progressive path of unending incremental change and progress crumbled.

I really like Peter’s chart of three inquiry genres.

But, dare I say, that I have something better, at least better for me. I am hoping that it will resonate with a few other people. If I had time, and some supporters, we could do a deep, perhaps dangerous, inquiry into this something.

But first I want to comment on the three fields in Peter’s chart.

Executive coaching emerged as a practice during my career. At one time when I was young and ambitious I applied for a senior management position. With my application I included a proposal for support by a coach, but I did not get the job. It seems to me that in Game A, those who present themselves as knowing more than they actually do can out compete most others. It is even possible to become President of the US this way.

Peter writes,

I have been critical of coaching before. There is a "coach industrial complex" out there—full of poor man Tony Robbins’, doping people on state changes and the promise of "transformation." Marketers, really—charging exorbitant amounts and creating coaching cults… Sometimes, you just have to get shit done.

I see a lot of great ideas and great projects in the SPACE. But I do not see a lot of people getting shit done. Most of such people do not have a coach. Perhaps they could use some philosophical counselling with a dangerous inquiry into whether their belief that they want to get shit done is a true belief.

Two coaches in the SPACE that have caught my eye are Jamie Wheal and Trish Blain. Intuitively, my sense is that they would be costly but good value for money. They seem to be targeting people who actually want to accomplish something. Personally, I am retired and my days of dreaming about big accomplishments are fading. And I was satisfied with their books, Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind by Jamie Wheal and The Four Forces of Everything by Trish Blain.

Three times in my life I needed professional help so I have personal experience with psychotherapy, one bad experience, one mediocre experience, one awesome experience.

I agree with Peter.

I have also been critical of psychotherapy. The “therapy talk,” which I’m guilty of at times, can be excruciating to hear when overdone. Holding space, feeling seen, trauma, trauma, trauma. No, not everything needs a therapeutic intervention.

There seem to be some people in the SPACE who are good at holding space for others, and seeing others. I do not want to disparage the value of such contributions. But if you want to get shit done, some Game A skill building is necessary.

I have become friends with two psychotherapists.

David Bryen was my best friend for several wonderful years. He was a depth psychotherapist and his practice was based on the work of Carl Jung. My conversations with him were lengthy, deeply meaningful and very educational. I am privileged to have in my possession the last seven copies of his remarkable book, THE MAN LOVES THE WINE SHE SERVES THROUGH HER BODY An Erotic Encounter with the Divine Feminine. And on my website are The Unpublished Writings of David Bryen, rough stones that could have been polished diamonds.

Currently, I am learning a lot from my friend, Claudia Dommaschk, who writes Immediacy Forum on Substack. Her approach to psychotherapy is based on Gestalt Awareness Practice and the enneagram, both which seem useful to me.

Sometime this year, I hope, Claudia’s book will be published.

Besides Peter, when it comes to philosophical counselling, I also follow the work of Jessica Böhme who writes rewilding philosophy.

Limberg, Wheal, Blaine, Bryen, Dommaschk, Böhme… do I have anything useful to add?

The fourth field I would add to Peter’s chart is narrative counselling. The approach is relatively simple and easy to describe. Change your story, change your life. But in practice this is not easy. In my own life, I did not change my story at my core until forced to do so by external forces.

Today, I live as if everything is a story. The most important story, for me, is my own life, The Life of John Stokdijk, which I am sharing on my website. I have invited others in retirement to join me by sharing their story, but no one has to date. The narrative counselling genre is in its infancy.

The best example that I have found using this approach is the work of Rob Scott, who I became familiar with at the UTOK Consilience Conference 2024.

Most people I know believe the Big Bang story. But it is just a story, a very credible and useful story. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting this story. My assertion should startle more than a few people. But this is another story for another day.