Would you read this post if it could help you change the unwanted emotional states you experience most often? If yes, read on.
I have been conducting Imperative Self analyses sessions with clients since 1989. After more than four decades as a psychotherapist, I believe the Imperative Self Model is, by far, the most powerful transformative therapy model I have encountered.
I am now 81 years old. I know I am not going to live forever, and one thing I would hate to see happen is for this model and what I have learned about changing it to disappear when I am gone.
That is why I am putting this information into the public domain.
Over the years, I have discovered several ways to find what I call, “finding the needle in the haystack – the hidden emotional rule that I believe organizes much of a person’s personality and emotional life. https://imperative-self-analysis/
And, more importantly, I have developed ways to help you change it.
Your Personality May Be an Old Survival Strategy
My working theory is that your Imperative Self was created during a highly emotional experience, usually somewhere between the ages of three and eight.
During that experience, a child developed a strategy for surviving emotionally.
Perhaps the child learned:
● I have to keep everyone happy.
● I must not make mistakes.
● I am not good enough.
● I have to be responsible.
● I cannot trust others.
● I have to prove my worth.
These survival strategies may become organized around what I call a Virtual Question (VQ) or Virtual Statement (VS).
For example:
“What do I have to do?”
“Am I safe being myself?”
“How can I keep everyone happy?”
“I don’t want to screw this up.”
These questions or statements can operate outside conscious awareness, influencing what we notice, how we interpret experiences, and what we feel.
The original childhood experience may be long forgotten, but the emotional strategy can continue operating throughout adulthood.
I believe that when we find and change the central emotional learning, the old Imperative Self map can sometimes collapse, allowing a different emotional pattern to emerge.
Your Emotional Checklist Is the First Clue
One of the most interesting things I have observed over the years is that people tend to experience the same five (5) to seven (7) emotional states repeatedly throughout an ordinary week. https://Emotional Checklist
The circumstances change, but the emotions remain remarkably familiar.
Anxiety. Frustration. Anger. Guilt. Loneliness. Shame. Feeling overwhelmed.
I call this recurring pattern your Emotional Checklist.
My theory is that many of these familiar emotional states are generated by the underlying Imperative Self map.
If we can change the map, we may change the Emotional Checklist.
And when your everyday emotional experiences change, your life changes.
Here Is How You Can Begin
Step 1: Record your emotions for seven days.
Each day, write down your 5 to 7 most experienced emotions that day. Do not explain them or tell their stories. Just name them.
At the end of the week, look for the 5 to 7 emotions that keep appearing.
Step 2: Look for your Virtual Question or Virtual Statement.
Examine your recurring emotions and ask yourself:
What am I constantly trying to accomplish, prevent, or prove?
What question or statement might be operating beneath these feelings?
You are looking for the common emotional rule that might connect seemingly unrelated situations.
Step 3: Work with your strongest unwanted emotion.
Choose the strongest recurring emotion and use either FreeSpotting (https://freespotting-) or the five-step Speed Trace process (https://speed-trace-).
Notice how strongly you feel the emotion before beginning and whether it changes afterward.
Sometimes changing one powerful emotional response seems to affect several others.
Step 4: If the pattern remains, work directly with the Virtual Question or Statement.
Bring your suspected VQ or VS to mind.
Notice the emotional feeling it creates.
Then use Speed Trace on that feeling.
The purpose is not simply to think positively. It is to change the emotional learning supporting the old pattern.
Step 5: Complete another seven-day Emotional Checklist.
Compare the two weeks.
Are the unwanted emotions occurring less frequently? Are they less intense? Have new emotions appeared?
Perhaps instead of anxiety, frustration, and inadequacy, you are experiencing more confidence, curiosity, patience, appreciation, and peace.
This is how I prefer to evaluate emotional change—not simply by how someone feels at the end of a session, but by what they experience in everyday life.
Why I Want to Share This
For nearly four decades, I have watched people experience changes that continue to amaze me.
Some have spent years trying to understand their emotional problems. Yet when we identify the underlying emotional rule and successfully change it, they sometimes report that the feelings they have carried for decades are no longer there in the same way.
I believe this deserves much greater attention, investigation, and independent testing.
I also recognize that my clinical observations and the Imperative Self Model’s underlying explanations are not the same as scientific proof. There is much to learn about why these changes occur, how reliably they can be produced, and how long they last.
But I do not believe this knowledge should be lost simply because the therapist who developed these ways of working eventually dies.
I want to make what I have learned available to anyone interested in exploring it, improving it, and carrying it forward.
That includes therapists, researchers, and ordinary people who are curious about why they keep experiencing the same unwanted emotions.
My hope is that others will study these methods, evaluate their effectiveness, discover better ways of using them, and continue developing the model long after I am gone.
For people with overwhelming trauma reactions or severe emotional difficulties, I recommend working with a qualified professional rather than attempting intensive emotional processing alone.
One Last Thought
You did not consciously choose the emotional survival strategy you developed as a young child.
But you may have the opportunity to change it today.
At 81 years old, I am still learning, still experimenting, and still asking the question that has guided much of my life:
“How can I make this better?”
Perhaps the most important contribution I can make now is to share what I have learned so that others can take it further.
Your past may have created your emotional patterns. It does not necessarily have to determine your future
Safety & Professional Care
This framework offers powerful tools for self-exploration, but it is not a substitute for clinical care. Individuals dealing with severe emotional difficulties or overwhelming trauma reactions should always work directly with a qualified professional rather than attempting intensive emotional processing
The Imperative Self Model:Leslie-Cameron-Labeau
FreeSpotting: Fiona De Vos
Speed Trace: Doyle Henderson & Bobby Matherne
Clint77090@GMail.Com