Problems Processes
Theory

What you are seeking to accomplish on Grade One with the Problems Processes is an increased ability on the part of the pc to confront and handle problems. You don't sit down and suggest solutions or even try to make him solve his problems in session. Trying to 'solve' problems has proven unworkable as it causes a collapse of problems on the pc. The ability attained from the Grade is stated as: Able to recognize the source of problems and capable of making them vanish.

Somehow the pc wants his problems. It's part of being alive. Axiom 39 states: Life poses problems for its own solution. It is a game. Axiom 48 states: Life is a game wherein theta as the static solves the problems of theta as MEST. Also, If you have a purpose in life - and that is close to be the definition of being alive - a counter-purpose will show up and now you have a problem. The basic definition of a problem is: a postulate - counter-postulate; effort - counter-effort. 

There are good problems and bad problems. Good problems are called challenges. Bad problems are called worries, confusions, hang ups and indecisions. It is when a delicate balance of forces develops that we get what is usually considered problems, the stand-stills and confusions that hang up in time, multiple confusions and so on.

So basically we want to increase a pc's ability to confront and handle problems and become more causative in the area so he will be able to handle the confusions, hang ups and indecisions of his life and  As-is most of them and move the rest of them over into the category of challenges.

Here are some basic definitions related to the subject of problems:

There are Problems...		...and Challenges.

Problem 1. Is postulate, counter-postulate, terminal, counter-terminal, force, counter-force. It's one thing up against another. There are two forces or two ideas which are stuck to each other. They are of comparable magnitude and this causes things to stop right there. We have these two things, one stuck to the other, and it causes 'timelessness'; it floats in time and results in indecision.  2. A multiple confusion. You have a minimum of two confusions that are stuck to each other in a balance.  3. An intention counter-intention that worries the preclear. 4. Something which is persisting and doesn't As-is easily.

Present Time Problem (PTP) 1. This is a special problem that exists in the physical universe now, on which the pc has his attention fixed.  2. A Problem that exists in present time, in the real universe. It is any set of circumstances that engages the attention of the preclear to a point where he feels he should be doing something about it instead of being audited.  4. Any worry that keeps a pc out of session. To be a PTP this worry must exist in present time in the real universe.

The operator wasn't    expecting all that;   the random motion  makes him confused.

Confusion 1. Any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion in this universe is random motion.  2. Plus randomity, meaning motion unexpected above the tolerance level of the person viewing it. 3. A number of force vectors traveling in a number of different directions. 4. A confusion consists of change of particles in space and time in an unpredictable or unpredicted manner.

 

Knowing the buttons   of the copier is a  good stable datum  in this situation.

Stable Datum, 1. The one thing selected and used to align other particles in a confusion becomes the stable datum for the rest.  2. Any body of knowledge is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.  3. A datum which keeps things from being in a confusion and around which other data are aligned.

This guy seems to have chosen a gun as his stable datum. It keeps any confusions under control.

Doctrine of the Stable Datum: A confusion of motion can be understood by assuming one thing to be motionless. Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particle in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.

He is the center of  the 'Prior Confusion'.    What he does next is   what sticks with him.

Prior Confusion 1. All stuck moments, decisions, emotions or pictures on the Time Track stick because of a prior confusion. The most stuck point on the track is a problem. The confusion occurred minutes, days, weeks before this problem. 2. All Somatics, circuits, problems and difficulties including ARC breaks are all preceded by a prior confusion. Therefore it is possible to eradicate Somatics and problems by addressing the area of the confusion which occurred just before the pc noticed the problem or somatic for the first time.

A chronic disability  is    of course a condition with   many chronic Somatics.

Chronic Somatic,  1. A stuck moment on a Time Track, which is the stable datum of a prior confusion. 2. An obvious  demonstration of a help-failure cycle where the individual has used an effort to help and has failed and has gotten a somatic back. 3. Psychosomatic illness, as it is called in the field of medicine, is named in CT a chronic somatic, since it is not an illness, and cannot be diagnosed as such but is only some former pain which is in restimulation. 4. A  psychosomatic illness is only the restimulated somatic of some Engram and it goes away when the Engram is contacted and reduced or erased. 

Somatic 1. By somatic is meant a pain or ache, sensation and also misemotion or even unconsciousness. There are a thousand different descriptive words that could add up to a feeling. Pains, aches, dizziness, sadness - these are all feelings. Awareness, pleasant or unpleasant, of a body. 2. Body sensation, illness or pain or discomfort. "Soma" means body. 

"I only need to get     rid of my rheumatism      to be all right again"  could express  a Hidden Standard.

Hidden Standard 1.  Is a problem a person thinks must be resolved before auditing can be seen to have worked. It's a standard by which to judge CT or auditing or the auditor. This hidden standard is always an old problem of long duration. It is a postulate-counter-postulate situation. The source of the counter-postulate was suppressive to the pc. 2. Is not just a physical or mental difficulty but one by which the pc measures his case gains. A case measurement thing used secretly by the pc.

Three General Approaches
There are three general approaches used on Grade One, Problems. (1) There is working with the ability of the pc to be able to confront and create problems at will. (2) There is the As-is-ing of old problems through running past solutions. (3) Finally there is one process that makes the pc look at the prior confusion that preceded major decisions or solutions in his life. 

In all the processes the element of communication and ARC is of course present, which are known as an universal solvents.

Axiom 48: "Life is a game wherein   theta as the static solves the  problems of theta as MEST." Axiom 49: "To solve any problem  it is only necessary to become  theta, the solver, rather than  theta, the problem."

Confront and Create
In the majority of the Problems Processes we actually seek to increase the pc's ability to create problems. We must here include 'confronting problems' as that is a good step in the direction of create at will. The maxims are: what you can confront you can handle; and, what you can create you can As-is. 

As you can see in the Axioms, creating and As-is-ing are closely related.

 According to Axiom 11: "AS-IS-NESS is the condition of immediate creation without persistence, and is the condition of existence which exists at the moment of creation and the moment of destruction, and is different from other considerations in that it does not contain survival". 

In other words, the theory behind this is: when the pc can make anything into a problem at will he can unmake it as well. This can actually be understood as applying the havingness scale to problems (see below). In Creation of Human Ability Ron Hubbard states:

"The complete remedy of problems, of course, takes place when the preclear is convinced that he can create problems at will. Until he is so convinced, he is going to hold on to old problems. The way to convince him that he can create problems is to have him pick out, or pick up, an object. Have him examine this object until he is sure it is real. Then ask him the question: "What problems could this object be to you?" Have him begin to name off various problems. It will be discovered at first, that he begins to drain the object itself of the problems which are inherent in the object, and then will eventually begin to invent problems. The process should be run until the preclear is convinced that he can create problems at will. Many objects can be used rather than just one if it is discovered that the preclear's attention is fixing too strongly upon the object."

(The above are in the instructions to the  process 'R2-20', which is part of the Problems Processes).

As mentioned above, what we are doing with Confront and Create processes can be plotted on the Havingness Scale:

Create
Responsible for (willing to control)
Contribute to
Confront
Have
Waste
Substitute
Waste substitute
Had
Must be confronted
Must be contributed to
Created

Usually the pc is way down this scale regarding the subject matter of the problem. It "must be confronted" but it is hard to do so; or it is "created", meaning, created  by circumstances or somebody else without any idea of him having anything to do with it. You could say solutions is a substitute  (see scale) for the actual confront of the problem. When running problems you will observe a lot of phenomena which can be plotted along this scale.

As it can be seen from the scale, running Confront or running Create by 'get the idea' or 'invent' you will get the pc up the havingness scale until he easily can handle his problems. Just below Create we have 'Responsible for (willing to control)', which is of course a frame of mind where the pc can deal with his problems easily.

Running Past Solutions

Axiom 41: "That into which Alter-is-ness is introduced becomes a problem."

Another reason you don't just sit down with the pc and find 'good solutions' to the problems he has, is the relationship between Problems and Solutions. You will find they tend to form Chains. "Yesterday's solutions are today's problems" is what we usually find. You could say a 'solution' is usually a 'substitute' on the above scale. It's still short of confront.  To 'solve' would just add another incident to an aberrative Chain of events. In that respect it must be noted, that the general rule of auditing is to find something earlier similar on a Chain of events in order to get an As-is-ness and resolution.

you can however run past solutions with success. There is a maxim:

"Reduce the complexity of the problem by reducing yesterday's solutions."

The old solution is what the pc is sick from. The old solutions of yesteryear or yesterday became today's problems. It is this endless Chain of  cures that call for new cures that call for more drastic cures and so on. Axiom 41 states: That into which ALTER-IS-NESS is introduced becomes a problem. Solutions usually falls under that. It is no use to try to solve somebody's problems for him. So we aren't trying to give people solutions. The basic error that made a problem freeze solid is the most fundamental part of that problem; and that can be As-is-ed, because it's earlier on the Chain of solutions. As an auditor, you are not giving the pc new solutions for his life and livingness. You are taking out of existence old solutions, which now exist in the form of problems. You're As-is-ing what has been solved in the past and which caused the person to become more unaware. You are back-tracking the process by going back up the way he came down. Running solutions is running yesterday's problems. You are taking out the old think that made him drop doing something about it and confronting it and become unaware.

You ask for solutions. If you asked for problems, you would run it below its proper level of awareness. Because a problem, by definition, is something that you can't confront. A solution is a way by which you don't have to confront something.  When you ask for problems, you are asking for something that the pc couldn't confront. When you ask for solutions, you are asking for something that the pc could confront. 

 It's the difference between running no-confront and confront.  You are actually running the same thing, but from a different point of view. If you call them problems, then you are saying the individual couldn't confront them. If you call them solutions, then you are saying he could confront them. 

So when you run solutions you get rid of the problems that he sets up to avoid confronting things by backtracking it. When you do this, the pc becomes more aware and more capable of confronting, up to the point where he can confront the problems that made him decide to become unaware in the first place; and he finds that those, in turn, were solutions, so he finds out what it was a solution for, etc., and he is all set to move on out to freedom from it.

"Solutions" leading to    new problems seems   to be the way of life  for criminals.

Examples of Problems and Solutions
The most illustrative examples are found in criminals. You have this guy that is out of money so his solution is to rob a bank. He holds up the cashier and gets a bag full of money. For a brief moment his problem is solved. But instantly he of course gets a new problem: the crime. His immediate problem is how to get away without getting caught. He solves that by shooting a security guard. That solved, he gets outside the bank. The shooting is of course an additional crime and now he really has to get away fast. So what does he do now? He solves the get-away by hijacking a car. He drives away at great speed and causes all kinds of traffic accidents. His trail of solutions is his trail of new problems and trail of crimes. It gets worse and worse as the solutions add new problems to the existing ones and add severity to the situation. This is of course a dramatic example of how 'yesterday's solutions are today's problems'.

Medicine is full of examples,  that a cure for one condition    leads to new medical problems.

But let us look at a more everyday example: Let's say somebody has a bad leg. He has this injury from a sports accident. He goes to the doctor and the doctor decides, what is needed is reconstructive surgery.  Our athlete gets his surgery. This is of course an Engram on top of the Engram he had from the original injury. He finds he is getting 'better', but he is not up to his old performance level that is so important to him and his game. He has to take pain killers to cope with the whole thing. He goes to rehab and has a special brace fitted on his leg. His performance gets worse and worse. But then he realizes, if he takes a heavy dose of a certain drug before a game, he can perform almost as well as he used to during the game. But this solution creates new problems for him in life as he gets  a number of additional medical problems from this; he gets less mobile and alert - all stemming from the cure.

You will see something like this as a  recurring situation in medicine. Not to say medicine is bad and not needed - but it has downsides. They talk about the side effects and we have these new cures that are needed to cope with the created side effects. A similar thing can be observed in politics and the effects of many 'political solutions'. The politicians agree upon a solution for the farmers, but now the consumers need a solution to cope with it. That done, the food processing companies are all upset. A new solution is needed again.

Problems Collapse 
There is a phenomenon known as Problems Collapse that happened when one solved the pc's problems. When you asked someone to invent a problem of comparable magnitude, his problem went further away in distance. When you asked someone for a solution to his problem the problem approached closer.

There seems to be a "penalty of solving" when we talk auditing. Pc's become victims of problem-collapse when they solve things. This is why people won't solve their problems, why they "have to have problems". This is true in life as well, not just auditing.

Failure to make solutions (or postulates) stick elsewhere makes the thetan "believe" that solutions collapse problems on him.

A process that would demonstrate this collapse would be "Invent a problem of comparable magnitude" and getting the pc to then "solve the problem" (this last of course is not "therapeutic").

A process to overcome this collapsing of problems upon the pc is "What solution could you make stick?"

Handling the Prior Confusion

This is a very effective method of handling problems in a pc. You find the prior confusion to the problem and clean up the Overts and Withholds in that area. It has been used since its discovery in the early 1960s.

The theory of this is, that any fixed idea or condition is the result of a postulate made by the pc. Just prior to that postulate there was a confusion - an unconfrontable disturbance. The postulate is a stable datum, adopted in an attempt to solve that confusion. By getting off the pc's Overts and Withholds in the area of the confusion, one can key out the postulate and fixed condition.

This approach is used in the 'Problems Intensive Process'. On Grade One you handle the aberrated stable datum, that was  adopted after the fact, by doing a Prep-check. The Prep-check system was originally developed to clean up the pc's Overts and Withholds in an area. It actually handles all kinds of out rudiments.  We had from the definition of 'Prior Confusion' above:

 "All stuck moments, decisions, emotions or pictures on the Time Track stick because of a prior confusion. The most stuck point on the track is a problem. The confusion occurred minutes, days, weeks before this problem. It is possible to eradicate Somatics and problems by addressing the area of the confusion which occurred just before the pc noticed the problem or somatic for the first time."

We have a pc, that self-deteminedly selected a Stable Datum at a later time. It's: "A datum which keeps things from being in a confusion and around which other data are aligned."

The pc made a decision (self-determined change) to solve or put a lid on the confusion. Now, the confusion still exists on his track but are kept under lid. It holds this bad decision in place as well. To unstick such a bad decision the prior confusion is found and cleaned up by Prep-checking it. If you call the confusion 'a body of knowledge' you can see the idea of the process in this definition of stable datum:

"Any body of knowledge is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned."

This is being used in an orderly fashion in 'Problems intensive'.  We find the 'stable datum' (the self-determined change), clean up the prior confusion and the whole thing can be As-is-ed and it can now be examined by the pc in a new unit of time and in an analytical fashion. 

 

"Communication and ARC   are the universal solvents,  including of problems."