Entity Networks

If a client is fairly comfortable dealing with entities we can with great advantage also work with networks of entities.

An Entity Network is a relationship between multiple entities. It is a structure, an organization consisting of separate entities tied together in any kind of way. Often some of the entities will be senior to others and the more powerful ones will hold the weaker ones in place.

There are other ways that stuff might be organized in the person's reality. There are various types of machinery, games, and groupings that we can find. To some degree they are overlapping and the differences between them are a bit academic. We simply have different models and sometimes one model seems to fit better than the other ones. We talk about an Entity Network mostly when we find stuff in the person's near space that is in a fairly fixed arrangement but consists of pieces that are communicative, will answer questions and so forth.

For example, the client might complain that she is getting nervous when she is under stress. We ask her to specify that feeling further and we find that it feels like a rotating ball in her stomach. Whenever something in the person's space appears like a thing or person it indicates that some kind of entity processing is possible. We ask the ball in the stomach what it is doing there. It says: "Smoothing the waters" or something. Then it becomes clear that the ball is being held there by something in the client's throat and they are connected with some kind of wire apparently. We ask the thing in the throat what it is, and it says: "The Captain". We find out what the "captain" is doing, and we might run through some connected incidents. But maybe it still feels that it needs to be there. We then find that the captain is answering to "Central Command" which is some people floating up in the air in a control room of some sort. When we talk with them they say that they are there to protect the client, because she got overwhelmed before. We re-experience a few incidents, and "central command" decides that it is done with each job and disappears. The rest of the network then changes also and there is no longer any nervousness.

Often a good place to find entity networks is in thoughts that are somewhat out of control. We can often find that there are entities acting out scenarios and communicating obsessively with each other.

For example, if the client is thinking a lot about accidents there are probably entity networks playing out accident dramas. There might be a bunch of entities being an accident scene. There might be a smashed car with many parts to it, there might be a victim on the road, a police officer, curious on-lookers, an ambulance with crew, and so forth. Each player and each thing in the scenario might be a separate entity with its own separate consciousness. And they might all have an active interchange between them.

This is different from simply an incident that causes a stuck feeling. An incident in itself does not usually cause out-of-control thoughts, it more likely causes stray feelings and reactions. A more active situation, such as obsessive thoughts, might fit better with an entity model.

The main technique of handling an entity network is simply to find out what is there. We somehow perceive that there is something there. We talk to it and see if it answers. If it does we ask it what it is and what it is doing. If it seems to be acting alone we will work on finding its basic good intention and giving it more choices. Or we might run through some incidents related to it. If it doesn't seem to be alone we find out what it is connected with, or what is holding it there. Then we talk with that part the same way. We do that until we seem to have the whole network, until we have something that will resolve. Maybe we need to get to the top to get something with "authority" enough to resolve the structure.

This is all just a convoluted way for the client of disowning her own cause, of course. But it is easiest to handle by going along with the game. There is usually a lot to learn by finding out how the network works, who is in charge of what and why and how.

You can process entity networks on anybody, as long as she is ready to let imagination flow fairly freely and let weird stuff appear. This kind of thing is not going to work if she is trying to be completely logical and analytical about everything.

There is no reason to be serious about what we get hold of. Just because we get an entity on the client's left shoulder who says that he is "Grandpa" doesn't mean we have to think that the spirit of her grandfather after he died got stuck in her shoulder. It is perfectly alright if we only take it as a metaphor. Actually it works better the less need there is for proving or disproving it as something "real". If we perceive it, it exists in the client's reality, that is all we need to know. It doesn't matter how objectively real it otherwise is.

Typically entity networks is not something you would start off with on a new client. It is more likely to be appropriate after a while. So, don't push for it. But if you run into an obvious network, by all means deal with it.

As everything else, entity networks is not automatically something you need to get rid of. If it is doing something that is not desired then we will process it, find out how it works, bring in more choice and so forth. And if it isn't necessary anymore it can disband. But quite possibly it or some of its pieces might be useful for something and you might just want to organize it a little different.



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