2. The Theory: Practical Everyday Psychology
Dr. Angelika Schrand, Anna Wilson
2.1 The two approaches to life and their impact on our lives
Claes Janssen developed the Personal Dialectics Self-Test, which helps you discover your own preferences and where you are on the Dialectic Scale. In his theory development, Claes Janssen identifies the two poles that he calls Yes answerers and No answerers, which represent two approaches to life. The question we want to answer in this chapter: What does this mean? And how does it affect our life, our development and how we act in changing situations with ourselves and how we interact with others.
We will answer these central questions by following two purposes: One purpose is to show how the knowledge of the Four Rooms of Change Theory helps every one of us to increase our “Wellbeing Time”. It is demonstrated in this simple formula by Claes Janssen:
The second purpose is to improve the art of conversation between the two approaches to life. The Yes Answerer and the No Answerer, which represent two diametrically opposed ways of being, of perceiving oneself, others and society, in ourselves, in teams and in society.
Before we dive deeper into those two purposes, first of all we will further explain the term Personal Dialectics as a central component of Claes Janssens theory.
Personal Dialectics
The title Personal Dialectics refers to the tension between the NO and YES perspectives, which are two completely opposite ways of perceiving oneself, others and society.
The word dialectics means on the one hand:
The tension between opposites: the thesis, the antithesis and their possible synthesis.
As an inner conflict it can be experienced as a struggle between good judgement and force of initiative. It can appear as a conflict between the status quo and change and can be described as the conflict between independence, creativity, risk-taking and conformity, between the desire to be oneself and the wish to belong.
Claes Janssen simply called it heYes/No conflict:
“We experience it daily as an inner conflict, in miniature, as the question: Shall I say what I think here and now, show how I feel, do what I want to do- or would it be wiser to censor myself”1
This conflict occur