- What is subtraction?Remove the explanations that do not hold until what survives is the working truth.
- Pattern vs. ruleA pattern is what keeps happening. A rule is the condition that makes it necessary.
- Rule vs. protective strategyWhy "I'm a people-pleaser" may not be the root.
- Why naming your pattern may not change itInsight is a description, not an intervention.
- Why different problems share the same rootDifferent smoke. Same fire.
- How a rule gets testedA rule gets tested by treating it as a candidate, checking it against scenes from different parts of life, and removing it if it fails to explain them.
- How to tell a rule from a moodA mood tends to pass and can touch everything while it lasts, and a rule tends to repeat one sequence in different parts of life, including on quiet days.
- This is not a personality testThe nine rules are not a personality test, since a quiz that sorts people into categories always answers, and this method may return nothing.
- What a look-alike is and why it fools peopleA look-alike is a different rule that produces the same visible behavior, which is why behavior alone can send you to the wrong one.
- What counts as evidence (and what doesn't)Evidence here means what happened in a specific moment, in order, and a label, a quiz result or a strong sense of recognition is not evidence.
- Where rules come fromThis method's working view is that rules are learned, usually from what once worked, and it finds a rule from the present without needing its origin.
- Why your rule made sense onceA rule usually lasts because it once paid off, so the fair question is not what is wrong with you but what it was for and whether it is still needed.
- Why the rule is not your identityA rule is a condition a person may be meeting and not who they are, which is why it is written as the Output rule and never as an Output person.
- Why we don't ask "why"We don't open with why you did it, because why invites an explanation, and you may already have more explanations than you can use.
- Why we don't blame your parentsThis method looks for the condition you may be meeting now and not for who is at fault, and a rule can be learned where nobody did anything wrong.
- Why we start with the scene, not the storySubtraction starts with one recent moment and not your full history, because memory smooths out the texture the method needs.
- Why we use plain wordsThe library uses plain words because clinical terms belong to clinicians, and a borrowed term can make a guess sound like a finding.
- Why you can have more than one ruleMore than one rule can be running, because the aim is the fewest explanations that fit the evidence, and sometimes the fewest is two.
- Why you can't read yourselfReading yourself is hard because you are inside the pattern each time it runs, so you may notice late and favor the explanation you already hold.
- Why your therapist may not have found thisYour therapist may not have found this because they were doing a different job, and it is also possible they found it under another name.
- What we mean by worth and safetyThe nine rules are rules of worth and safety, which means each ties a person's worth, and in one case their safety, to a single condition.
- What integration means hereIntegration here means the stretch after a pattern has been named, when it keeps arriving and the work is catching it.
Elsewhere in the library
LibraryUnderstandThe questions people actually ask, answered plainly.LibraryThe 9 rules of worth and safetyWhat each shows up as and what would make it less likely.LibraryProtective strategiesWhat you do to stay safe, and the rules underneath.LibraryHelp and fitmentTherapy, coaching, somatic work: three tools, three jobs.LibraryCouplesThe two rules that may be meeting under the same fight.LibraryAfter you see the patternNoticing the rule, small experiments, and what to expect.LibraryMeaning mappingWhat you decided a moment meant, and whether it still has to mean that.LibraryParentsYour side of what comes up when you are raising them.
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