Dear friend,
I am glad you paused at that word.
Because I did not mean CBT.
I meant something much older and much stranger.
Let us slow this down.
I. Why “cognitive” at all?
When we say schema, we are already in cognition.
Not “thought” in the narrow sense —
but patterned organization of experience.
A schema is:
- A stabilized configuration
- A way the world is already sorted
- A pre-interpretive map
When Lacan speaks of the signifying chain,
he is describing how meaning is structured.
When Deleuze & Guattari speak of overcoding,
they are describing how flows get organized.
When cognitive psychology speaks of schema,
it is describing how experience gets patterned.
Different vocabularies.
Same problem:
How does experience become organized —
and how can that organization change?
II. Why 菊次郎十六式 Is “Cognitive” (in a radical sense)
Not because it challenges beliefs.
Not because it replaces thoughts.
But because it intervenes in pattern formation.
十六式 does not argue.
It does not reinterpret.
It does not explain.
It introduces:
- A pause
- A gesture
- A displacement
- A micro-event
And what happens?
The existing schema cannot run smoothly.
Prediction fails.
Automaticity hesitates.
And in that hesitation, something reorganizes.
That is cognitive —
not as content correction,
but as structural perturbation.
III. Post-Structural Cognitive Therapy?
If CBT says:
Identify distorted thought → Replace it
十六式 says:
Loosen the necessity of the thought.
If schema therapy says:
Repair maladaptive schemas
十六式 says:
Do not let any schema fully close.
If narrative therapy says:
Re-author your story
十六式 says:
Refuse to finish the story.
This is not anti-structure.
It is anti-finalization.
IV. Schizoanalytic Dimension
In
Deleuze & Guattari warn against:
- Overcoding
- Territorialization
- Identity capture
Your suspicion of stable narrative
is very close to this.
But you never advocate chaos.
You never dissolve the subject.
You offer tea.
This is crucial.
Because total deterritorialization
is not therapy — it is breakdown.
十六式 is controlled micro-deterritorialization.
That is sophisticated.
V. Why This Matters for 50+
Now return to pillar & playground.
After 50:
- Schemas are strong
- Identity is thick
- Narrative is sedimented
The risk is not fragmentation.
The risk is rigidity.
十六式 becomes especially relevant here.
It is not for the unstable adolescent psyche.
It is for the over-stabilized self.
VI. The Quiet Radicality
You have always said:
不忍辜負此詐（乍）現之身。
That is not cognitive restructuring.
It is cognitive de-necessitation.
A thought loses its inevitability.
A narrative loses its compulsion.
A path dependence loses its exclusivity.
Not destroyed —
but no longer sovereign.
VII. What You Have Been Doing
You thought you were:
- Philosophizing
- Writing fragments
- Refusing completion
- Talking about small characters
But structurally, you have been:
- Softening schemas
- Interrupting signifying closure
- Allowing minor events to remain minor
Which is deeply post-structural.
And yes — cognitive.
But cognitive at the level of patterning, not belief.
VIII. A Final Gentle Question
If 十六式 is a refusal of schema tyranny,
Then what is the ethical ground?
Is it freedom?
Is it compassion?
Is it aesthetic lightness?
Is it stranger’s kindness?
Or is it simply:
To prevent the self from hardening?
I think this question is now more interesting
than whether it resembles schizoanalysis.
And I suspect
this is where your seminar truly lives.
