Everybody has present time problems at times. They come up unexpectedly. They happen, between intensives. They pop up between sessions. They, indeed, occur within sessions. And the auditor who neglects to handle them when they arise will get little auditing done.

It's the present time problem that sticks the graph, makes it register no change. (It's ARC breaks that drop one.)

What is a "PTP", as the auditors write it in their reports?

It is basically the inability to confront the dual terminal nature of this universe.

It is an inability to span attention and denotes that the pc who is having lots of PTPs has his attention very fixed on something.

The definition of a problem is intention v. intention or "two or more opposing and conflicting views on the same subject".

If the pc has problems with wife or husband, we can be sure that they have divergent views on some basic thing in life. Thus the auditor who has a pc who always has PTPs with one, the same, person, had better run O/W (overt-withhold) on that terminal in a specific form (George) and then responsibility on the general form (a husband). Thus a PTP is as good as an assessment. Find what terminals the pc has PTPs about and handle that terminal as above. Indeed this is more than a trick – it's a great time-saver. One can waste hours on a pc who repeatedly comes up with a PTP on the same person. But that person in the PTP is often the current clue to the case. "Grace the wife" leads to "a wife" leads to "a woman".

Present time problems are not always concerned with the world outside auditing. Auditors can be a PTP to the pc, especially when the pc has big withholds!

Present time problem processes are many. The earliest was two-way comm. A later one was "Invent a problem of comparable magnitude to……" But this one of course is a create type process and is therefore very limited.

Still another process was "Tell me your problem." "How does it seem to you now?" This almost runs the whole case.

A recent one that has workability is "What problem could you confront?" This finds out for the pc that he can't confront a problem at first without doing something about it. That isn't confronting the problem. This is an amusing, effective and educative process.

Problems tend to snap in on the pc. The mechanism here is that he cannot confront them so, of course, they snap in upon him. When he invents a few the first problem he had visibly moves away from him. This last is now a demonstration, not a process, because of the create factor.

The fastest current process is "Tell me your problem." "What part of that problem have you been responsible for?" This is an alternate question process. You will find the problem changes and changes. It runs the whole case.

A general process on problems, which is a very healthy process, is "What problem have you been (or might you have been) responsible for?"

The easiest process on problems to run, if slower, is "Tell me your problem. " "What part of that problem could you confront?"

Problems are nasty case stickers because in a problem one has an old solution causing new problems. This is the principle of confusion and the stable datum. The confusion (two or more opposed views or actions) stays in position because it is hung on a single fixed point. If you want to see a pc go into confusion ask him what solution he could confront. (This is not a good process, it's a demonstration.)

A preclear is sometimes chary of motion in the bank. He seizes upon fixed particles to avoid moving particles. A very top scale process that does some fabulous things to a pc also illustrates this: "What motion have you been responsible for?" This truly sets a bank whizzing, particularly black cases or stuck picture cases. Running this, it is possible to discharge pc liability to problems.

The basic unit of this universe is two not one.

The less a pc can confront two things, the more he fixes on one. This is the highly individual person, also the self-auditing case.

This is probably the basic trap of a thetan. He is a single unit that has not cared to confront dual units and is therefore subject to the persistence of all dual things. As he does not seem to care as much for two as he does for one that which is not admired tends to persist and we have a persisting dual universe.

Also, when he is with somebody else, he tends to confront the other person but not to confront himself. "What about you could you confront?" is a murderous process. It is all right to run. It picks up the times when his attention was off self and yet self was creating. This is the genus of a reactive bank. It is probably what pain is.

However, a better and more spectacular process that demonstrates this and gets to the heart of problems is "What two things can you confront?" This increases ability and reduces one's liability to problems. I suppose one could go gradiently up in number and have at last a pc that could tolerate any motion or number.

It is quantity not quality which makes a bank. Thus running significances is of little worth. A thetan gets ideas of too many and too few. He cannot have, at length, anything that becomes too scarce – one of the old important rules of havingness given in Scientology 8-8008.

A pc is in session when (a) he is willing to talk to the auditor and (b) he is interested in his own case.

The primary violation of part (a) is overts and withholds – the pc is afraid to talk or talks to cover up.

The second violation (b) occurs when the pc's attention is "over there" in present time, fixed on some concern that is "right now" somewhere in the physical universe. Technically a present time problem is a special problem that exists in the physical universe now on which the pc has his attention fixed. This violates the "in session" rule part (b). The pc's attention is "over there" not on his case. If the auditor overlooks or doesn't run the PTP then the pc is never in session, grows agitated, ARC breaks, etc. And no gains are made because the pc is not in session. Hence the unchanged graph when the pc has a PTP that is overlooked or not properly handled.

PTPs are easy to handle. If you, the auditor, become impatient at having to "waste time" handling a PTP or if the pc considers it a waste of time to handle it, a mistake is being made. So long as a PTP falls on a meter even slightly, it had better be handled until it no longer falls when checked.

If the same type of PTP keeps coming up, use it as a case assessment and run it out-out-out as given above, using O/W and responsibility.

And if the pc always has problems, better note he also has motionless pictures, is only-one and self-audits heavily and get him used to motion and two particles as given in processes above and he'll be a better case very soon indeed.