“Flaky breakthroughs” pervade inner work — but ~no practitioners track them
Has someone you know ever had a “breakthrough” from inner work—only to be no different a few weeks later?
![Ulisse Mini @MiniUlisse
after my @[redacted] retreat I was like "I'm never going to be depressed again!" then proceeded to get depressed again because I was no longer meditating 8hrs/day isolated from everything in my life, lol
2:42 PM · May 10, 2025 · 23.9K Views](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7iT2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9f008073-c393-410b-9eaa-3754d9679641_1125x851.jpeg "Ulisse Mini @MiniUlisse
after my @[redacted] retreat I was like \"I'm never going to be depressed again!\" then proceeded to get depressed again because I was no longer meditating 8hrs/day isolated from everything in my life, lol
2:42 PM · May 10, 2025 · 23.9K Views")
While it’s well-known that “flaky breakthroughs” are common with psychedelics, it’s apparently not well-known that flaky breakthroughs are pervasive in coaching, retreats, meditation, and bodywork too.
Flaky breakthroughs can set people back for years. When someone has a “breakthrough” that unexpectedly reverts, they can become jaded on progress itself and give up on growing.
Almost no practitioners—coaches, retreat organizers, bodyworkers—track if they’re facilitating flaky breakthroughs or sustained life improvement.
Discovering practitioners ignore outcomes
Earlier this year, I attempted to make a list of the best practitioners. 20+ coaches reached out, and I asked each to share the best evidence that they had helped their clients improve their lives.
I was hoping for examples like: “a man went from never being able to ask out crushes to easily asking out multiple after the first session, to ‘I have a girlfriend now’ several months after our last session.”
Instead, the coaches sent reviews like:
The session I just had was really nice. I felt a big release near the end!
They have such a kind presence. Best coach I’ve ever worked with!
Clear examples of life improvement almost weren’t referenced.
Even well-respected practitioners don’t track results. A very well-known coach posted a video stating he’d discovered “how procrastination can completely dissolve” for a client. When asked if he’d followed up to verify this, he explained: “I do not follow up on folks after coaching as that would feel intrusive to me.”
Similarly, a popular retreat organization calls itself “data-driven” but doesn’t track alumni outcomes. When an alumnus offered to handle all outcome tracking for free, the organization declined without explanation.
Across all of this, I found only one or two inner work practitioners who attempt to track lasting life improvement.
Thanks to Brian Toomey for the conversations that prompted this post.
Post V1.5: 2025 Jun 4 - 2025 Nov 30.
Yup, this is a common problem with coaches, therapists, doctors, pharmacology, etc.. It is often why the effect size of all psychological and pharmaceutical interventions seem to decrease over time. Not just regression to the mean, but because a flaky breakthrough gives a sense of improvement. The resulting optimism shows up in all the standard and coarse psychological or clinical instruments. Most studies only study 10-12 weeks and don't track long term results. Long term results are prone to a lot of missing data from people who don't benefit. It is hard to distinguish this phenomenon from the more positive hypothesis that the intervention created a temporary period of actual neural plasticity that faded.
LessWrong version: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bqPY63oKb8KZ4x4YX