Some Mental Health Myths to Forget About in 2013 (Liza Finlay and Alyson Schafer)

Without a doubt the most astute piece I've read in a while.  Everyone can benefit from the points laid out below:

They're trite. They're tired. They're untrue. We may not even be aware of it, but most of us live by a set of aphorisms that are, quite frankly, made up. Fictions. Fallacies.

In our psychotherapy practice, we call these myth-conceptions pop-culture poppycock that stubbornly persists despite having no scientific basis or benefit. These bull-crap beliefs become entrenched at an early age and are handed down from generation to generation with the same alacrity of grandma's cookie recipe changing hands. We gobble them up, swallowing them whole and without question.

But we need to question. By challenging faulty beliefs we're free to set a new course, to create a mental map that is consciously chosen. Here are a few of the most pervasive myth-understandings to leave behind as you head into a new year. Leave these mental albatrosses buried in 2012 where they belong.

1. People don't change. Yes, they do. All the time. In fact, change isn't only possible, it's necessary. Darwin helped us figure that out over a century ago when he observed some species flourishing where others floundered. He called this finding "survival of the fittest" -- and by fittest he didn't mean strongest, he meant most adaptable. In our practice, we see magnificent examples of adaptation all the time. But you have to want it; it's not so much that people don't change, it's that they won't change.

2. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Wrong. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly. Worthiness and mastery are not intertwined concepts. Indeed, if perfection was the only barometer of merit, most of us would never get out of the starting gate. Talk about performance anxiety! The bottom line is this: if we only dwell in those endeavours that come with a guarantee of success, we live a shallow life. For 2013, each of us needs to develop the courage to be imperfect. Good enough is good enough.

3. You don't make the same mistake twice. Sure you do. Mistake-making is murky, and muddy, and wonderfully nuanced. The journey to enlightenment is a journey of a thousand steps. Psychological theorist Alfred Adler called life "the great becoming" -- we are in a constant state of 'bettering'. And if we want to be a part of that beautiful bettering, we need to risk, to make mistakes. Life is long. Get dirty.

4. It isn't fair! Yikes. Stop moping! On the BS-scale, that one's right up there. It's a cop-out, a handy way of sidestepping personal responsibility when we feel unable to face the challenges of life. Listen, the dog actually does wag the tail. We are not simply victims of life's happenstances. In actuality, we not only create our own realities, but we have the opportunity to recreate them, too. If you feel that life isn't fair, instead of waiting for someone to hand you a Kleenex, why not ask the question "what am I willing to do about it?"

5. There are two sides to every story. While that's a great start, in fact there are many more than two sides to every story. This is an example of dichotomous, or black and white, thinking. Sorry, but life is lived in the grey areas. No two of us interpret events the same way, meaning that there are as many "sides" to a story as there are humans on the planet. The world would be a better place if we attempted to wrap our minds around all of them. It's messy, but it's just. So, instead of "I'm right, you're wrong," consider what another person must believe in order for them to perceive this as their "truth."

6. All you need is love -- la la la la la. We love The Beatles too, but it's time to put down the hookah pipe and think seriously about the love-is-all-there-is mantra. We don't actually love everybody -- and nor should we. (Let's face it, we may even find some a challenge to like.) The commandment to love thy neighbour is a metaphor. What we are really charged with is the task of respect. We follow a philosophical tenant that requires us to treat all fellow beings with equanimity -- including the cranky neighbour and the obnoxious in-law. So, yes, love is great, but we should all aspire to a far less lofty (and far more achievable) goal -- respect and its offspring, civility. "All you need is respect, la la la la la." (Not nearly as catchy is it? Well, guess that's why The Beatles are the songwriters and we're the therapists.)

Stress Response and Emotional Inoculation

"It took me a second to figure out what was happening ... I saw the lights in the distance. My mind was to alert the train," Abbasi said.

This is a tragic story about an unnecessary loss of life.  It's also a fascinating look at how people react.  The man who took this picture has responded to questions about why he took a picture by instead focusing on how upsetting he found the behaviour of people closer to Mr. Han than he was.  Why did he feel this necessary?  Probably because he's got some internal cognitive dissonance between what he knows would have been "moral" behaviour (help Han up) vs. what he actually did.

 

Hindsight is a funny thing; it forces us to offer logical rationalization for reactive behaviour that is more gut instinct than logical reasoning.  Reactive behaviour relies on pre-programming, which happens much more quickly than abstract thought.  It shouldn't really be a surprise that a photographer would respond to an uncomfortable situation by turning to comfortable, established behaviour - like taking pictures.

 

Police, soldiers, fire fighters, even CPR students all go through test-case scenarios that help build familiarity with the sorts of stressful scenarios they could encounter in their jobs; consider it a kind of emotional inoculation.  While some people are more naturally inclined to react well under pressure, everyone can learn to handle prescribed situations better.  This principle underlies everything from cognitive behaivoural therapy to improv class.

 

There will be a lot of focus on what didn't happen in this situation; it's an instinctual approach to take.  A more useful one, though, might be to think about what could be learned to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Warren's Where's Waldo Method of Engagement

 

 

I can't imagine Warren Kinsella is a big fan of Carly Rae Jepsen, being a punk and all - but he clearly understands the value of a catchy meme.  He has started to roll out endorsements for the Ontario Liberal Leadership Candidate he supports (can you find who it is in the picture above?) but instead of just feeding his audience names and title that might not have meaning for them, he's challenging his readers to identify who the endorsers are themselves.  This accomplishes four things:

 

1) It engages readers in his candidate; figuring out who backs that person becomes a viral campaign, creating a community of engagement around them

 

2) It motivates his audience to take the lead in identifying the supporters, ensuring everyone has a chance to know who they are...

 

3) ... but as that information is crowd-sourced, the information comes from the community rather than being delivered to them by the campaign itself.  This adds an automatic level of accessibility and authenticity to the endorsements that biased political staff would be hard-pressed to achieve on their own

 

4) Letting the crowd do the work and handing out gold stars to those who find the info first builds competition, which gets people more active, but it also rewards the experience of participation with a dopamine rush, the same sort of thrill you get from winning at bingo (but also the same neurochemistry that can get you hooked on slot machines)

 

Of course, there's a whole science to this; someone with an NLP background or even a rudimentary knowledge of how cognition works can tell you why people react this way.  With a bit of practice, it's not difficult to proactively shape those responses by managing the stimuli your audience receives, creating the sort of community experience you're looking for.  Kinsella's great at doing this in person - he'll engage crowds directly within the first moments of a presentation, getting them to clap for themselves, etc. to make his talks their experience, not just his.

 

There's nothing new to these tricks of the engagement trade.  Religion has done this for ages.  Great artists or speakers (like politicians) use these tools to their advantage all the time.  Conversely, poor leaders do the reverse - instead of creating communities of experience, they block external stimuli and trigger fear rather than engagement.  These are the cultists, setting themselves up as saviours from troubles lapping at shores and holding you to that fear and dependence on their protection, trying to foster a kind of crowd Stockhom Syndrome.

 

What's perhaps more recent a phenomenon is the internalization of these techniques through things like Positive Psychology and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  These sorts of practices work kind of how exercise or yoga does, except from the inside out rather than the outside in.  These conscious exercises provide effective methods to manage emotional disorders or to overcome duress (though not always in exclusion).  When you become aware of how your own neuropsychology works, you begin to see how external and internal conditions shape your mood and thoughts the same way any drug would.  That's when they become your tools to use, rather than someone else's to abuse.

 

Of course, all of this requires a lot of thought, time and discipline.  Why bother?  Wading into the fine print of brain function is boring.  You get a decent rush from playing the game right in front of you and besides, consequences are things that happen to others. 

 

Keeping track of where Waldo's at is enough to keep anyone occupied and entertained.