Books 2

After sitting in a small comfortable room talking to people for roughly an hour at a time for thirty years, certain phrases become part of my repertoire.  One thing that I often say to people who are in the middle of making some changes in their lives is this:

"You have to use the small part of you mind that is conscious to make sure you do what you want to be doing."

I am not a Freudian, so I am not saying that you have to overrule your Id, and repress you unconscious impulses.  Although, in a different way I am.

What I really mean by the sentence I quoted above is described very well in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Dr, Daniel Kahneman.  He describes to types of thinking, one is fast, emotional, responsive and not subject to reflection.  He calls this, cleverly, System 1.  System 2, is what I deal with in therapy.  Slow, contemplative, thinking about thinking, reasoning, more rational, planning.

System 1 is much more primitive and emotional.  It is there to help us survive in a tough world.  If we are going to catch food instead of be food we have to learn how to react quickly, using very little information to make decisions.

However, in the world we live in now, things are much more complex, and thankfully, more civilized. The people who do best are those who can see the longer-term consequences of their actions:

Getting angry and smacking someone is System 1.  Getting angry and realizing that smacking someone will lead to bad things for them and for you, and thus learning to rephrase your argument so that you can negotiate with your adversary, is System 2.

As I said, learning to use System 2 is what therapy is all about.

In some ways I have been saying that in this blog.  To publish a book these days it helps to have a "platform" to give you credibility.  Dr. Kahneman won a Noble prize for this work.  He has a bigger platform than I do.  HIs book is easy to rad and helpful.

I think it's always helpful to think about what your thinking about, although it can get tiresome. Then you need to take a break and watch football.