Archive for the ‘Psychological Immune System’ Category

I am reading a good book at the moment called “Strangers to Ourselves” by Tim Wilson. Personality theory has normally focused on how to measure ‘personality’, with predictability of behaviour being the only really output of any research results (and the results were never particularly strong in that respect because personalities are more dynamic than lab tests can seemingly account for). Tim theorises on the idea of a conscious personality, and an adaptive unconscious personality, which can be quite different. The research is staggering. For example, a persons conscious ideas about his or her beliefs and prejudices can often be completely contradicted by their automatic actions or responses in a situation. It comes down to that difference between who we think we are, and who we really are. Our automatic responses account for a majority of our behaviours, yet they are the bits we filter out as part of our big defensive campaign to reinforce our ’self beliefs’. Its all very interesting. The more I learn about the automaticity of the mind and the unconscious, the more it dovetails with my experiences of hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Will Williams, Exeter.

The mind has a psychological immune system much like the body. It has a whole host of tricks to keep you from feeling mental pain, which is why humans are capable of tolerating so much. Examples are denial, distorting reality to suit your ill-judged beliefs, ignoring things, procrastination, all adding up to the ever powerful inevitability of self-deception.

Which is why… if your job is mediocre but you know things could be better, you might still just tolerate it and let your potentially better life just pass you by. If a relationship is rubbish you might just tolerate it anyway. If you are putting on weight, you might choose to distract yourself onto other things and rationalise “oh well, at least I’m enjoying myself”. But when your job turns absolutely shit, or your partner starts being unfaithful or hurting you in more serious ways, or you can’t fit into any of your favourite clothes anymore, you may reach that breaking point. The psychological immune system can’t keep up. So you take action instead… something you then realise you should have done ages ago.

And then… you look back and think “well in some ways, I’m glad it happened like it did, because if it hadn’t, I might still be there now…”

Which is when really bad, is better than the seemingly not-so-bad.