Temi A. Metseagharun
When will there be normal solutions for the emotional pains of normal people?
In recent times, it has become quite difficult to tell what is normal from what is abnormal in any mind. Any attempt to define what is “normal” tends to raise unnecessary debates due to one of the ABCs of the mind – its fluidity. However what is more important in the midst of unhelpful arguments and debates are people suffering in an epidemic of unhappiness. Unfortunately, because there are no statutory services for normal people who are suffering psychologically, but are not mentally disordered per se, the treatments for disordered people are routinely offered to normal people to little or no avail. By focusing on the fundamentals of the mind, this book uses the normality of difficult emotional experiences, their natural antidotes and prevention to offer a route to happiness and fulfillment.
THE AUTHOR
The Shrink by day and priest by night - who is he?
The metaphorical shrink by the day and priest by night is the sort of professional that your family doctor could refer you to if he believes that your mind is on the verge or is actually being damaged by the stresses of life. The pure shrink by day is the physician and a qualified psychiatrist who is trained according to the wisdom of concrete science. He is a technician who uses the manuals provided by the experts of the profession and usually after 5pm if not on call, may not give a damn anymore about the human being he was working on until 9am the following day or the next working day. He is constrained by genuine professionalism not to be a true friend, lest he risks crossing the professional boundaries and losing his means of livelihood.
As a psychiatrist, I see too many people and their loved ones who end up in my clinic or hospital bed simply because they did not know the ABC of the mind.
Your guess will be right if you get the impression that here is the writing of an unorthodox psychiatrist - a priest and a physician, who believes more in his calling and not so much his academic qualifications, such as being a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
As a “priest by night” I am the individual who is burdened by the sufferings of others, a player in the spirit world of minds, an observer of the politics of human existence and the meaning of life and death, appointed by no man, but called by conscience to bring happiness to as many people as he can without desiring their reciprocation.
- TAM, 2008
N – NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND THINKING
Negative beliefs induce negative thinking; therefore negative beliefs are the primary source of unhappiness.
Cognitive psychologist and proponents of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) are convinced that thoughts cause feelings, and so your feelings can be changed by you changing your thoughts. They are largely correct, but consideration needs to made of what comes first in long term thought processing – thoughts or feelings? It looks like the familiar chicken and egg situation. To cut the argument short, we need to go back to the definition of “thought” and “feelings”. Thought is any thing in the mind and feelings are the perceptions of emotions. Emotions, like ideas are compressed thoughts that must be expanded before they can “reach” consciousness, be “felt” and then be put into words. This basically tells us that conscious thought has to travel a fairly long way before it gets perceived, so they just cannot be primary. Also memories are stored in the form of ideas (compressed thoughts) and need to be reconstructed (expanded) to be “remembered”. So the cognitive psychologists’ concept of negative “schema” (which simply means negative memories and beliefs) acquired in childhood and adolescence as a cause of depression, supports the fact that beliefs, memories, emotions and therefore feelings are primary and thoughts are secondary. In fact normal thought processing is about acquiring new data from the environment (internal and external) and matching it with what was already in the mind (top-down theory of perception). What was already in the mind can be nothing besides compressed thoughts (memories, ideas, emotions, and “spirits” or the programs that execute action and motor phenomena). When a match is made “recognition” or perception occurs. Therefore your thinking is always a reflection of what was already there. If you are a concrete thinker, you will love to imagine and assume that your “rational” thinking is in control, whereas most of the evidence suggests that your previous core beliefs (paradigms) and whatever was already in your mind, controls your so-called rational thoughts.
Does this then mean that I really cannot get rid of my negative thinking and depression?
No. The above digression is to put the issue of negative thinking in appropriate contexts. We did agree with the cognitive psychologist that your feelings can be changed by you changing your thoughts. This is not in contradiction with the fact that beliefs and feelings are primary. After all, beliefs and memories were acquired at some stage in the past (typically in childhood and adolescence), before they became the source of present day thoughts. Likewise, today will certainly become the past. Therefore, if you acquire new beliefs and/or change your old beliefs today and maintain the new beliefs and the changes, it is only a matter of time before your new beliefs or changed beliefs begin to automatically produce thoughts in line with the new beliefs. It is also important to bear in mind the fact th
