CBT: tame the elephant...

One eye opener of the last few years for me has been Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor of the “elephant and the rider” for the human mind. Here is a summary of the first two chapters from his book “the Happiness Hypothesis”, pulled from the website http://www.happinesshypothesis.com:

Ch.1: The divided self - The mind is divided in many ways, but the division that really matters is between conscious/reasoned processes and automatic/implicit processes. These two parts are like a rider on the back of an elephant. The rider’s inability to control the elephant by force explains many puzzles about our mental life, particularly why we have such trouble with weakness of will. Learning how to train the elephant is the secret of self-improvement.

Ch.2: Changing your mind - Why are some people optimists and others pessimists? Why do people tend to choose mates, and even professions, whose names resemble their own? The automatic emotional reactions of the elephant guide us throughout our lives. Learn how to change those automatic reactions, using meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac.

I think that despite its simplicity, the Buddhist rider-and-the-elephant model of the mind is very effective at explaining many of our struggles, and in particular those pertaining to stress, anxiety, or depression. The wild elephant – our emotional brain – does most of the work, is powerful, largely unconscious, and impulsive. The rider or trainer – the rational brain – holds the reigns, is self-aware, self-controlled and smart, but small!

Stress, anxiety, and depression (paper tigers if you like) affect the elephant in the first place, and our conscious mind – the rider – watches in disbelief and horror how the large animal it sits on becomes “uncontrollable”. Many of us experience this split, this “divided self” where the emotional brain gets carried away by fear or despair, and the conscious part, while starkly aware of what happens and of the inappropriateness of the emotions, is powerless to stop the runaway elephant.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is all about helping the rider to regain control of the wild elephant. CBT aims to leverage that last bastion of sanity (the rational brain) to cure the rest. Mind over matter. Like mindfulness, CBT is both a theory and a toolkit. The theory helps us understand the mechanics of a dysfunctional mind, and from there develops practical exercises to train the neurotic elephant in us. Let me cover both from a self-help perspective below; as you can well imagine, taming the elephant is not easy: it takes know how, repetition, and a lot of patience!

CBT in theory
Under construction…

CBT in practice
Under construction…

Further reading
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt, 2006
Self-help stuff that works by Adam Khan, 1999

4. Distraction: give your mind a break...

Anxiety and depression are characterized by obsessive thinking (rumination), which hijacks all our energy and attention. Rumination makes us progressively lose touch with the outside world, people and loved ones, as well as once-enjoyable activities, in order to focus all our attention and energy on our inner turmoil.

What to do?
Rumination is a kind of misdirected attention focused on negative feelings, worries, and yourself. When severely depressed or anxious, rumination can be so overpowering and uncontrollable that it forestalls the mindful approach (previous posts). More serious distraction is called for in order to minimize its hold.

Self help stuff: what others say

To complement my limited view of self-help strategies against depression, I want to share with you a very comprehensive research done by Amy Morgan and Anthony Jorm from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Morgan and Jorm published the results of two studies in 2008 (see references below). In the first study, of 2214 self-help strategies (!) the researchers selected 282 and presented those to a panel of "depression consumers" and another of health professionals. The panels were asked to rate each strategy in terms of helpfulness and feasibility. The top 15 of most helpful and feasible self-help strategies included: