Question everything:
effective thinking is effective communication.

Dear Young Tim,

Peter K. Gerlach—social worker and therapist, is the first person to have notified us of the idea that effective thinking is a form of effective communication. In particular, effective thinking is effective communication amongst differing sub-parts or subselves within us. I know you’ve experienced the feeling of a part of you wanting to stay up and continue on with your research, and another part of you wanting to go to bed because it knows this will be best for your long term health. I know you know the conflict that arises when these parts of you don’t agree.

As R.Kelly said: my mind is telling me NO, but my body—my body is telling me YES. This is yet another instance of two opposing parts of one’s self.

Gerlach’s thesis represents an opportunity for us to improve the way we facilitate dialogue between our conflicting inner parts. This relates to my recent post on coded communications. It is an opportunity for us to move from a commanding relationship, whereby one part of ourselves controls or shuts down another part, to a mutual coaching relationship whereby each part supports the other in what they need or want to do. Put another way, it is moving from a, first-you-then-me relationship, or vice versa, (in the best scenario) to a harmonizing relationship where multiple parts can sing together at once, yet sing together well.

This framing represents another way to conceptualize a major goal of therapeutic healing or coaching. We wish to facilitate harmony between our differing sub-parts and each other, as well as with our actions.

If we look closer, we see that the link between effective thinking and therapy/coaching is multifaceted. I’ve already noted that there is a common goal: harmony of our inner parts in fulfilling our needs.

Beyond common goals, there are also common mechanisms and tools. Mechanistically, effective thinking directly seeks to produce thoughts that are effective in meeting a person’s needs. Similarly, because thoughts cause feelings and actions, therapy/coaching often directly seeks to change our thoughts, so we can evoke sustained change in our feelings and actions.

Instrumentally, therapists and coaches (like good teachers) supply one with suggestions and, more importantly, with questions that help you discover a good path forward for yourself (as with the Socratic method). Another paradigm that makes extensive use of questioning through the Socratic method is critical thinking. As described by Wikipedia, critical thinking “entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities” (e.g. meeting one’s needs).

Synthesizing ideas, there is a clear direction for bettering ourself and putting us back together when we are broken. We can learn to ask ourselves questions to change our thoughts and to facilitate a dialogue between our conflicting parts so we meet all our needs.

Note that such a question-asking agenda is related to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). With CBT, occurrences of our thoughts/feelings/actions that are undesirable are to be met with a series of questions. For instance,

  • what is the activating event that led to this thought/feeling/action?
  • what specific beliefs do I hold related to this thought/feeling/action?
  • what are the physical and emotional consequences of these beliefs?
  • what are various ways of disputing these beliefs with evidence?
    what further questions are to be asked to make sure my thinking is sound and thorough?

Indeed, whole books have been written about the link between the Socratic method and therapy.

The point is that such questioning helps change and clarify our thinking. The socratic method in general takes us a step further than our previous post. We want to question not just the process of psychological optimization but all our thoughts, including what we desire in the first place: i.e., the objective function for our psychological optimization process. We want to use such questioning to promote better dialogue and understanding between otherwise conflicting parts, and eventually, in our conflicts with other individuals. The hope is that better thinking and understanding of ourself will translate into our being better able to connect with others, by being better being able question them to promote a similarly deep level of understanding between each other as between our inner parts.

Until next time, good luck and take care!