Garden metaphor

This is an update of a post I originally wrote in 2008.

The brain, or the mind, or your life, is like a garden.

It has grown for many years, and there are aspects to the structure that are, or become, permanent (e.g. the size and shape of the garden).

Some structures in the garden may be dominant (e.g. a tree that monopolizes sunlight, water, space, or nutrients).

Some structures may be permanent (a tree), others transient (some small flowering plants).

There may be weeds in the garden. Or maybe they are only "weeds" because someone has said they are weeds, just because they are considered weeds by other gardeners. Maybe the beauty and importance of many so-called weeds are overlooked.

There may be parts of the garden that are profoundly important, extremely beautiful, and extremely complex, yet are not noticed because we haven't looked in the right way (e.g. tiny flowers; micro-organisms; ladybugs; close-up views of the structure of the leaves, etc.).

Old or dying plants may be integral parts of the normal life cycle of the garden, as things of beauty in themselves, and as components that help new life to grow.

There may be diseases in the garden that do harm in different ways (above the soil or below).

There may have been terrible events long ago that have done severe harm (a fire; an oil spill; a vandal; a careless former gardener; bad droughts or storms; a lighting strike).

The garden requires a healthy environment to grow, both above and below the soil. Sunlight, water, nutrients, soil conditioning.

The structure of the garden can get tangled up and confused if it isn't tended to regularly. It can get messy. The tangles may prevent certain beautiful plants from being cared for or thriving. The tangles can occur above the ground, or down underneath at the root level.

The structure of the garden can be stunted if it is tended excessively -- the overzealous pruner who cuts too many branches away, instead of letting the natural shapes and stems grow spontaneously.

In healing a troubled garden, sometimes simple, broad measures can make a huge difference (e.g. adding nutrients to the soil; introducing a new type of soil; keeping up this supplementation for months or years).

Other times, or perhaps in conjunction, work may need to be done to prune or guide the garden differently, above and below the ground. Some of this work can happen in a day, other aspects of this work could take years.

Maybe a major change is needed. A huge plant that is taking up all the space, water, and light, may need to be removed, so that other plants have a chance to grow.

Sometimes things that supposedly help need to be cut back -- maybe the garden is being over-watered, or is getting too much sun. Many of the plants may require moderation in order to thrive. There can be too much of a good thing.

New species may need to be introduced, to balance the health and esthetics of the garden. Synergistic benefits can happen with the right combination of species (two different species may help each other grow if they are adjacent to one another).

The effects of past trauma in the garden may gradually heal with care and attention. Some of the scars of the trauma may remain forever. Even if these scars remain, the other plants of the garden, and the gardener, can support the injured plant, help it be a vital, important, and beautiful part of the garden community.

While caring for the garden may be hard work, the process is intrinsically a joy. The results of the gardening are part of the health, but so is the process of the gardening activity itself.

In caring for your mind, you are taking on a role of gardener.  It is possible to "tend the soil" in many ways.  Part of this requires physical labour to improve the texture and drainage.  Sometimes the soil may be depleted or damaged in some way, and a fertilizer may be needed, at least for a little while.  This could be similar to using medication.  But also there are many other ways to care for the "soil," such as by having a healthy diet.  Psychotherapy is analogous to hiring a gardener to help and advise you, and maybe to work with you, kneeling in the soil, or pruning the branches.  Sometimes major structural changes may be needed, to plant the garden in a completely different way...this is akin to making a substantial change in the organization of your life, your goals, and your relationships.  And the best gardens are attuned to the larger ecosystem around it, including other gardens in the neighbourhood.  This is analogous to the need to healthily engage in your community, and in relationships with others.    Part of the life of a garden, and of a gardener, also requires simply sitting down and enjoying its beauty.

There may be hard work to do, but there must also be a lot of time spent simply savouring your efforts, and enjoying the view.  I hope that a good therapist might do this with you as well.  Make sure there is a bench in your garden, in a shady spot, in order to rest and enjoy.  In your life, there may be a lot of work to do, but make sure to spend time, every day, sitting down and enjoying what you have been working on.

The Virtue of Admitting Weaknesses

I think it is a virtue to admit areas of weakness.  In our modern, competitive world, we are encouraged never to admit our shortcomings.  On a résumé or CV, the standard practice is to provide a list of our accomplishments, awards, and strengths, but never to discuss weaknesses!   In current events today, we can find many examples of public figures who not only would never admit any sort of weakness, but who boast about themselves almost constantly!   Admissions of weakness could seem like manifestations of low self-esteem, low confidence, or proof of incompetence.  

I think it is a strength to be able to admit weaknesses!  It is a protection against poor decision-making, and a protection against cognitive biases, to always contemplate weaknesses or mistakes in your planning.  For example, Kahneman described a technique called a "pre-mortem" which calls for us to anticipate or imagine that our plans had failed badly, and then to imagine the sequence of events that could have led to the failure.   Too often, groups are so excited about new plans that they are blinded by "groupthink" and do not consider adverse consequences.  While this often happens in business planning, it frequently occurs in our personal lives as well.  

In medical training, it can be important to show confidence.  But imagine how dangerous it is for patient care when a trainee is reluctant to admit a weakness in performing a medical procedure!  In this case, it is a sign of strong professionalism and leadership to admit that you don’t know.  Ironically, it can require great confidence and self-esteem to be able to convey these weaknesses honestly.  

 In the spirit of admitting weaknesses, I would like to list a few things that I don't think I'm very good at, in my professional life: 

1) teaching meditation.  I know that meditation skills can be important and powerful.  I encourage almost all my patients to learn about meditation, and to consider investing a lot of time practicing meditation skills.  I think I am good at philosophizing about meditation...but not really good at meditation itself! Mind you, I do think that my philosophizing has a meditative quality--at least it does for me! 

I am willing and eager to learn more about meditation, but I also know that a good meditation teacher or group would be more effective and helpful for my patients to learn meditation skills.  I feel the same way about some other related activities such as yoga. 

2) being a very organized, methodical teacher (e.g. for CBT exercises).  I love intellectual dialogue, and I enjoy trying to give encouraging, creative feedback...but I know that sometimes a good teacher needs to be very organized, consistent, strict, and focused on a task...My style tends to more informal, with variations of focus from week to week, according to my patients’ wishes.     Also, I tend to question things a lot, including the process of things, so I think I would find a highly regimented style to be too restricted.  Some patients who desire a more strictly regimented approach might get frustrated with me.  At other times, maybe I don’t use time as efficiently as I could.  

I am willing to learn more about becoming a better and more organized teacher--but I also recognize that I have limitations with those skills, and that there are others who could do a better job than I could.  

3) "Networking" with community resources.  I have a tendency to have a bit of a "monastic" style.  While I encourage patients to inform themselves about community resources, and to make use of them, I tend to prefer spending most of the time working one-on-one with my patients, instead of spending time developing relationships or engaging professional peers in other parts of the community.  For similar reasons, I prefer to do a lot of my continuing education activities on my own, through reading and writing, rather than signing up for conferences.  

I realize that we all need a balance between "alone time" and "group time" in our lives.  This applies to professional life as well--different professionals may like or need different amounts of interaction with professional peers.   I think it is unhealthy for anyone to be too extreme in this balance, but on the other hand I do think it is important and good to honour your own personal style.  

The practice of psychiatry nowadays tends to favour more "community networking" and less of a "monastic" style.  I see that this can be valuable, because it could lead to more of an experience of a collaborative therapeutic community.    For me, I guess my lack of inclination to network this way is a weakness...but I hope some might find it a welcome strength that I value the one-on-one experience as highly as I do.

4) not empathizing enough.  Sometimes I focus too much on intellectual dialog, on problem-solving attempts, on being calmly attentive, etc. – but then I don’t say an empathic comment that needed to be said.  Here, I need to be more diligent to work on this, but also maybe to admit that this happens more often than I care to admit.  

I have a variety of other weaknesses.   I encourage a practice of being honest about our weaknesses, not in a resigned or self-deprecating way, but in a way which helps us acknowledge our humanity and our fallibility.  

Ironically, I am concerned that I might sound boastful -- I am boasting that I can talk about my weaknesses!  Maybe my own boastfulness is another weakness, to be worked on.

  
Also, in conjunction with admitting weakness, I think it is good to acknowledge that some of our strengths actually depend on the weaknesses!  Maybe my weakness regarding networking comes along with a strength for valuing one-on-one therapeutic relationships...perhaps some of your weaknesses which you struggle with are part of a larger picture of having strengths which could allow you greater meaning and purpose in life.

With the admission of weaknesses, I think it is also good to be open-minded about working on them.  Not necessarily with a goal to become a different person--it is important to "be yourself"--but with a goal of spending a little bit of time and attention on our weaknesses in a constructive way.  For me, this means that I need to spend a little bit more time learning about meditation.  I need to consciously say more empathic remarks.   I need to maybe sign up for a few more conferences.  And I need to push myself a little bit to attend more meetings with colleagues in the community.   But I can’t let these goals interfere with the aspects of my professional life that I already enjoy and feel comfortable with. 

Persuasive Factors in Politics

In my previous posts, I was describing some of Cialdini's factors which affect decision-making and persuasion.

It is interesting to look at some of these factors playing out in current news events:

Why do people adhere to a particular political choice?

Many people insist that they support a particular political candidate, simply because that candidate has the best policies, or has the best leadership skills.  Or they support an ideological position, or a whole system of values, because they believe, and feel, that they are the best.

But are there other factors at play?  Let's look at some of Cialdini's persuasion factors to consider how they affect candidate or political choice:

1) Consistency & Commitment.  If a person has already supported a candidate, a political party, or a position, then that person is more likely to maintain their choice, even if circumstances change.  We form loyal attachments to our previous choices, even if the attachment is shown to be irrational or harmful.   It may seem humiliating, embarrassing, or weak, to bail out on a previous choice.   It might feel similar to abandoning a marriage, a job, or a responsibility, just because things are going through a rough patch.

This consistency factor is especially strong if the person has grown up in a culture where consistency or commitments are considered strong points of honour.   This culture of honour is to be respected.  Loyalty is to be respected!  But unfortunately, this loyalty can cause people to keep supporting, for too long,  something that is harmful...it can cause people to overlook negatives in their position, and to go along with things that they would never have rationally supported were it not for their previous commitment.

A related cognitive bias is the "sunk cost fallacy":  if you have already invested a lot of time, energy, or money into something, you are more likely to continue pursuing it, even if it is irrational to do so, and even if the project is failing disastrously.   It may feel humiliating or shameful to change your mind, even if changing your mind could save you from bankruptcy!  It can take courage to let a previous commitment go!

Commitment and consistency are bolstered by community and family factors:  if most people among your cultural group, family, or coworkers have all been supporting a particular group, idea, or candidate, then it could seem intensely disloyal to disavow your own support or commitment.  You might even fear that your peers or family could reject you if you changed your mind.

So, commitment and consistency are powerful, noble forces in decision-making, and in life, but we must not be enslaved by these factors...it is a sign of a much greater character strength to sometimes over-ride this, and to make a deeply moral choice to let go of a previously held commitment.  

There are many tragic stories in history, where massive segments of the population of great societies follow disastrous ideas and leaders, partly due to the persuasive force of consistency.

2) Social pressure.  If many people continue to support a particular thing, then it is easier to keep supporting it yourself, even when this is irrational.  We all have a tendency to follow a trend...sometimes we follow these trends, along with an excited, passionate crowd, even when the crowd is rushing towards the edge of a cliff!  Beware of  "GroupThink!"

3) Liking & Authority.  We form positive emotional connections with candidates or positions we support, and we may also respect their authority...trust and admiration grows with any ongoing relationship, and we may continue to make decisions influenced by this.  If we "like" a political candidate, we may support that person long after it makes rational sense to do so.  Conversely, it may be difficult to support a candidate we do not personally "like," even if this candidate may offer the best leadership.   Some of these factors can be incredibly irrational, such as supporting a person whom we find better-looking or more entertaining!

When these factors have been at play, and we support something, we are likely to invest our time, attention, energy, and money...we may even suffer and struggle for these causes.  Our struggles and suffering usually intensify our attachment, and make us even more resistant to letting it go when it is morally right to do so.   If you have fought for something, you are much more likely to keep fighting for it, even if your cause is proven to be unjust.

It is our duty as citizens, or as participants in any community,  to make wise choices, and to be willing to change our minds after thinking carefully.  You need a great strength of character to take an honest, balanced look at both sides of every major issue or position.   You are not just born with character strength--you must work at it, and develop it as an essential life skill!  In politics, it is important to give sincere attention to multiple sources of information, and not to rely only on a single news source which happens to support your pre-existing point of view.

I am very alarmed about situations--which we see across the world today--in which there is restricted freedom of speech and expression.   Many news sources are overtly supporting only one position.  In some countries, the government is restricting free debate in the media.  Even closer to home, individual news sources are focusing on telling only one side of many stories...  We must protect our freedom of expression!  It is not only a matter of taking care of our freedoms, it is also a matter of making wise, unbiased decisions!  Wise decision-making is impossible unless we fairly attend to multiple points of view, and unless we are willing to challenge our own individual biases.

Cialdini tells an interesting story about the decline of tobacco use in the U.S., associated with a policy called the "Fairness Doctrine" which required equal time to be given to opposing viewpoints.  If tobacco ads were always followed by other ads trying to show the harms of smoking, it led the viewer to make a more balanced decision (which, in this case, led to a decline in smoking).  Ironically, once tobacco advertising disappeared entirely, smoking rates did not decline as much.  Part of an explanation is that tobacco advertising could then occur in more covert forms, perhaps marketed more exclusively to existing smokers, without equal time given to opposing viewpoints.  The best decision-making occurs not when issues are suppressed, but when powerful counter-arguments can be presented in a free society, by a free press, where opposing positions can always be clearly shown, side by side.  

It takes a great strength of character to be willing to change our minds,  and to make an intelligent, morally-guided choice, in the face of powerful persuasive factors such as consistency, social pressure, liking, and authority.  We can all improve this character strength, if we are willing to challenge ourselves, and if we are willing to work hard!