Psychology for the People

A few tips from PsyBlog for coming to terms with a mind you will never know.

1. The mind is a tremendous story-teller and will try to make up pleasing stories about your thoughts and behaviour. These aren’t necessarily true.
2. Using introspection you can’t always (ever?) know what you really think or who you really are.
3. Using introspection to work out what you are or what you think can be damaging, encouraging rumination and depressive thoughts.
4. This isn’t depressing, it’s liberating: now you know it’s perfectly normal not to understand some/most aspects of yourself, you can relax.
5. If you must push for greater self-knowledge, try to become a better observer of your own thoughts and behaviour. Notice what you do and when, then try to infer the why. But don’t push it, always remember points 1-4.