Self Management: Art & Science of Managing Your Experience

We all learn a lot in life, right from the beginning. A lot of what we learn is unconscious, in fact most of it. Our greatest teachers in life are our experiences. Sometimes, perhaps more than we realize, what we learn is unhealthy. It’s common to make it to adulthood with a mix of healthy and unhealthy unconscious learning about life.

If we become aware of what we’ve learned that is negatively complicating our lives, we can do something about it. It’s tragic when people make it to the end of life without ever becoming aware of the unhealthy things they may have learned about themselves, other people, or just life in general. Often enough, what we’ve learned causes suffering of somekind and we have to become aware of it as a problem to fix.

Here’s the thing about unhealthy, unconscious learning: we can never get rid of it all at once. To change you’d have to become conscious of unhealthy learning, challenge its control over your experiences, and correct it by learning something healthier. The interesting thing is that this change process involves a “psychological double:” the part of you that learned something unhealthy and the part of you that learned there is a better healthier way. These two learning experiences co-exist at the same time in your mind.

Unfortunately, your habitual unhealthy unconsciously learned lesson about life is not going away easily. In fact, it has a “voice,” a persuasive voice, that starts talking to you whenever you try to dislodge it from your mind and behavior. It gives you reminders that the earlier learning is best, has sentimental value, was taught by someone important to you, etc. etc. etc. So persuasive is this unhealthy voice, that it can be very hard to consistently stand behind the knowledge that your habitual old learning is simply not healthy and has to go.

A curative psychotherapy becomes a practice, in and out of the office, of strengthening the self that learned there is a better way. A sign that the newer current healthier learning is strong enough to dislodge and replace the old psychological habit usually involves a healthier inner voice that has gotten louder and more adamant over time and practice. Managing this “therapeutic conflict” between the unhealthy old and the healthy new is the only way to ensure real psychological change.

Once past unhealthy learning surcomes to stronger healthier learning, change can be more easily attemped with an increasing probability of success. A too common example of this therapeutic conflict would be, a man who is physically abused growing up, at a time when “corporeal punishment” was considered parenting, not assault and battery. He has a male child. The child behaves in a way that would have triggered the parental corporeal punishment response he endured years ago. The man experiences an impulse to strike his child, replicating the experience of being struck. He struggles to remind himself of his commitment to avoid corporeally punishing his son. Instead the man walks away, in an effort to strengthen his resolve to teach and relate instead of assault his son (as he was assaulted) when the child misbehaves. New healthier learning reminds and strengthens restraint and avoidance of what was unhealthy and previously experienced and learned.

Psychotherapy patients, when conscious, can be encouraged to exercise a healthier option than the one they’ve learned growing up. Their ability to manage the “unhealthy self” strengthens over time with patience and practice. Identifying with a particular psychotherapist’s belief that what was learned earlier in life is unhealthy and something better should replace it, can be a stage in this learning and unlearning transformation. However, successful self-management always invites patients to learn how to take charge of themselves and practice it on their own.

Comments welcome…

Dr. Thomas Jordan, clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, psychological disability consultant, speaker, and author of the award-winning book, Learn to Love: Guide to Healing Your Disappointing Love Life. Presentations and telehealth Love Life Consultations available upon request. Contact: 212-875-0154 or drtomjordan@lovelifelearningcenter.com for inquiries. Visit my speaker page at lovelifelearningcenter.com/speaker