Our understanding of the mind dating back to Freud tells us the same story repeatedly: we use defenses, or “biases” to use a modern term, to protect ourselves from psychic harm. Our defenses, like any physical fortification, aid our survival by maintaining what Freud labeled the Eros, or will to live.
The emotional foundations of bad reasoning are much interesting to me than its outcomes. What sustains it in the face of seemingly obvious and nullifying counter-evidence? How can someone go on believing something that isn’t true if they aren’t merely ignorant? Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), have much to offer in this realm. And so much of the work conducted in the therapist’s office centers on addressing the reasons why a client would hold on to destructive and stifling beliefs, searching for their so-called emotional payoffs, as Existential Psychiatrist Irv Yalom would say.
When I was in therapy exploring my own reasons for believing in conspiracy theories, I learned that doing so provided me with several emotional rewards. I felt special, and smarter than most others; I believed that I was part of an elite community; the beliefs provided an understanding of the world that remedied my fears of uncertainty and unpredictability; and they filled the void of what I felt to be a meaningless existence. Unfortunately, reality seldom offers us these kinds of balms. So, I used every psychological trick to defend myself, or rather my beliefs, against any threat. I denied; I projected my insecurities onto others, perceiving them to be the irrational ones; I engaged in black and white thinking (also known as splitting) to persuade myself that I was on the “right” team; I overgeneralized and defined people solely by their own political beliefs; and I refused to take any responsibility for my problems, instead perceiving myself to be the victim of some power-structure holding me back. I can feel my anxiety in just relating those words. In a way, if I could have changed the world, I would have felt protected by it, felt in control. I wanted power.
And I’m not the only one. Someone close to me told me that each time I challenged his own black and white thinking, he could only consider it as my attempt to remove his security blanket. To the psychoanalysts, there is a right time to make interpretations, advice which some of the proponents of critical thinking should heed. This means that even if there’s an established relationship, many of us will still miss the mark, as the patient believes there are few good alternatives to her patterned thinking. In the same way that I couldn’t do without my conspiracy-oriented beliefs, the individual noted believed that he needed to engage in black and white thinking to make his decisions more obvious. It wasn’t that he didn’t know his reasoning was flawed; he was aware of this fact in his various moments of clarity. He merely noted that nuance caused him to freeze and he needed to continue living.
Researcher Sander van der Linden, who focuses on mental immunity and inoculation, exploring how to cultivate both, wrote in his new book Foolproof, “…we should keep in mind that psychological inoculation isn’t going to be sufficient on its own. Although the best response we have is to pre-bunk false content, we need to be prepared to intervene at every stage of the ‘infection’ process. An effective multi-layered societal defense system against misinformation will entail prophylactic inoculation as our first line of defense, with therapeutic inoculation as a close second.”
In psychotherapeutic terms, that can mean meeting emotional needs as much as teaching the tools of a healthy mind. I chronicled how much my mentor and my therapist helped me better manage my anxiety and cultivate a different sort of self-esteem. In leaving behind, to whatever extent, my own fears of nuance and responsibility, I learned that I could tolerate the uncertainty of my choices because I wouldn’t be harshly criticized for them. Both individuals taught me that I was allowed to make mistakes and, more importantly, that I didn’t need to be incredibly smart to be special to them; in fact, my mentor told me that he valued my open-mindedness more than any of my other traits. Consider what defenses are for. I was protecting myself from an apparently hostile world. As I looked down on them, I was sure they did the same to me. Yalom belived that, more than any psychological intervention, the relationship heals, and I would add to each of Sander’s wonderful points: the relationship is key to any systemic change in anyone’s thinking.
Check out our episode with Sander:
Leon's Existential Cafe 
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