Noted psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman describes two basic systems that guide our behaviors and thoughts. Dr. Kahneman calls these System 1 and System 2, and summarizes them as:
• System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. • System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.
System 1 is the automatic response to external (or even internal) stimuli. At times we might become angry, fearful, or anxious and not sure why. This could lead to maladaptive behaviors, like depression, panic, procrastination, avoidance, or interpersonal conflict. For example, a married men gets tense and anxious when his wife asks him a question. His System 1 reacts automatically in a fearful way, as if she’s attacking or challenging him. He becomes blank or avoidant or irritable or oppositional, whatever his System 1 is prone to produce. These are manifestations of how our System 1 is processing inputs, sending signals through the neuronal network to the brain and nervous system resulting in automatic outputs that are often not productive. Briefly, your “gut” reaction is most often wrong.
We’re aware of the body state but most of the time not aware of the underlying cause. It’s what psychoanalysts call the unconscious.
The object of psychotherapy is to make these System 1 processes less automatic -- to give agency to System 2 to analyze them, understand them, reduce their potency, and thereby allow for more measured and mature cognitive processes that lead to more adaptive behaviors. Succinctly it’s making the unconscious conscious.
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