Rung Running: Getting Good at Distinguishing "Within" From "About" in Everyday Interaction

By Jeremy Sherman
In thought and conversation we each take a variety of perspectives, many of which are nested or hierarchical. That is, when you make a statement, it is worth knowing what it represents. A part of you? You overall? Us? Your community? Your country? Everybody?

I've written a lot in these pages about how hierarchies of perspective work (search "level" or "meta" here), and I can't stress enough how effective it is to be able to track levels and level shifts. Rung running, I call it-the ability to move between levels of analysis productively and efficiently, especially in the dance of conversation or negotiation.

Most miscommunication stems from people talking from different levels of analysis. Most doubt is a product of talking about things from two levels. (For example, should I do what's nice for him or nice for us?)

Having taught over 150,000 student hours on this stuff in the past five years, I can say that rung running doesn't come naturally. It takes practice.

One way to distinguish two adjacent levels is by distinguishing thoughts within a level from thoughts about that level, so here are some examples of using that kind of analysis:

Mom: You kids stop fighting. (about the fight)?Billy: But she started it. (within the fight)?Mom: I don't care-just stop. (about the fight)?----

James: Hillary would make a great president. (within the election)

Julie: Forget it, she's not electable. (about the election)

----

John: It would better for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq. (within his patriotism)

Tim: Oh, so you don't care what happens to the U.S.? (about his patriotism)

----

Sam: I think you need a new job. (about Bill's job)

Bill: No really, my boss just had a bad day. (within his job)

Sam: No really a new job, because he has a bad day every day. (about Bill's job again as if to say look at the big picture)

Bill: Hey no it's alright. You're too much of a perfectionist. It's important to be accepting. (leap-frogging Sam's big picture to a bigger one Bill comments on Sam's standards)

----

Kate: I'm not feeling it. (about their band)

Frank: I think I need a better guitar. (within their band)

Kate: I think we need a better guitarist. (about his skills)

Frank: Yeah, we'll that's your opinion. (within his standards)

Kate: You can't even tell how bad it sounds. (about his standards)

----

Julie: Do you think this dress makes me look fat? (within her looks)

Craig: I think you're beautiful. (about her looks)

----

Student: I tried to get my homework in on time but my printer died. (within his effort)

Teacher: Why should I believe you? You show up for class an hour late every day. (about his effort)

Student: Well I don't think you grade fairly. (about the teacher's grading)

Teacher: If you got your homework in on time I'd give you a better grade. (within his grading)

----

Cop: You were speeding. (within the law)

Driver: This road shouldn't be marked 25 miles an hour. (about the law)

----

Dan: My stomach is killing me. Got any Tums?1 (within his diet)

Brittany: You have got to stop eating stale Cheetos all day. (about his diet)

----

Tom: I'm sorry I'm late again, honey. (within the relationship)

Carol: Well, that's what I want to talk to you about. This relationship isn't really working. (about the relationship)

Tom: What do you mean? We're doing fine. (disagreement about the relationship)

Carol: You're late every day. (getting nowhere about the relationship, she returns to trouble within the relationship)

Tom: Not every day. (within the relationship)

Carol: This is futile. (about the disagreements both within and about the relationship)

Tom: I'm not late every day (persisting from within the relationship)

Carol: Talking with you gets nowhere. (from within her attitude about his attitude)

Tom: Why do you keep stirring up trouble between us? (from within his attitude about her attitude)

Footnotes:

1. This example was sponsored by Tums, the handy stomach remedy, and Cheetos, the ever-tasty snack.

2. Dan's footnoted comment was within the dialog. Footnote 1 was about the dialogue.

3. Footnote 2 was about footnote 1.

A multi-disciplinary professor translating ideas from the life and social sciences for application to everyday life.

Ph.D. in Evolutionary Epistemology, Masters in Public Policy, researching how living systems deal with tough judgment calls.

Author of Doubt: A User's Guide, Negotiate With Yourself and Win! and Executive UFO: A Field Guide to Unidentified Flying Objectives In the Workplace.

READ MORE - Rung Running: Getting Good at Distinguishing "Within" From "About" in Everyday Interaction

Right and Wrong: Where Do You Draw the Starting Line?

By Jeremy Sherman
How old is the difference between right and wrong? Some think it dates back to the origins of the universe. Some believe that God, the prime mover, knew right from wrong and designed everything to play out the appropriate balance between the two. Others think right and wrong are as old as God but not both of his making. For them, the universe had at its origin two independent forces-good and evil-which are still battling it out.

Science offers reasons to doubt that right and wrong are as old as God or the universe. As scientific evidence mounts it seems that if God exists, either he doesn't have an opinion what we should do or we haven't got a clue what he would consider right and wrong. Existentialists call science's perspective the "view from nowhere." From its neutral viewpoint there is no true right and wrong. You must do without guidance from some master authority who knows what you should do. According to some subscribers to science, the difference between right and wrong originates with humans. We alone seem to impose such judgments. The rest of the universe doesn't care.

Some go further, arguing that if only humans fuss over right and wrong maybe they are just illusions. There's no right or wrong. There's just what people want-and people want different things. What they want they call right and what they don't want they call wrong, but that's just for leverage in getting what they want. We alone fail to see that in the grand scheme of things, it's all good.

Arguments that it's all good come and go in the cultural mix, though they never go away anymore, nor do they ever gain much solid ground. Right and wrong don't go away. Even those who claim it's all good or all illusion can't help but employ the concepts of right and wrong in their very argument, which could be paraphrased as "It's wrong to believe that right and wrong are real."

If right and wrong are inescapable for us, then maybe they are real but do originate with us. They're not real in some universal sense, but they're apparently real in that they affect behavior. Of all the things you could do, you do only some things. Your actions are constrained by your sense of right and wrong.

Notice that I've just distinguished two kinds of right and wrong. One would make the difference between right and wrong as real as a law of physics. Timeless and imposed upon everything, a judging God or a universal battle between good and evil would be like the law of gravity or the second law of thermodynamics.

The other kind of right and wrong is real in a more modest sense. Right and wrong are whatever dos and don'ts have accumulated in you that shape and constrain your behavior. Even if right and wrong of the first kind don't exist, right and wrong of the second kind clearly do, at least in humans.

At least in humans... how about anybody else? Do animals have dos and don'ts? Do plants? Bacteria?

These other organisms don't have declared dos and don'ts. We don't see bears, flies, tulips, or E. coli stating their moral convictions and then acting on them.

Still, living creatures don't just do anything. They mostly do what fits their environment or else they wouldn't have survived. In the second, strictly practical sense of right and wrong, behaviors that enable an organism or a lineage to survive are right and behaviors that don't are wrong-not right and wrong for the universe but right or wrong for the individual organism or its lineage.

So right and wrong originate with life-with any entity whose actions make a difference to its persistence. If a squirrel runs out into traffic and dies we can say that was a "don't." It was wrong for the squirrel to do that.

Can we extend this reasoning beyond living things? Intense pressure can crush a rock, ending its persistence. We could say that intense pressure is wrong for the rock, or going further that it was wrong for the rock to put up with the pressure. That doesn't feel quite the same as saying it was wrong for the squirrel to run out into traffic. But why? Because a squirrel feels the consequence and a rock doesn't? A plant doesn't feel the consequences any more than a rock and yet we can talk about a plant flowering too early as being wrong more readily than we can talk about a rock's action being wrong.

Because a squirrel running into traffic is active in a way that rocks aren't? We would say it was wrong for the squirrel to stand still in the middle of traffic, or a plant to not flower later, so that's not the difference either. Maybe it's that the squirrel has a choice about whether to enter traffic and the rock has no choice whether to withstand pressure. But does the squirrel have a choice? Does a plant have a choice about when it flowers?

If this is feeling too philosophical, you have a choice to stop reading, of course. But that would be wrong because I'm about to get to the point.

Of course we could define right and wrong any way we want, even so rocks fall under the pressure of our judgment or the universe has some grand sense of right or wrong. Still, some definitions are better fits than others. So here's one to consider:

Right and wrong originate with life and evolution. Before evolution, things either survive or don't-but their behavior does not seem to be for anything like their survival. Rocks don't behave the way they do for their own good or for the good of their family tree. They don't have a family tree in the same sense that living things do. Evolution is only possible in things that have family trees, that is, lineages for which their survival makes a difference.

With evolution and life behavior becomes for survival-and not just survival of the individual but of its lineage, a lineage of things that accumulate fittedness (right moves) over generations through the evolutionary process. Evolution is the origin of fit, but also unfit, the place where right and wrong begin to get locally and practically defined.

Is there a right and wrong for evolution? Does evolution work for its own persistence? Some think it does, but the evidence suggests it doesn't. Evolution isn't a thing or even a campaign; it's a name we've given to a process of elimination, or more accurately a process whereby the universe's age-old tendency toward elimination eats away at life's lineages. The lineages have right and wrong but the process of elimination is just the natural tendency for things to degrade.

With life it's no longer just the view from nowhere. It's the view from somewhere-or, more to the point, from someone and some family line for whom consequences matter.

I'm an out- of-the-closet theorist in anti-theory society. I'm an evolutionary epistemologist, meaning a researcher and teacher focused on the ways we all generalize, drawing conclusions from inconclusive data, shopping among interpretations of evidence, theorizing and employing abstractions whether we know it or not. I look at how we do this stuff and how we could do it better.

I have worked in businesses, non-profits and academics. My Ph.D. is in Evolutionary Epistemology and I also have a Masters in public policy. I've written several e-books including "Negotiate With Yourself and Win! Doubt Management for People who can hear themselves think," and "Executive UFO: A Field Guide to Unidentified Flying Objectives in the Workplace." I have taught college-level psychology, sociology, Western History, theology, philosophy and English. I'm currently a research collaborator with Berkeley professor Terrence Deacon in what's called Emergence theory: How life emerges from non-life and how things change when it does.

Spiritually, I'm a Taowinist, a cross between Tao and Darwin, meaning I think of life as a difficult open-ended tension between holding on and letting go. The path to living well isn't through finding something eternal to hold on to or letting go of everything as some spiritualists suggest, but in managing and appreciating the tension, especially through the arts and sciences. Philosophically and interpersonally, I'm an Ambigamist: Deeply romantic and deeply skeptical.

I'm working on a few new books: "Doubt: A User's Guide," "Purpose: A Natural History," "The Problem with People: Steps Toward An Objective Definition of Butthead (not just anyone with whom you butt heads)" and "Zoom Meditations: The Art of Multi-Level-Headedness."

I play jazz bass and sing. My big persistent drivers seem to be competition for status, bottomless introspection, assiduous intellectual inquiry, real social change and good company. I love good company.

READ MORE - Right and Wrong: Where Do You Draw the Starting Line?

Dream Therapy and The Healing Power of Dreams - Carl Jung's Discoveries

By Christina Sponias
Many people have tried to decipher the mysterious meaning of dreams throughout human history. However, until today many theories are leading the biggest part of our population to wrong conclusions. The bitter truth is that most people neglect the importance of dreams and they believe that the occupation with them is nonsense.

I have already managed to scientifically prove to the world that only Carl Jung could discover the real meaning of dreams. He discovered their healing power, proving that their importance surpasses our expectations.

Dreams eliminate all false impressions. They help everyone discover the real meaning of life and completely evolve. I can give you infinite examples of how helpful they are.

Thanks to the extraordinary discoveries of the psychiatrist Carl Jung, and thanks to my extraordinary discoveries after continuing his research, today we know what provokes diseases, and how all mental illnesses are generated. Our own dreams provide us with the psychotherapy we need in order to find sound mental health, and perfect physical health.

Dreams protect our human conscience from the craziness contained in the wild side of our conscience. All diseases are the result of the influence of our wild conscience into our human conscience.

You can verify how true my statements are by writing down your dreams and following my method of immediate dream translation. It is a simplification of the complicated method of dream interpretation discovered by Carl Jung. Your dreams will reveal to you many truths.

They will cure your depression. They will help you find the right person for you. They will give you courage and self-confidence. They will save you from suffering. They will give you a new life free of frustrations and despair. You'll feel protected all the time. You'll be able to predict the future, and prepare its development the way you desire.

These statements are not based on my imagination or on my personal opinion. There are objective and real proofs that dreams are really so powerful. They have already cured many people. They can make many miracles.

I'm going to give you an example. One woman had terrible nightmares that kept torturing her for years. She had read many books about the meaning of dreams, she followed various psychotherapies, and she even tried other healing methods to stop having nightmares, without any success.

As soon as she learned about the scientific method of dream interpretation, she started sending me her dreams for a professional dream translation. In less than two months she stopped having nightmares.

Through dream therapy, she discovered that they were provoked by a serious mistake she make when she was a teen. She never understood that what she did at that time was a big mistake until the explanations of the unconscious mind in her dreams.

However, why would nightmares keep torturing a woman because of a mistake that she made when she was a teen? Because they were trying to prevent her from repeating the same mistake now that she is an adult. She would suffer very much with its consequences if she would repeat this mistake without understanding what she was doing.

Dreams cure the human mind by showing us what is good and what is bad. They explain why we are having problems in our daily lives, and what we have to do in order to solve them forever.

Christina Sponias continued Carl Jung's research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation that teaches you how to exactly translate the meaning of your dreams, so that you can find health, wisdom and happiness.

READ MORE - Dream Therapy and The Healing Power of Dreams - Carl Jung's Discoveries

3 Recommended Fixes for Social Anxiety: Feel Timid? Become a Tiger!

By Mike Shery
Social anxiety is exhibited by people who are painfully shy and overwhelmed by worry in social situations. Treatment for it is important; you need to eliminate the anxiety in order to have a normal social life and to enhance the quality of your overall life.

If you experience social anxiety, you probably are fearful of being judged critically by others and feeling humiliated, embarrassed or rejected. When you are in a social situation with people you value highly, but don't know, you probably experience symptoms, such as heart palpitations, hyper-scanning of the environment, self-doubt, over-thinking or even excessive sweating.

Social anxiety disorder is pervasive but it is treatable with counseling, psychotherapy and some medications. Cognitive therapy which re-structures your thought processes is highly effective.

It is important to engage in treatment to enhance the quality of your overall life and the lives of those close to you. Social anxiety disorder usually features persistent, intense and chronic anxiety fueled by the fear of being criticized, shamed or humiliated by anyone you socially value.

These anxieties may have been intensified because of the previous judgmental, insulting or humiliating behavior of others. While engaged in anxiety-laden social interactions, you may know intellectually, that there is no legitimate or realistic reason to feel such anxiety, but often, without treatment, that does little to help.

Generally, men are more predisposed to experience social anxiety than are women. It has been hypothesized that this is because, in our society, men have the primary role of being the initiator of interaction with strangers they would like to know.

Consequently, males search more frequently for treatment for social anxiety than do females. Social anxiety disorder is very common, though males, in particular are loathe to admit it.

Countless men continually struggle with their fears, particularly when in bars or at parties. Social anxiety is hypothesized to be a strong motivator for the tendency of college students to get drunk before or during their parties.

Those with social anxiety often, also, feel apprehensive in performance-based situations; this is called performance anxiety. Their anxiety about being embarrassed, criticized or negatively evaluated is generalized to any spectators who may be present.

The more severe cases of performance anxiety are even generalized to sexual situations where the male becomes anxious about performing well. This sometimes leads him to problems with premature ejaculation or impotence.

Some also see the fear of public speaking as related to both social and performance anxiety. After all, the fear of embarrassment or criticism is central to both.

As stated previously, psychological counseling and medication such as, antidepressants can reduce any combined anxiety and depression that may result. It is also hypothesized that specialized counseling utilizing cognitive behavioral methods may be particularly effective for the longer-term treatment of social anxiety.

For those with less intense fear in social situations, therapy may only need to be short-term. However, for those whose anxieties are pervasive, persistent and overwhelming, long term therapy including both cognitive behavioral techniques and medication, is optimal.

What should you do?

First, seek professional help. This usually involves:

1. Individual counseling or psychotherapy. The purpose of counseling is to understand yourself and your situation clearer.

You get objective feedback, support and guidance from a professional with experience in treating anxiety.

2. Group therapy. Attending therapy in a group setting desensitizes you to your anxiety and teaches you how to communicate better in an environment which is, itself, social.

You get objective feedback, support and guidance, not only from a professional, but also from your peers who are experiencing problems similar to yours. Money should not deter you because both types of counseling can be received from private practitioners and non-profit sliding scale community agencies.

3. Cognitive therapy-oriented self-therapy kits (STKs), articles and books.

If going to counseling seems initially like too big a step, reading articles and books, attending seminars and using cognitive therapy-oriented self-therapy (STKs), also known as "home therapy kits" can help. STKs are self-help programs that use cognitive therapy to tutor you, step-by-step on how to deal with your social anxiety.

As opposed to books and articles, they teach assertive social skills using cognitive therapy in a multimedia format: CDs, DVDs, MP3s, e-books, workbooks, audios, videos etc. Cognitive-behavioral tutoring on how to respond assertively in social settings can be very helpful.

In short, combined therapy, utilizing cognitively-oriented individual therapy, group therapy and medication is the treatment for social anxiety disorder that provides the best chances of success.

READ MORE - 3 Recommended Fixes for Social Anxiety: Feel Timid? Become a Tiger!

Self Hypnosis: Go From Bummed to Bold in Just 30 Days!

By Mike Shery
What is hypnosis? It is a state of mind characterized by a trance-like, hyper-attentiveness. When you enter a hypnotic state, you are aware of deep relaxation, of your imagination beginning to flourish and of a state of letting-go or hyper-suggestibility.

Under this altered mental state, you are more apt to be open to suggestions of positive changes from someone else or yourself. Contrary to the beliefs of most laymen, hypnosis is not a state of sleep or unconsciousness.

As a matter of fact, when hypnotized, you are alert throughout the entire process. Not only that, but I bet you did not know that hypnosis occurs regularly in our daily waking life, without our even being aware of it.

It is merely hyper-alertness and hyper-awareness. One example is our experience of total absorption in a movie or book, in which, for a time, we notice nothing else in our environment, but we are highly aware of what is taking place in the movie or book.

So this being the case, what is hypnosis used for? It is used to treat or manage many things, including chronic pain, weight gain, asthma symptoms and cigarette smoking.

Hypnosis is used in the treatment of illnesses and behavioral problems like deficient self-esteem, shyness, and even premature ejaculation. In many cases, hypnosis is not used just by itself, but in combination with other treatment modalities.

There are several methods used to induce the hypnotic state. Usually it is induced, using the skills of a qualified hypnotherapist.

With this method, the hypnotherapist delivers calming and relaxing suggestions, which help in blocking distractions and enhancing your openness to suggestion. This facilitates your ability to deeply concentrate on the therapist's suggestions.

The therapist will target particular goals and ways of managing certain situations that are relevant to you when making his suggestions. He may also suggest alternative strategies for you to implement to facilitate the achievement of certain goals.

Mental or guided imagery is another widely used hypnotic strategy. When using this, the therapist activates your imagination by inducing your creation of relevant mental images.

The idea is to visualize images of the things that you want to obtain or achieve. For example, a student might visualize the image of a report card filled with all As.

The third and most convenient technique is self-hypnosis, in which you induce hypnosis independently in yourself. For self hypnosis, various techniques apply, such as using positive affirmations targeting goal achievement or stimulating images that will trigger enhancement of your confidence level.

Self hypnosis is used primarily to assist in habit management and in the sculpting and controlling of certain problem emotions and behaviors you may have.

When you place yourself in a hypnotic state, believe it or not, you will still have full and conscious control over your behavior and your mind. One huge convenience of self hypnosis is that you can place yourself in a hypnotic state independently, without having to rely on an outside hypnotist.

How is it done? How do you hypnotize yourself? First, arrange things so that you are not disturbed during the process.

Then, before starting, identify only one goal that you want to achieve. Other goals can be addressed, individually, in subsequent sessions.

In starting your session, first concentrate on a spot or item situated slightly above the level of your eyes. Then, breathe deeply and mentally instruct yourself to relax both your mind and body.

As part of this process, close your eyes and concentrate on a simple sound, such as a bird chirping or rain drops. Once relaxed, imagine yourself steadily climbing a staircase, on the top of which is your ultimate destination such as, a tranquil, serene and beautiful beach.

Tell yourself that with each step you take, you will be letting go of your anxieties and tension. When you come upon the last step, before reaching the final destination, begin repeating your pre-planned suggestions to yourself.

After finishing them, imagine arriving at the scene of the final destination. Take several deep breaths and slowly open your eyes. Your session of self hypnosis is now finished.

People most often use self hypnosis to manage the effects of daily stress in their lives because it facilitates reduction in the activity of stress hormones and anxiety.

Do this every day for 30 days; then, be prepared to be astounded at the results!

READ MORE - Self Hypnosis: Go From Bummed to Bold in Just 30 Days!

Do You Avoid People? Go From "Fearful" to "Formidable" in Just Days!

By Mike Shery
Two types of people are very frustrating and puzzling to their significant others, those with Avoidant Personalities and those with Schizoid personalities.

Avoidant Personality

Those who suffer from the Avoidant Personality Disorder feel insecure, impotent, helpless, and deficient in self-esteem. As a result, they are withdrawn and socially detached or distant.

They are very self-conscious about their perceived shortcomings and are hypersensitive and hypervigilant for signs of rejection or disapproval. In extreme cases, even the slightest, most benign and well intentioned criticism or disagreement can be perceived as embarrassing, abusive or rejecting.

Therefore, in order to avoid such perceived rejection, the Avoidant personality tries, as much as possible, to avoid social and other situations that require close contact with others. That would include any number of situations that are part and parcel of everyday life, such as attending weddings, inviting people to dinner or other social events or attending college classes or seminars, to name just a few.

Not surprisingly, Avoidant types find it almost impossible to engage in intimate relationships. They often test the possibility of a relationship by tip-toeing into it and scrupulously assessing whether the other person will accept them close to, or totally unconditionally.

They desperately require ongoing reassurance to enable them to feel attractive, validated, significant etc. People often view those with Avoidant personalities as shy, timid, withdrawn, quiet, tentative, distant, tense, insecure, inhibited and sometimes, even "stuck-up" because of the interactive "distance" they maintain.

Avoidant types typically have vigilant interactive styles and are very careful and self-protective when with others, causing others to have troubling doubts about them! They believe, in the background, if not in the forefront of their minds, not only that they are socially and interpersonally incompetent, but that others simply do not like them.

They entertain these assumptions so strongly that they may construe a genuinely positive message from someone as negative in some way. For instance, they may view an honest offer of help conveyed by someone as just a form of deception or manipulation.

When in the presence of others, Avoidant types are generally withdrawn and very tentative. When unavoidably involved socially, they communicate an empty-sounding humility and and a very "under-stated" persona.

To the Avoidant, this strategy makes the occurrence of criticism or disagreement from others less likely.

Schizoid personalities.

Schizoid types are similar to Avoidants in interpersonal distancing, but for a different reason. The reason relates to the their experience of pleasure, reward and satisfaction.

You see they have none; they have a very difficult time feeling good or pleasure about much of anything. Enjoyment or real satisfaction is hardly ever seen on their faces.

The term for the inability to experience pleasure is "anhedonia." Those who know schizoid people see them as distant, disinterested, unengaged and "just going through the motions."

Sounds like depression or Avoidant personality, doesn't it, but it is not. Schizoid types appear merely indifferent and totally uncaring regarding the impact of social interaction, engagement and relationships.

They have a very restricted range of emotions, rarely express any feelings and are simply unable to feel "intimacy" with anyone. Because of this, the schizoid's significant other, if he has one, often feels lonely and "empty."

They are even indifferent to sex, rarely showing any interest. This causes more problems for any significant others because they do not feel valued or attractive.

It is a very emotionally impoverished personality type; they create the impression of being distant, indifferent, flat, uncaring and emotionally stunted. Close family or social groups give them no feelings of intimacy, closeness or satisfaction.

They would rather do things by themselves and are very solitary in their lifestyle. Vocationally, they tend to work in occupations that are cut-and-dried. You know what they say about accountants and engineers!

They are relatively rigid and lack cognitive flexibility in the way they deal with issues. Faced with changes that require this flexibility, their coping skills may manifest signs of deterioration and they may act-out.

They portray the impression of not caring what others think and they appear to adhere to mindless routine. They do not respond effectively to social stimuli, social triggers or interactions. They are not "deep" and often have little, of any consequence, to say.

What about Professional Help?

Professional help usually involves:

1. Individual counseling or psychotherapy. The purpose of counseling is to understand yourself and your situation clearer.

You get objective feedback, support and guidance from a professional with experience in treating abuse in relationships.

2. Group therapy. Attending therapy in a group setting desensitizes you to your anxiety and teaches you how to communicate better in an environment which is, itself, social.

You get objective feedback, support and guidance, not only from a professional, but from your peers experiencing similar problems as you. Money should not deter you because both types of counseling can be received from private practitioners and non-profit sliding scale community agencies.

3. Cognitive therapy-oriented self-therapy kits (STKs) and articles and books.

If going to counseling seems initially like too big a step, reading articles and books, attending seminars and using cognitive therapy-oriented self-therapy or home therapy kits (STKs) can help. STKs are self-help programs that use cognitive therapy to tutor you, step-by-step on how to deal with your social engagement anxiety.

As opposed to books and articles, they teach assertive social skills using cognitive therapy in a multimedia format: CDs, DVDs, MP3s, e-books, workbooks, audios, videos etc. Cognitive-behavioral tutoring on how to become engaged in relationships can be very helpful.

Dr Shery earned his doctorate at the Univ. of Southern Calif.He is a counselor in Cary, IL with 30 years experience. He provides multimedia self-help programs which help his patients to happily engage and relate to others. They have helped thousands of people and are guaranteed to

READ MORE - Do You Avoid People? Go From "Fearful" to "Formidable" in Just Days!

Beliefs: Are They Like Noses, Policies, or Habits?

By Jeremy Sherman
We declare beliefs as though they were things we possess, things that are with us constantly. "I have a belief" is commonly treated as equivalent to "I have a nose." Even sophisticated psychologists talk like this. When they summarize research with "74% of Americans believe that heaven is real," they don't get specific about what they mean, but the implication is much the same as that of "74% of Americans have brown eyes."

For all the thought that has gone into epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge-what it means to know or believe something) it's amazing how little has gone into understanding what people are really doing when they know or believe.

It can't be quite like having a nose. You have only one nose, and it's on you all the time. To believe something can't mean having only one idea that is on you all the time, even though attempts to think about only one thing 24/7 have been made. Mohammed taught that your to-do list should have only one item: you should think of Allah constantly. In practice, however, a Muslim is required to pray to Allah only five times a day. The problem with regarding beliefs as 24/7 possessions is that consciousness is quite small. If belief meant holding one thought always, no room would be left for thinking.

Instead, we might try treating beliefs as similar to policies, so that when we say, "I believe that the government should bail out the banks," or "I believe in God," or even "I love you," in effect we're declaring that every time a topic comes up, we apply a certain policy to it.

Policies are not fickle. If policy states that you pay a toll when you cross a certain bridge, then you always pay the toll when you cross that bridge. Believing in God would therefore mean that every time God comes up, you always assume that he's real. Believing that the government should bail out the banks would mean that every time bank bailouts come up, you're always in favor of them. Saying "I love you, John" would mean that every time John comes to mind you always want to support and protect and please him.

Policies can be conditional. Pay the toll-but only during rush hour. You could love John-but only when he's not drinking. Still, given the conditions, they remain constant and not fickle. In fact, all policies are conditional. They take the form "If X then do Y," where X is the condition. Pay the toll, but only when going onto this particular bridge.

Policies can be changed, and so can beliefs. That's what it means to "change your mind," though Plato (quoting Socrates) points out a problem with learning or changing one's mind. It's known as Meno's Paradox or the paradox of learning, and applied here it goes something like this: If beliefs are like 24/7 constant policies, how can they ever change? If every time bank bailouts come to mind you are completely in favor of them, or every time John comes to mind you are full of love for him, how can the alternative policies-that banks should not be bailed out, or that John is a bum-ever get a foothold?

Plato's solution is to claim that all learning and change in belief must be simply recollecting things you already knew and believed. To him, learning what to believe is not a matter of exchanging one belief for another but of peeling back layers of confusion and getting down to what you always already believed. If this were true, rather than ever conceding in a debate you could just say a snide, "Yeah, I know that already."

This solution to Meno's Paradox is precarious. It leads Plato into some confusing assertions like that before we were born we knew absolutely everything. We then made a mistake and forgot it all.

How did we come to know everything in the first place? He vacillates here, sometimes claiming we learned it over many lifetimes, sometimes claiming we just were perfect.

In other words, the old boy can't make up his mind.

And neither can we sometimes, which suggests a far less sweeping solution to Meno's Paradox and the development of a practical understanding of what it is to believe.

Beliefs are neither things like noses or policies like bridge tolls. They are thoughts that have some probability of coming to mind when triggered, thoughts that have a greater or smaller number of triggers, thoughts that are in greater or lesser conflict with other thoughts. In other words, they are habits of greater or lesser strength.

Our everyday reference to belief incorporates some of what it means to think multiple things on the same topic. We say, "Part of me thinks X" or "I'm of half a mind to believe Y," "I'm of two minds about this," or "I'm ambivalent," or "I love you but I don't trust you." But while we can access this interpretation of beliefs, we're as likely to allow them to be treated as things or policies.

OK, occasionally a belief can become like a nose, at least for a while, always right in front of your eyes, staring back at you. This is less like belief and more like obsession, a thought pattern triggered by practically everything and not contradicted by other beliefs. For instance, that's what happens in the temporary state of being madly anxiously in love, believing you need this one special someone to make you whole. Some other time, when my habit of thinking about beliefs orbits back around, I'll talk about the dynamics of typical beliefs.

I'm an out- of-the-closet theorist in anti-theory society. I'm an evolutionary epistemologist, meaning a researcher and teacher focused on the ways we all generalize, drawing conclusions from inconclusive data, shopping among interpretations of evidence, theorizing and employing abstractions whether we know it or not. I look at how we do this stuff and how we could do it better.

I have worked in businesses, non-profits and academics. My Ph.D. is in Evolutionary Epistemology and I also have a Masters in public policy. I've written several e-books including "Negotiate With Yourself and Win! Doubt Management for People who can hear themselves think," and "Executive UFO: A Field Guide to Unidentified Flying Objectives in the Workplace." I have taught college-level psychology, sociology, Western History, theology, philosophy and English. I'm currently a research collaborator with Berkeley professor Terrence Deacon in what's called Emergence theory: How life emerges from non-life and how things change when it does.

Spiritually, I'm a Taowinist, a cross between Tao and Darwin, meaning I think of life as a difficult open-ended tension between holding on and letting go. The path to living well isn't through finding something eternal to hold on to or letting go of everything as some spiritualists suggest, but in managing and appreciating the tension, especially through the arts and sciences. Philosophically and interpersonally, I'm an Ambigamist: Deeply romantic and deeply skeptical.

I'm working on a few new books: "Doubt: A User's Guide," "Purpose: A Natural History," "The Problem with People: Steps Toward An Objective Definition of Butthead (not just anyone with whom you butt heads)" and "Zoom Meditations: The Art of Multi-Level-Headedness."

I play jazz bass and sing. My big persistent drivers seem to be competition for status, bottomless introspection, assiduous intellectual inquiry, real social change and good company. I love good company.

READ MORE - Beliefs: Are They Like Noses, Policies, or Habits?