Redirect with Timothy Wilson

In this RSA talk Professor Wilson reveals how many conventional psychological therapies and interventions, including most self-help books, can do us more harm than good. Presenting the very latest research, he shows that the key to transforming our lives lies simply in learning to redirect the stories we tell ourselves.

Listen to the full audio: http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/redirect

Category:

Science & Technology

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• the rsa
• redirect
• timothy wilson
• professor wilson
• book
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• psychology
• behaviour
• behavior

[roidroid]

i'm glad he mentions interventions and how prompting was needed. It requires effort by a therapist, it's not just a leaflet.

It thus avoids some of the "you just need to do this and you'll be cured! ok next patient" pop psychology nonsense.

Doesn't avoid all of it, but some.

[roidroid]

@Kojak7snap The ethics of it are further softened if you consider that the student was already lying to herself by being pessimistic.

So it can be thought of as replacing negative false narratives with positive false narratives.

If the patient has a psychosomatic malady caused by a fake poison pill, a positive placebo antidote can be a highly effective (and quite real) cure.

[Kojak7snap]

@RainAngel111 If in fact the first instance was caused by lying to students to make them feel better, it seems that might be somewhat irrelevant; the intervention had the desired effect, and the reason clearly was well described by him. If it was in fact lying, and that proved problematic, the intervention could shift to simply explain the usefulness of redirecting one's narrative, as the research he described proved it quite effectively.

[SeanPMcCool]

This is very similar to Dr. Carol Dweck's book "Mindset: the New Psychology of Success"

[RainAngel111]

@onlyanton thank you for the additional information. that does make it more significant. but i still feel that the techniques are nothing new or special

[xjustamem0ryx]

@xjustamem0ryx

as to why things are able to move despite requiring to travel over infinities... perhaps it has to do with the nature of convergence.

[xjustamem0ryx]

@ZellMurasame

but there is also such infinities between the intervals on a fully functional clock. but it would NOT be said that a fully functional clock is essentially "working" 0% of the time because of that.

nor would the infinities between the intervals traversed by a walking pedestrian prevent them from actually getting anywhere (fortunately ;P)

[xjustamem0ryx]

@thehuddler

thanks :)

[xjustamem0ryx]

@ZellMurasame

interesting ^^

[onlyanton]

@rainangel111

I disagreed with all of your points except what you said about the second example-however, I looked into the actual article in question, in addition to the control group they had a "un-enhanced" visitation model (a visit without they skills) as well as the "enhanced" visitation model. Prevalence of physical abuse was greater in the un-enhanced model (23%) than in the enhanced model (4%) Journal article is called A cognitive approach to child abuse prevention-Accessed via PsychInfo