3 ms·

An important concept , and one that also has implications for mental health treatment. Eg, many talk therapies operate under the assumption that 'saying the wro

by ajb 2y ago

An important concept , and one that also has implications for mental health treatment. Eg, many talk therapies operate under the assumption that 'saying the wrong words in your head' is a factor maintaining the problem, and replacing these with better ones will result in improvement. But since words are not thoughts, and further they are not mental actions (such as relaxing), saying different words in your head is only useful if they help put you in a frame of mind where you can access, or discover, the right thoughts or 'mental actions'. I conjecture that within the diversity of human minds, there are some for whom language closely bound to thoughts and mental actions, and others less so, and that talk therapy is more useful for the former than the latter. If this is true, then it is also likely to be the case that most talk therapists are of the former persuasion, since they are not likely to espouse a practice which has no effect on themselves.

lukeschlather 2y ago
Words are thoughts but thoughts are not necessarily words. I do think words form better thoughts. Without words, thoughts are memories and can shift and change meaning and I won't be aware of it. If I think my thoughts in words then I can review my thoughts more carefully and be sure the meanings are not changing. If I'm solving some complicated problem, this is a big deal since if my solution to a sub-problem changes that's very bad. Of course also I can then write my thoughts down and refer back to them repeatedly so I can be sure they remain consistent.
dabei 2y ago
Maybe it's similar to tweaking the LLM prompts. A different set of words trigger a different pathway in our thinking.
- ajb 2y ago
  It could be, but I've not seen an approach to therapy that advocates tweaking like that. Most aim to identify a form of words that "should work" and then advocate persisting "until it works".

by ajb 2y ago

lukeschlather 2y ago

Words are thoughts but thoughts are not necessarily words. I do think words form better thoughts. Without words, thoughts are memories and can shift and change meaning and I won't be aware of it. If I think my thoughts in words then I can review my thoughts more carefully and be sure the meanings are not changing. If I'm solving some complicated problem, this is a big deal since if my solution to a sub-problem changes that's very bad. Of course also I can then write my thoughts down and refer back to them repeatedly so I can be sure they remain consistent.

dabei 2y ago

Maybe it's similar to tweaking the LLM prompts. A different set of words trigger a different pathway in our thinking.

ajb 2y ago
It could be, but I've not seen an approach to therapy that advocates tweaking like that. Most aim to identify a form of words that "should work" and then advocate persisting "until it works".