Beyond the Id, Ego, and Superego
For those of you who regularly tune into our podcast, you might remember a previous episode where we explored Freud’s psychological triad: the id, ego, and superego. We dove into how a deeper understanding of these constructs could help us better manage our inner critic. Not long after that episode aired, I received some intriguing feedback from a listener, Brynn Walton-Raaby.
Brynn is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Jean-Francois Champollion University in France, with a unique double major in cognitive ergonomics and re-adaptive psychology, and also happens to be my niece. She expressed reservations about the credibility of Freudian theories, advocating for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a scientifically-backed method for tackling issues such as an overbearing inner critic, persistent worry, and anxiety. In this episode, we’ll delve into the world of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), exploring its limitations, advantages, and application, get firsthand insight into how this therapy model works, and how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can be used alongside CBT.
We’ll also explore the unique perspective of neuropsychology in leadership, what it means to ‘tune’ and ‘prune’ and how these processes can bring about changes in the brain. Buckle up as we take this deep dive into the human psyche and discover new approaches to mental wellbeing!
And as with everything I share on the podcast, this is what I believe based on what I’ve read and researched. But please don’t take my word for it. Keep what sticks, discard the rest and for goodness sakes, go out and test drive it!
What You’ll Learn In Today’s Episode:
What we now know about Freud.
The limitations and advantages of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Examples of what a CBT approach could look like.
What Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is and how it can work in conjunction with CBT.
The four questions asked during CBT.
What it means to “tune” and “prune” and how the brain can change through the process.
How leaders can leverage neuropsychology to better understand themselves.
What Was Mentioned:
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“Going to therapy sessions in and of itself won’t really do much to change your condition.” – Brynn Walton-Raaby
“The solutions that appear to work the best at this point in time are ones that take a lot of effort.” – Brynn Walton-Raaby
“It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.” – Brynn Walton-Raaby
“Your brain is giving you a hard time but it’s not necessarily objectively accurate.” – Brynn Walton-Raaby
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Speaker 1 0:01
Hey, it's Christina. Thanks for joining us, and welcome to the Squeeze. Hi, you've been a regular listener to the podcast, you might recall an episode I did a little while ago that was highlighting Freud's trio, the id, the ego, and the super ego, and how by understanding the interactions between those three, we can actually gain a leg up on how we manage our inner critic. Shortly after releasing the episode, I was contacted by Bryn Walt and Robbie with some concerns about the credibility of Freudian theories and how cognitive behavioral therapy as a research-supported approach to shifting things like inner critic worry and anxiety was probably worth a look. She had no specific issue with the metaphorical use of Freud's trio to unpack inner critic work, so the episode content is still good, but I had an opportunity here to learn more about another methodology that helps us deal with that joy-sucking part of us called the inner critic, and here was someone that I was chatting with that has expertise on the subject from a neuropsychological discipline, and so, of course, I couldn't resist, and I invited to Bryn to be a guest on the podcast, so here's a little bit more about Brynn. So, Bryn is a master's candidate with a double major in cognitive ergonomics and readaptive psychology at Jean Francois Champollion University in Albay, France. Fun fact here, Jean Francois Champollion is the guy who decrypted the hieroglyphics of the Rosetta Stone. That's kind of cool. Anyway, readaptive psychology, it focuses on ways to help people adapt to new situations, either as a result of brain injuries or mental health, etc. Brain-completed or internships in memory consultation services in the hospital departments of neurology, geriatrics, and some psychiatry, where she does neuropsych evaluations of people's cognitive functions post stroke, brain injury, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc. She also does psycho education with her patients, helping them understand the impact of their brain lesion on their behaviors and level of functioning, while providing them with compensation strategies to help maintain independence and quality of life. Following completion of her studies, Bryn plans to work as a neuropsychologist in memory consultation services. Bryn is currently living in the countryside in southern France. Doesn't that sound horrible? She's living with her partner, two dogs, one cat, and three chickens, and lo and behold, she's also my niece, but of course I couldn't say that at the outset, or I'd have to Chris in this the Nepo podcast. Anyway, I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. All right, so welcome, Bryn. Thanks for being willing to have a conversation with me from across all the miles. Welcome to you.
Speaker 2 3:27
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 3:29
So I want to just cast our thinking backwards to a podcast that I put out a while ago, so listeners may remember listening to one I did focusing on Freud, and I talked about the trio of the super ego, the ego, and the the id. You don't want to forget the id, that's the one you want to pay attention to, but maybe not if you're Bryn, because I got a great text back from Bryn after listening to that episode and just talking about how there were some alarm bells ringing for her around the Freudian theory in general, so what you already know from the introduction is that Bryn is studying psychology at a master's level in France, and just wanted to bring to my attention that there are numerous critiques about Freud's theories, and wanted to offer me another way of considering some of the things that I was bringing for challenging our inner critic, and, and that was cognitive behavioral therapy, and Bryn, at the time, you included a couple of attachments, and I've gone into those, and those look really good, and so for listeners, I'll put those in the show notes afterwards, but to start us off, I want to just say, okay, so Bryn, the whole thing that you were bringing up about Freud, tell us a little bit, first of all, general terms about, like, the alarm bell, so you said, like, psychoanalysis, negative consequences, just share a little bit about what we now know about Freud. In theory,
Speaker 2 5:01
all right, so first off, just to be clear, in my studies I am on the very scientific side of psychology, doing neuropsychology and cognitive psychology, and anything I say in this interview is obviously my own personal opinion, but also based on literature things that I've read, so I did really enjoy the metaphor of the three Freudian instances that you use for the inner critic. However, my alarm bells ring mostly with the deviations of Freudian theory and psychoanalysis more generally, and of course we both agree it's not all psychoanalysis. There are different ways that people approach it and treat their patients or clients, however, it can quickly turn into something a bit. I have the word sin will circumvent, of course, it's not sinister, you know. They are going with good intentions, however, some of the ideas advanced by not only Freud but other prominent figures in psychoanalysis are pretty questionable and controversial, you know. When the causes of autism being done by the refrigerator mother will be the mother's fault, some things around child abuse and sexual abuse being desired by the person who is the victim, and although, of course, not all psychoanalysis adhere to these opinions and these ideas, they can quickly affect somebody's cognition when they're in an already vulnerable place, seeking help.
Speaker 1 6:32
Right. Wow, that was super clear, and I appreciate your pointing out those elements of Freud, because I mean, I haven't studied Freud for like probably two decades or more in any sort of formalized setting, and so what you actually can tap into, of course, on the internet is going to give you a very, very small taste. So I really appreciate that, and I'm actually congratulating myself on being related to someone who is doing a master's in psych. I'm going to be tapping you as we go along, so that's really helpful. So you know, ultimately, what I was seeking in putting together that podcast episode on the Freudian theory that I used was because so many people that I work with, and I think I referenced this in an email to earlier, so many people I work with, you know, they have all kinds of tools to operate in the external world, but it's actually their own internal barriers, the way they think, the way they're thinking about themselves, their worry, their anxiety, all these kinds of things seem to be getting in the way, and it doesn't seem to matter how good the tool is, for, for instance, talking to a colleague or talking to an employee. If those inner barriers are there, it just doesn't seem to change anything. So, before I get into sort of your sort of opinions and ideas about practicalities of what people can do, can you tell us about CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, like, what is it? What are the situations it's good in? What are the limitations?
Speaker 2 8:08
All right, so CBT can be defined as more of a problem-focused psychotherapy compared to a talk-focused psychotherapy. This is one where we're actually really looking to find tools and strategies, coping mechanisms that can help people better manage their problems in stressful situations, in really changing the way we think and we behave. It's empirically verified, and it's got pretty good efficacy results in a wide variety of disorders, like anxiety disorders, depression, substance use, eating disorders, amongst others, but it also really, really can help with this well-known famous inner critic, just with everyday types of struggles to really reformat the way we think, which in turn will change our thoughts and feelings and behaviors.
Speaker 1 8:58
So, before we sort of jump into some practicalities, like, are there limitations? Are there situations where CBT isn't as effective?
Speaker 2 9:07
So, depending on the type of mental health disorders, sometimes it is not recommended for more, quote unquote, severe disorders, such as psychosis, schizophrenia, some bipolar patients. It
Speaker 3 9:19
is
Speaker 2 9:20
a more intensive and more integrative therapy that could be needed, along with medication, as well.
Speaker 1 9:27
Right,
Speaker 2 9:27
one of the limits of CBT therapy is the commitment it requires from the clients. It requires a really, really big commitment in order to get benefits out of it. You have to commit yourself to the process, because going to the therapy sessions in and of itself won't really do much to change your cognition, and the commitment in itself takes time, and it's not easy, because especially at the start of the therapy, you'll be really confronting yourself to intense emotions, anxieties, a lot of discomforts, and a lot of. People can be really discouraged and obviously uncomfortable, and will stop after a few sessions without seeing results. Personally, I see that as one of the biggest limitations. You have to be ready to commit to it, do homework between sessions, and really practice it in your daily life to actually see the results.
Speaker 1 10:18
I think you've just really nailed something that has been a bit of a confusion for me with CBT, or not a confusion, but maybe what I felt was a limitation, and as you're speaking, I'm like, okay, yeah, it's not the magic pill that people want, right? It's not the instant shift, and it's making me think of times in my life, just to throw in a metaphor, if you know, when I've had an injury and I've had to go for physiotherapy. Well, yeah, the truth is I want to go into that office and I want them to do something to me, and I want to walk out and I want to feel good, but that's not how it works. I walk out and I've got six six different exercises that I have to do between now when I see them again in three weeks, and that whole process goes on for months, so there's a way in which I can imagine that coupled with the sort of the emotional exposure to whatever the event is, and then the required sort of discipline to do things over and over, I can see that that could be an area that for some people it would weed them out from wanting to hang on and see it through to actually getting some results, that makes sense, which
Speaker 2 11:21
for sure does, and as you said, there is no magic pill, unfortunately. I wish there was. There is no magic pill for reshaping how we live our lives, our happiness, for having a more fulfilling life. There's no magic solution, and the solutions that appear to work the best at this period, at this point in time, are ones that take a lot of efforts, and even for myself, who I follow CBT for myself, and we're not gonna lie, it's a say, do as I say, not as I do, I have a hard time committing to it as well, it's not easy, but it's worth it.
Speaker 1 11:58
Yeah, well, so maybe what we can do is like wrap some practicality around an example, so what if I were to give you an example of, you know, a fairly typical scenario of, say, a leadership client that I'm working with in my practice, and then maybe we can sort of talk about what a CBT approach might look like, just so listeners can kind of start to envision, and I just want to say a little disclaimer here, CBT is not a self-directed thing, right? This is like something you're doing with a therapist, correct?
Speaker 2 12:27
Oh, correct. Yes, there are some techniques that you can do at home, but I can only very, very highly recommend that you are followed by a professional trained in this area. Yeah, for little lighter things, you can maybe try it at home, but you're going to get the best results when you're actually being accompanied by somebody who is trained in CBT therapy.
Speaker 1 12:48
Yeah, okay, good to know. Yeah, because I think a lot of, certainly here in the West, there's, there's a lot of, there can be conflation between coaching and therapy. There can also be a sort of a, I want to say a little bit of a resistance to therapy, particularly in leadership development, but what I'm aware of in my work is that there is a time and a place for both, and it's about, you know, the distinction of when that's necessary, so it really sounds like CBT is a place where I then might say to one of my leadership clients, hey, you know this time to check out your EAP and see what your organization has in the way of therapy, you know, to get your costs covered, possibly, and to be able to work with someone who's holding the container for you as you go through this. So, an example that I want to come up with is one that's very, very common, because what we have in organizational life today is, of course, extreme complexity, lots of environmental changing, lots of decreasing budget. So, basically, what happens is people move very quickly in organizations, they get promoted, they land in roles, they don't have a lot of necessarily development or leadership development training for that role, and so there becomes this whole subculture called fake it till you make it, and you know, I talk about that, and I've talked in past podcasts about the imposter syndrome, and the difficulty with that is because you're sitting in a meeting and you're sitting there on the outside trying to look like you know what you're talking about, like you have the answers, like you have a right to be in the role, but in my conversations with people, because they feel safe and they're trusted and it's confidential, they tell me they're scared to death and they feel so insecure, and so in effect what I end up with commonly is a leader who is in a position that does not feel the confidence to carry the weight of that, whether it's the positional power or just the responsibility. So, they have this insecurity. Is that enough of an example, or would we need to pepper it a little bit more? Could we sort of say, hey, I said to this. Client, I think you should check out CBT. What would it.. Oh no, that's
Speaker 2 15:04
a great example. Okay, great.
Speaker 1 15:07
So, what would happen, because
Speaker 2 15:08
it's so universal.
Speaker 4 15:10
Yeah,
Speaker 2 15:10
so what they would do was probably, in the first couple sessions, is they're going to work with, we'll call them a therapist, just in this way, the person trained the CBT practitioner,
Speaker 3 15:21
right? In the
Speaker 2 15:21
first couple sessions are going to work to really try and identify the problematic situation and the problematic thoughts that are coming out of these situations, or that are creating quote unquote problematic situations, because CBT basically considers that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all interconnected, they're all in this big cycle, and they're influencing each other continuously. And so, for somebody who has this imposter syndrome, which we all know, we've - I think we've all experienced it at one point or another in our lives - their first sessions with their practitioner might be trying to identify why they feel that way exactly, what sort of situations are more likely to make them feel that way or provoke a stronger emotional reaction, and also what type of behaviors they have as a reaction to either their thoughts or their emotions, and once you've been able to identify a bit of the root causes and behaviors in question for this sort of situation, you can try and find ways to, for example, disprove, challenge these thoughts. So, a lot of them are catastrophic thinking. For example, you know, I already feel like I'm an impulse around my position. If I make one mistake during a presentation with my boss and coworkers, everyone's going to know it's a sham. Everyone will know it's a sham, so CBT, a technique you might use with a practitioner, is saying, "Hey, here's my prediction, here are what my thoughts are telling me that it is going to happen in this situation. I'm going to make a fool of myself. I won't get the promotion I've been waiting for, because they're going to realize I'm in competence. You're going to make a prediction during the events, check in every once a while, and say, "Hey, has my prediction come true? And then, after the event, you're going to go back to what you wrote down at the start and say, "Did I validate or invalidate my prediction? And oftentimes, you're going to invalidate
Speaker 3 17:17
it,
Speaker 2 17:18
and at that point, you can actually start to take a step back from these negative thought patterns and say, hey, each time I have these predictions, they don't come true, or the consequences are not as catastrophic as my brain is telling me, and it can take some of the power out of it, which in that turn, since thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all connected, it can lessen the negative emotional reactions, and it can change your behaviors.
Speaker 1 17:45
Wow. Okay, so I'm fascinated with this, because it's a lot of information.
Speaker 3 17:48
Yeah,
Speaker 1 17:49
it was great. It was so clear. It makes me realize that what you're actually doing with CBT is having someone almost like collect data, like you're almost doing research on yourself, you're saying, here's my theory, here's my hypothesis, and then you're tracking yourself as you're going through it to prove or disprove
Speaker 2 18:06
that's exactly what you're doing, you're really taking the position of a scientist. So, in a more structured exercise, let's say you're invited out to get together with a bunch of people you don't really know, and you're nervous about it, you know, being the odd one now, not having things in common with anybody, maybe embarrassing yourself, saying the wrong thing before going to this party. Ask yourself the first question, like we did in the earlier example. Ask, what are these worries? What am I worried is going to happen? Second question is, take a moment to consider, how likely is it that these worries will come true. Third question, if my worries do come true, what's the worst that could happen? And the fourth question, if they do come true, what's most likely to really happen? And if they come true, what are the chances I'll be okay? And then once again, during and after the event, you're going to go and either validate or invalidate your predictions.
Speaker 1 19:04
So, does CBT have anything in the way of sort of practices that help you to stay present during the event? Because often that's a tough one,
Speaker 2 19:13
that's a more tough one, and that's where I was going to segue into another type of therapeutic approach that goes hand in hand with CBT, which is acceptance and commitment therapy, act therapy. I don't know if you've heard of that one.
Speaker 1 19:27
Well, let's, let's go there. I mean, it's here right now. Tell me a little bit about, about what you're talking about there.
Speaker 2 19:33
So, it's another empirically based type of psychotherapy that really focuses on acceptance and mindfulness, mindfulness strategies, along with commitment and behavior change strategies that can really help us break bad habits, start and maintain new, healthier behaviors, and just feel better in life. So, compared to CBT, which more aims to teach us how to better control our thoughts and feelings. Act therapy really teaches people to notice our thoughts and feelings and accept them.
Speaker 1 20:05
Yeah, yeah, and that's so key, right? Because I always talk about, like, self-acceptance is different than self-improvement, and I think we often conflate those two, and there's this beautiful way in which, if we're willing to just sort of almost like hover alongside ourselves in that situation, and I often talk to my clients about, you know, building the awareness muscle, like the more that we can actually practice presence through, you know, and this can be accompanied by meditation practices and mindfulness practices, they will all help us to develop that, that when we are wanting to undertake something like CBT, it sounds like it would be so much more effective in alignment with that other therapy, which is building your awareness, so that you can actually be in the midst of something that you could argue would be a bit of a triggering situation, enough that you can actually pay attention to what's happening to you when it's happening
Speaker 2 21:02
exactly.
Speaker 1 21:03
Okay, so I want to just like, there's this thing that I often do with clients when they're talking about their sort of internal barriers or particular worry they have. You use the word root cause, that that's something that you would go back to in CBT therapy. So I know a lot of people in my practice roll their eyes at the thought of, like, okay, tell me about your childhood, and I don't do that. I mean, you know, every once in a while I will invite someone to just consider a memory that might come up in relation to something and be curious about that. But when you say root cause, what do you mean? How far back are we going here?
Speaker 2 21:41
So, it's a good thing you're asking me to clarify it, because I was more in the lingo of CBT, root cause. CBT is really problem-focused, as I said, so it's looking to give you solutions, it's looking to give you tools, coping mechanisms. Root cause could go back to childhood, but that's not necessarily what interests you be. The root cause is something we're going to be looking to in a way of behaving and functioning that seems to be a common cause for different situations, a pattern, right? Let's call it a root pattern, or
Speaker 1 22:16
okay,
Speaker 2 22:17
more like that.
Speaker 1 22:18
So, would that be like the root cause, in the example of the leader who is feeling like major imposter syndrome, the root cause would actually be that insecurity, that recognition of that insecurity, and not necessarily the fact that when they were sitting at the dinner table as the youngest of three children, you know, they were always getting over, like, so that's the distinction you're making there with root cause,
Speaker 2 22:40
that's the distinction I'm trying to make. Of course, we can't really reduce somebody's experience to a problem in the present moment as an adult, as a professional, and say that there is no link, that there's no relationship to something that happened in the childhood. No, everyone's affected differently, everyone has different childhoods, but when we're talking about this in CBT, we're mainly focusing on all right, this person doesn't feel very confident, they feel insecure, they feel like an imposter, so the roots cause there would more be insecurity, lack of self-confidence, we could say,
Speaker 1 23:15
right? Do you think that there would be, and I'm kind of segwaying a little, deviating a little, but it's just lighting up a lot of areas of my brain as I'm listening to you. Do you think it's possible that that person who finds themselves in that situation of maybe a little bit in over their head that that might actually be something that they've found in their life perhaps before? Like, do people tend to find the same problematic patterns?
Speaker 2 23:39
That's a really good question, so I immediately instinctually want to say yes, but also no. Yeah, exactly right. Yes, but also no. Yes, in the way that if we look at theories of personality, we have some stable traits that personalities were always of all evolving as people as well, so there might be some behavioral mechanisms or some habits that you have in your behavior, your way of thinking that affects your behavior that you can trace just from a person's childhood all the way to later an adult life. For other people, there might be no relationship between these different situations. It's really a personal level, and yes and no.
Speaker 1 24:25
Yeah, I always think of human nature like this giant three-dimensional puzzle, and it's always curiously looking for those little pieces that tie, tie it together and make the roadmap make a little more sense, because it's complex, of course. So, so, Bryn, what do you think on average you're in a different country, you're in France, different culture, but you know, maybe we could just say for a moment people are people. What do you think the average people want to change?
Speaker 2 24:53
Oh, so I think already self-confidence, the fake it tell you, make it attitude, is something that regard. List of me in France or somebody in Canada, though. I think in most Western cultures, and not even just Western culture, but as a human being, we all want to appear confident. But as you said, once you find yourself next to somebody in a vulnerable position who trusts you, they will tell you, I have zero confidence.
Speaker 1 25:19
I'm
Speaker 2 25:19
just faking it. I'm pretending, and we don't realize it, so everyone is faking it around us. And we are seeing these people who appear really confident on the outside, and so we're trying to be like them. We're saying, why am I not as confident as they are, when in reality it's just a mask they're putting on, usually. And some people really do have a lot of self-confidence, which is wonderful, and I envy them, but most of us aren't at that level, so self-confidence is a big one. Also, the inner critic, going back to that in your previous podcast, too, is we are very, very critical of ourselves. Some people are better at being a bit kinder to themselves, but we, most of us, have this internal voice that says things to us that we would never dream of saying to a family member or a loved one, we would never speak like that. Otherwise, we would be completely alone. Nobody would accept that. However, we accept that for ourselves, from ourselves, and that's something that I think a lot of people struggle with and don't realize that there is a possibility to change
Speaker 1 26:24
us. Yeah, now I know that, and I've done a lot of deep diving over the last, I don't know, six months, and learned some fascinating things about the origins of coaching the world that I inhabit, and of course it sort of was birthed on the heels of the human potential movement, and all of the big thinkers that came out of Esalon, and so you know when we talk about like our confidence versus our inner critic, or lack of confidence in our inner critic, you know, there's just sort of this huge kind of, I don't know, almost a zeitgeist of like you can just kind of think yourself into a state of like being a better person and being happier, and you know, and you deserve it, and like there's just so much about.. I'm trying to think of what the line was from my previous podcast, listeners are probably scratching their head, thinking, well, you should know, you wrote it, but it was something like, oh yes, do what you love, and the money will follow, you know, I mean, that strikes at the heart of a really core trigger for people, which is financial stability, and then you're told, like, just do what you love, and, like, you'll find the money. So, all this to say that, in, you know, my two decades of working in coaching, it's largely been a journey of trying to almost clear the leaves from the gutter, in terms of a lot of those things that came out of that human potential movement, were arguably well-meaning, but I would suggest that they were pretty destructive. Certainly, the self-esteem movement in the 80s, which I did a whole storyline on. So, all this to say that I'm really refreshed by hearing you say that you know the average sort of people are struggling with confidence, they're struggling with, you know, a sense of like that inner critic, and they would never speak to their family members that way. So, I guess we know there's no five-step processes, we know there's no magic pill. You've talked about CBT, and you've talked about the other therapy, which can you say, what was the acronym again? At
Speaker 2 28:23
therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy,
Speaker 1 28:25
acceptance and commitment therapy. Yeah, and so at the end of the day, I have like this fantasy that because I've had the privilege of hacking into people's brains for a couple of decades now, and I don't mean their brains, I mean what they tell me, you know, I know that most people don't have it together, and so I have this fantasy that we would be at, like, some outdoor rock concert or something, and all of a sudden, like, all of our, you know, innermost fears and insecurities would suddenly be broadcast above our head in these little thought bubbles, and you know, for the first few seconds, there would be absolute panic and terror, and you know, we're being revealed, and it was horrific, but then all of a sudden something would happen when we'd look around and realize, oh my god, it's the same shit, it's all the same shit, and it would, it would be like that moment, this is my fantasy, this is not reality, and it would be like that moment in the Emperor's new clothes, right, where the little kid goes, he's got nothing on, and then we'd all have a good laugh, and we'd go for a beer, and we'd go on about our life. Clearly, that's not what happens, but I kind of want to segue into something that I referenced in an email to you about this notion of neuroplasticity, because I think there's such great hope in that, because it's a place where I feel like psychology just really does a deep dive into science, and I think in a lot of ways the human potential movement has really softened, you know, human nature and understanding, and taken it out of the credible realm. So, I love the notion of neuropsychology and neuroplasticity. Tell me about your interest in neuroplasticity, Brent.
Speaker 2 30:01
So as I said at the start of the interview, I'm specializing in neuropsychology, and one of the big regions of interest in this in this scientific domain is neuroplasticity. So my specialization goes into more of the evaluation of people who have had strokes, different brain injuries, also neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, other related dementias, Parkinson disease, and so what's really interesting here, that is my main passion field of interest, it's my research project for my master's too, is the neuroplasticity in what we refer to as cognitive reserve, which is a person's individual resilience capacities when they're faced with brain damage, cognitive decline due to regular aging, and how some people are more affected by the exact same brain injury than somebody else, and so neuroplasticity is one of the big factors in this. Neuroplasticity will reinforce and can also augment the number of synaptic connections you have, the amount of dendritic arborization in the neurons. It's not going to get too technical, but some people, depending on their life experiences and their activities that they've done throughout life, might have stronger regions of the brain, stronger connections between neurons, stronger pathways than other people.
Speaker 1 31:27
Is that something that you can manipulate? So, if I, you know, if I, with aging, was losing my cognitive ability, and we found that in testing I was maybe not as neurally plastic as someone else, is that something that that can be manipulated.
Speaker 2 31:43
It can be manipulated to a degree. So the beauty of cognitive reserve is the encouragement of saying, hey, you know, if you've lived a really healthy, active life, you know, you've been physically active, you've done schooling, you have cognitively demanding job, socially active lifestyle, you might have a lessened decline from dementia. You might be able to live longer with less severe clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia, for example. However, this is based on a whole lifetime of accumulating this reserve, and so there is no magic pill, even though we can see our neuroplasticity in some scientific experiments, that the brain, even just within an amount of weeks, can actually take over regions that aren't being used. It was in macaques, I believe, or another primate, where they actually not very ethical, but they cut off either a finger of the macaque or sometimes fuse them together, and you can actually see in the brain regions that correspond to the different fingers that when the fingers are fused together, the area responsible for finger one sensuality and finger two sensuality actually merge together, so we can actually really observe this at a at a level with with IRM things like that, really impressive. However, realistically, for people wanting to improve their brain function, there's no overnight pill, but if you put in place good habits in life, then you know it's never too late. It's better late than never. It's not going to do any harm,
Speaker 1 33:19
so it's not like I should, you know, they always say pick up, like, learn another language or something, like that's the best sort of workout for your brain. It's not like I can suddenly decide to, you know, parfait or something, that's not going to necessarily do it. It sounds longer term,
Speaker 2 33:35
it is longer term, but anything that's going to stimulate your brain, the best recommendations really regard anything that's going to tap into what we call executive functioning, which are really the higher up, more complex brain functions in our prefrontal cortex that we use for problem solving when we find ourselves in new situations where our regular habitual responses won't cut
Speaker 1 34:01
it,
Speaker 2 34:01
so anything that's really stimulating you, you know, even crosswords, if you enjoy them, crosswords, hiking, geocaching, anything that's going to take you out of your routine and put you in a situation where you have to actively, consciously problem solve, or really think about it to get to your, to obtain your objective, those are all going to be great for your brain. There's no miracle solution, but that's really, really helpful.
Speaker 1 34:30
Hey, you're listening to the Squeeze, and if you like what you're hearing, there's a whole world of citrus couching to discover. We've got an online leadership program, it's called Citrus You, and it features those three key tools you need to be a better leader, well, to be a better human. We also have a number of mini learning bundles that you can get into, and there's plenty more. If you're interested, you can follow us on Instagram, or check out our website at www dot citruscoach. Dot com, and the show resumes now. It sounds a lot like some of the research that I've been doing for another podcast, excuse me, on Bayesian inference theory, and this notion of, like, the more you can expose yourself to new situations, new conversations, new communities, new people, the more you're actually sort of training your brain to predict differently in the future, so that you know, and the term that I reference a lot is priors, you know, you're basically representation of all your prior experiences, and so on the reason I'm curious and interested in this topic, you know, so, so it's great. I want to keep my cognitive flexibility, but I think more important to me is watching our incredibly polarized culture around us, and it's, I think, there's all kinds of negative impacts when we can't have a conversation with somebody across the so-called aisle, and so what I was really driven by was my curiosity of like how do you change your mind and I know that we are now also leaning on the CBT that you were talking about, so there's there's some some inroads there, and what I came across in reading about Bayesian inference was just this notion that you know that you, the brain, is actually not reacting, but that it is in fact predicting, and it is predicting based on those priors, and that those priors, if you're in a very, you know, sort of homogenized culture where you're not really having your beliefs challenged, you're not really leaving your community much, that for people like that that hold a particular position that they tend to be more emotionally identified with that those are the people that we see in the news, those are the people we see online that are, you know, you know, creating huge amounts of vitriol if people don't agree, and they're even unwilling to have the conversation because it seems that their priors are just so, so static because they've been reinforced and reinforced and reinforced. Now, I don't know if what I'm saying is in alignment with your obvious superior educational understanding of the brain, but I am curious, like, what do you make of what I'm talking about here?
Speaker 2 37:20
So, basically, what it makes me think of right away is all of our cognitive biases. So, first of all, to go back to what you said about our brain's predictive mechanisms, the human experience and our environment is so complex with so many different stimuli, we can't integrate and process everything right. So, our brain really, it's an evolutionary function for predictive things. We categorize things, we are going to look and say, hey, you know, this thing has an outline of a cat, it's kind of far away, probably a cat makes sense, because our brain could not handle all of the information that surrounds us without these shortcuts, you could say,
Speaker 1 38:02
right.
Speaker 2 38:03
However, our cognitive biases are also going to guide us in the way that we're going to select and process information, while maybe putting other information to the side,
Speaker 1 38:14
right. So, like a confirmation bias,
Speaker 2 38:17
exactly. So, we're going to confirmation bias into negativity biases, and really the confirmation bias here is most pertinent to your example, and when we get down to the root of it, there's no way to make to make somebody change their mind if they're rooted in their ideas, and the more that we push, the more they're probably going to close into their ideas,
Speaker 1 38:40
yeah, yeah, well, and that's what I found, and so you know, I don't know if you've been dabbling in Chat GPT at all. And, of course, I've got another whole research thing that's going to happen with that, so stay tuned for that. What I, what I found on Chat GPT was actually some, not some bad, not bad recommendations for actually having a conversation with someone who's incredibly rooted and perhaps having an oversized confirmation bias, and I've actually experienced this in my practice as well, that particularly in situations where I've been brought in to work with people who are mandated, maybe didn't choose to talk to me, is that more listening, less talking, that more curiosity, less judgment, more respect. You know, all of the.. it's like it's patent, like we understand this. It's, but it's true. I think it's very, very effective if somebody is sensing that I'm actually creating a psychologically safe space for them without judgment, etc. I actually do find that people do tend to soften into that. I mean, I've had hell of a situations in the back in the past where I was working with groups who had been coming through massive labor disputes and were mandated to sit in a room with me. I had one guy sit with his back to me for the entire day, he would not look at me as I was. You know, facilitating the group in how we work through conflict or something like that, and it wasn't till the end of the day that I just called him aside, and I had no agenda, no judgment. My work day was done, I'd been paid, and I just came to him with that curiosity, and I said, "Wow, like what was it like to spend a day like that? Like, I'm just heartfelt curious. Turned into a two hour long conversation, where he probably spilled more in that two hours with me than maybe he had in, you know, have having gone through this whole labor dispute. So there's a way in which I think that our way of being with somebody can be super useful in creating that psychologically safe space where they may trust enough to relax, and then my story goes, you can correct me if I'm wrong, that when they do relax and actually talk, that that is when shifts are possible for them, whether they decide to go with it or not. But that's the greatest likelihood of when they might actually see their bias. I don't know. What do you think?
Speaker 2 41:00
100% in a very simplified way, put it, of course, you know, with reality
Speaker 1 41:06
simplification person,
Speaker 2 41:09
but of course, it, when you put somebody in a position where they feel comfortable, they feel heard, respected, they're going to be much more likely to open up and share their thoughts, their ideas, their convictions, compared to another situation where that person might be fearful of being judged, might feel, you know, aggressiveness from the other person. If you provide that safe space and a place of respect, mutual respect, and understanding, and listening, yeah, you're gonna get a lot more out of it. You might not change that person's mind, but the I try and go go with the idea that I'm not trying to change anybody's mind in the first place, but if I can also expose them to something that I strongly believe in, here we can get into the gray zone of manipulation, if we want to go into social psychology, of course, but if I strongly believe in something, let's say I'm worried about a friend who's gotten themselves and themselves into a bad position, and I see a way that I believe could really help them to get themselves out of that situation. If I can come to a place of discussion with them where I can say, hey, you know, have you thought about looking at it this way, they might not accept my point of view, but if I can just plant a little seed in there, that maybe they can use it one day, if or when they feel the need to use it, then you know that's great, and if they don't want my information, my opinion, that's totally fine too.
Speaker 1 42:37
Yeah, well, I really like the lack of ego in that, because oftentimes when I hear people talk about their conversations with friends, maybe more gender specifically women, I don't know, I'm going on a skinny branch there, where you know, friend A has problem, friend B says, "Oh my god, here's what you should do, la la la, if you definitely do this, la la la, and then, of course, friend A doesn't do it, and then the next time they get together for coffee, friend B goes, well, well, you should do it, and then the relationship starts being kind of like hanging in the balance of whether friend A does what friend B is telling them to do, and I've, I've had people show up on my doorstep with coaching needs, and we unpack it, and I realize they are friend B, and they are just in an absolute, you know, knots about this relationship that's going to be over, because this person has, like, you know, I've tried to help them, and they just want to be in that situation, and a complete and utter failure to see their own part in that, and so that's the quintessential opposite of what you were saying, which is just like, take my advice or not, like it's entirely up to you, because I have a theory, and again, so much of who I am and what I do. I mean, sure, I've got some credentials, but I'm also largely self-taught from being voraciously observant about people, is that when people really have that agenda for us, like friend B wants me to leave my boyfriend, there's like a part where I can't almost help resisting them because they're telling me what to do, and does that, is that backed up in psychology? Is there a term for that? Is there something you could pull?
Speaker 2 44:12
There's not necessarily a term, but yeah, it's also pretty 100% backed up. We like to control our environments, you know. They, everyone wants a certain level of control over their environment. It makes things easier, makes things predictable, and we feel a control. No, it's the whole question of free will, which we're not going to get into that debate of if we have free will or not. That's a, that's a whole other multiple series
Speaker 1 44:39
episode. Here we
Speaker 2 44:40
go, but we like to have the illusion of free will, at least. And so, if we have somebody telling us how to live our lives, they don't know how we feel, they don't know our thoughts. Obviously, we're gonna need our backup about it. We're not going to want to listen to them, and maybe do the exact opposite, keep doing what we're doing, just to show them that we're not listening. It's a pretty normal human reaction,
Speaker 1 45:02
yeah.
Speaker 2 45:03
And it's one that sometimes is justified, whether on an actual logical or maybe more of an emotional justified level. And sometimes it's better to try and pass through that and not have that knee-jerk reaction, however, that requires, as you said, putting your ego aside, and it's much easier said than done.
Speaker 1 45:25
Yeah, definitely. Wow. So, um, I want to just jog back to the brain a bit selfishly, because I'm doing some research into that topic right now. For this upcoming episode, I was really fascinated with the notion of tuning and pruning, in terms of how the brain changes, so you know, I don't know if that's in the neighborhood of what you're studying, but what I'm really curious about, so the way I make sense of it is, in fact, no, I'm not going to make sense of it, that's why I got you here, so tell me about how the brain changes with these two terms of tuning and pruning,
Speaker 2 46:02
so I'm assuming if we're on the same page for talking more about neural tuning and pruning, right? Yes, awesome. Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, so if we go back to a few minutes ago when I was giving examples about cognitive reserve, how we can really strengthen certain neural net connections and certain neural pathways, that is exactly tuning improvement. Okay, so tuning, you could liken it to let's say you learn how to ride a bike at the start, you're maybe this is very schematic, it's not exactly how it works in the brain, but let's say at the start you're going to activate a certain pathway of neuronal activations, and then the more and more you practice it, and ride and bite becomes automatic, you're strengthening this neural pathway, and so it becomes that much easier to access that information in your brain, and in this case, put that action motion, and the pruning, so it'll be the connections on dendritic areas, which are basically like the branches of a tree on the neuron that are going to connect to other neurons and send information and communicate, so at the start of our life, you know, when you're a small child, you have tons of dendrites connecting everywhere, and then, depending on how you use them, they're going to maybe be pruned in certain areas, saying, you know, we don't need that connection, but this branch I'm maybe going to put a bit more energy into
Speaker 3 47:24
it,
Speaker 2 47:25
and maybe grow it a bit bigger.
Speaker 1 47:28
Yeah, so it's energy management. It sounds like
Speaker 2 47:31
basically it's not resumed, only that again very simple resume of it, but yeah, it's energy management efficiency,
Speaker 1 47:41
so it's why I don't necessarily remember my French from grade 12,
Speaker 2 47:47
not necessarily efficiency. Memory is also very motivation related.
Speaker 1 47:54
Okay, so this is where it's.. I can see this could become a little more complex, and because I'm hungry for complexity doesn't mean my listeners are so I'm gonna actually bring this right back into this, because we got talking at the beginning, really around, you know, how I was using Freud's trio to help people manage their inner critic, and how you had brought this idea of CBT, and we talked through what CBT is, and how that can be really useful, how it works in conjunction with act therapy, so a lot of similarities to some of the work that I've done with clients around mindfulness and meditation, just to help you be like really present, so that as you're going through the triggering event, or the, you know, the emotional event, you're actually able to be aware of yourself, almost third person yourself as you're going through it, we talked about some examples. We made the distinction between root cause, not necessarily, you know, you as a three year old, but maybe just your insecurity in the boardroom. We talked about, you know, what are the sort of most common things that people want to change about themselves, and, you know, you said that the confidence piece, and excuse me, absolutely, that sort of I'm just blanking on it, the confidence and the, yeah, that imposter syndrome, and that inner critic was a big part of that, and then we sort of took a little side road over into the neuroplasticity, so I guess sort of as we start to kind of wrap up, because I want to be conscious of time. I know that in leadership, which is where I largely work, there are like a host of new leadership titles that all have to do with neuropsychology, like David Rock has the scarf model, you know, there's the brain that changed itself, that's Norman Doidge, he's a psychiatrist, so there's lots and lots coming out, and I also know my industry well enough to know that it's always the next best thing, and so people are always hungry for that next sort of really cool scientific insight that we can use, but I'm struck that the brain is an incredibly cool. Complex piece of machinery that you know, yes, we're gaining, but I guess from your vantage point, I don't want you to give me any sort of five step process, and I know that you're, you're not trying to, right, you're saying there is no magic pill, but if you were to sort of think about the leadership clients, the that sort of type of person that I'm working with. What do you think would be something that would be really heartening for them to understand about themselves from sort of a neuropsychology perspective? I'm just sort of winging this last question. Yeah, well, I'm
Speaker 2 50:36
going to wing my last answer.
Speaker 1 50:37
Great, I love it.
Speaker 2 50:39
What I would encourage them to understand, going back to cognitive biases, is the negativity bias, which means that our brain is going to focus more and accord more importance, more weight to negative things out of a situation, for example, than the positive things. So, when your brain's telling you, you know, that presentation that I gave at work, you know, I was fumbling, I was looking for my words. You're going to hang on to that and not look at all the great parts of your presentation, and chances are the people who were watching you probably don't remember you fumbling. That's probably not what they're hanging on to out of the presentation.
Speaker 1 51:19
Yeah,
Speaker 2 51:20
so just remember that, and be kind with yourself. Your brain is giving you a hard time, but it's not necessarily objectively accurate.
Speaker 1 51:28
I love that your brain is giving you a hard time. So, that's when you have your performance review, and you get 30 good things and one bad thing, and the only thing you remember is the bad thing,
Speaker 2 51:36
that is negativity bias. Exactly.
Speaker 1 51:38
Yeah, and what's interesting is that I work a lot in healthcare, and in healthcare, there's a very diagnostic mentality, right? So we actually are seeking what is the bad thing, but the problem is that it spills over into everything. Obviously, it's not just limited to folks in healthcare, but that it is just human wide. So I love that. Let's not be so hard on ourselves, because our brain is just doing its thing, it's doing its negative bias, it's like trying to keep us safe, but it's overshooting a bit. Maybe I don't know, I don't know if you
Speaker 2 52:09
was maybe good at a certain point in the revolution, you know, hunter gatherers, but yeah, not as useful now. Yeah, as it's time and place, but it's a bit overexcited.
Speaker 1 52:18
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I quite like it. It's sort of like we are Fred Flintstone in George Edson's world, so we are old evolution, but we're like inundated with these incredibly complex scenarios. Yeah,
Speaker 2 52:33
so instead of an anxiety reaction for, you know, being hunted by a tiger, now we have anxiety about going to a performance review, for example.
Speaker 1 52:41
100% I love that, and I would love to have you come back and just riff some more, because I think that what you're onto and what I'm into, it's certainly overlapping, and I love the rigor and the science that you bring to it, because I think it just elevates the work that I'm trying to do to support my leaders to be kinder to themselves, so you heard it here first. Be kind to yourself, and I won't be, you know, just like flogging that dead horse. That's not a very nice metaphor to end on. Anyway, Bryn, it's a pleasure. I was joking with Bryn earlier that I'm gonna have to nickname this the Nepo podcast, because she is in fact related to me, but I really appreciate your insights. I am so excited to follow along with you on this path of education, and where this ends up. Do you think you'll go on to a PhD after this?
Speaker 2 53:35
Still up in the air, it's not gonna lie, I'm getting to the end of my master's, I'm going to be a licensed clinical psychologist in France. As of next year, I might take a little break before going on a PhD.
Speaker 1 53:48
All right. Well, we'll stay tuned with you. So, thanks so much for being our guest today, Bryn. And I will put all kinds of different things in the show notes for listeners who want to listen, and until next time, so you've been listening to The Squeeze. Thanks for joining us today. If you want to continue tuning in, don't forget to click subscribe, and as always, we want to hear your thoughts, your comments, your feedback, and challenges. If there's anything you don't agree with. Thanks for joining us. And see you next time.
Unknown Speaker 54:28
Bye.