Skip the introduction and take me to the table of contents

If you have just stumbled across IronShrink.com, allow me to introduce myself and my mind. (My mind accompanies me on most endeavors. I mean that differently than you might expect. Let’s come back to that.)

I am a licensed psychologist who writes online articles of monumental importance. For example, have you ever wondered if dogs can read or whether your ex-wife might be possessed? Look no further, my friend. The answers to these vital questions are at your fingertips.

This little corner of the website – User’s Guide for a Human Mind – is a place for articles of a different nature. Here, I hope to actually accomplish something useful by offering a few words to ease afflictions of the heart and mind.

I’m working from the notion that you, like myself, have a mind that follows you through life offering a constant running commentary about you and the world. A mind can be a difficult thing to live with.

In some ways, the mind is easy to control. I can choose to think about what I want, when I want. Right now, I’m choosing to think about donut holes. I like donut holes.

In other ways, minds are downright willful and insolent. They think their own thoughts, without permission, and usually with impeccably bad timing. My last attempt at public speaking comes to mind. As I stood in front of a crowd, ready to begin my presentation, my mind gave me these thoughts:

You’re going to forget what to say. You need a haircut. Is your fly open?

I did not want those thoughts. They were not helpful. Thanks a lot, Spanky.

Did I mention that I call my mind Spanky? It seems an apt name for something that is always at the ready with a quick jab at self-confidence. Spanky the self-defeating mind.

Sometimes minds go far beyond self-deprecation. They can convince us that we are damaged and unlovable, or that we cannot do something within our power, or that the world is more dangerous than it is. Minds can occasionally be downright dangerous, as when they convince us that the only solution to a problem is suicide. Minds can be that persuasive.

But here is my bias toward minds: they are here to help us. No matter how irrational or unhelpful a thought seems, I believe it is the mind’s attempt to keep us right-side-up and breathing.

The trick, I think, is to learn when to listen to the mind and how to ignore it during those times when it is unhelpful. That is a tall order but it can be done, and life can be easier when we are no longer beholden to the incessant noise of an overly-protective mind.

This user’s guide is meant to offer some guidance toward that end. Be forewarned, though. I am no guru. The closest I’ve ever come to a guru was sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall. (That was last year - thanks, Santa!)

Nor am I a genius. That should be fairly obvious. I’m just a simple shrink who has helped quite a few people come to terms with their own minds. What I offer here is grounded in behaviorism and evolutionary psychology. If you care about such things, there will be references along the way.

User’s Guide for a Human Mind is a work in progress, to be updated erratically. I hope you’ll check back for new articles below, and please let me know what you think.

July 5, 2008: Choices and Mandates - I have mastered the bean.