Maggie - Coyle - Epilogue

 First of all, I think it was very clever to apply the entire theme and topic of this book to other important and applicable aspects of the readers lives. It's a very interesting point that all those basic expectations of living are neural circuits to be myelinated. Not very many people consider the fact that parenting is a skill to be learned, practiced, and improved (which is terrifying and causes a lot of hurt in children, but I won't get into that), preferably BEFORE having kids. There was only one spot that I had a hard time clicking and agreeing with. As a psych minor, I am no stranger to cognitive behavioral therapy and its benefits to the scene of mental health. However, on page 213, Ellis's ideas being inspired by the philosopher Epictetus is discussed and Epictetus is quoted: "It's not events, but our opinions about them, which cause us suffering." In my behavior class (and in many of my other past psychology classes), it's taught that human behavior comes from both nature and nurture. The way humans learn to behave a certain way throughout life is how they adapt to their experiences. For example, patients with PTSD don't choose to have an opinion about the event that happened to them which then causes them suffering. Which is why I had a hard time connecting with this statement. There are some behaviors that are inherited such as shyness (as mentioned in the book), basic survival reflexes, eating when hungry, etc. but so many other behaviors are learned through a basic Pavlovian conditioning that we don't even know we're taking part in our entire lives. Anyway, that's just a little rant about how creating a box around so many human behaviors is incredibly inaccurate and discredits a lot of suffering people don't choose to experience because of their opinions. Though I do appreciate the description of mastering easier challenges that gradually get harder to combat those behaviors. In behavior analysis this is called graduated exposure therapy and is very common! This book points out that exposure therapy is just the wrapping of myelin on new circuits to heal/change negative behavior!

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