The Neural River

Think about how valleys are formed, a flow of water gradually forming its path. But it doesn't happen overnight - one bucket tossed will not a valley make. But a thousand buckets, continuously, over time - that will. Once a river forms a valley it will want to follow it. And that valley will get deeper, and deeper.

Many people become frustrated with psychotherapy. The advice they are given is not producing noticeable results. Our thoughts and neural pathways work like these rivers and valleys.

The brain is a complex network of neural connections. Think of our these as the valleys and our thoughts as the water. The flow of our thoughts creates new pathways, though deep routes do not happen immediately. This is especially true when trying to change a way of thinking that already exists. Trying to redirect a river out of a valley is not a small feat and not one that can be accomplished with a single tossed bucket.

Our brains will try to justify their current state. They will rationalize why this state of being is appropriate, or inevitable. This is natural.

It is the natural order of the universe, of everything, to follow the path of least resistance. Our brain circuitry is no different. The path of least resistance is the one that already exists.

To change something that is on a undesirable path, including our thinking, we have to go against that order. We have to do it by redirecting the river where we want it to go. At first, this will difficult. The water wants to follow its old path and does not yet have a new one. But with continual small changes, it will form over time, through single gallons that individually may seem to do nothing.

Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all interlinked. By slowly changing the course of that neural river, our thoughts, we can change ourselves as a whole.

This is how cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) works.

Modeling the Mind

In psychological science, there are different approaches, or perspectives, different people bring to the field. As a science, psychology is descriptive. A true scientist doesn't actually 'prove' anything, they use methodological rigor to seek a consistent result under a particular set of circumstances.

Truth is consistency.

These results then serve as evidence to theories. These theories are what most people think of when describing findings. 'Study shows that sleep is important to memorization.' Well, yes and no. The study showed that people scored higher on a test if they slept beforehand. We extrapolate from that that sleep is important to memorization. (Alternative extrapolations could include: sleep reduces stress, sleep deprivation impairs general functioning, etc. These possibilities are narrowed down by repeating testing the same hypothesis with different methods that control for alternative explanations.)

But then comes the question of how. And in attempts to explain multiple findings and multiple theories, psychologists develop models. Although few scientists will disagree with the raw data of a well-designed study, they may disagree on which model best accounts for results in the larger scheme. Models are statistically tested for goodness of fit, which helps lend some objective credence to them, but ultimately they are based on incomplete information. Most of these models are focused on a concept, and highly abstracted, such as the various models of memory. They look kinda like this. Here's a more detailed explanation of one you may be familiar with.