Sometimes Positive Thinking has Negative Results

Oliver Burkeman at the NYT writes about the debacle that is the Tony Robbins firewalking fiasco when two dozen people ended up needing to be treated for severe burns (see for his piece).

Obviously, the power of positive thinking alone isn’t enough to protect one from burns. Well, actually, if the pit is prepared properly then the laws of physics are already in place to protect folks (hint, walk briskly without keeping the feet in one place overlong).

And yet a number of folks involved with the event as well as the victims themselves are participating in victim-shaming that they didn’t believe enough and they didn’t focus. That may or may not have been the case but it’s pretty much a bullshit move. Personally, while I fully understand that firewalking pits can be very safe, I am against using them as First they don’t actually demonstrate the genuine power of mental focus or positive thought and Second there are a whole lot of things that can go wrong. Personally, I know there are plenty of very safe methods one can use to demonstrate the power of the mind (see the umpteen thousand videos on my site here).

Now, Burkeman takes it further and offers up a critique and a blast on the entire concept of positive thinking versus negative thinking and how sometimes positive thinking gurus cause a lot more damage than they repair. It’s not just about wishful thinking folks, you don’t change your world with just a thought, you do a bit more for genuine change.

Some of Burkeman’s points are based upon the standard sceptic’s kneejerk but he offers up some genuinely interesting and worthwhile research as well. For instance, sometimes positive thinking DOES have negative effects:

According to research by the psychologist Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues, visualizing a successful outcome, under certain conditions, can make people less likely to achieve it. She rendered her experimental participants dehydrated, then asked some of them to picture a refreshing glass of water. The water-visualizers experienced a marked decline in energy levels, compared with those participants who engaged in negative or neutral fantasies. Imagining their goal seemed to deprive the water-visualizers of their get-up-and-go, as if they’d already achieved their objective.

Or, the use of affirmations:

Or take affirmations, those cheery slogans intended to lift the user’s mood by repeating them: “I am a lovable person!” “My life is filled with joy!” Psychologists at the University of Waterloo concluded that such statements make people with low self-esteem feel worse — not least because telling yourself you’re lovable is liable to provoke the grouchy internal counterargument that, really, you’re not.

Or even goal setting which is oft-encouraged in management training wishful thinking seminars:

Even goal setting, the ubiquitous motivational technique of managers everywhere, isn’t an undisputed boon. Fixating too vigorously on goals can distort an organization’s overall mission in a desperate effort to meet some overly narrow target, and research by several business-school professors suggests that employees consumed with goals are likelier to cut ethical corners.

Actually, there are some rather solid philosophical underpinnings being confirmed by recent neuroscience research . . . no, not the Stoic let’s abhor life approach Burkeman seems to support but some other stuff.

If isn’t just about goals or wishful positive thinking. Actually, positive thinking alone can lead to some rather nasty results, for instance “social critic Barbara Ehrenreich has persuasively argued that the all-positive approach, with its rejection of the possibility of failure, helped bring on our present financial crises. The psychological evidence, backed by ancient wisdom, certainly suggests that it is not the recipe for success that it purports to be.”

However, if one approaches things in an action-based approach such as posited by William James (more on a later post) and Henry David Theroux who said “They say you build castles in the air, so what, that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them” essentially stating dreams are fine as long as your provide resources and foundation and do the work to realize them.

Actually, in November, I will be teaching a seminar here in Taiwan at a Holiday Resort . . . a full weekend devoted to the AS IF Changework Model that is based squarely upon recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, a foundation of action coupled with appropriate Envision and visualization techniques. Obviously, more on that later.

If you’re in Taipei and interested in hypnosis, check the services page linked to in the top left sidebar. Not in Taipei? Check the store for recordings in the same menu area as well as links to lots and lots of info and goodies. Of course, browsing this site will bring you to a digital ton of positive resources on a wide variety of topics as well.

Brian
www.BrianDavidPhillips.com

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