Psychology Has It Backwards

Most of current psychology focuses on the details of people's thinking -- paying attention to negative thought content, encouraging positive thought content; suggesting journaling "important" thoughts, etc.  Working with the details of our thoughts is after the fact; once we've thought something, we experience that thought as real, and the more we think about it, the more &quot...

The "information age" has pulled society into the intellect and the pace of life has lessened our respect for quiet, for reflection.  As a result, we are divided by beliefs into rigid groups, or separated from family members, friends and colleagues by the ideas we like.   Humanity feels fractured.  We can reconnect with the understanding that the gift of thought we all have -- to create...

Because we have become accustomed to mental illness being difficult and complicated to diagnose and treat, the idea that all diagnoses arise from a common problem, the innocent misuse of our power to think, seems ridiculously simple.  But the Principles reduce the complexity of all the thinking that has been done about our psychology and ourselves to the simplicity of creation: we are born through...

There's an expression in the Mental Health field: "Flight Into Health."  It describes a sense that dramatic improvement in a person's level of mental well-being can't last.  People are often confounded when others have an insight that results in a shift in consciousness — for example, realizing that they are spending a great deal of time analyzing their negative thoughts,...

As we understand more how our thoughts create our moods, and how our moods are a barometer to the quality of our thinking, we are less and less frightened by our low moods.  Although it appears as though they are "caused" by people or events around us, they are actually just the shadow of our thinking.  Moods lose their importance when we see that they are just as illusory as our ever-ch...

Therapists working from the assumption that external events create our anxiety and suffering take it upon themselves to help clients solve problems, change their lives, or figure out new ways to adjust to circumstances.  In the process, without meaning to, clients can become dependent on their therapists to deal with their lives, and therapists can become exhausted as problems pile up.  They feel...

The common view of therapy is that people with problems seek therapy to get help solving their problems.  Three Principles practitioners are unique in that the goal of our work is not solving particular problems or helping clients get over them, but rather, finding happiness and peace of mind regardless of external circumstances.  We assist clients to find their innate resilience and power to addr...

Most of us got the message growing up that success is an outcome of making and adhering to careful plans.  A deeper understanding of how our minds work, of the Principles, leads us to realize that having a direction, or intention, is helpful, but detailed plans keep the intellect busy and judgmental.  That holds wisdom at bay.  Deep listening, and patience to wait until an action or decision arise...

Sydney Banks always told people, "Just be you. Just be ordinary."  Many people thought he was advising mediocrity.  But he was not.  He was advising understanding that each one of us is born with the power to think our way through the life we can imagine; no two people are alike.  It doesn't help us to compare ourselves to others or to aspire to be more like x-person we admire.  Jus...

Understanding the Three Principles leads to mental well-being and allows for it to be sustained and strengthened throughout our lifetime.  The Principles explain a universal fact: we all use the power of Mind to create our own Thought, and Consciousness enables us to experience our perception of our life as real.  Once we recognize that we are the creators of our individual realities, we can navig...

Much is written about personality disorders.  With an understanding of the Principles, we can see that what we call personality disorders are the best efforts of extremely insecure people to define and control themselves.  They either create a fantastic idea of themselves and present to the world as perfect, always right, and better/smarter than everyone else or they create a victim story in which...

Some people get upset with life or disappointed in themselves if relationships don't turn out the way they hoped or planned. People get locked into bad feelings and find they have trouble "getting over" the relationship. In fact, as soon as a relationship ends, "it" is over. From then on, we are locked in a relationship with our own memories. It helps to see how easily we...

Planning and goal-setting are highly recommended techniques for life success. We offer a different view. The ability to have a successful experience of life is intrinsic to all human beings; it is recognizing and following our wisdom instead of getting locked into our personal thinking about what should happen and then struggling to make it work out. It makes sense to have a direction, an intentio...

We started "Psychology Has It Backwards: The Program" to give people who follow our podcasts an opportunity to meet with us and explore their questions and ideas more deeply. We wanted to help therapists understand our work; help people who are trying to find ease in life get experience with the ideas and interact with others who are finding more peace; and show people learning to work w...

Disagreements are a head-on collision of thoughts. When two people (or groups, organizations, nations) who see the world differently confront each other's ideas, the result is often misunderstanding (or anger, alienation, war). Without understanding, thoughts look not only real, but clearly right, to us. The Principles bring us back to our common humanity with the understanding that thinking...

Think of the intellect, our personal mind, as our individual library, collections of everything we've learned or thought about, representing all we know so far. It is what allows us to study and learn, to do our work, to remember how to get around places, to recall people we know, to enjoy reminiscing, and also to scare ourselves with recollections of our difficulties or bad experiences. We d...

We talk about Innate Health as fundamental to the effect of the Principles. It's good to stop to appreciate what a gift it is to mankind. Innate Health is the spiritual core of well-being that cannot be touched by the circumstances of our life. It is our intuitive knowing that we're OK, deep-down, and we can rise above our problems. It's the resource that allows us to survive and th...

Many people think it is important to love yourself to understand love. We would say trying to love yourself involves a lot of thinking about yourself, and dealing with judgments. When we connect with the spiritual nature of Mind, Consciousness and Thought, the life power before the formation of ideas and judgments, the FEELING of love, a universal, non-contingent contentment and appreciation for l...

Mental Health approaches often contain "toolboxes," collections of tips and techniques to help you get through various psychological situations.  From the standpoint of the 3P, we are born with the only tool we need to regain and sustain our well-being and peace of mind: the power of Thought.  Once we understand and own that power and realize that we are the creators of our own experienc...

Some treatments for those who have experienced trauma assume that past trauma manifests in people's bodies, and creates chronic pain or discomfort. From a 3P perspective, trauma is not a "thing" or a "condition;" it is a memory, images carried forward through time which come to life as feelings via consciousness when the thought is present. The brain and the body and our p...

Mental illness diagnoses are actually snapshots of times when someone is caught up in dysfunctional thinking, not descriptions of their character or being. People can become frightened by a diagnosis, as if it was a truth about them, and feel hopeless. As people realize their power to think and experience their thinking as real, they understand when to take thoughts to heart and when to allow them...

Many therapy approaches are focused on trauma, based on the assumption that people who have experienced trauma must come to peace and move on in life. Three Principles practitioners assume people can realize that past trauma is a memory, a ghostly image from the past recalled in the present and re-experienced via Consciousness. It has no power but the power people give it as it comes to mind. We f...

We talk a lot about Insight; it is a truly remarkable gift, always available to all of us. We can't say enough about the freedom and depth we gain from living from insight, rather than chasing beliefs. The source of beliefs is the intellect, the already known. Beliefs are ideas we generate from reorganizing our memory -- our bank of knowledge -- to try to understand or decide things in the pr...

People have asked us whether it's arrogant to talk about the Principles as spiritual truths, rather than as someone's theory. Principles, in every field of endeavor, once discovered, explain everything, no exceptions. The Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought explain how the experience of life is created, why it is changeable, and why as long as we are alive, we have the power to...

A term used in Psychology for people who have an optimistic outlook is "toxic positivity."  The idea is that people who embrace life in good spirits regardless of external events are burying or denying reality, or refusing to "process" serious problems.  A common misunderstanding among people learning about the Principles is that those who "get it" are relentlessly po...