

Jonah Lehrer: The Limits of Self-Knowledge - cwan
http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/10/the_limits_of_self-knowledge.php

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rickdangerous1
What I've noticed over the years is that having awareness or an insight into a
personality quirk or character defect or whatever you call it, doesn't
automatically change it or fix it. And I've often made the mistake of
thinking, 'if I could just figure out why I do x I'll be able to stop doing
it'. And thats just not how it happens. After I've spent some time pyscho-
analysising myself and figuring that "oh I do that because I feel y and I feel
y because of this thing that happened when 9"...usually what happens is that
the behvaiour doesn't change...but when I do the thing, I start feeling emo
about the thing that happened when I was 9. And think this is because I
sometimes end up pyscho-analysising the wrong types of things. I think what
I'm saying is, trawling through childhood memories, past a certain point, is a
fools errand.

But this isn't always the case. When it comes to my marriage for example, self
knowledge that comes from 'putting myself on the couch' can actually make big
differences to the relationship - especially when we talk it out.

So I don't know. I'm sure self knowledge is critically important to success in
life, but there is a limit to how much pyscho-analysis one should do. I still
haven't figured out when and when not to do it.

Anyone else relate?

~~~
Psyonic
I really don't know what I'm talking about, but just throwing out some
conjecture on the subject... perhaps this falls under the maxim of "a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing?" Maybe stopping at figuring out the behavior
stems from something that happened to you at age 9 is a bad thing, but perhaps
if you took it further somehow, to the point that you were able to let go of
the experience, things would improve?

