Comments on: Searching for Rene Descartes or just ‘knowing’ he is there

By: beth simpson

beth simpson — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:30:20 +0000

It’s interesting that current beliefs hold that it is a mistake at all. I don’t believe they are taking into consideration the symbolic mind …. only the reading, speaking mind. ?

By: Lorimer

Lorimer — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 19:36:49 +0000

Marnie – perhaps The Great Marnie – and Daniel – definitely The Great Daniel – thanks so very much for posting. Very astute observations Marnie and excellent comparison to politics/religion – i relate to that and, unfortunately, I am no expert on the difference between knowledge and beliefs either. Perhaps Daniel is…..
In response to your excellent ponderings Daniel, i think we are in fact, often at least, targeting a separate belief, although i don’t know if it is in a different dimension – i may not understand that properly though. In your view would using metaphors, out of the dimension but clearly relevant to it, count as out of the dimension too? We often use metaphors and stories as a way to challenge the current belief and, i guess, to undermine it. Anyway, thanks again for posting and thanks for the best wishes re Serbia – it was encouraging to see that the real Socceroos turned up against Ghana – not to take anything away from what looked like a very organised and, as Martin Tyler said, sumptuous (!) German team against us – perhaps the real German team didn’t turn up against Serbia!

By: Daniel R Hawes

Daniel R Hawes — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:57:50 +0000

Hi Lorimer,
thanks for linking to my post.
To your interesting question: From a theoretical perspective and from my reading into this matter, I believe that you should actually not attempt to strengthen your patients beliefs regarding their pain, but instead try to strengthen a separate value or belief.
The basic idea remains that you want try to strengthen the person’s beliefs, so that they feel less threatened by challenging information. However, if you make a person feel more secure by strengthening the very belief you are ultimately seeking to undermine, you might not end up with a net gain. It would seem more advisable to me that you target a separate belief-dimension as preparation for introducing new challenging information.
As a very important caveat, I’d also state that none of this is even relevant if we’re not really talking about something the person is attached to. If the Descartes-like explanation is just something a person thinks is true, but doesn’t place a lot of personal stock into, there might be very different mechanisms at play…

[Note: I am not that invested in the above interpretation, so feel free to offer alternatives ]

Also: I hope Australia beats Serbia on Wednesday! Help Germany advance!

By: Marnie

Marnie — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:17:54 +0000

Lorimer do you not think this raises the question of knowledge vs beliefs. I learnt in PT school that A delta and C fibers were resonsible for pain messages to the brain. Then you come along and say no that is not acurate, these send a message of nociception and the brain… This is certainly easy for me to learn and remember but our patients were not taught that pain comes from c fibers… They simply know when they bend forward it hurts in the back so obviously the pain is in the back. This belief may have been reinforced when they saw the doc who said “you have pain because your disc is protruding blah blah blah. I am certainly not smart enough to know the difference in psychology of knowledge and beliefs but at times when I “explain pain” I feel as though I am debating politics or religion with my patients. I do suspect complete accuracy of information is the best way to arm one’s self for this battle. Perhaps Darwin could relate to this frustration. By the way I love reading this blog and realizing much of what I “know” is actually total crap.