People are Smart, People are Complex

Many of us face problems with our own behaviours that we find difficult to solve. Sometimes these problems have dogged us for years and we’ve tried for a long time to sort them out ourselves. We are tempted to say to ourselves, “It’s a simple problem! Why can’t I get a handle on it?”  Here is a different perspective.

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People are smart

The first thing to acknowledge is that people are smart. We routinely think our way through situations. We navigate complicated social interactions and evaluate conflicting and ambiguous information to make decisions every day.

People are complex

The second thing to acknowledge is that people are complex. We do incredibly complex things in our lives and yet we can often do it even without putting too much effort into it. In order to do both of these things we have very complex brain structures which lead to complex behavioural patterns.

Our defences are smart and complex

So given our natural ability to be smart and complex, our defences and our blind-spots are going to be smart and complex too. No matter how simple and straightforward they look, these defences and blind-spots are likely to have real depth behind them. For us to try and treat them simply generally doesn’t really work.

For some people to make progress with these really complex things they need the help of an external professional. Psychotherapist are trained and experienced to look at people as having complex patterns of thinking and behaviour that may sometimes need intensive and sustained treatment. These forms of treatment are likely to have more success than the simple things we try ourselves.

– Tim Hill

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