Uncategorized – Page 2 – LIBERTY PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

The Illogical Mind; the Reasoning Contains a Flaw:

The Illogical Mind could be a way of describing thinking that reaches conclusions that may not follow reliably from the available evidence or reasoning. It may not mean a person is unintelligent. Some may think illogically under stress, fear, strong emotion, social pressure, or uncertainty.

Common forms of illogical thinking

Pattern	What happens	Example
Emotional reasoning	Feelings are treated as facts	“I feel unsafe, therefore I am unsafe.”
Confirmation bias	Evidence supporting a belief is noticed more than contradictory evidence	“I knew this would happen; look at this one example.”
Black and white thinking	Complex situations become two extremes	“Either I’m successful or I’m a failure.”
Catastrophizing	A possible negative outcome becomes an assumed disaster	“If I make this mistake, everything will be ruined.”
Overgeneralization	One event becomes a broad rule	“They rejected me, so nobody likes me.”
Mind reading	Another person’s thoughts are assumed without evidence	“She didn’t say hello because she dislikes me.”
Post hoc reasoning	Sequence is mistaken for causation	“I thought about the storm, and then it happened, so my thought caused it.”
Magical thinking	Thoughts, rituals, or symbols are treated as directly influencing external events without adequate evidence	“If I don’t perform this ritual, something bad will happen.”
Appeal to authority	A claim is accepted primarily because an authority says it	“It must be true because an expert said it.”
Self-deception	Information threatening one’s preferred belief is avoided or distorted	“I don’t have a problem; everyone else is overreacting.”

Illogical may not necessarily mean irrational

There could be an important distinction:

Illogical thinking: the reasoning contains a flaw.

Irrational thinking: the belief or behavior is poorly supported by evidence, disproportionately driven by emotion, or inconsistent with the person’s goals.

A person may have an understandable reason for an irrational conclusion. For example:

“I’ve been betrayed several times, so I assume everyone will eventually betray me.”

The conclusion may be understandable given the person’s history, but the evidence doesn’t necessarily justify applying it to everyone.

The logical mind vs. the illogical mind

A useful conceptual distinction is:

Logical mind:

“What evidence supports this? What evidence contradicts it? Are there alternative explanations?”

Illogical mind:

“It feels true, therefore it must be true.”

The goal may not be to eliminate emotion. A psychologically healthy person may use emotion as information while using reason and evidence to evaluate what the emotion means.

A powerful question

When you notice an intense belief, ask:

“What do I know, what do I believe, what do I feel, and what am I assuming?”

That separates reality, interpretation, emotion, and inference, one of the foundations of good critical thinking.

Shervan K Shahhian

Fake It Till You Make It vs Fake It Till You Become It:

Both phrases may describe using behavior to help create change, but they emphasize different endpoints.

“Fake it till you make it”

Meaning: Act as if you already have the confidence, competence, or success you want even before you genuinely feel or possess it.

Focus: achieving an external outcome

Example: “I’m nervous about public speaking, but I’ll practice confident posture and speak clearly until I become comfortable.”

Risk: If taken literally, it may encourage pretending, masking, or deception.

“Fake it till you become it”

Possibly, popularized by social psychologist Amy Cuddy, this version shifts the emphasis from getting something to developing an internal identity or capacity.

Focus: personal transformation

Example: “I don’t feel confident yet, but I will repeatedly practice confident behaviors until confidence becomes more natural.”

The goal may not be to deceive others; it’s to practice the behaviors associated with the person you are becoming.

The important distinction

A psychologically healthier formulation might be:

“Practice it until you become it.”

That removes the word fake entirely. You may not be pretending to be confident you are rehearsing confident behaviors while honestly acknowledging that you’re still learning.

For example:

Fearful… “I’ll pretend I’m fearless.”vs.Fearful…“I’m afraid, but I’ll practice acting courageously.”

The second approach combines authenticity, behavioral practice, self-efficacy, and gradual identity change.

Shervan K Shahhian

A Collective Culture; Family, Community, Nation, or Social Movement,…

A Collective Culture may be a system in which people tend to understand themselves partly through their relationships and membership in a larger group, such as a family, community, religious tradition, ethnic group, workplace, nation, or social movement.

Key features may include:

Group identity: “Who we are” is important alongside individual identity.
Shared values: The group develops ideas about what is right, important, honorable, or acceptable.
Social norms: Members learn expected ways of behaving.
Conformity and belonging: Maintaining harmony and group cohesion may be emphasized.
Reciprocity: Helping family or community members may be considered a social responsibility.
Authority and tradition: Elders, institutions, customs, or traditions may carry significant influence.
Collective meaning making: Events may be interpreted through shared stories, beliefs, and cultural frameworks.

Individualistic vs. collective orientation

Individual oriented	Collective oriented
“What do I want?”	“What is best for us?”
Personal autonomy	Relational responsibility
Individual achievement	Group/family achievement
Self-expression	Social harmony
Personal choice	Shared expectations
Independent identity	Interdependent identity

These may be dimensions rather than rigid categories. Most people and cultures contain both individualistic and collective elements.

Psychological importance

Collective culture may provide belonging, identity, social support, meaning, and resilience. However, strong group expectations may sometimes create pressure to conform, fear of rejection, suppressed individuality, or intergenerational conflict.

A useful psychological question could be:

“Is this belief genuinely my own, or have I absorbed it from the collective around me?”

That question may not mean the collective belief is wrong. It encourages metacognition examining where our beliefs came from and deciding consciously which ones we want to retain.

Collective culture vs. Collective delusion

These may be very different concepts:

Collective culture: shared beliefs and practices that organize a group’s life.

Collective delusion: a situation in which a group develops or reinforces a significantly false belief despite evidence contradicting it. Social reinforcement, misinformation, authority influence, fear, and groupthink can contribute.

So, understanding collective cultures could be essential in understanding how individuals and groups mutually shape one another’s perception of reality, identity, values, and behavior.

Shervan K Shahhian

Eating Disorder; Restriction, Bingeing, Compensatory Behaviors, and Distress:

Eating frequency may look very different across eating disorders. Importantly, frequency alone may not diagnose an eating disorder? The pattern of restriction, bingeing, compensatory behaviors, distress, and nutritional/medical consequences matters.

Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor

Eating disorder	Typical eating frequency pattern	What may happen between eating episodes
Anorexia nervosa (AN)	Low/infrequent eating could be common. Meals may be skipped, portions restricted, or eating delayed.	Prolonged periods without eating; rigid rules about when/how much to eat; avoidance of snacks or certain foods.
Bulimia nervosa (BN)	Often irregular. Restriction or skipped meals may alternate with recurrent binge episodes.	A person may restrict during the day and then binge later, followed by compensatory behaviors such as vomiting, fasting, or excessive exercise.
Binge-eating disorder (BED)	Eating frequency may be normal, increased, or irregular. The defining issue is recurrent binge episodes, not simply eating often.	Episodes involve unusually large amounts of food with a sense of loss of control. Unlike BN, recurrent compensatory behaviors are absent.
ARFID	Often reduced or highly selective eating frequency, although it varies considerably.	Meals may be skipped because of sensory sensitivity, fear of aversive consequences (choking/vomiting), or low interest in eating.
Atypical anorexia nervosa	Restriction and/or reduced intake may resemble AN.	The person may have significant psychological and medical effects of restriction without being at a significantly low body weight.

Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor

A possible useful clinical distinction

Eating frequency vs eating disorder diagnosis.

For example:

Eating once or twice a day may not automatically mean anorexia.
Eating frequently may not automatically mean binge eating disorder.
Someone with bulimia may have periods of apparently normal eating between episodes.
Someone with ARFID may eat an adequate number of meals but have an extremely narrow range of foods.
Someone with atypical anorexia may eat substantially less than their nutritional needs despite having a body weight that is not considered significantly low.

The restriction binge cycle

One particularly important pattern may be:

Restriction…increasing hunger/food preoccupation…binge…guilt/distress…compensation or renewed restriction…further restriction

This cycle may occur particularly prominently in bulimia nervosa, but restrictive dieting may also contribute to binge episodes in other contexts.

From a clinical perspective, it may be more informative to assess 24-hour eating patterns, meal/snack regularity, amount consumed, subjective loss of control, food avoidance, compensatory behaviors, and the person’s thoughts and emotions around eating,

Rather Than Simply Asking: “How many times do you eat per day?”

A possible helpful distinction may be: “eating frequency” vs. “nutritional adequacy” vs. “loss of control eating” vs. “compensatory behavior.” Those four dimensions may give a much clearer picture than frequency alone.

Shervan K Shahhian

Eating Frequency, in the context of Eating Disorders:

Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor

Eating Frequency refers to how often a person eats during the day, meals, snacks, or other episodes of food intake. In the context of eating disorders, the pattern and meaning of eating frequency may be clinically important, but frequency alone may Not determine whether someone has an eating disorder.

Common patterns may include:

Restrictive eating: Frequently skipping meals, prolonged fasting, or intentionally eating too little.

Irregular eating: Long periods without food followed by episodes of eating.

Binge eating: Episodes of consuming an unusually large amount of food accompanied by a sense of loss of control.

Compensatory behaviors: Restricting, excessive exercise, vomiting, or misuse of medications after eating: Please, Consult with a Medical Doctor.

Frequent grazing: Repeated, relatively small episodes of eating throughout the day; this may occur for many reasons and may not be automatically pathological?

Regular eating: Consistent meals and snacks may provide structure and may be useful in treatment of some eating disorders.

Why frequency may matter clinically

A clinician may look beyond how often someone eats and assesses:

Quantity, timing, loss of control, emotional experience, compensatory behaviors, nutritional adequacy, body image concerns, functional impairment.

For example: someone eating six times a day may have a completely healthy eating pattern, while someone eating only once or twice may be experiencing significant restriction?

In eating disorder treatment, regular and adequate nourishment may often emphasized because prolonged restriction may increase physiological and psychological vulnerability to bingeing, preoccupation with food, irritability, and difficulty regulating emotions.

Key principle:

Eating Frequency is a behavior; an eating disorder may be a broader clinical pattern involving eating behavior, cognition, emotions, physical consequences, and impairment.

Shervan K Shahhian

Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Care:

Mental Health and substance abuse care refers to an integrated approach to helping people who experience psychological or psychiatric/medical problems:(please, consult with a medical doctor/psychiatrist) together with problematic alcohol or drug use. When both occur, the term co-occurring disorders or dual diagnosis may often be used.

Key components

Comprehensive assessment
- Mental health symptoms and diagnoses
- Alcohol and drug use patterns
- Trauma and adverse experiences
- Medical conditions and medications: (please, consult with a medical doctor/psychiatrist)
- Suicide and violence risk: Get Immediate emergency care.
- Social, family, housing, employment, and legal circumstances

Integrated treatment

Rather than treating substance abuse and mental health problems as completely separate issues, treatment addresses them together when appropriate.

Evidence based interventions

Depending on the person’s needs, these may include:
- Motivational interviewing (MI)
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Relapse prevention approaches
- Trauma informed care
- Contingency management
- Medication treatment when indicated: (please, consult with a medical doctor/psychiatrist)
- Peer/recovery support
- Family therapy
- Psychiatric treatment: (please, consult with a psychiatrist)

Relapse prevention

Treatment helps identify triggers, cravings, high risk situations, emotional states, and thinking patterns that may contribute to renewed substance abuse.

Harm reduction

Recovery may not always begin with complete abstinence. Harm reduction approaches may reduce immediate risks while helping the person move toward healthier patterns and, when desired and appropriate, abstinence.

Continuity of care

Effective care may involve coordination among therapists, psychiatrists, primary care providers, addiction specialists, social workers, peer support programs, and other professionals.

An important clinical principle

A useful framework may be:

Treat the person, not merely the diagnosis.

For example, depression may contribute to alcohol drinking, while heavy alcohol drinking may worsen depression. Anxiety may lead someone to use and abuse cannabis or abuse alcohol for short term relief, while substance abuse may subsequently increase anxiety. The relationship may therefore become a self-reinforcing cycle.

Mental health and substance use cycle

Psychological distress…substance abuse…temporary relief…consequences/withdrawal…increased distress…increased risk of further abuse

Treatment attempts to interrupt that cycle while developing healthier coping skills, emotional regulation, social support, and recovery resources.

In short: Mental Health and substance abuse care may increasingly understood as integrated, person centered, trauma informed, and recovery oriented care, rather than two completely separate treatment systems.

Shervan K Shahhian

Grief can be a form of suffering, but grief itself is not usually a choice:

Grief and Suffering

Grief: is the emotional, cognitive, physical, relational, and sometimes spiritual response to a significant loss. It may include sadness, longing, anger, guilt, numbness, confusion, loneliness, or a sense that life has changed fundamentally.

Suffering: is the distress associated with that experience. Grief may therefore involve suffering, but the two may not be identical.

For example:

Loss…grief…pain/distress…adaptation and meaning making

Is grief a choice?

The initial experience of grief may generally not be voluntary. You may not simply choose to miss someone, feel sadness, or experience the shock of a loss.

However, there may be choices within the grieving process:

whether to seek support or isolate
whether to acknowledge or avoid painful emotions
how to remember and honor the person
how to care for yourself while grieving
whether to gradually reconnect with life
what meaning, if any, you eventually make from the loss
how you incorporate the loss into your continuing life

This distinction is important:

You may not choose the pain of grief, but you may have some choice in how you respond to the pain.

That may not mean someone should be told to “choose happiness” or “choose to stop suffering.” Such statements can become invalidating, particularly during acute bereavement.

A useful psychological distinction

Pain is often unavoidable; suffering may sometimes be influenced.

This may be related to the idea of secondary suffering:

The additional distress that may arise from fighting, judging, catastrophizing, or becoming trapped in thoughts about the original pain.

For example:

“I miss her terribly. “Primary grief/pain.

versus:

“I shouldn’t still feel this way. Something is wrong with me. I’ll never be okay again.

“Additional psychological suffering.”

The second layer may be more amenable to psychological intervention.

And importantly, healthy grieving may not necessarily mean eliminating grief. Sometimes adaptation means learning to carry the loss while gradually rebuilding a meaningful life.

In one sentence:

Grief may not be a choice; how a person eventually relates to, processes, and lives with their grief could involve choices and psychological capacities that may develop over time.

Shervan K Shahhian

Monk Mode may be an Intentional Period of Deep Focus:

Monk Mode may be an intentional period of deep focus and minimal distraction where you deliberately strip life down to essentials so you may work on something that really matters.

Think of it as voluntary simplicity and extreme focus.

What monk mode may include:

No distractions: limited or zero social media, news, TV, casual texting

Single minded focus: one main goal (study, writing, healing, fitness, business, spiritual practice)

Structured routine: fixed times for sleep, work, exercise, reflection

Inner regulation: meditation, journaling, prayer, breathwork, or quiet contemplation

Simple living: basic food, fewer decisions, reduced stimulation

What it’s for

Breaking habits and addictions

Recovering from burnout or overwhelm

Building discipline and self-trust

Deep learning or skill acquisition

Psychological or spiritual recalibration

Reclaiming attention in a hyper stimulated world

What monk mode may not be

NOT Isolation for punishment

NOT Emotional suppression

NOT Avoidance of responsibilities

NOT A permanent lifestyle (it’s usually time limited)

Typical and possible durations

7 days (reset)

30 days (habit rewire)

60 to 90 days (identity level change)

Psychological angle

From a mental health perspective of monk mode:

Reduces cognitive load

Limits reinforcement from low value stimuli

Increases distress tolerance

Strengthens executive function

Supports identity consolidation

In trauma aware practice, it may work best when paired with body regulation so it may not turn into rigid control or emotional shutdown.

Shervan K Shahhian

“The Greatest University is the University of Trial and Error, by Shervan K Shahhian.”

“The Greatest University is the University of Trial and Error, by Shervan K Shahhian.” is a possible metaphor for the idea that some of life’s deepest learning comes from. Mistakes or bad experiences rather than instruction alone.

Why?

1. . Mistakes turns information into knowledge. You may read about swimming your whole life, but actually getting into the water teaches you things a book may never fully convey.

2. Mistakes provide feedback. When things doesn’t workout they way we expected, but if we receive feedback about what needs to change. Failure becomes a form of learning.

3. Trial and error may develop judgment. Repeated mistakes and bad experiences might help us recognize patterns: What may work? What doesn’t work? When should we persist? When should we change directions?

4. . Mistakes may develop resilience. Learning that mistakes and bad experience’s are survivable at times, they may reduce the fear of being wrong. We may become more willing to experiment?, learn, adapt, and try again.

5. . Mistakes may promote metacognition. After bad experiences, you may ask yourself:

What just happened?
What things did I assume?
What things did I get wrong?
What things did I learn from it?
What things will I do differently next time?

That may turn mistakes and bad experiences into wisdom.

But there may be an important qualification

Trial and error may not automatically promote good learning. Repeating the same mistake without reflection is simply repetition.

A more accurate formula may be:

Experience...feedback…reflection…adjustment...new experience…learning

So the “University of Trial and Error, by Shervan K Shahhian” is really the University of Experience, Feedback, Learning and Adaptation.

In psychological terms, this may closely be related to experiential learning: We may learn by acting, observing the consequences, reflecting on what happened, and it may modify our future behavior.

And perhaps the most important lesson may be:

Mistakes may not necessarily evidence that we failed; it may be evidence that our current strategy needs updating, improving and changing.

“The Greatest University is the University of Trial and Error, by Shervan K Shahhian.”

Shervan K Shahhian

The Internal Critic is the part of your Inner Dialogue:

The internal critic is the part of your inner dialogue that judges, evaluates, or criticizes you, often focusing on perceived mistakes, weaknesses, failures, or shortcomings.

What does the internal critic sound like?

It may produce thoughts such as:

“I’m not good enough.”
“I should have done better.”
“Everyone else is more successful than I am.”
“I always mess things up.”
“What will people think of me?”
“I don’t deserve this.”

The internal critic may be subtle or extremely harsh.

Where does it come from?

The internal critic may often develop through a combination of:

Childhood experiences: criticism, unrealistic expectations, rejection, or conditional approval
Internalized voices: absorbing critical messages from parents, teachers, peers, or authority figures
Social comparison: comparing oneself with others
Perfectionism: believing mistakes are unacceptable
Traumatic or emotionally painful experiences
Cultural and societal expectations
Repeated experiences of shame or failure

Over time, these external messages may become an internalized pattern of self-evaluation.

The internal critic may not always be “bad”

An important distinction is between a healthy inner evaluator and a punitive inner critic.

Healthy self-correction:

“That didn’t go well. What can I learn from it?”

Punitive self-criticism:

“I failed because there’s something wrong with me.”

The first encourages learning and growth. The second may contribute to shame, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, and self-rejection.

A useful psychological concept may be

The goal generally isn’t to eliminate the internal critic, but to develop the ability to recognize it without automatically believing it.

For example:

Critic: “I’m a failure.” Awareness: “I’m noticing my mind is criticizing me.

Balanced Response: “I made a mistake, but that doesn’t define my worth.”

This shift, from “I am a failure” to “I’m having the thought that I am a failure”, creates psychological distance from the critical thought.

In approaches such as CBT, ACT, compassion focused therapy, and IFS, learning to recognize and respond differently to the internal critic may be an important part of psychological work.

Shervan K Shahhian