DURING MY CAREER AS A CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST<\/strong> I\u2019ve learned many helpful things. But if you asked me to pick out what transformed my life and my work, the cutting-edge brain science of mind mapping would share top honors. For me learning about mind mapping was like learning about orgasms. I knew about sex long before I learned orgasms existed. When I finally discovered them from personal experience, I couldn\u2019t believe they’d been happening all around me but that nobody had let me in on the secret! How could this be going on and no one told me<\/strong>?!<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s how I felt when I stumbled onto mind mapping in neurobiology research journals at the turn of this century. I was shocked! The topic was unknown in the mental health field when I was in training, and for the most part this continues today. Mind mapping didn\u2019t even exist as a concept until the 1980s, when two primatologists wondered whether chimpanzees understood that other chimps might have their own thoughts about things or see things differently. They referred to this as \u201cTheory of Mind,\u201d but I call it mind mapping.<\/p>\n Mind mapping is not a core part of training in any mental health discipline. It\u2019s not required for licensure as a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or pastoral counselor. Relatively few psychotherapists know anything about it. But humans have been mapping each other\u2019s minds for hundreds of thousands\u2014if not millions\u2013\u2013of years. We do this constantly in virtually every situation, and it\u2019s a fundamental function of the human brain. So you can appreciate my shock when I read my first journal article about this. Wouldn\u2019t you think this is something therapists should know about?<\/p>\n According to the Introduction\u2019s brief definition, mind mapping is your brain\u2019s ability to make a mental map of another person\u2019s mind. It also applies to mapping out your own mind too. This is concise but not particularly illuminating. Let me explain mind mapping more thoroughly so you\u2019ll understand why it\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n Mind mapping is an intuitive process. Whenever you interact with people, your brain automatically creates mental pictures of their minds. It then looks at these pictures and makes inferences about them. What does he want? What is she like? Is he smart or cunning? Does she want to have sex with me? Why is he looking (or not looking) at me? Should I ask her for a date? Should I fear this guy? Then your brain uses these attributions to predict what other people are going to do and adjusts your agendas and behaviors accordingly. First and foremost, mind mapping is about predicting other people\u2019s behaviors.<\/p>\n Like most people, you have pictures of your father\u2019s and mother\u2019s (or stepparents\u2019) minds in your head. You know how they think. You see how they perceive themselves and how they feel about each other. You also know where they lie to themselves, where they\u2019re blind to themselves, and where they are self-aggrandizing. You recognize the areas where they don\u2019t really see you but think they do. You even know how they react to strangers and other family members. In short, you know what makes them tick. You glean all this information from the mental maps in your head. You then use this to predict what they\u2019re going to do in a given situation, which is how you decide to approach them.<\/p>\n For example, let\u2019s say you want your parents to give you some ice cream or, if you\u2019re a bit older, the keys to the car and money for gas. Your mind starts working off your maps of them and devises a plan: Who should I go to first? What\u2019s the best strategy to use to get them to agree? What\u2019s the best time for me to ask? How can I convince them if they initially say no?<\/em><\/p>\n Mind mapping is the brain-based psychology of interacting with other people. Once you recognize mind mapping in daily life, you\u2019ll be better able to detect other people\u2019 motivations and predict their behaviors, whether it\u2019s your spouse, your children, your parents and siblings, or your boss and coworkers. In interpersonal relationships, particularly ones loaded with tension, drama, conflict, high risk or great meaning,\u00a0 no tool is more valuable.<\/p>\n Mind-mapping satisfies our inherent desire to figure out other people. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re walking down the street and you notice a man walking towards you. In a split second, you look at his clothing. You observe his gait. You determine what he\u2019s looking at. Is he looking at you or the person behind you, or is he gazing in a different direction? You study his facial expression, particularly his eyes and mouth. You try to assess his mood. You start attributing a personality to him. From information gleaned in a fraction of a second, you\u2019ll decide whether to put your head down and ignore him or meet his gaze as you pass on the street. This entire drama occurs in the blink of an eye, and you\u2019ll repeat it every time a stranger approaches. By the end of the block, you\u2019ve constructed a half dozen mind maps of passersby without exchanging a single word with them.<\/p>\n Humans are natural-born psychologists. We\u2019re so good at mind mapping that trained therapists aren\u2019t necessarily any better at this than the average person. In fact, 30 years of doing therapy and training therapists has shown me that people seeking counseling are often better mind mappers than their therapists and often beat their therapists\u2019 mind-mapping radar. Mind mapping is an innate survival skill we\u2019ve inherited from reptiles. To ensure our own safety and well-being, we need to know what makes other people tick. We need to understand what\u2019s going on in their minds to be able to anticipate their behavior. It\u2019s all about being able to predict what they\u2019re going to do. This doesn\u2019t require extraordinary skill or effort. It\u2019s not related to your IQ level.<\/p>\n People are pretty predictable. If you know their beliefs, values, and intentions, and if you know what they know, you\u2019ll be able to predict their behavior with a high degree of certainty. Mind-mapping is about figuring out what they really want. The better you understand someone\u2019s motivations and agendas, the more accurately you can anticipate what he or she will do next.<\/p>\n \u00ab Brain Talk – Chapter Previews<\/a> Brain Talk – Chapter 1 Part 2 \u00bb<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":17268,"menu_order":9,"template":"","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[65],"class_list":["post-17582","books-articles","type-books-articles","status-publish","hentry","category-brain-talk"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"developer","author_link":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/author\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"What Is Mind Mapping? DURING MY CAREER AS A CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST I\u2019ve learned many helpful things. But if you asked me to pick out what transformed my life and my work, the cutting-edge brain science of mind mapping would share top honors. For me learning about mind mapping was like learning about orgasms. I knew…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/books-articles\/17582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/books-articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/books-articles"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/books-articles\/17582\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/books-articles\/17268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crucible4points.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Driving Wheel of Relationships<\/h3>\n
We\u2019re Native-Born Psychologists<\/h3>\n