Scott Fitzgerald, of “The Great Gatsby” fame, is often credited with a potent quote. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
Holding two opposed thoughts in our minds, even if we are relatively average thinkers, creates what is called “cognitive dissonance.” It is the discomfort you feel when your beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors contradict each other. Our brains love to find patterns and connections, so they set about making linkages that explain the contradictions. If that isn’t possible, they map a path to take us from one to the other.
Children in healthy homes learn this. Perhaps as a four-year-old I want to go outside – I am excited. I can’t go outside until my shoes are tied and I don’t know how to tie my shoes – I am frustrated. I am excited and frustrated at the same time, which is cognitive dissonance. Then, I set about learning, with my big person’s help, to tie my shoes so the dissonance is resolved. (Or I convince my exhausted parents to buy shoes with Velcro!)
In an unhealthy situation, that same child may want to go outside, can’t go outside until they tie their shoes and they don’t know how to tie their shoes. Their lack of capability is met with ridicule and derision. “What are you, stupid? Kids need to tie their own shoes. Can’t you learn anything? Guess you’re not going outside, dummy.”
They are not allowed to feel the cognitive dissonance or seek resolution. They learn to avoid it. Things become black and white. “I can’t tie my shoes. I am stupid. There is no sense being excited, I will just stay frustrated.”
That’s a simple example. The same singularity of thought can occur with domestic violence survivors, or war crime victims, or to the children who arrive at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. I have told the story before about the 16-year-old, who, when I asked him the most important thing he had learned at the Ranch said, “That I’m pretty smart.” He was Native American and had been told his whole life that you couldn’t be a Native American man and be smart. Even though he “felt like his brain worked,” he was only given one option. He was stupid.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is one therapy approach we use at the Ranch to help children heal the black-and-white thinking created by trauma. In explaining DBT to our direct care staff, Dr. Hannah Baczynski, Therapy Manager at the Ranch, begins by defining dialectics.
“What is a dialectic? Dialectics are things that seem like opposites AND are true at the same time. The kids we work with tend to struggle with extreme or black and white thinking, often missing the gray areas between ideas. This phenomenon is not limited to our kids but is something we all struggle with from time to time. You might feel both SCARED AND EXCITED at the same time. How can this be? Humans are complex and we can feel many things at once. It is one of the confusing things about being alive. However, dialectics tells us we don't have to ponder this too hard. We don't have to choose to be scared or excited. We can simply be both things and that is okay.”
I love that Dr. B says “Humans are complex.” At the Ranch, we teach children that being a complex human is a pretty good thing.
Please keep the kids and staff at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in your prayers.
In His love,
Joy Ryan, President/CEO
Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch
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