16 Apr Why I Don’t Teach Neuroscience

You’ve probably seen dozens of Neuro-Coaching and brain-based trainings. The Clear Beliefs Training in Trauma-Informed TherapeuticCoaching isn’t one of them.

Here’s why…

Here are some of the programs and products being offered recently:

NeuroCoaching. NeuroLinguisticProgramming. NeuroGym. NeuroMarketing. NeuroSomatics. NeuroMindfulness. NeuroWisdom. NeuroPhilosophy. NeuroLeadership. NeuroPsychotherapy. NeuroTheology. NeuroTherapy. NeuroOncology. NeuroWearables. NeuroDrinks. NeuroGum. NeuroHairStyling (really, no kidding).

These are all actual terms and products, but few of them are based in real neuroscience. This is a marketing trend: Add the word “NEURO” in front of whatever you’re selling. Next it will be NeuroPolitics. Except that’s probably already a thing…

I began studying neuroscience in the 1970’s. The brain was a LOT simpler back then. In the last 30 years, the brain has gotten very complicated.

Waaaaaay back in 1971, I read Dean Wooldridge’s book, “The Machinery of the Brain.” It contained everything known about the brain at that time. The understanding of that time was the Triune Brain model, an evolutionary view of brain evolution proposed by the American physician and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean. He pointed out three main parts of the brain: reptilian, mammalian, and primate, pointing to the evolutionary development of the frontal cortex over millions of years.

We now know that this model was completely wrong, yet it’s still being taught today.

My friend Mark Waldman, author of many books on neuroscience, including “NeuroWisdom,” said: “Basically, everything I’ve written about the brain in the past 20 years has become obsolete in the face of the newest research on neural networks.”

So why the sudden interest in neuroscience from coaching schools and trainers, convincing you how important neuroscience is to whatever they’re doing?

It’s not because brain anatomy and physiology are important to who you are or what you do.

They’re using the legitimacy of neuroscience to bolster the legitimacy of whatever THEY’RE doing.

There are many good reasons to learn neuroscience, especially if you’re a neuroscientist, physician, psychologist or researcher. When you learn how something works (e.g., your car), you gain a broader awareness and new capabilities. If something goes wrong, you have a better understanding of what happened, and a greater chance of getting it fixed.

I highly recommend that you learn the basics of your brain, nervous system, physiology, and your body – and how they operate. This will give you more self-awareness and the ability to optimize your functioning. “If I eat better food and exercise more, I’ll feel better and perform better.” All good.

If you don’t know how your car works, you can still drive it to where you want to go. If you don’t know how your brain works, it will continue to function, and you will have your experience. If your car breaks down, take it to an expert mechanic and pay them to fix it. If your brain breaks down, get yourself to an expert neurologist or psychiatrist and follow their advice.

In a recent conversation between Jim Rutt and neuroscientist and professor John Krakauer, Krakauer said, essentially: “We know there are correlations between brain function and consciousness, but NO ONE knows how they are related. I hate hearing statements like, “I feel tired, I must be low on dopamine.” They are using neuroscience in a completely unscientific way.”

I know enough about neuroscience to understand those correlations, and yet hold myself back from assuming you can leap from correlations to causality. It’s one thing to know what parts of the brain are correlated (the amygdala and threat, for example), but there are also dozens of other brain centers involved in threat detection. Waldman’s focus on neural networks is closer to the truth, but even he can slip easily into statements that sound more like cause than correlation.

My focus, and the focus of my training, is on the one thing you know about for sure. It’s the one thing you are the supreme expert on: your experience. You know you are conscious. You know you are alive. You know that you’re experiencing things, feelings, moods, sensations, and reactions right now, and that they change moment to moment.

Your brain and nervous system function like an information superhighway, delivering information constantly to all parts of your body. 99.9% of this information is not needed at the moment, so it’s processed by your subconscious mind. The “subconscious” isn’t a thing, or a brain part. You can’t dissect the brain and find it hiding in a fold of the cortex. It’s just the name we use for all the information you’re not aware of at the moment. “Sub” means below. Below conscious awareness.

You don’t experience your neurons, neurotransmitters, Default Mode Network, or amygdalae. You experience your experience.

What are you experiencing right now? I’ve never heard anyone answer that question with, “I’m experiencing billions of neurons firing tiny electrical currents and causing dopamine and norepinephrine to flow in an imbalanced proportion.” That’s NeuroTalk, not human talk.

If you want to be more self-aware, don’t study your brain physiology. Study your own experience, moment to moment. This is what many Buddhist meditations techniques are based on.

If you cut your finger, you don’t need to tell your blood vessels to constrict and your platelets to clump together and clot using fibrin. Your body knows how to heal. Is it helpful to understand the mechanism? Yes, if you’re going to become a hematologist or phlebotomist. Not if you’re going to write fiction or build rock walls.

The mind (the non-physical consciousness we’re already aware of) has built-in healing mechanisms, as well. We refer to them as forgetting, forgiving, allowing, suppressing, dreaming, communicating, etc. These are perceptual and cognitive processes, not parts of you anatomy.

If you want to bring healing of the mind to your friends, family, and community, learn how the mind works, not the brain. You and your clients are experience-based beings. You have a brain, and that brain is certainly related to your mind, but nobody – really, NOBODY – knows how.

NeuroCoaches and Neuroscientists may offer brain-based explanations for what you’re experiencing: “The reason you’re so focused on that problem is that your salience network is over-activated.”

Really? You’ve just explained something I don’t understand with something else I don’t understand. What good does that information do for me when I’m worried about the upcoming election?

“Let’s get your task positive network activated so your executive network can make better decisions about your work plan.” Huh?

More useful advice would be: “List your priorities and then let’s sort them from most to least urgent, and from most to least important.” THAT’S useful guidance because it speaks to my experience. It uses plain language I can understand and follow.

We humans love labels and explanations. Science has given us a view of the world around us in excruciating detail. The more we know, the wiser we might become – but not necessarily. There are a lot of highly-informed but unhelpful people out there offering advice.

Information by itself has no value. And it’s now free on the Web, with the geniuses Professor Chat and Brother Claude available 24/7. When applied to a particular problem, information becomes useful, and we call it knowledge. When we apply knowledge to life problems, we call it wisdom.

A system of knowledge can be use to explain what was previously unexplainable or mysterious. Explanations make us feel safe and comfortable. The scratching at the window isn’t a predator, it’s the wind blowing the tree’s branches against the glass. Whew! I thought I was in danger.

We like know WHY we behaved as we did, or feel the way we feel. In neuro-speak, you can watch your physiological reactions and say, “I feel this way because my dopamine and norepinephrine are out of balance.” Is this useful? Probably not.

The same principle can be seen in other fields of human knowledge. If Astrology is your model, you may say, “I’m acting like that because I’m a Capricorn with a Pluto-Neptune conjunction.” If you’re a psychologist using personality typing, you may say, “You did it that way because you’re an INFJ.” If you use the Enneagram as your model, you can explain, “I acted that way because I’m a 9 with a strong 8 wing.” If you’re a behaviorist, you might say, “I did that for the reward I knew I would get at the end of the process.”

Explanations make us feel better because it gives you an answer. It doesn’t matter which model you use. It’s the explanation at the end that satisfies your curiosity. Is it truth? No. Partial truth or generalization at best. Is it useful? Maybe. Does it inform or change your behavior in the world? Models are useful when they’re used to develop a new way of observing yourself or the world. They can bring new understanding, and some of them have explanatory value.

The problem is that you can become addicted to any model you use, and only see the world through that lens. Alfred Korzybski wrote in 1931, “A map is not the territory…” and confusing the two can be dangerous.

In his book “The True Believer,” Eric Hoffer described how easy it is for us to fall into a group with specific beliefs. We adopt a group’s beliefs in order to belong to the group. We then become convinced that those beliefs are true. He was analyzing Nazism in Germany, but he made it clear that this tendency is universal.

This is the nature of the belief system itself. We adopt beliefs in order to predict what’s going to happen next. It’s a deep survival mechanism. We look for repeating patterns, identify them, and they use them to stay safe, to belong, to have status, etc.

You’ve met people who are addicted to their model, whether it’s their religion, belief in astrology, use of the enneagram, 360 assessments, the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, clinical psychology, or neuroscience. Models makes things clear – because they collapses reality – which is always infinitely complex and constantly changing – into an understandable mechanism that explains a messy reality in simple terms.

We’re so oriented to this process of simplification that we could call it an addiction. We see it everywhere we look in the human condition, especially in polarization, our tendency to bifurcate the mess of politics (Right vs. Left; Liberal vs. Conservative), countries (Us vs. Them, Israel vs. the Arabs), economics (Rich vs. Poor, Haves vs. Have-Nots), and even in neighborhoods (“We’re quiet people and they’re noisy people.”).

If only life were that simple.

All assessments are somewhat inaccurate, because any division of human nature into categories will be naturally flawed.

Measurements of personality characteristics are 1) flawed because people don’t fit neatly into categories, 2) there is a very wide range within any label or category, 3) our self-report will be different than anyone else’s report about us, and 4) every person sees through THEIR belief filters. Populations of people do not behave like populations of neurons. Statistics are used in psychology because it’s as close as you can get to “what’s so – in general.”

I find the study of the Mind is more useful than the study of the Brain and nervous system. Mind includes our experience, our personal history, our beliefs, our orientation to the world, all the non-physical and experiential aspects of what’s happening. By getting to know your own Mind, you can find the source of your moods, choices and behavior in the subconscious. You can find out what isn’t working well and clear out those buggy programs, and update the thoughware.

This is my conclusion from 50 years of study and practice (and it’s MY model!): It’s all beliefs… all the way down.

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