Suppressed Thoughts and Christian Belief
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I do hope that my thoughts can be free, for my thoughts love freedom. |
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By Merle Hertzler
"Casting down imaginations," writes the apostle Paul, "and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5 ) With these words Paul makes it clear that some thoughts are simply not allowed. The Christian must cast them down. Instead he is instructed to keep good thoughts captive in his mind. This is not an easy request.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth," says the writer of Genesis, "and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5) And so we find the reason for the reported great flood--men were not having good thoughts. Can thoughts be that evil? Can we condemn a man because he thought something he should not have thought?
Paul sums up his philosophy on thoughts: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." (Philippians 4:8) Well, I agree that these may be good guides for our thoughts, but are they the only thoughts that I am allowed to have? May I not sometimes think about things that are not lovely? May I not sometimes think about things that are not just? This verse would seem to be too restrictive.
Must I really maintain a careful eye on my mind to make sure that the bad thoughts are suppressed? I do hope that my thoughts can be free, for my thoughts love freedom.
White Bears
There was a famous experiment in psychology in which the subjects were asked to suppress any thought of white bears while they verbalized their thought stream into a microphone. Later they were asked to try to think about white bears and again verbalize their thoughts. Those folks that had first suppressed the thoughts of white bears now experienced a rebound effect. When they were finally allowed to have white bear thoughts, they experienced thoughts about white bears in greater quantity and detail than those who had not first tried to suppress the thought of white bears.[1 ] The thoughts that were suppressed became stronger when they were finally allowed. This is the paradox of thought suppression. When we seek to suppress thoughts, those very thoughts can instead strengthen. So I am not sure that thought suppression is a good idea.
How can suppressed thoughts grow stronger? Well, let's think how the thinking process works. Your mind is filled with facts and thoughts. Somehow, some of those facts and thoughts work their way up to the threshold of consciousness, ready for your conscious mind to use them. In the healthy mind, these thoughts proceed into the consciousness in an orderly fashion, with the mind allowing one thought at a time to enjoy a brief moment of fame before the next thought is ushered before the throne of consciousness.
For thought suppression to work, one must maintain a list of forbidden thoughts. Otherwise one could spend 5 minutes contemplating what it would be like to make love to his neighbor, for instance, without realizing that this is a forbidden thought. So if the mind wants to suppress thoughts, it must maintain a forbidden-thought list.
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This chart shows one way to view the main functions of the mind. Starting at the bottom of the chart, the mind receives data from the senses and information on the state of the body. This is all processed internally in the mind. The mind organizes the data to evaluate the current state, and the current goals. The mind compares its current goals with its current state, and generates a "charge structure" of ideas that bubble toward the top. The strongest thought rises and gains attention. Consciousness consists of a stream of such thoughts parading into the state of attention. When attention is paid to a thought, that thought can then cause the mind to do several things. It can direct the movement of the body, including speech. It can also provide two important feedbacks back to the other elements of the thought process. First, it can set the incoming filter to the mind. This filter blocks out much of the unwanted sights and sounds around us. At this moment, for instance, your conscious mind can choose to concentrate on the meaning of the words in front of you, on the color of the page, on the sound your computer is making, or on the position of your hands. Alternatively, it can block out everything and start daydreaming. The mind decides, and filters out the unwanted information. The second feedback is a sense of the self that is fed back to the internal data processing. If, for instance, you start thinking about eating, the consciousness will feed back that you are a person who is thinking about eating. The goal-setting aspects of the mind then seek to adjust its goals to encourage thoughts about eating. And so the thought-charges that deal with food will receive higher priority, and will bubble through to the top of the state comparison. You will experience a continuous stream of thoughts about food. It is important to recognize that no specific part of this chart represents the mind itself. Rather, all of the functions working together create what we refer to as the mind. (For an expansion of this chart, see Decision Making, Habitual Domains and Information Technology by P. L. YU and C. I. Chiang offsite) Now let us look at what happens in thought suppression. An unwanted thought, such as a doubt about religion gains attention. The self-suggestion feeds back to the rest of the mind, "I am doubting my religion," causing the state evaluation function of the mind to see this as the current state. The fact that this is a forbidden thought must be so strongly engraved in the goal setting apparatus, that the state comparison immediately sees the problem, and bubbles the next thought into the mind, "I must not think this." As the self suggestion feeds back that the mind must not think this, the goal setting function works harder to suppress these thoughts. Immediately the need for other thoughts is forced to the fore, and the next thought is something like, "I must think something else." As this thought is fed back to the lower workings of the mind, the goal setting will try to find any other thought to push to the front. The next thought might be, "Isn't God good", or some similar thought. All of this produces a conscious steam of thought something like, "Could it be that Jesus was not God? Whoops, I am doubting my religion. I must not think this. I must think of something else. Isn't God good? I am glad it is a nice day. I have a lot to do today..." But to achieve this line of thought, the structure that forbids the unwanted thought must be strongly implanted in the subconscious mind at all times. The result is not freedom from the unwanted thoughts, but a tremendous mental struggle to resist the ever-building strength of the unwanted thoughts. There is a better way. |
Not only do suppressed thoughts grow stronger, but suppressing them can slow down the body's response. This fact was demonstrated in another experiment. Subjects were asked to suppress the thought of a target word, such as "home." Next, they were asked to memorize a 9-digit number, a task that requires substantial cognitive effort. Then, while suppressing the target word, and maintaining the memory of the large number, they were asked to play a game in which their reflexes were tested by flashing colored words on a computer screen. If the word was in red text, they had to push the red button. If the word was blue, they had to push the blue button. When the suppressed word--such as "home"--was flashed on the screen, the subjects had a measurable delay in responding with the correct color. Those that were asked to suppress a different word did not experience these delays when "home" was displayed.[2] It seems obvious what was happening here. The mind needed to take care of a little business whenever the forbidden word was displayed, and had to make sure the unwanted thought was not allowed into the conscious thought stream. This slowed down the reflexes. Interestingly, this effect occurred only when the minds of the subjects were busy thinking about another task, such as maintaining the memory of a 9-digit number. When we are busy, and are simultaneously trying to suppress thoughts, our minds can become overloaded. Brains do not do well when overloaded.
It is believed that suppressed thoughts can be the source of much obsessive-compulsive behavior and phobia. The undesired thoughts are forced to stay out of the mind. However, when stress builds up, the defense sometimes fails, and the suppressed thoughts work their way into the consciousness. The defenses than realize the mistake, and renew their efforts to deny those unwanted thoughts. This drains mental energy away from the stressful situation. But the stressful circumstance also requires attention. As these stressful thoughts demand a hearing, the thought-defenses get pushed aside and the suppressed thoughts often slip past the guard, even though the defense had been renewed. The result is a sudden burst of the suppressed thoughts. This can lead to a very troubled mind.
The Mind Set Free
And so it seems to me, if you and I want to have a peaceful mind, we are going to need to give all our thoughts a chance. We must allow ourselves to think that our religion may be wrong, or to think what it would be like to do something we would never do. But while we allow these thoughts freely into our consciousness, we must also allow other thoughts that disagree with those thoughts. We can then see things from all sides and can allow reason to be our guide, so that we can decide which line of thinking should be incorporated into our inner being, and which should simply be a passing thought. If a thought is given a chance when it demands attention, it no longer needs to remain in the thought blacklist. That thought was already given its moment of fame. We can move on.
Perhaps this is why so many former Christians find themselves debating Christianity on the web. Those that have grown up in atheism see religion as one of many aspects of life. But those that have suppressed the skeptical view of religion for years experience a huge rebound effect when those skeptical thoughts are later allowed. It may begin small at first, like the first leak of water through the dam. Eventually one becomes tired of holding back the skeptical thoughts. Many will panic as they see this first move toward skepticism within themselves, and will quickly patch the thought dam. But many of us have reached the point where it is no longer possible to repair that dam. The skeptical thoughts have broken through. Once the thoughts have begun to breech the dam, there is no stopping the mind set free. It can be scary at first, but it is a wonderful experience to set the thoughts free.
Many of us that have long suppressed skeptical thoughts now find those thoughts often at the center of our attention. Will it always remain that way? I don't know. I often tell myself that there is more to life than debating religion, but somehow the debate of religion always wants to have an important place in my mind. Perhaps some day my mind will prefer other things. I don't know. But I have set my mind free. It may choose whatever it thinks is important.
Of course, not everyone who sets his mind free will take the same path. Some will find some form of Christianity. Some will find atheism. Others will find some other religion. The important thing is not where one ends up, but whether the thoughts are set free. For the thoughts want to be free.
The Weakness of Positive Thinking
Before we move on, let us look at a movement in the church in which thought suppression is prevalent. The word of faith movement teaches that one must eliminate negative thoughts, and replace them with positive thoughts. It teaches that one must have faith that positive things will come true. One is not allowed to think that negative things might happen. The followers are taught that they can be healthy, wealthy and wise, if only they believe it will happen. They need only name it and claim it. But I think they are mistaken.
There are verses that support those claims. For instance, Mark 11:22-24 says:
22And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.
23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
And so we find that, to pray in this way, one must suppress all doubt. A similar thought is expressed in James 1:6, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." So one is allowed only to think the positive thought, and not to ask questions.
Now there is one sense in which positive thoughts do work wonders, and that is through self-fulfilling prophecy. We know the positive thoughts we are thinking, and so we naturally work to achieve those positive goals. Others may also see the positive spirit in us, and may join in to help reach those goals. Thus, the positive thoughts encourage the self and others, and consequently cause the positive thoughts to be realized. Such positive illusions are usually fine, as long as we keep our feet planted in reason. But the faith movement goes far beyond such pep talks. It teaches that, if one believes, then external circumstances will change to conform to what has been believed. In this, the movement is mistaken.
After graduating from college, I had become disillusioned with Christianity. I entered into a depressing period of my life, which was accompanied by much negative thinking including bitter thoughts toward certain people. Grasping for help, I accepted a secular system that told me to maintain a positive mental attitude and suppress the negative thoughts. I set out to fill my mind with new thoughts. Several times a day I repeated a memorized list of positive affirmations--"Just for today I will be happy", etc.--trying to engrave these good qualities into my mind. I was sure that these positive thoughts would replace those horrid negative ones, and I would then become a better person. But, alas, I simply could not suppress the negative thoughts for long periods of time. Eventually they always found a way to come back, no matter how hard I tried to suppress them. The rebound effect when those thoughts returned was often stronger than the original urge to think bad thoughts. I would find out later that there were some important issues in my life that needed to be addressed. I could not resolve those issues by sweeping them under the table and declaring that it would all get better.
So it seems to me that the Christian attempts to control thoughts are doomed to failure.
Detoxifying Faith
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The Christian authors of this book try to abandon the toxic elements of their faith, while still maintaining faith. (click on the book) |
For instance, in the book Toxic Faith, Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton speak of a faith that has become toxic. They mention twenty-one beliefs that characterize a toxic faith [3 ]. Interestingly, I can find Bible verses to support almost every one of those beliefs that they refer to as toxic. Do they not realize that many of those beliefs are prevalent in churches because the Bible teaches those things?
Arterburn and Felton stress the need to question, and to be free to explore perceptions, thoughts and feelings [4]. These ideas are now echoed throughout Christianity. Many churches no longer ask us to repress our thoughts. This is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, such freedom of thought is generally not allowed on certain issues, such as the inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ, or some other cherished doctrine. But if some teachings can be questioned, why cannot all teachings be questioned? Is not that the way to a healthy mind?
Scripture quotations from the King James Bible.
Notes
1. Wegner, Daniel, et. al., "Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53, 1987, pp. 5-12
2. Wegner, Daniel, Ralph Erber, "The Hyperaccessibility of Suppressed Thoughts," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63, Dec. 1992, pp. 903-912
3. Arterburn, Stephen, Jack Felton, Toxic Faith .(Nashville, Oliver-Nelson Books, 1991) pp. 47-98
Copyright
Ó Merle Hertzler 2004. All rights reserved.
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