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EB Ver Hoeve's picture

Internalization of false reality

Aside from being theoretically fascinating, the suggestion/fact that reality is constructed within the brain and can be therefore constructed differently for different people is a real life challenge – that many people face all the time. Often times I find myself thinking, how can I make you see this the same way I do? And while, that’s what supposedly makes discussion more interesting, I think the more interesting discussion comes from how it is that people can change other people’s reality. Do you have to have a gift? Do you have to be a PHD holding professor of neurobiology? I don’t really think so. I think the amazing thing is that anyone, at anytime, is capable of altering someone else’s reality (maybe without even realizing it). And yet at the same time, while anyone is capable of changing your reality, it is not always a guaranteed success. In some ways that is good, in others, it is really sad. Internalization of false reality is scary, but real. And just to quickly make some attempt to tie into the blog prompt, how do you tell your story, when you and I-function have internalized a false reality? Through therapy, people learn to see themselves in different ways; does this change their stories? How is a therapist able to identify these false realities? How does she decide to set the story straight?

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