Breaking It Down

By Rev. Katherine Sherrill Batas M.A., LCMHC, MT-BC

Our minds can be a wonderful tool–capable of thinking in complex ways–our logical brain develops from the very beginning of our life. First, with learning how to connect our physical actions, to cause and effect, to verbalization, all the way to complex logical puzzles. But for as wonderful as our mind can be we can often begin to struggle getting lost in the infinite possibilities. Often we call these thinking spirals, down rabbit holes, or crash outs. 

Counseling is often a way to help clients verbally express their thinking patterns and us, as therapists, to listen out for cognitive distortions or issues within the logical processes. We can aid the client into building insight and challenging these patterns. 

There is also another tool…fighting logic with logic. 

Oftentimes with clients that are intelligent, well-read, and very observant–they have all the facts and it has caused them to reach a variety of conclusions that may or may not be true. This is when we often introduce breaking it down to the simplest factor…Occam’s Razor. 

Occam’s Razor is one of the most basic logical arguments ... When problem solving first test the most basic and simple explanation. Oftentimes I push clients to “think horses, not zebras”. The truth is very rarely are things as complicated as our brain makes them. People are at their core very simple. I often encourage clients lost in the data collection and hypothesizing to not forget the simplest explanation.

It sounds simple in practice but it really can be difficult when we are so comfortable with looking for all the possibilities out of fear, anxiety, or hypervigilance. I meet many clients that feel they have to think of everything in order to be prepared. Oftentimes, this makes us disconnected and often leads to us drawing the wrong conclusions. This can be helpful for anyone trying to break out of their circling thoughts. Without all the noise…what is the simplest answer.