Theory of Mind

Hi everyone, it's Dr. Niger again, our next episode of Psychology and Plugged. Thanks as always to all of our new and long-term listeners and followers. I appreciate your continued support and the encouragement of this program as we try to legitimize denystify mental health and instill a legitimate and true sense of self. As I was thinking of different topics, I thought I would branch off into an interesting theory, and I thought it was, you know, that I've talked about attachment and stress and some other just psychological experiences and factors. I thought I would get into one that is kind of interesting and I was able to pull notes from a presentation that I had done on this in the past, so I'll be able to reference things. You may have heard of this, it's called Theory of Mind, and I think a lot of people believe they understand what Theory of Mind is, but I think what they're really talking about is like a water down, like pop psychology, TikTok version of it, and, you know, Theory of Mind is nothing to do with being nice or considerate or reading people well, like a pair of verbal communication. In essence, the definition of Theory of Mind is the capacity to hold in our own awareness that someone else has an inner world that does not belong to us, that someone else has their own identity, their own feelings and experiences. It is separate, it's sovereign, it's distinct, and it's really nothing that's tangible and it's really invisible unless you infer about it. And what a lot of textbooks don't understand is that Theory of Mind is not about knowing what someone thinks. It's about accepting that you don't, and holding that space anyway, anyway, which really means total uncertainty, and that is not always a comfortable place for people in general to be in, whether or not there is a diagnosable psychological condition. It's tolerating ambiguity and tolerating not being the center of the narrative, and also tolerating the idea that someone else's perspective or their reality actually contradicts our own, and still be real. So this is definitely a very heavy topic psychologically and requires a lot of, I think met a cognition, so when Theory of Mind kind of collapses, people stop being, they stop being minds, they start becoming threats in some way, so we can, you know, we can feel this in conflict, we feel it in shame, certainly in abandonment and panic, very much prevalent in borderline personality, and you know, we can start to feel when the nervous system goes into survival mode, and suddenly any kind of difference feels like danger. So this is really separating, you know, psychological maturity from immaturity, and you know, I talked about, you know, psychological survival, and, you know, just for people's edification who use the program for educational purposes, it's, you know, Theory of Mind, it, this is not one mental skill, it's really a network of neurological systems that are working together, and I've referenced, and I've said many times, that we're designed to do one of two things, and that's survive and procrate, and psychological survival is something that is much more a part of our evolution than it was probably 100 plus thousand years ago. So you have the, you know, the medial prefrontal cortex, which that is beginning to differentiate cell from others, the temple, parietal junction, that really lays the groundwork for interpreting another's intention, the superior temporal sulcus. This is what tracks gaze, emotional motion, and implied meaning, and something that's kind of newer is the mirror neuron system, which simulates another person's state so that the nervous system can feel what, what somebody else is, is, is feeling. And, you know, if, if the limbic system does not feel safe, Theory of Mind shuts off, and this is again, about our own psychological survival, and this is also why trauma doesn't just change behavior, it changes perspective, you know, a traumatized brain has a really hard time representing what we call like other, because it's trapped in protecting the self in a state of hypervigilance. So this whole Theory of Mind system, it, it really starts to begin between three and eight. Now, similar to what I've talked about in the past with respect to personality, that's kind of crystallized between five and eight years old. So with Theory of Mind after age eight, we start to refine it. But the foundation, much like personality, is laid early on. So if caregivers are dysregulated, unpredictable, frightening, withdrawn, self-absorbed, the developing child, doesn't learn that minds are stable, or that they're easily, easy to read, or save to engage with. They learn that other people equal volatility, other people equal a potential or perceived threat to my physiological, psychological, and emotional and well-being. And you really can't, you really can't build curiosity when I talk about, you know, attachment and having the, you know, the insecure attachment and the anxious avoidant intentions, you really cannot help a child build curiosity in the absence of psychological safety. However, too much psychological safety can have other damaging impacts like creating dependency, creating separation anxiety. But without curiosity, there really is no Theory of Mind. You know, there's a false belief test that seems simple. But it's really one of the, I think, most important moments in the ideology of perspective taking. And the term was called, you know, psychological pluralism. And children, you know, who fail the stuff, they're not selfish. But there was an example, and it was, I know the marble is hidden in the basket, but she thinks it's in the box. Therefore, she's going to act on her belief, not on reality. And that's the psychological pluralism. And before this milestone is what I know, everyone knows. And that's early child cognitive development and even PHA talked about this. But after that milestone with a child learns is what I know is not universal. And that is really a pretty significant transcendent mindset. So before reaching the milestone is what I know, everyone knows. And after, you know, past this milestone is what I know is not universal. And again, children who fail this are not necessarily selfish. They're more or less what I would consider like neurologically egocentric. And adults who fail this tend to become emotionally regressed. And this is where I think it's some, I think we began confronting some hard truths. Because a lot of adults pass the false belief tests intellectually, but they fail it emotionally every time they, they feel insecure. And I think there's the regression too that, you know, pre milestone that my way is the correct way and everyone else is wrong. And what kind of pops in is I know why you didn't text back. I know, I know what you meant by that tone. I know you cancel because you don't care. I know you're judging me. And in reality, no, you don't know. This is a kind of a collapse theory of mine that's replaced with projections and irrational beliefs. And you can see where these, you know, we, we don't know what someone else is thinking. We don't know what someone else is feeling. Or just because our observation, we may, we may have a sense. We may have based on, you know, our relationship with somebody, we may have more data to drop on if we can, you know, we know our partner can read their body language or can infer tone of voice that we've heard that before and then realized that it was associated with some kind of emotional perspective. But you know, if you take theory of mind and empathy and mentalization, people use these terms interchangeably, but they're actually radically different because theory of mind is the recognition that there is another mind with their own thoughts and beliefs and biases and values and predilections and experience and imprints. And the core question, the theory of mind is, um, you have an inner world and an empathy, it's feeling with other people and the question is, I, I can feel into where mentalization is interpreting the meaning of someone else's mind and basically, you know what, hey, I can make sense of your experience and this is something that occurs a lot in, in psychotherapy, being able to obviously show empathy and, uh, hopefully and mentalization to be able to try to place yourself in the situation, whether that's, you know, metaphorically, many times place yourself in the situation of what a patient may be talking about or what, what, what, what they're going, what they're going through, um, but, you know, I think an important sentence to convey is that empathy is not maturity, you know, theory of mind is maturity. Being an empathy, empathy is our, our emotional ability to connect with other people where a theory of mind operates at a much higher level to be able to, um, recognize that there is a mind apart from ourselves that has its own, um, kaleidoscope of beliefs and, but, but empathy without, you know, theory of mind really becomes, in many ways, emotional flooding and it's, it's projection that's wrapped up in some kind of, of sentiments like, uh, if I feel it, it must be true, kind of like, well, what's on the internet, it, it must be true. Um, but no, that it, it, it, it's yours, it's your thought, it, it's, it's not theirs. And, and mentalization is really the, the integration. It's holding my mind. It's holding your mind simultaneously without merging or erasing either. So in terms of, um, you know, this is, if you look at different kind of diagnoses, if you take like autism, you know, the mind of the other is really hard to infer spontaneously and it's, it's not about cruelty, it's just, it's really cognitive loading, you know, the, the person often wants connection, but, you know, but the machinery for instant inferences is just not automatic, um, ADHD and the problem is not about capacities about consistency because the, the potential systems are all of the place, you know, working memory drops whatever the representation of the other mind interaction is and, you know, the attention was there, but it just vanishes due to, you know, dysregulated attention. Um, in borderline personality, theory of mind exists often very strongly, but, but completely collapses when the real or imaginative bandiment threat is evoked and, but the capacity in borderline, the capacity for theory of mind is there, um, regulation is not and when someone becomes dysregulated, the other becomes the, the persecuted, the persecutory type, the betrayer, the abandoner, uh, the executioner, and it, it's not about manipulation. It's really about, uh, some kind of psychic terror because the nervous system is, is basically screaming on, on an existential level, like, I'm about to stop existing. So the mind erases, otherness of the sense of connectedness in order to survive, take narcissistic personality disorder, um, this is where the claps goes the other way because the other's mind is not erased by fear. It's subordinated to the individual self and the other does not exist as, as really an interior world, but it's only only as a function and as a reflection and a source of supply. And if you look even at, you know, psych pathology or, or, or, I mean, psychopathy or, um, let's remember for a psych, psychopathy or sociopathy, um, you know, theory of mind is intact, mentalization is intact, but empathy is offline. It is completely gone. And that is one of the, um, one of the hallmarks of, of anti-social personality, personality disorder. Um, but if you talk, we, we look in the, in the realm of trauma, you know, trauma does not destroy empathy, but it, I think it, it, it, it destroys safe access to otherness. If someone has been, unfortunately, abused sexually, physically, verbally, emotionally and their self-esteem has been adversely impacted where they, they, their identity is, is seemingly, seemingly crushed, it, it inhibits, and we know without proper treatment, it really inhibits that person to be able to want, despite a want or desire for connectedness. It, it really, the, the impaired sense of safety is really, it becomes really problematic. And when the nervous system is, is flooded, it is not scanning for connection, it is scanning for danger. This, when the amygdala is in high gear, the limit system is in high gear. So if this, this is kind of this interesting battle about our, our hard-wired physiology. And then our, our neo-cognitive perspective, because as much as we want connection, when, when we're over flooded by perceived or real danger, whether that's borderline or just, you know, walk it down a dark alley, you know, you may be somebody who's very, very, very curious and you want to talk to somebody, because you're a dark alley in, in downtown Boston and two o'clock in the morning, you know, really not looking to make connection. You're looking for danger. And then I think when danger becomes primary, the brain cannot represent another mind. It, it basically reduces them into a role. It, it deconstructs the, it deconstructs the cognitive structure of another individual, when danger is primary. And it reduces them into a role of a threat, a persecutor, an abandoner, a judge, a holder, an enemy, a deserting figure. And this is not a failure of, of kindness. It's more or less a failure of, you know, the capacity under threat. If we're, you know, we're going to choose that, if we're under threat, we're going to choose to connect with somebody or we're going to choose to survive. And then when you get into like attachment trauma, the mind of the caregiver was unpredictable, was frightening, absent, and mostly unavailable. And so the child learns, other minds are not stable, other minds are not safe, other minds disappear when I need them. And again, theory of mind between three and eight personality, between five and eight. So it's, it's incredibly important to, to realize, you know, in the United States, we have to be sixteen before you get a permit to drive, eighteen to vote, twenty one in the United States to buy and consume alcohol legally. But these other crucial variables that are a lot of, very much a part of the constitution of what, what my, my job is about and a lot of my friends and, and colleagues are working in mental health. Um, you know, so when emotional intensity arises and the adult blame, the adult brain, I think just replace the attachment template, um, you're leaving me, you're attacking me. You don't care. You're against me. And I, I think what, what's missing in this part is the idea that the other person has a mind at all that's not at, at, at the forefront. And, um, this is sometimes when people say, you know, um, oh, that's just me. And, you know, theory of mine doesn't collapse in textbooks. It collapses in moments. So when your partner goes silent, when someone changes their tone, when it, when a text isn't, isn't returned, when you feel misunderstood, uh, when you read, when you want reassurance and don't get it exactly how and when you anticipate it. And this is something I could front with a lot of people when they ask, why, why did this happen, why did this person do the, and they're, and they're trying to make some sense. And I think this doesn't relate to theory of mind, they're trying to make some sense. Like, what was the, what were the cognitive operations in the other individual that resulted in me having these altered, um, cognitions and negative emotions. And I've told people, it's, it's, it's, it's really an exercise in futility because in, in our minds, we have constructed what exact, verbage and terminology, the person we're looking for the answers from how they're going to say it, where they're going to say it and what context they're going to say it. And if it's not delivered in terms of our preconceived notion, we're going to be disappointed. And even if it's delivered in that same preconceived manner in which we've constructed our mind, we're not going to believe it because we're going to say, believe, were you just telling me what I want to hear? And, you know, at that moment, the, you know, another mind stops existing and they become an extension of our fear and that's why so many arguments, I think, escalate instantly. You know, the fight was never about the dishwasher or the text message, um, the fight is really about psychological recognition, do I still exist in your mind right now? Am I, am I not, am I not just your husband or wife or partner or friend, but do I, does my own perception of the situation does it still matter? And you know, the fight, it may not be about the dishwasher, but it could be about something else, like why didn't you call for the repairman three weeks ago, does, does what I say not matter and it's usually like peeling and, you know, and onion and, you know, when the answer feels like a no, the brain starts to panic and this is why panic looks like rage, um, you know, protest looks like accusations, shame looks like hostility and when someone laments or screams like, you know, what's wrong with you or why would you, why would you do that? You know, but you know, what they're really actually saying is your mind abandoned me way before your behavior did and here's the unfiltered truth, um, the part that people resist is, I think if you, if you can't see another person as a subject with their own inner world, you're really not in a relationship, you're just in a projection. And this is why intimacy terrifies a lot of people because it requires otherness projectant does not, it requires vulnerability and, you know, projection is about control, otherness is about, um, you know, vulnerability, um, it, it's, it's, it's an interesting concept that I thought, you know, really kind of would like, you know, connect it to the self of talk about survival and about fear and about attachment, but I, I would really encourage people to look up and, and learn more about theory of mind because if you don't, uh, there's a good chance that you will, the potential to continue to hurt people is not because someone's cruel. It's because you're psychologically alone in moments of stress and people will keep re-enacting abandonment and persecution and rejection and self protection. And I think what happens is people will confuse your interpretation with their intention and wind of calling that, um, insight, um, it's, I think theory of mind is not really an option for healthy relationships, it's, it's, it's the price for admission to intimacy because without it, you weren't relating to a partner, a friend, a parent, a child, you're just relating to your nervous system wearing their face. And the emotional isolation is disguised as interaction. Um, you know, young had talked about this, um, you know, to recognize another mind is to recognize soul and the other. And the opposite, the opposite of theory of mind is really isn't ignorance. It's dehumanization. Um, I think what we say, I see your mind, what we're really saying is I grant you reality. I recognize your interior life and I acknowledge you as a subject, not as an object. And I think that's more than just psychology. It's mortality, that, that spirituality, that, that's, um, uh, consciousness encountering itself, um, in another, um, it, it's an, again, it's, it's an interesting topic and one that, um, one that I would definitely encourage people if you want to understand more about, you know, then diagrams, where do I start and the other person begin? Because that's the work, that's adulthood, that's the beginning of intimacy. And that is, um, that is theory of mind. So hopefully you guys found this helpful, um, until next time continue to reach out through psychology, unpluggedoutlook.com, uh, psychology today you can reach me on. I try to get back to as many people as possible. If I haven't just keep nudging me and I will do my best. But until next time take care of yourselves, take care of each other, be well and I will talk to you. Bye guys.