Raine, Samenow, Fallon: Neuropsychology & The Work

[seek10]

Some more bits from the Leroy chapter that stood out for me, and which I think will be helpful for practical application here and in life in general:

Yochelson's manner: direct yet polite, neither gullible nor cynical. Feigned (or real) moral indignation doesn't get you anywhere most of the time - it just puts people on the offensive. It's possible to be honest and respectful, and it's effective. It shows that manipulation won't work, and earns respect in turn. It's just good basic diplomacy without childish provocation. And there's no anticipation: "time will tell." One example: Yochelson asks Leroy, "Am I right?" Leroy responds, "You could say that."

Yochelson would pounce on that statement and point out that it showed Leroy to be a coward who presented a tough exterior to the world, but who didn't have the guts to face up to who he was. When Leroy replied, "I don't know," Yochelson said that "I don't know" is typical of a criminal who fears tarnishing his image by being truthful. Yochelson demonstrated how everything that Leroy said was revealing of his personality. ["Yochelson continued to unmask Leroy by dissecting his every statement or question."] ...

Yochelson had remained calm and polite, even when he expressed his total opposition to Leroy's way of life. He did not ridicule Leroy, browbeat him,
berate him, or treat him with anything less than respect. So Leroy continued to sit there and take it, almost mesmerized while Yochelson picked him apart and presented him with a mirror image of himself.

Until I came to this chapter, It looked situation is very grim for the criminals. I was surprised that there is some hope, only if one wants to change.

Criminals cannot be forced to change; they must reach a point in life when they are becoming fed up with themselves and, consequently, desire to change. There are just
three paths—crime, suicide, or change. Many offenders cling to a belief that there is a fourth option—to appear responsible while committing crimes on the side. Partial
participation in this program is analogous to being a little bit pregnant. It is not a viable option.
...
An effective program for change places total responsibility upon the criminal, who has the opportunity and capability of making new choices. The approach emphasizes not what
happens to the criminal, but on what he does to others. For example, if his employer was harshly critical, what had he done to provoke it? If truly nothing, then did his response
improve the situation or make it worse?

Decisions are not made for the criminal. The process of decision making is the focus, but each specific decision is made by the individual. Eventually a criminal, like law-abiding
citizens, chooses his life’s work and advances as far as his talents and efforts allow. Many and varied opportunities will always reside within the limits of responsible choices. The
change process calls for criminals to acquire moral values that have enabled civilizations to survive. The objective is to teach offenders to live without injuring others.

 

[987baz]

I too found the Leroy chapter very interesting, I guess as with everything else, we have to want to change, and make the effort, or work if you like. It doesn't just apply to criminals.

Reading the Samenow books, my take away was that the criminal mind, is very much in wishful thinking mode, reality has to conform to them, not the other way around, and while to some extent we have all probably been guilty of that to some degree at some point in our life, doing the work and networking helps to show up those thought errors.

 

[Altair]

Here are some interesting quotes from Inside the Criminal Mind by Samenow grouped by chapters/subchapters:

No matter how much physical, financial, or emotional damage he causes, the criminal believes he is a good person...

It is important to understand how a criminal fortifies his good opinion of himself so that he can do a kind deed for someone and then, shortly thereafter, wreak havoc. The criminal’s view of himself as a decent person constitutes a major barrier to change.

...there is a significant difference between a person who tells a relatively innocuous lie to avoid embarrassment or hurting someone, and the individual who lies as a way of life. The criminal lies to cover his tracks (he has a great deal to conceal) and to get out of a jam that he has created for himself. He lies to preserve a view of himself as special and powerful, a self-image that he fortifies every time he succeeds at deceiving others.

The continuum concept also applies to anger. Some people have a sunny disposition and seldom get angry. They maintain equanimity even in the face of major challenges and disappointments. At the other extreme is the criminal who simmers with anger throughout his life. When people fail to fulfill his unrealistic expectations, he reacts as though his entire self-image is at stake. Throughout his life, he is infuriated because people do not conform to what he wants, and he is unable to control them.

When I began working as a clinical research psychologist, I believed that people turned to crime largely because of factors outside of themselves. I regarded criminals mainly as victims. Working with my mentor, Dr. Yochelson, we eventually found this view to be completely in error. We became increasingly skeptical of self-serving stories in which criminals justified what they did by casting blame on others.

Behavior is a product of thinking. By focusing on thinking patterns rather than causes, we eventually laid the foundation for a method to help offenders change their thinking and behavior.

The Environment Does Not Cause Crime:

“Association with delinquent peers” is not a risk factor. It is a result of the choices a person makes and characteristic of juveniles who commit crimes. “Antisocial beliefs and attitudes” do not place a person at high risk. The word “risk” is superfluous, because a person’s antisocial thought processes virtually guarantee that the person will behave in a manner that injures others. “Involvement with a gang” requires participation in criminal activity. This is what gangs do, hence not a risk factor.

A person might demonstrate many of the risk factors and still remain law-abiding. Conversely, an individual might manifest many, or even all, of the protective factors, yet still commit crimes.

“The latest crime statistics strongly suggest that bad times do not necessarily make bad people. Bad character does.”

For decades, it was not politically correct even to investigate whether biological factors play a role in criminal conduct. This was due to apprehension that identifying criminal genes would lead to selective breeding and genetic engineering, a throwback to Nazi eugenics.

Lies that seem to have no purpose roll off the tongues of such individuals. Mental health professionals consider this apparently “senseless” lying to be compulsive and pathological. However, once you understand the mind of the liar, you know that neither is the case. The “purposeless” lie has a purpose. Some of the lies the delinquent child tells are for the sheer excitement of it. Believing he can pull the wool over the eyes of others leads him to feel special and powerful.

Bear in mind that most children who are abused do not become criminals. The abuse has an impact, but victims of abuse deal with what happened to them in different ways. They may become withdrawn, anxious, depressed, or even think they deserved the abuse. Some are angry. And then there are those who resolve that they will never be like the person who abused them.

Their tactics are designed to divert the focus from their irresponsible conduct to what their parents have allegedly done, thereby placing the parents on the defensive. Delinquent children tune their parents out, then claim they never heard them. They say they were confused because their parents failed to be clear. They accuse their parents of failing to listen or insist that they misunderstood.

It may well be that a disturbed family system can give rise to isolated cases of antisocial behavior, but there is as yet no convincing evidence from treating entire families that the disturbed system is the cause of a child’s expanding and intensifying patterns of delinquent activity. In fact, what often happens in treatment is that the delinquent child scapegoats the family.

Numerous professional observers contend that associating with delinquent peers is a “strong risk factor” for turning to crime. But this is like saying that diving into water gets you wet. It reveals nothing about causation, but a great deal about choice.

The Disruptive Student Who Drops Out:

This is how a criminal thinks. Just thinking something makes it so.

The delinquent child appears to have a short attention span for most classroom assignments. And if he is diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder, it is as though that explains and excuses anything, including criminality.

Doing well academically can camouflage criminality. A criminal is less likely to be a suspect if he has a reputation as a campus leader and an honor student.

Work and the Criminal:

Holding a trusted, esteemed position as a doctor, teacher, lawyer, or financial advisor is not enough. Whatever legitimate rewards a criminal’s job offers, they do not satisfy him. The criminal never has enough power, control, and excitement, which are the oxygen of his life. Over and over, he must demonstrate that he is more clever, more capable, more ingenious than others. And so he pursues his objectives by violating employer policies, breaking rules, and manipulating others into serving his own objectives.

When Dr. Yochelson and I conducted our original study of criminals (1961– 1978) at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., among the questions we asked was “When you were growing up, what sort of job did you hope to have?” A significant number responded that they had wanted to be a police officer. They were attracted by the symbols of power as well as the exercise of power. The attractions were the uniform, badge, fast police cruiser, the gun, and the ability to pursue and arrest bad guys. Their motives had nothing to do with serving the community and making it a safer place.

"Life is a one-way street - my way":

The criminal craves power for its own sake, and he will do almost anything to acquire it. He values people only insofar as they bend to his will or can be coerced or manipulated into doing what he wants. The criminal has been this way since childhood, and by the time he is an adult, he believes that he is entitled to whatever he desires. To him the world is a chessboard, with other people serving as his pawns. He is constantly sizing up his prospects for exploiting people and situations.

Of course, we all make errors in our thinking to a degree. However, people who injure others day in and day out are so extreme in these thinking patterns that they have a radically different view of the world from those who live basically responsible lives.

If you understand the criminal mind, you comprehend that the seemingly purposeless crime has a purpose— to achieve a sense of sheer power, control, and excitement.

Criminals do not justify their crimes before committing them. They formulate their objective, decide how to pursue it, consider the chances of being caught, then strike. There is excitement in every phase of a crime— contemplating the end result, planning the crime, executing it, making the getaway, reveling in the success, eluding the police, and relishing the publicity that may attend the crime. Even when the criminal is caught, the excitement may not end. He now has to beat the system...

Justifications for what he did come into play after he has been apprehended and is held accountable.

The criminal’s desire to constantly fortify a sense of uniqueness is a driving force of his personality. Every human being is unique physically, psychologically, and experientially. A criminal may pay lip service to what he shares in common with others, but inwardly he believes he is like a fingerprint, one of a kind. He refuses to subordinate himself, at least for very long, to anyone else or to heed their advice.

Criminals know the potential consequences of their crimes. The “occupational hazards” are being caught, convicted, and confined— even being executed for crimes carrying the death penalty. There is also potential for being injured or killed during a high-risk crime. Criminals have a chilling capacity to eliminate from their thinking all these risks once they are poised to act. Their ability to shut off fear is so precise, it is like turning off a switch.

Sex for conquest and a buildup of self:

Criminals are often portrayed as having unusually strong sex drives. However, it is the excitement of making a conquest, not a biological urge, that provides the primary impetus for sexual activity. The desire to have power over others starts early. As a child, the criminal comes to discover that sex is one way of gaining that power.

The crimes may be sickening, but they are not products of a “sick” mind. The perpetrators know that rape, voyeurism, indecent exposure, and sex with children are illegal. Individuals who commit these crimes are rational human beings who have been massively irresponsible throughout much of their lives. A large number of sex offenders have committed other types of crimes. A study of adolescent sex offenders at a state correctional facility revealed that approximately two-thirds reported having been in treatment for offenses not of a sexual nature.

Innumerable professional articles and commentaries have described rape as a crime that has little to do with sex but far more with power and conquest. It is important to understand the act of rape within the context of the perpetrator’s entire personality. Rapists do not necessarily hate women, nor are they sexually deprived. At stake in a rape is the criminal’s affirmation of his image of himself as powerful and desirable. The assailant believes that his target already wants him, or will want him once she gives him a chance. Her attempts to ward him off only heighten his excitement. Brute force is rarely necessary because intimidation works. Every rapist whom I have interviewed has committed other types of crimes.

Simmering anger flaring into rage:

Criminals expect others to behave as they want them to behave. Since many times each day this does not happen, they are perpetually angry.

Their self-image rises and falls based upon whether others meet their expectations. When a tiny pin punctures a balloon, the entire balloon bursts. The same thing occurs at the smallest setback with a criminal whose entire self-image is on the line. What most people would consider just a part of life, the criminal reacts to as if something catastrophic has transpired.

Criminal pride involves more than just having an oversized ego. It has a rigid quality that permeates the criminal’s life. He must maintain this pride for his own psychic survival.

Criminality is primary, drugs secondary:

Criminality does not reside in the bottle, the pill, the powder, or in any other substance. Drugs bring out and intensify what already resides within a person. They do not transform a responsible person into a criminal. If ten men get drunk, all ten will not rape, rob, or kill. They may fall asleep, become rowdy, or act belligerent; their behavior depends on their personality before they took the first sip.

Despite the self-medication theory, no set of statistics indicates that most people turn to illegal drugs or misuse prescription drugs in order to cope with disagreeable situations. Quite the contrary is true. Responsible people cope with crisis in a responsible manner. Confronting illness, family conflicts, problems at work, or financial setbacks, they do not inject heroin, snort cocaine, or use other illegal drugs, nor abuse legal ones.

"Decent people":

During the early days of my research, in the 1970s, the feature of the criminal mind that I found most surprising was that every offender regarded himself as a good human being. The participants in the study acknowledged that, from society’s point of view, they were “criminals,” in that they broke the law. What I have found ever since is that every offender, male or female, juvenile or adult, believes he is, at heart, a good person.

If a criminal regards something as wrong for himself, he will not do it. An act is wrong if it is too risky. An act is also considered wrong if the criminal deems it too petty and thus beneath him. A big-time operator may consider shoplifting wrong only because the proceeds are too paltry or he thinks that, with all the surveillance techniques that stores employ, it isn’t worth taking a chance. If a criminal errs in judgment and is apprehended, he may admit that what he did was wrong and even express what appears to be remorse. However, his sense of wrongfulness and regret relates to getting caught, not to having committed the offense in the first place.

Criminals set themselves apart from those they consider to be the really bad guys, thereby preserving an image of themselves as good people.

Noncriminals have a tendency to resist seeing the criminal as he is. Many people have difficulty thinking of another human being as gratuitously and maliciously injuring others. They cling to the view that everyone is good at heart, that extenuating circumstances explain even the most vicious crimes. Throughout his life, the criminal exploits this tendency of others to see him as basically good.

Well-intentioned professionals, such as counselors and social workers who want to help criminals, often think that a major issue is low self-esteem. They see that a criminal has failed in so many ways: in his family, at school, at work, in interpersonal relationships, at developing his talents. Because they encounter him in a situation where he appears despondent, they may diagnose his core problem as depression and having an inferior self-image. And indeed the criminal may look depressed, because he is in a situation that he desperately wants to escape. Understanding that criminals see themselves as good people should help well-meaning individuals avoid wasting time in a fruitless effort to boost the criminal’s already gigantic ego.

Mental illness, or a criminal personality?

Antisocial people like Clay shift from unbridled optimism and a sense of invulnerability to unmitigated pessimism and despair. Their changes in outlook and demeanor may be visible to others. The oscillation does not signify the presence of a mental illness, such as the currently common diagnosis of “bipolar disorder.” The highs and lows stem from the criminal’s inflated sense of importance and his intense distress when his unrealistic expectations go unfulfilled.

It is impossible to commit a crime that is out of character. It would be like asking a building to fly; it is not within the building’s nature to do so. You cannot be other than who you are. A crime that appears out of character can be understood only by discerning what the character of the individual truly is.

The “out of character” crime may be preceded by a long series of threats or assaults that were hushed up or disregarded by the family. Despite appearances, when the homicide is finally committed, it is by a person to whom violence is no stranger. In the perpetrator’s mind, he has already annihilated the source of his distress many times. In a sense, one could say he was programmed to murder his wife— programmed not by someone else, but by his own habitual pattern of thinking.

How could boredom explain killing a total stranger? If one understands the workings of the criminal mind, it is feasible to grasp that boredom can indeed be the motive. Earlier in this chapter, I mentioned that Clay said he wanted to do something illegal to relieve boredom. What he and others like him find intolerable is to live within the constraints of the law and of society. Crime is an antidote to boredom. As discussed previously, there is excitement in every phase of a crime.

"Rehabilitation" revisited:

...many offenders reject any opportunity to change. Yet another reason for the poor track record of rehabilitation programs is that the criminal justice community and the community at large believe that the criminal has the same needs as most people, but that he does not know how to fulfill them in a socially acceptable manner. They fail to understand that criminals think differently from responsible people. Mistakenly, they believe that programs that succeed in helping people with other types of problems will have similar results with criminals. Countless millions of dollars are dumped into myriad educational, vocational, social skills, and artistic enrichment programs, most of which have not been empirically tested for their effectiveness. That is, we have no proof that socially trendy “rehabilitative” programs such as yoga, gardening, money management, diary writing, theater production, and poetry composition offer any hope of changing the way the criminal mind works.

The very concept of criminal rehabilitation is flawed. If one looks up “rehabilitation” in the dictionary, the definition is “to restore to a former capacity.” An architect conceives of a plan to rehabilitate an old cathedral, to restore it to its former grandeur. A stroke victim undergoes rehabilitation to help her regain functions she once had. There is nothing to which to “re-habilitate” most criminals. From childhood, they rejected the basic principles of how to live responsibly in society. The scope of the task of change entails helping a criminal to “habilitate” himself, which exceeds the scope of “re-habilitation.” Helping a criminal become a responsible human being requires a far-reaching change in thinking.

Integral to a philosophy of rehabilitation is helping inmates acquire skills so that they can make their way in society without resorting to crime. This is based on the flawed premise that people turn to crime because they lack certain skills.

Programs that constructively occupy inmates invariably contribute to a better institutional climate. But there is no evidence that cultivating creativity translates into eliminating criminality.

The criminal does not regard the victim as a victim at all. He is the victim, for having been caught. Compensating the real victim may bolster a criminal’s already elevated view of himself as a decent person and thereby give him even greater license for crime.

But rehabilitation as it has been practiced cannot possibly be effective. Just as “rehabilitation” is a misconception, so too is the notion of “reintegrating” the criminal into the community. It is absurd to speak of reintegrating a person when he was never integrated in the first place. The criminal has long stood apart from the community, contemptuous of people who live responsibly.

It is understandable that many people think juvenile offenders and criminals have low self-esteem and that people like Reasoner, who is specifically addressing school curricula, advocate programs to raise it. After all, many juvenile and adult offenders appear to have failed in most areas of life— school, work, their families, their communities, and even in crime (since they have been arrested). Their narcissism, Reasoner maintains, is “actually a form of low self-esteem” in that it attempts “to compensate for an underlying fragile sense of self-worth.” The reality is that the predatory criminal does not lack self-esteem or consider himself to be a failure, even when he is apprehended for a crime. If he failed at school, at work, or elsewhere, it is because of choices that he has made.

Behavior is a product of thinking. The key to habilitation is to help an offender change his thinking.

To change a criminal (the chapter about Yochelson's treatment of Leroy):

Undaunted, Yochelson realized that he would have to take a new tack. Having discovered that the search for causes was futile and contributed only to rationalization, he stopped swallowing his patients’ self-serving stories and concentrated on their current thinking. As he did this, he saw that they were rational, not crazy at all. He concluded that the insanity defense through which they had escaped imprisonment was a farce. In fact, they were no different from criminals whom he studied who never were hospitalized for a psychiatric condition.

Increasingly, Yochelson became a hard-liner, not in the sense of wanting to punish criminals but in insisting that they be treated as responsible for their behavior and held accountable. Only by seeing them as the victimizers they were, not as the victims they claimed to be, could he surmount the barriers that they set up to confuse and distract not only him but everyone else they encountered.

Eventually he realized that significant and lasting change in the behavior of criminals could occur only with a 180-degree alteration in their thinking. He developed a technique to teach criminals to report their thinking so that it could be monitored, and errors pointed out and corrected.

Yochelson knew practically nothing about Leroy’s background, nor was he interested. He didn’t even know the charge on which Leroy had been declared not guilty by reason of insanity. But having studied many criminals in depth, and having found identical elements in many of their thought patterns, the doctor knew a great deal about the workings of Leroy’s mind.

Yochelson demonstrated how everything that Leroy said was revealing of his personality. Like a bloodhound, Yochelson pressed on for close to three hours, unmasking Leroy. Leroy didn’t like what he was hearing, but he found it hard to deny.

Yochelson had remained calm and polite, even when he expressed his total opposition to Leroy’s way of life. He did not ridicule Leroy, browbeat him, berate him, or treat him with anything less than respect. So Leroy continued to sit there and take it, almost mesmerized while Yochelson picked him apart and presented him with a mirror image of himself.

Bluntly, Yochelson told him that he was a thoroughbred criminal and that three options were possible: Leroy could continue in crime and experience the consequences; he could commit suicide, in which case society would be better off; or he could learn to live like a civilized human being and become a responsible person. Leroy had ruled out the first two. That left only change, which he thought would be a snap.

Behavior follows in the wake of thought. To eliminate criminal behavior, it is essential first to change the way a man like Leroy thinks. This is by no means a fast or easy process. The task requires demolishing old thinking patterns, laying a new foundation by teaching new concepts, and building a new structure wherein the criminal puts into action what he is taught.

Leroy was told that none of his hard-luck stories was relevant. The circumstances of his life were of no concern. He was not a victim. At the heart of the program was the premise that man can choose between good and evil. Rather than relieve Leroy’s fears and guilt, Yochelson would try to intensify them. Having had some psychotherapy, Leroy was used to expressing feelings, ventilating anger. He was surprised that Yochelson, a psychiatrist, had no interest in his feelings. There would be nothing in this program to make Leroy “feel better” about himself or accept himself. Rather, in order to change he would have to grow intensely fed up with himself.

Yochelson continued to unmask Leroy by dissecting his every statement or question.

Leroy was then permitted to join a group of five men who already were at different points in the change process. Groups were organized in this manner so that a new man could see how others were functioning and the current members could see themselves all over again as they heard the questions, arguments, and excuses of a totally unchanged criminal.

From a sheaf of notes made during the past twenty-four hours, each criminal reported what he had been thinking— thoughts about other patients on the ward, thoughts about the nursing staff, thoughts about family, thoughts about a violent movie on television, thoughts about the group, thoughts about Yochelson, thoughts during masturbation. The others listened in silence until Yochelson broke in to comment on a particular thought or sequence of thoughts. That became the focus of discussion, with Yochelson applying corrective concepts to everyone in the group, not just to the man who was giving the report.

The program sounded extreme to him, but what other choice did he have? His disgust for the past and his fear about the future were strong enough for him to make a new beginning.

The heart of the meeting was the daily report of thinking. Then even the person who languished in bed all day with the flu would have plenty to report. First, Leroy had to be taught to stop and recollect what he had thought, then to make notes on paper. He was instructed to think of this exercise as though a tape recording of his thinking were being played back. The reason for the emphasis on thinking was that today’s thoughts contain the seed of tomorrow’s crime. Leroy began to understand this very quickly.

One criminal living in the community happened to mention that en route to the meeting, he had thought of cutting off a driver who abruptly pulled out in front of him. This thinking flashed by, consuming seconds out of a twenty-four-hour day. Though most people would forget it instantly, this man had been trained to turn a magnifying glass on his thinking.

The standards in Yochelson’s program were stricter than almost any Leroy would find in the straight world itself. Leroy found it difficult to accept the fact that to change he had to go from one extreme to another. He didn’t view himself as an evil person to begin with. Coming to terms with the truth about himself was excruciatingly painful, the most difficult undertaking he had ever experienced. The criminal’s reluctance to face the truth was verbalized by one group member who confessed, “The reason I don’t examine this stuff is that when I really look at it, it’s like touching a live wire.” The most basic requirement of the program is that the criminal report his thinking without embellishing, editing, or omitting. Leroy deliberately concocted some lies because he didn’t want to touch the “live wire.” At other times, lies spilled out of his mouth automatically. He would deny something, admit to only a part of the truth, or shade his answer to make himself look good. As he pointed out, he had lied since he could talk, so lying was second nature to him.

But neither ventilation nor suppression is an adequate solution. What must be done with a criminal like Leroy is to help him gain a realistic view of himself and of the world, so that fewer things bother him and he reacts constructively when things go wrong.

But the criminal must do even more than that. He must learn to anticipate situations in which he might be angry, and think them through in advance.

The worst problem Leroy faced in the early period was that as an unchanged criminal, criminal thoughts flooded his mind every day. The only barrier between himself and his life on the streets was a fear of getting caught and a threadbare conscience. These had not been very potent before, and he knew he could not rely on them in the future. Yochelson began to teach him ways to deter criminal thinking. The first method was to consider the many consequences of acting on a thought.

Yochelson pointed out that, in typical fashion, Leroy was jumping to conclusions after only a few months on the job. He warned Leroy that he would encounter situations far more trying than this. In fact, Yochelson advised criminals to be grateful for things going wrong, because it could help them learn to cope with adversity and be better equipped for it in the future.

This was all new to Leroy, who had planned little in his life other than a bank robbery. In this program he was taught to think not only about future events, but also about what his future thinking might be. Yochelson stressed the importance of thinking about thinking.

Criminals cannot be forced to change; they must reach a point in life when they are becoming fed up with themselves and, consequently, desire to change.

 

[Maat]

Thanks for the quotes Altair. Very useful !

 

[Laura]

Each and every one of those quotes should be read carefully by every member of this forum, and some thought given to how they ALSO describe ordinary, non-criminal people in many respects. For example:

The ordinary person's view of himself as a decent person constitutes a major barrier to change.

The ordinary person lies to preserve a view of himself as special and powerful, a self-image that he fortifies every time he succeeds at deceiving others. I would add also that he deceives himself.

When people fail to fulfill the ordinary person's unrealistic expectations, he reacts as though his entire self-image is at stake.

And just that small bit I've "adjusted" is underpinned by the biggie:

Behavior is a product of thinking. By focusing on thinking patterns rather than causes, we eventually laid the foundation for a method to help offenders change their thinking and behavior.

Of course, one comes to the cut-off between basically normal people and the truly criminal:

... bad times do not necessarily make bad people. Bad character does.

The criminal never has enough power, control, and excitement, which are the oxygen of his life. Over and over, he must demonstrate that he is more clever, more capable, more ingenious than others. And so he pursues his objectives by violating employer policies, breaking rules, and manipulating others into serving his own objectives.

It's like the criminal type has all the same foibles of the ordinary person only it is combined with a character that actively seeks power over others and excitement. Most ordinary people just don't want others to have abusive power over themselves and they struggle to make sense of the world that doesn't act according to their expectations and all they have to fall back on are pretty much hard-wired ways of coping that are also common to criminals, though overly dominant.

I tell ya, you can learn a LOT about yourself by reading this book!

 

[Echo Blue]

Laura wrote:
"Behavior is a product of thinking. By focusing on thinking patterns rather than causes, we eventually laid the foundation for a method to help offenders change their thinking and behavior."


I would just like to add that since reading Samenow's books, I have begun to catch myself thinking in patterns that have not benefited my life. And, the wonderful thing is that now,when I realize my thinking error, I am able to stop, take a step back, ask myself why am I replaying this old thinking tape of mine, and it helps me to focus on the issue at hand from a different perspective.

I've noticed that when certain issues would happen, I'd immediately start replaying those old thinking patterns OUT OF HABIT. It was a way I was protecting myself. But I never thought that the way I was thinking was an emotional response to help me feel better about myself.

I am really grateful for this book. It is changing my thinking, my life, and those destructive emotional thinking patterns that sometimes come back to ruin a good day.

 

[genero81]

I've read Inside The Criminal Mind and am most the way through Myth of The Out of Character Crime. I had already made a change by learning to act on principle rather than on how I felt or thought, which are closely interconnected. And just that alone has paid large dividends in overall quality of life. But after reading Samenow, I realize that's not going far enough. I need to dig deeper and work harder to correct certain thinking errors/ patterns. I've already started the process. Whenever I have a thought that is in error, I acknowledge it and mentally think through what the correct thought should be and why; this person is having a difficult time, things just happen, it's not about me, make the best of it. STO gives all when asked etc. It will take some time.

 

[Laura]

It's good to hear that some are already reaping benefits. Thing is, I think the people who need it most aren't reading it or applying its lessons properly - possibly because of very deep thinking errors.

All of us have seen these thinking errors pop up all over the forum. Just about anybody who is having difficulties, miseries, whatever, is suffering from thinking errors and if they could/would just read this book and truly get it, half the work of changing their lives would be done.

In fact, as far as books about "The Work" go, I would say that these two are among the very most important because they are so simple and clear and matter-of-fact. They really lay out the major problem of every human being on this planet and how to deal with it.

 

[Echo Blue]

I honestly thought while I was reading the books that they didn't apply to me. I can't even explain how towards the end of reading the first book "Inside the Criminal Mind", my thinking process started making connections. I would go back in time and make connections on how I had failed to see certain situations correctly and how I had put (substituted) my own spin on the situation. I realize I was very young when this began, but over time, it became a habit.

I'll be 70 years old next month, so I would like to say that it is never too late to discover things about yourself. - good and otherwise. - because the feeling of discovery is indescribable and freeing!!!

 

[kenlee]

I would just like to add that since reading Samenow's books, I have begun to catch myself thinking in patterns that have not benefited my life. And, the wonderful thing is that now,when I realize my thinking error, I am able to stop, take a step back, ask myself why am I replaying this old thinking tape of mine, and it helps me to focus on the issue at hand from a different perspective.

I often wonder about what makes it possible to think outside the box of the old conditioned thinking patterns into a new modality of thinking that can free us from these thought loops (at least for a moment) so we can think in new ways and question ourselves. I wouldn't be surprised if what makes it possible is a connection we have to the future in some way that opens up a space or gateway that makes this possible. If we think always in the old patterned ways then we're gonna always follow a line of of predetermination with the same outcomes (or worse) but if something new enters (possibly from the future), in any given moment, then our orientation, that is, our attitudes can shift direction out of the predetermined stream into 'a new space' where something new and unexpected can emerge resulting in the possibility (which did not exist before) of old attitudes reorienting themselves into a new direction/reality and thinking patterns shifting accordingly.

Possibly an example of this unexpectedness which might be indicative off the mass consciousness connecting to the future allowing for new attitudes and thinking patterns to emerge is Trump getting elected. No one expected it but yet it happened and with that new possibilities may very well have opened up that weren't there before. Just some thoughts on this and I will soon be reading Samenow after finishing up my present readings.

 

[Altair]

I often wonder about what makes it possible to think outside the box of the old conditioned thinking patterns into a new modality of thinking that can free us from these thought loops (at least for a moment) so we can think in new ways and question ourselves. I wouldn't be surprised if what makes it possible is a connection we have to the future in some way that opens up a space or gateway that makes this possible. If we think always in the old patterned ways then we're gonna always follow a line of of predetermination with the same outcomes (or worse) but if something new enters (possibly from the future), in any given moment, then our orientation, that is, our attitudes can shift direction out of the predetermined stream into 'a new space' where something new and unexpected can emerge resulting in the possibility (which did not exist before) of old attitudes reorienting themselves into a new direction/reality and thinking patterns shifting accordingly.

Possibly an example of this unexpectedness which might be indicative off the mass consciousness connecting to the future allowing for new attitudes and thinking patterns to emerge is Trump getting elected. No one expected it but yet it happened and with that new possibilities may very well have opened up that weren't there before. Just some thoughts on this and I will soon be reading Samenow after finishing up my present readings.

Maybe it has something to do with the illuision of linear time which we all are succumbed to? By seeing your own thinking errors at the time they occur you kind of go above them and above linear timeline (which on bigger scale can probably be described as a time loop), your mind becomes "timeless" for a moment and capable of "seeing" and "choosing" other timelines beneath, i. e. other possible "futures".

 

[kenlee]

Maybe it has something to do with the illuision of linear time which we all are succumbed to? By seeing your own thinking errors at the time they occur you kind of go above them and above linear timeline (which on bigger scale can probably be described as a time loop), your mind becomes "timeless" for a moment and capable of "seeing" and "choosing" other timelines beneath, i. e. other possible "futures".

That's a good observation. I really think it's like the way you describe. At that timeless moment one can see beyond time 'into eternity' (as it were) or, in other words, to see more in depth into a deeper reality where there are possible futures that are 'visible' to the inner sight and from that a choice can be made where the will can follow the path that has deeper meaning, understanding, and essential value.

Here's a thought experiment fwiw. Supposing one moment you're kinda deep in thought, maybe pondering on something with deeper meaning or something along those lines. Who is to say that you might not be making a connection with yourself in the past (or future) without you really being conscious of it and 'yourself in the past' is at that very moment pondering things too, where both future and past selves co-exist and are communicating to each other at that same 'eternal moment' or something like that? Then you send knowledge thru that connection to your past self (all of which is happening NOW) and your past self in some way picks up on it (without really being fully conscious of what's going on) and in that eternal moment your past self is more free to make a choice of possible futures that, with the application of your will, unites the past and future points together for a moment so that a path opens up that can send the you in the past more in the direction of where you are now which is connected to this group and the other selves in the group who are all sharing knowledge, understanding, experiences and collective research. So in a way it's not only you in the present who is communicating to your past self but it's also, in a sense, this entire group communicating to your past self because your present self is participating with this group and the other selves in it all of whom are exchanging information. OK, I'll stop here. It's just a working hypothesis (fwiw) and it's probably far more complex then the way I just outlined (assuming there's any validity to it) but I often wonder if, sometimes, it can be kinda like the way I just described in these 'eternal moments.' :)

 

[genero81]

Okay so you have memories of past experiences, but rarely do we remember accurately exactly what happened. And also the experiences themselves occurred through the filter of assumptions and beliefs we had at the time. So my experience has been that certain events in the past didn't really convey meaning until a certain amount of learning took place. Learning that involved both the acquisition of real knowledge but perhaps more importantly, the debugging of the lens of awareness from wrong assumptions, ideas, beliefs, thinking errors etc. Only then did I 'remember' past experiences in a way that 'fell into place' with a particular lesson learned which may have been triggered by a current event or a missing piece of information.

I feel like I really had some epiphanies a couple of years back when I was sort of going through a learning spurt with the cognitive science stuff combined with many clues from the C's. The 'mind as a cathedral' concept sort of combined with a loosening of the hold of linear time. I had the definite impression that the more we could 'leave assumptions at the door' and truly start to follow a more accurate line of thinking, objectively speaking, the stronger the 'connection' to future selves at higher densities who were in fact facilitating the 'unveiling' without interfering with free will. Not sure if I'm fully conveying what I want here. It's as if the learning spurt and future selves are intimately connected. Like the more I learn and understand the more access is available from my future self.

 

[Balance]

Laura wrote:
"Behavior is a product of thinking. By focusing on thinking patterns rather than causes, we eventually laid the foundation for a method to help offenders change their thinking and behavior."


I would just like to add that since reading Samenow's books, I have begun to catch myself thinking in patterns that have not benefited my life. And, the wonderful thing is that now,when I realize my thinking error, I am able to stop, take a step back, ask myself why am I replaying this old thinking tape of mine, and it helps me to focus on the issue at hand from a different perspective.

I've noticed that when certain issues would happen, I'd immediately start replaying those old thinking patterns OUT OF HABIT. It was a way I was protecting myself. But I never thought that the way I was thinking was an emotional response to help me feel better about myself.

I am really grateful for this book. It is changing my thinking, my life, and those destructive emotional thinking patterns that sometimes come back to ruin a good day.

This 'catching thinking errors and dissolving them by doing conscious step-back, revision and focusing on the issue from different perspective' reminds me of self-observation in combination with self-remembering G talked about. Self-observation as catching thinking errors and self-remembering as conscious step-back, revision and focusing on the issue from different perspective.

This is same as training with weights where we rip muscle and bone tissue and than build new muscle cells plus repairing the mDNA of the mitochondria which produces more ATP aka. more energy.
Same thing probably happens when we catch thinking errors, stop them and do revision from different perspective. It weakens certain neural pathways and boosts others - neuroplasticity. So according to our thinking AND doing we literally change our physicality. As we know, just thinking or just doing won't change anything. It's same with thinking errors, shedding the light on causes of specific thinking (like parental/family relations, hard upbringing, problems in social life, traumas, negative beliefs/thinking patterns induced by variety of pathological individuals) won't fully change situation. It brings awareness of what you need to repair and that's already a big leap but not end of the journey. Conscious acting against thinking errors and emotional beliefs is what builds strength.
Same as with weight training, it's hard to start but if you continue to be disciplined, persistent and conscious in your acting it's easier as time passes and you gain more energy and will. If all of this is fulfilled, your body starts to transform itself really fast - literally few months.
In order to do all of this, bad habits as wrong food, laziness and excuses must be replaced by better habits like quality food intake, eating schedule, regular gym activity etc.
So, catching the thinking errors and emotional beliefs, taking a step back, conscious pondering of various better perspectives are good habits in light of mental hygiene. They are brain exercises which 'scrape' certain neurons and boost others.

Btw. Knowing all of this won't causally change thinking, mental exercises will. Knowing how to do biceps curls won't make my biceps bigger, but KNOWING the best way of doing this exercise and DOING it will produce desired effect. So what should I do next? - Try to catch and dissolve my thinking errors every single time!

 

[Laura]

Laura wrote:
"Behavior is a product of thinking. By focusing on thinking patterns rather than causes, we eventually laid the foundation for a method to help offenders change their thinking and behavior."


I would just like to add that since reading Samenow's books, I have begun to catch myself thinking in patterns that have not benefited my life. And, the wonderful thing is that now,when I realize my thinking error, I am able to stop, take a step back, ask myself why am I replaying this old thinking tape of mine, and it helps me to focus on the issue at hand from a different perspective.

I've noticed that when certain issues would happen, I'd immediately start replaying those old thinking patterns OUT OF HABIT. It was a way I was protecting myself. But I never thought that the way I was thinking was an emotional response to help me feel better about myself.

I am really grateful for this book. It is changing my thinking, my life, and those destructive emotional thinking patterns that sometimes come back to ruin a good day.

This 'catching thinking errors and dissolving them by doing conscious step-back, revision and focusing on the issue from different perspective' reminds me of self-observation in combination with self-remembering G talked about. Self-observation as catching thinking errors and self-remembering as conscious step-back, revision and focusing on the issue from different perspective.

Exactly. And this is one of the clearest and most practical approaches we've seen so far. You could say that Samenow makes The Work simple and easy to understand and practice.

I guess that, in a sense, we all have somewhat "criminal minds" until we wake up and understand our machine and take charge of it. These books enable us to become the master of the coach instead of just allowing it to be driven willy nilly by a drunk driver and a poorly disciplined horse!