Rose observed that what he called the outside mind contains the entire mental manifestation of every person's mentality, including their umpire or survival urge, their egos, as well as all their fears, desires, and psychic injuries that co-exist within that mind. Rose noted that when a person pursues the role of observer, "This brings us to the admission that we can observe our own behavior, and we can observe not only our own thoughts, but we can observe thought-processes such as visualization and introspection." So that the outer mind can be observed by the silent inner mind. Once a person is able to witness the working of their mind, and realize that there is an inner mind observing the outer, they can come to an understanding about themselves and how their head works in regards to an outer and inner self. 'If the observer and the observed are not one and the same because the inner mind is capable of witnessing the workings of the outer mind, then 'the 'we' which we think of when we behave a certain way, is separate from that which is observed,' said Rose. In the case of the person struggling with alcoholism, for example, if they are able to watch their mind, they will witness the battle of voices that goes on in the outer mind when the desire for alcohol urges the organism as a whole to drink
The witnessing of facets, voices, urges, and egos of the outer mind should tell us that there are parts of our self existing in our outer mind that are not really 'us'. Rose used the argument that, 'We must separate the view from the viewer' in terms of what part is more real in our self. The inner mind that observes is the viewer and the outside mind is the view. When Rose said theat, 'The view is not the viewer,' he meant that a great part of our thinking and personality is imposed upon us, once we are able to observe it and realize that it is not a truly real part of us at all. Said Rose on this process of looking at the outer mind and observing it to determine what is not our real self, "We simultaneously define the many observable mental characteristics a being not us.' In the case of the alcoholic, when he applies this process to observing himself, he can either accept the urge to drink and the personality that props up that urge as his 'real self,' or decide that this part of himself is not as real as his desire for survival and therefore must be gotten rid of to avoid the consequences of drinking.
