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Comment by hackit2 | Hacker News Reader

Most people who're suffering from cognitive dissonance don't have a problem with the dissonance, how-ever they struggle with articulating themselves with their limited vocabulary, it is only after they obtain the vocabulary can they cognitively start process their emotions/experiences. Its only when the frontal cortex can build new adaptive mental models to process the emotions can people move forward, Everything else is a coping strategy.

It is a large part why therapy is useful because you out-source that vocabulary/articulation/interpretation to a third party who can articulate it back to you which helps speed up that feed-back loop/process.

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That's such a fascinating thought! Thank you very much!

The idea that cognitive dissonance is not perceived as a problem as long as one does not need to verbalise those, is scary but also hopefull.

So yes, speaking about problems is, yet again, very important in resolving them.

The first step is articulating your problems, after that you don't need anyone to help resolve it. The tools you use to solve them are all the same assertiveness, accountability, and your own boundaries but if you skip over articulation those tools are worthless because your just randomly walking around in the dark trying to find a solution to a problem that you think is the problem, which feeds into a vicious feedback loop of learnt helplessness.

That is why a therapist will get you to articulate what you mean when you say a word/phrase because people have different meaning of words and/or phrases. That is why when clients relapse, they can go to a different therapist who uses the same vocabulary/words/phrases.

At the end of the day, there is a bit of a serenity to it all. You stop trying to manipulate the world, and start finding people who have the same wants, needs, desires as you. but, alas the first step is all-ways articulation.

The way I see it, say if someone smokes cigarettes... And one day they are confronted with irrefutable evidence that what they are doing is bad/wrong/dangerous - their mind is then uncomfortably split between two conflicting ideas:

1. "I'm an OK person, I'm not particularly bad, I try and do the right thing"

2. "How can #1 be true if there is strong evidence to the contrary?"

I think you're right, hackit2, this is usually not verbally articulated, but FELT as discomfort.

This internal discomfort can be resolved either by:

1. Facing up to the facts around cigarettes - This is hard, this sucks. If you're smart you have to face up to all sorts of uncomfortable stuff, from governmental benefits of addiction to your own mistakes.

2. NOT facing up to what is real. But siding with a group/ideology/thinking mode which is working on the front of modifying reality. Investing time in trying to change reality through narrative or rhetoric or disproving.

I think this framework happens to us all on some fronts... I think the catholic church might have hit up against some of this stuff when the earth ceased being the centre of the universe. I think they may have chosen path #2, cause they had a lot to lose.

By articulating the internal discomfort the problem goes away because it mostly never about what you think the problem is because the problem is just a placeholder.

Apologies for the long sentence.

Where can I find more information on this exact idea? I would like to learn more.

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