'sir, i am having conflicts in my mind. I am not peaceful. Please help me!'

Dear all...THIS IS FOR ALL...ALL OF US HAVE SUCH ISSUES IN OUR MIND AND SUFFER...

Qn. Sir, What is Cognitive Dissonance?...Please explain it with an example.

Ans:

I will give the example first and explain it later, so that you will understand easily.

Because understanding the Theories of Psychology is a bit difficult.

Assume you believe that…… 'We should not eat non-veg because killing animals is wrong, as they experience pain during killing. By eating animals you get bad karma and will get punished by God'.

But you also have experienced and are convinced that 'Fish is very good for health and it is very tasty too!' and you are addicted to eating fish.

In this condition you have two contradicting strong beliefs.
You are also scared that you are doing something wrong and god will punish you. So, you don't go to temple or to Pooja room in your house. This also you don't like as you want to do Pooja every day and want to worship god. You don't like this condition of remaining away from god and you feel that god will punish you for this also!!.... So, you experience stress in your mind. You experience discomfort. It is painful. You are unable to live peacefully.

And you come to me for help saying 'please help me, i am unable to live!'...

And i tell you……. 'Please eat fish. What you are doing is perfectly right. Even God has told that he has created everything in this world for us to eat and enjoy and most of the people in this world are non-vegetarians. God does not punish them. Even doctors prescribe fish for weak people and for certain diseases. Fish has lots of good protein. You are not killing the fish. Only the fisher man is killing the fish, so he will only get the bad karma and get punished by god and not you. You are eating only a dead fish. So, you are not killing a fish and by eating the dead fish the fish does not get any pain. So, don't worry. You are not at fault. You are perfectly doing the right thing for your good health. So, eat fishes and nothing wrong in it!!'......

On hearing this you will get relieved from all your conflicts and fears. Your mind will tell….. 'Oh...God himself has said that i can eat anything and he has created everything for me only to eat and enjoy. And only the fisher man will get punished and not me!'...So, you go back happily praising me, thanking me etc.
Now the theory….

When we have contradicting beliefs, we get stressed. We want to adjust our beliefs and convictions...restructure them in our mind...so that we come out of the stress and live a peaceful life. This can happen at the cognitive level or behavioural level or both. In the above i have changed and made the person to adjust his beliefs so that the stress is relieved. This stressful condition is called cognitive dissonance.

There are nearly about several hundreds of mental disorders. We call them disorders because they are stressful and affect our day to day living.

DSM V lists all the disorders and they have ICD codes too.
All human beings exhibit only cognition, affect and behavioural components in life and all their problems are due to these three domains only...and we correct by adjusting these three domains!!😂

If these three have caused biological change in the body or brain, then only medication is required by going to Psychiatrist. Otherwise, a psychologist is enough.

(By the above example I am not promoting killing of living organisms (plants and animals) or non-vegetarianism. We are part of Nature, and are supposed to eat only for survival (not for pleasure), like the way all organisms do. For this it is enough to eat only those rejected by the plants in their natural form or through healthy cooking. E.g. fruits and seeds (grains).

In this case we are not killing or causing harm to any plant life or animal life and are physically and mentally healthy too. The biggest problem is we have tasted many pleasurable unhealthy foods or preparations that we are not able to live without them. This is similar to infants who reject mother’s milk or other healthy foods after tasting a soft drink or other foods of pleasure!!...)

In the above counselling we have made the person stress free and made him to listen to the counsellor. He is happy. Now he will listen to the counsellor because he believes that whatever he suggests will be good for his life. So, slowly and steadily he can be brought out of the non-vegetarianism too by Cognitive and Behaviour Therapies so that he lives a healthy life.

Peacefully yours…Rams…Psychologist!!