The Wise Mind

Dec 16

The Wise Mind is a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) concept that suggests people tend to instinctively act from the emotional mind or reasonable mind and that the wise mind occurs when the two are balanced.

Let’s first clarify the difference between the brain and the mind. I’m sure you’ve heard the idea of left brain/right brain people where the left is more analytical and the right is more creative. I find this concept problematic because it implies that the brain consists of two separate, different halves, rather than an entire organ with a corpus callosum that’s sole purpose is to connect the two hemispheres. It also implies that the terms brain and mind are interchangeable - something I disagree with. While defining the mind seems an almost impossible task (in fact, in college I took an entire course on the philosophy of the mind and finished the course feeling quite frustrated about not having been provided with a concrete definition) I believe that the mind is an intangible cumulation of all our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, beliefs, and actions. When we discuss the emotional, reasonable, and wise mind, we are not speaking about specific neurological processes, rather the intention behind our actions. Using the term mind instead of the brain gives us the freedom to explore this idea more abstractly.

Now, let’s compare the reasonable and emotional mind.

The Reasonable Mind: rational, logical, fact-based, objective, planning

People in this mind focus more on objective facts, evidence, and logic. They pay little attention to their feelings and internal states. There are no intuitive judgments or gut feelings.

The Emotional Mind: subjective, unreliable, impulsive, confirmation bias, opinion-based

People in this mind focus more on their subjective opinions and emotions. They tend to be impulsive, not taking the time to address the facts. They can also be guilty of confirmation bias, where they favor evidence that supports their pre-existing belief.

No one is 100% in one of these minds, and we will often flip-flop between both extremes; however, I find that recognizing which mind you most often are in when making decisions can help you to be more aware and subsequently overcome the negative results of being in one extreme. This is where the wise mind comes in.

The Wise Mind: intuitive, holistic, observational

People in this mind discover that they know the answer already and can more easily access it. They appreciate and observe all of their emotions without acting impulsively and can recognize the evidence in front of them without having to spend hours researching and looking for concrete confirmation that they’re “right”. This is the most productive and effective mindset. While it may not automatically occur, with practice we can tap into the wise mind easily and not get stuck in either the emotional or reasonable mind.

An activity to explore and this idea further and apply it is to ask yourself the following questions: