I remember when I was younger being asked the question: “If you could have any superpower what would it be?” There were so many glorious options, it was so hard to decide! My mind wandered to the imaginative world of being able to fly, or being invisible, or having super strength. These were all very appealing options. However, there was something incredibly intriguing to me about the superpower of being able to read minds. To be able to know what other people are thinking? Wow. I really thought that would be the ultimate ability. I guess it’s no wonder I became a psychologist…
I ponder this question now as an adult with the absolute acknowledgement that realistically, mind-reading is not possible. However, I do think that a lot of us try to do it anyway, and I would argue that this is actually very unhelpful. I will explain why.
Take the following example:
You are walking down the street and in the distance you see one of your friends approaching. As you draw nearer you start slowing down in anticipation of saying hello and catching up, but instead your friend walks straight past you without saying a word.
Our natural instinct is to ask ourselves “what was that about?” I know I would probably automatically start trying to guess what that person was thinking or feeling. There are a whole bunch of possible reasons as to why that person may have walked past you without saying hello. The truth is - we don’t know! But I want to illustrate how trying to read that person’s mind can be unhelpful, and sometimes damaging.
An automatic thought that could come up in response to that situation could be, “he/she must be angry with me”. This is a prime example of mind-reading, because in reality we actually don’t know if that person is angry with us or not, as they haven’t actually told us! I don’t know about you, but if I thought that my friend was angry with me I would feel sad or anxious, which would in turn impact how I engage with them the next time I see them. This line of thought might leave me feeling angry and, as payback, I may decide to ignore them the next time I see them. Or, because I’m feeling sad and rejected, I might decide to withdraw from the friendship, and not initiate any further catch ups. But what if that friend that ignored us is actually having a really hard time themselves, and as such they were so caught up in their own thoughts while walking down the street that they actually just didn’t see you?
This is just one example amongst many to illustrate how jumping to conclusions and trying to read someone’s mind can be really ineffective.
I don’t mean to invalidate my younger self. Indeed, the ability to mind-read would be really cool. But, seeing as we don’t and can’t have supernatural abilities, I do think it is worthwhile to be aware when we are automatically going into ‘mind-reading’ mode, and remind ourselves that it is not always the most effective way to operate. Instead, we should focus on open communication. If you are not sure what someone is thinking or how they are feeling, ask them! It might save you a lot of time and energy otherwise spent jumping to conclusions without all of the necessary information.
This blog was written and prepared by Hannah Gersh – Psychologist at Melbourne Wellbeing Group. If you would like to learn more about effective communication strategies, give our team a call to arrange an appointment on (03) 9882-8874.