Love 2.0: How to Move On  ## Metadata - Author: [[Hidden Brain]] - Full Title: Love 2.0: How to Move On - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a5801dd6-f581-49cd-bd49-32a3f3b0c338 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Make Three Lists To Grieve Fully** - Do write three lists after a breakup: losses of pleasures, things you’ll no longer tolerate, and lost hopes/dreams. - Labeling these undeclared losses as small tombstones helps make them real and easier to let go of. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam So your research has found, Antonio, that people who don't deal with their feelings can get stuck in an undifferentiated state of negative emotion that you call global distress. So as part of the process of unpacking this undifferentiated ball of emotions, you suggest that people get out three pieces of paper and make three lists. What goes on these lists, Antonio? Antonio Pascual-Leone Yeah, I mean, if we were talking about grief, you know, part of the puzzle is, what have you lost? And people are often thinking about the good things. What have I lost in terms of what I enjoyed about the relationship and will no longer come to pass, right? This might be the way we used to have those, the little jokes together or the way, the idiosyncrasies of that person that I cared about. But then you could also think about, you get a different piece of paper if you wanted to do it as an exercise and, you know, saying goodbye to the bad things, the things that I put up with Or tolerated. It might be, you know, the idiosyncratic quirks that that person had, which I didn't really enjoy, but was part of the relationship. And you just sort of took it. It was, you know, so that that's a different sort of thing. And listing those, right? I never really liked when the person did X, and now I don't have to put up with it anymore. Shankar Vedantam So it's almost like a form of accounting in some ways. You're totaling up the minuses, but also potentially totaling up the pluses. Antonio Pascual-Leone Yes. And then this third piece is the hopes and dreams. You know, and this is tricky because there's all sorts of things that you hoped would happen or that you imagined would happen. And those two are part of the relationship. It's like surplus reality, right? It didn't happen, but it was kind of baked into my experience of the relationship. Like one day we would have children or one day we would go on that trip together. And now those things, those will never happen. Right. ([Time 0:14:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d2e53440-1a3c-4d65-a60b-769bdc4d4d0c)) - **How Story Form Predicts Emotional Outcome** - The form of our story shapes symptoms more than content alone. - Superficial or 'same old' narratives predict higher depressive and trauma symptoms. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Antonia, you conducted a study that looked at the effects of the various kinds of stories we tell about our experiences. Two kinds of narratives had particularly detrimental effects, the superficial shallow narrative and the type of narrative that you call the same old story. What are these different stories, Antonia? Antonio Pascual-Leone Narratives will both shape the emergence of a story and describe the story. So one thing we were doing is getting people to write about traumatic experiences or the most difficult experiences they've had. And and then looking at the way they tell those stories. Right. And it turned out that there were certain markers, and you've mentioned them here, the sort of the same old story, and also the superficial story. The superficial story is this, you know, might be big on plot and characters, but never really getting into the deeper experience. And the same old story would be, yes, they get into the emotional experience, but they're stuck in some sort of maladaptive state, right? This is, it's always like this for me. It might be the poor me story, or it might be feeling like a victim, or it might be, I'm just giving some examples, right? When people told stories like that, irrespective of the content, right? It's the manner in which they told their stories, right? So this is the phrasing. This is highlighting certain things. Irrespective of the content, we could actually predict symptoms. There's symptom levels. So depressive symptoms, anxious symptoms, even trauma symptoms. So I can't stress enough. It isn't that they're telling stories about trauma and therefore they've suffered trauma. It's rather the way they tell this story. ([Time 0:17:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ec2c31cc-d492-4c72-9641-043d828f95f9)) - **Closure Is Your Personal Project** - Closure is often an internal project you do alone, not a conversation you must obtain from the other person. - Imagined dialogues can process emotion better than real talks when relationship repair isn't the goal. Transcript: Antonio Pascual-Leone Well, I mean, of course, it's about the other person in the sense that I've had an interaction with the other person. But it means something to me. And the unfinished business I have is my own. You can't change the historical facts, but you can change quite a lot what you feel about it when you think about it. You can change what it means and, you know, even some of the details of what you remember. Memory is actually very dynamic and more dynamic than what people tend to believe. In the end, exactly what happened or what was said matters less than what it means and what I'm going to do with it, right? In working with victims of trauma or complex trauma, sometimes the other person isn't, like in this clip, you know, a partner or an ex-partner who's unconscious in a hospital bed, but Was actually a perpetrator, right, of abuse. That kind of person is not a person usually that one can have a conversation with. They're not going to acknowledge the abuse. So clients will say things like I've told them and they deny it. And it's sort of like, yeah, yeah, I agree. That's not a conversation you can actually have with them because they always deny it or dismiss it or shut you down. So actually not having the person here can be more useful. Shankar Vedantam In some ways, Antonio, what you're saying is that the relationship might have been a shared project, but getting closure for the relationship does not need to be a shared project. That's exactly right. Antonio Pascual-Leone Me getting over the relationship is no longer a shared project. Me deciding what it means to me, it doesn't have to mean the same thing to me as it does to the other person. We often have, you know, there's this question of, well, isn't it just better to talk to the other person? And there was a study that kind of looked at, that's a great question, right? Can an imagined dialogue versus a real dialogue. So this was basically a study where what they were treating was suicidal adolescents who had essentially unfinished business with parents, right? There were rifts that were very painful related to the adolescent's suicidality. And, you know, they could randomize and treat in two ways. One, you could put them in family therapy where they actually have dialogues with the parent about what's going on, or you can put them in individual therapy and have imagined dialogues Where they imagine the parent is alive, is living somewhere else, but they're imagining a dialogue here. So this is really interesting. It answers that question because you actually get different outcomes, different kinds of outcomes. So if what you're looking for is relationship resolution, if what you're looking for is to improve the relationship, have a better relationship, then having a real dialogue with a Real person is going to be more effective, right? That's where you'll see the change in the quality of their relationship. Not necessarily in the degree to which they've worked through their own unfinished business, right? So you can repair the relationship and still not feel entirely resolved. On the other hand, if you had people imagine a dialogue, emotional processing, I'll call it, is better if the dialogue is imaginary. So the working through is their own project. Even if the person is alive, right? You still need to do your work. They can't process it for you. ([Time 0:32:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/00f24c2c-99ff-479b-b5da-7fe1a309d426)) - **Write Unsent Letters To Process** - Do write unsent letters or emails to express clarity without escalating the situation. - Use writing because it forces coherent expression more than daydreaming and reduces incomplete emotional loops. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam You say that one thing that people can do is that you can write an email to the other person, but never send it, or write a letter to the other person, but never send it. What would be the value of doing this, Antonio? Antonio Pascual-Leone And you need to clarify the boundary violation, if that's what it is, or you need to clarify what you're defending or what the loss is for you to move on, to unhitch and to move on with that. Teaching the other person a lesson or educating them or correcting them. You know, that's often what people are wanting to do, right? Or punish them. I mean, that's not really going to get you the change you're looking for. And you'd have to actually ask yourself, do I really want to re-educate the person? Is that really what this is about? So the idea is to have a venue where you can express yourself with clarity. You could sit and think about it. Turns out that thinking about your difficulties is not particularly effective. There's something about writing it down in some form, whether it be an email. That's tricky because you really want to hit the send button. But, you know, writing a letter, these are ways that compel you, that put you in a scenario. Therapy is similar, right? It puts you in a scenario where you have to create sort of a coherent story of what you're feeling and why. You know, so the scenario puts demands on you to be more clear and more coherent than if you were just going for a walk and daydreaming about it. People's daydreams about their emotional difficulties tend to be full of incomplete sentences or the analog of that, right? And lack clarity. So it's good to have a formal exercise of some sort. ([Time 0:36:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d31a3295-6dd7-44ab-801a-197bf288fe8c)) - **Use Empty-Chair Role Play** - Try the empty-chair technique to speak through unavailable or dead people and evoke real emotion. - Swap chairs and role-play the other person to create new meanings and understanding of their motives. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam You've sometimes, as you're working with clients, you'll have them pull out an empty chair and have a conversation with the empty chair. What's the value of doing this, Antonio? Antonio Pascual-Leone It's very evocative. I think this is the first thing, right? So if you need to activate emotion and you do, people need to feel their feelings, right? And one way of activating emotion is to imagine the other person. People do this all the time. I mean, you talk to yourself in the mirror, you kind of imagine, at least I do it all the time. My wife is always like, who are you talking to now? And I'm like, I'm not, I'm brushing my teeth. But you know, like, you know, there's a clarity you have in imagining a conversation, but it's also much more evocative. Imagine the difference between telling somebody, now we're not talking about unfinished business, we're talking expressing love here. But if you say, oh, I really love so-and or you imagine they say, I love you and use their name. I mean, the second is much more evocative, right? Or I forgive you, or I'll never forgive you. I mean, saying it to somebody in an imagined scenario is much more evocative. So it evokes emotion. That's the first thing. It helps with clarity. So you clarify what you're feeling. You can say the things that you would never be able to say in real life, right? So sometimes there's a vulnerability or what, or a conversation, you can have conversations with people who are no longer available, who are passed away. But then you can also, taking it a step further, you could actually change chairs. And, you know, it's that come over here and be the other person. What happens? You know, what would they say if they could hear you? And this is an entirely fabricated part of reality. It's definitely not a rehearsal. But there's an unpacking, a meaning. There's always expectations and things that one has of other people. ([Time 0:38:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/03b414a0-e4bc-4b3b-85ab-0179f8fce43b)) - **Imagining A Loved One’s Response** - Antonio described talking to his aunt in an imagined scenario to feel continuity and pride. - Imagining her response gave him comfort and a forward-looking sense of connection. Transcript: Antonio Pascual-Leone Very evocative. I think this is the first thing, right? So if you need to activate emotion and you do, people need to feel their feelings, right? And one way of activating emotion is to imagine the other person. People do this all the time. I mean, you talk to yourself in the mirror, you kind of imagine, at least I do it all the time. My wife is always like, who are you talking to now? And I'm like, I'm not, I'm brushing my teeth. But you know, like, you know, there's a clarity you have in imagining a conversation, but it's also much more evocative. Imagine the difference between telling somebody, now we're not talking about unfinished business, we're talking expressing love here. But if you say, oh, I really love so-and or you imagine they say, I love you and use their name. I mean, the second is much more evocative, right? Or I forgive you, or I'll never forgive you. I mean, saying it to somebody in an imagined scenario is much more evocative. So it evokes emotion. That's the first thing. It helps with clarity. So you clarify what you're feeling. You can say the things that you would never be able to say in real life, right? So sometimes there's a vulnerability or what, or a conversation, you can have conversations with people who are no longer available, who are passed away. But then you can also, taking it a step further, you could actually change chairs. And, you know, it's that come over here and be the other person. What happens? ([Time 0:39:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/049aa0e5-288f-42ce-8054-9a7c1491e58a)) - **We Overestimate How Much We Understand** - People overestimate understanding due to the illusion of explanatory depth. - Asking for detailed explanations often humbles perceived expertise. Transcript: Shankar Vedantam Put another way, we're very smart as a species, but not so smart on our own. At the University of Colorado Boulder, cognitive scientist Phil Fernback says this paradox is at the heart of humanity. We recently talked with Phil in an episode titled, How Much Do We Really Know? Today, we welcome Phil back to answer your questions about knowledge, ignorance, and why the people who are least informed are often those who sound the most confident. Phil Fernbach, welcome back to Hidden Brain. It's great to be with you again, Shankar. So, Phil, to recap a couple of things from our last conversation, one core idea that psychologists like you study is that we think we know more than we do. How so? Phil Fernbach That's right, Shankar. The illusion of explanatory depth or the illusion of understanding is the very human tendency to feel like we understand things in a lot more depth and complexity than we actually do. To treat the world is much more simple than it actually is. Shankar Vedantam And psychologists have conducted a number of experiments to demonstrate this, because of course, if you ask me, do I know how something works, I'm going to tell you, yeah, I'm pretty Sure I know how it works. But you and others have run experiments to actually test whether people like me actually know what we think we know. Phil Fernbach That's exactly right. In a typical study, what you would do is ask people their sort of initial feeling of how well they understand some object or phenomenon or process. Typically, as you just mentioned, what people feel is that they understand it in some depth. But then the trick is you ask them to explain it in detail how it actually works. And what then typically happens is people realize that they don't understand it as well as they had initially thought. Their feeling of understanding decreases. Their assessment of how well they understand it decreases. They become a little bit humbled. Shankar Vedantam So a second ago, Phil, you used a phrase, the illusion of explanatory depth. And in some ways, this describes the illusion you were just talking about. But can you unpack that phrase for me, please? Sure. Phil Fernbach This is the sort of jargony way that cognitive scientists talk about this. Explanatory depth means the depth with which you can explain some phenomenon. And we have an illusion that we can explain things more deeply than we can. ([Time 0:52:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9a08373a-c615-4557-99ad-468eccb6c285)) - **Ask Questions From Shared Curiosity** - When questioning someone's beliefs, set collaborative ground rules and admit your own ignorance. - Frame inquiry as mutual interrogation to avoid making the other person feel grilled. Transcript: Phil Fernbach When people are challenged on their knowledge, they may become defensive. And the goal of a dialogue is not to make someone feel stupid or ignorant. So I think that the key when engaging in this kind of dialogue, which I do think can be very productive, is to set some ground rules first. The idea is I'm not trying to grill you to show that you don't know what you're talking about, but I'm acknowledging that I don't know what I'm talking about either. And we're going to work together to interrogate both sides. We're going to interrogate both positions. And then I think both people are on equal footing. And that can be a very productive discourse. ([Time 1:07:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/57ac1bd3-dd78-4cbe-bc8a-ab35f450a0e9)) - **Habitually Test Your Understanding** - Practice habitually checking your understanding after forming strong opinions. - Try to explain the topic in detail and note gaps to calibrate confidence and become humbler. Transcript: Phil Fernbach Us toward that middle path? I think absolutely. And this is a habit that I've gotten in myself, which is practicing checking your understanding. Nevio asked if there's a way to stop the illusion. I don't think there's a way to stop the illusion. What I think we can do is we can experience the illusion and then we can mentally calibrate after we've experienced it. So when I jump to a strong position on something, I can habitually ask myself after that to try to explain, to really test whether I know what I'm talking about. And then when you notice that there's a big gap, sort of make a mental note of that. Maybe even write it down and see how many times that's occurring over the course of your day. And I still, you know, I've been studying this topic for many, many years, and I can promise your listeners that I fall for this all the time still. But I have gotten better at habitually checking my understanding. And that practice, I do think, has made me more humble about my knowledge overall. ([Time 1:19:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ba8a9ed4-7aa5-4f51-b0c0-992a53fc52b7)) - **Passion Can Strengthen The Knowledge Illusion** - Passionate beliefs often correlate with less factual knowledge, not more. - Caring deeply can harden the illusion of understanding and close people to new information. Transcript: Phil Fernbach I've done some work looking at the opinions of people who have very strong counter consensus views about science. So people who are very anti-vaccination or very opposed to genetically modified foods and things like that. And what we find is that the people who have the most passionate, strongest views often know the least about the issues. And one reason that could be is because that passionate, strong view is backed up by a strong feeling that they understand the issue already. And because they have that strong view and they feel they understand the issue already, it's very hard to reach them with new information. They're not going to look for new information because they feel like they already have mastery of the topic. ([Time 1:21:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/70b9793d-6a96-4a74-8f3e-3f743e77016a)) - **Use Novelty To Spark Curiosity** - Seek novel environments to reignite curiosity and permission to ask basic questions. - Treat being a tourist as a license to admit ignorance and learn from locals without pressure. Transcript: Phil Fernbach Such an interesting observation from Zach, that being in a new environment can prompt this curiosity. I really like that. I don't know, for your listeners who have children, young children, they ask why questions all the time. There's a never ending string of questions that they'll ask about, about some topic because the world is endlessly complex as we've been talking about. As we grow, we stop asking those questions so much. We sort of forget about all the complexity in the world. Part of that is our brains and our minds sort of protecting us from all that complexity and trying to focus us on what's actually going to improve our lives, be functional for making decisions And all that kind of stuff. What is going to force us into actually asking those why questions? I think it is being in a very novel environment where things seem different, right? So if we're just in our normal environment, we just go along as if everything is explained and we've already done the hard work of thinking through all of the possibilities and complexities. And when we're put into a new environment, it's like we're a child again. Oh, I've never seen that before. That's curious. So these things kind of jump out to us, I think, that need to be explained. And that can probably prompt people to be more curious about asking those why questions. ([Time 1:23:33](https://share.snipd.com/snip/672d51e3-4941-44fd-962d-0cab5125f97d))