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Suppressing feelings won't work, prof says

By: Article Brain Editor

After a rough breakup, the natural inclination for many women is to try to forget the boyfriend ever existed.

But does that ever work?

By hiding these feelings, the thoughts don't vanish. Instead, they manifest themselves into an obsession, Harvard Professor Daniel Wegner said in a phone interview with the DI.

"College students' lives are filled with interpersonal dramas like that," he said. "It's important to consider how to adjust to it and deal with the problem."

He was scheduled to speak Thursday night as an Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor but was unable to make it to Iowa City because of bad weather and travel delays. Wegner's lecture, "How To Think, Feel, or Say the Most Inappropriate Thing for Any Occasion," will be rescheduled.

The studies in the lecture are based on Wegner's 1989 book, White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts, which deals with the psychology of mind control.

"When [the participants in the study] try not to think about a white bear, they do," Wegner said, adding that the subjects mention the white bear about once per minute while being told not to think about it. "When you suppress a thought, it can become an obsession."

This can become especially applicable to students facing a new environment at college, Wegner said.

When presented with different social surroundings, students have to re-evaluate who they are and how they mix into a group. This can lead students to withdraw and attempt to keep secrets, which can lead to a chain of problems.

The complications associated with mind control can be as mundane as lying awake while trying to force yourself asleep the night before an exam. But the repercussions can also be more severe and can lead students in unhealthy directions, such as obsessive compulsive disorder or depression.

"His work is really creative and interesting," Edward Wasserman, UI psychology professor, said. "We encourage students to attend because it gives them the opportunity to hear thinkers and writers from another school."

Mind control is especially applicable when students try to keep secrets, Wegner said. The lecture was intended to present some techniques to help students deal with mind control.

One way Wegner suggests is for students to tell someone their secret or write it in a journal. This will help one's mind to move on, he said.

"Sometimes it's important not to control your mind and just go ahead and think about it," he said. "It lightens the load. Disclosing it to people changes it and makes it easier."

Wegner's colloquium, "Illusions of Conscious Will: How Do You Know Your Actions Are Your Own?," also was slated for this afternoon will be rescheduled.

E-mail DI reporter Susan Elgin at: susan-elgin@uiowa.edu