I love to listen to people talk; to hear the chain of their thoughts and to understand how they think. The mind is predictable and I enjoy being able to identify and predict patterns of mental behavior. I don't know why I find it humorous, but it causes me to chuckle when I perceive what is going on in the mind of a person - perhaps it is humorous because it is expected, just as children find humor in what they expect. As one person talks and relates to another there is a process of mental actions that takes place as prompted by the input from the other person. It is a very simple process of cause and effect, and it is quite generically applicable from one person to another - and reasoning back from effect to cause is a simple task, very similar to diagnosing the cause of an engine malfunction on a car. I am not comparing minds and cars as thought they are similar, because they are not - even remotely. But specific effects are tied to specific causes, and its pretty much the same for all people - after all we are all human.
This is useful. For one can utilize an understanding of the human mind to address issues that are caused by dysfunctional thought processes. The majority of dysfunction, both personally and relationally, can be traced to a dysfunction in the mental process. And the most common cause for a dysfunction in the mental process is emotional pain and confusion - an imbalance of critical elements of love and purpose. But one cannot simply address the root of the problem, the mind is too protective for that. A "road" has to be made into the mind, a process of reasoning that is understood. It's kind of like storming a castle, except its lacking the violence - you have to disarm the defenses by addressing the mental processes of protection, and, each time a new barrier is erected, to work out to remove it before moving on.
What is most important is to not take anything from the other person personally, because it isn't. It is simply the cause/effect response of the mind trying to disregard your input and protect itself. Minds have a hold on people - and it is not often noticed. But the minds are not thinking for themselves, they are simply responding as they have been programmed - and we are the ones that program our minds. It's such a subtle process that deceit is very common. We are unaware of how we are influencing our own minds, and also unaware of how our minds are then influencing us. Know that old phrase "Garbage in, garbage out"? Yup, that's a very real reality, what we focus on "magnetizes" our mind and then that magnetization bends us.
So really what we must try to do in counseling a person is to re-magnetize their minds, which only must be done if a previous magnetization is evidently dysfunctional.
