David W. Zierk, PsyD

Your mind is everything.

To help people traverse the most challenging terrain they’ll ever encounter, the limitless landscape of their minds, I decided to tackle life’s most puzzling question:

How does the mind work?

Before further thoughts are offered on this mind-bending topic, something curious about psychological theories and findings must be shared. What’s great about discoveries in psychology is that, for the most part, it doesn’t matter if they’re correct. 

Let me explain this brainteaser.

In the logical world, this statement sounds, well, illogical. It might also sound misguided, foolish, or even arrogant to some. However, the key to psychological discoveries is less about “Is it right?” and more about “Does it help?” Welcome to the world of mental alchemy.

When initially pondering the mind's inner workings, disarray came to mind. Flooded by years of scholarship, reading countless scientific research articles, browsing popular literature, and carefully examining and reflecting on how clients respond differently to similar situations, thinking outside the box seemed the ticket.

So, I went back to square one.

Back to Square One

What do we know about the mind? How confident is our expertise? Is the science of the mind based more on entertaining conjecture (e.g., think of Freud’s id, ego, and superego), the after-effects of repetition bias, wishful thinking, folklore, or award-winning and peer-reviewed research? Is the mind beyond scientific exploration? Do we know enough about the mind to even draft a convincing argument? While the concept of the mind seems immediately knowable, why does it so easily slip through our scientific grip?

These questions and much more saturated this author’s quest to answer the imponderable question,

“How does the mind work?”

Knowing the mind is an infinitely complex medley of one’s upbringing, relationship history, genetic gifts, and the wizardly influence of imagination, determining the mechanism that controls the mind seemed out of reach and unknowable, perhaps only grasped by artificial intelligence uncovered by some distant generation.      

Then, a lightbulb lit up.

If the mind is not readily knowable, perhaps its workings are hidden in plain sight. Stepping back from the guesswork that often accompanies soft science and reflecting on the luminary findings in hard science, such as Newton’s laws of motion, we can see that while the mind may not be conveniently influenced by physics or other sciences predicated on physical laws, it may be knowable and controllable when its rules are revealed. The idea that the mind operates based on hidden rules energized the lightbulb and led to the book Mind Rules: Who’s in Control, You or Your Mind?

Once this mental pathway was revealed as to how rules govern the operation of the mind, putting pen to paper flowed, and the boundary between ideas and creative content vanished. It would be stretching the truth to say the book wrote itself, but the experience of composition for the author brought to mind the phrase, “Like a moth to a flame.” The journey and destination intermingled, and it was as if the dots connected themselves. It is hoped the reader similarly enjoys the journey and destination.

Press the button below to learn more about how your mind works as described in Dr. Zierk’s book, Mind Rules: Who’s in Control, You or Your Mind?