Paul Conti on Trauma, Thinking Systems and The Goiania Incident
In this edition, we have a podcast with Dr. Paul Conti on the Tim Ferriss show, sharing how trauma affects us and how we can heal from it. Next, worth reading is an excerpt from Think Fast and Slow about the two types of thinking systems. Finally, a video on The Goiania Incident is worth watching, one of the worst nuclear exposure accidents.
Worth Listening
Paul Conti, MD — How Trauma Works and How to Heal from It (#533) | Tim Ferriss Show
Paul Conti, MD, is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatry training at Stanford and Harvard. He was appointed chief resident and then served on the medical faculty before moving to Portland and founding a clinic.
I resonate heavily with Paul Conti's work, and he mainly works well in a podcast with how he articulates. I find his voice to be soothing and simple to understand. Much of this podcast centers around Dr. Conti's new book Trauma, which is now on my ever-expanding to-read list after listening to this. First to preface, the word trauma. Most of us assume trauma to be life-changing events, but trauma occurs in small ways. I tend to think of trauma as big T or little T, and they can both have massive impacts on how we view our wellbeing.
One idea from this episode I found interesting is selective abstraction which is a type of cognitive bias, or cognitive distortion in which a detail is taken out of context and believed. In contrast, everything else in the context is ignored. Part of Dr. Conti's work is about helping change the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences, especially with a negative valence. Wherever you land on the spectrum of trauma, there is a great benefit to the quality of your life to heal those wounds as much as you can.
Worth Reading
Of 2 Minds: How Fast and Slow Thinking Shape Perception and Choice [Excerpt] | Scientific American
I thought sharing this excerpt would be helpful to many of us. While thinking too fast isn't a new phenomenon, it seems that the social climate has ramped-up speed as of late. Below are the two types of thinking we all engage in.
• System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.
• System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. Thus, the operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.
The article goes on to detail different activities that require system 1 or system 2 thinking. If you're like me, my mind begins to wonder what tasks I should move from system 1 to system 2. In most cases, more than we think, especially if you want to make a meaningful change in your life. The authors posit that trying to do everything with system 2 thinking is impractical and at the very least tedious. But the point is that understanding we all have a blind spot in seeing our mistakes, but if we create habits that catch those errors when stakes are high, we can improve.
Worth Watching
How one handful of powder contaminated a whole city (The Goiania Incident) | Kyle Hill
This tragedy is one of fatal attraction or referencing the article above a trap for our System 1 thinking. A capsule was opened by scrappers containing a powder that would glow blue. This powder is caesium 137. It was due to the attractive blue glow nd if we weren't such social creatures that enjoys sharing interesting objects. Once the radioactive material was contained, over 1000 people were exposed, 249 of them were seriously contaminated, and 20 had acute radiation sickness. Even in the aftermath, people rioted with the burial of those who passed away being brought back into the city , worried about contaminating the land.
"It is relevant to note that the interest aroused by the blue glow that emanated from the radioactive caesium chloride significantly affected the course of the accident." International Atomic Energy Agency
I find the nuclear accidents of this nature as warnings and ways to boost the knowledge for those who otherwise might not be aware of these elements. The fatal attraction that allowed exposure to spread is known as a evolutionary trap. At no other point in human history would a glowing material be so deadly. The power and danger of radiation is that we as humans have figured out ways to harness it, but at the same time, our biology has no tools to let us know we've been exposed until it's too late and we have visible symptoms.