Agatha Christie holds the Guinness World Records for the best-selling fiction writer of all time (having sold over two billion copies) and the most translated author in the world! Hers is also the thickest book ever published, being over 4000 pages long and weighing 17.6 lbs! She was definitely a force to be reckoned with. The following excerpt from one of her books, Elephants Can Remember, reminded me of a very critical aspect of psychotherapy:

- I will bring to light the truth and if it is...truly the truth that you want, then I will deliver that knowledge to you. But it may be that you want reassuring. That is not the same thing as the truth.

- You don’t think I’d care for the truth, is that it?

- I think that the truth might be a shock, a sorrow, and it might be that you would have said, “Why did I ask for knowledge? It is painful knowledge about which I can do nothing helpful.”

People may seek knowledge and understanding on their quest to find the truth about that which bothers them – e.g. anxiety, disrupted relationships, low self-esteem, or an unlived potentiality. Truths that we form of ourselves are called self-concepts; they are an integral part of our self-identity. “Once formed, self-views give people a powerful sense of coherence and a related ability to predict and control their worlds” (North & Swann, 2009, p.131).

But the truth may sometimes be inconvenient, perhaps even more bothersome than not knowing it. And, so, intentionally or unintentionally, people frequently arrange their circumstances in such a way that these self-views are maintained – positive feedback about positive self-concepts and negative feedback about negative self-concepts. Social Psychology has a lot to say on this matter with research in confirmation bias (Moskowitz, 2005), self-verification theory (North & Swann, 2009), and self-enhancement theory (Katz, Arias, & Beach, 2000).

References:

Katz, J., Arias, I. & Beach, S.R.H. (2000). Psychological abuse, self-esteem, and women’s dating relationship outcomes: A comparison of the self-verification and self-enhancement perspectives. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24, 349-357.

Moskowitz, G.B. (2005). Social cognition: Understanding self and others. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

North, R.J. & Swann Jr., W.B. (2009). Self-verification 360: Illuminating the light and dark sides. Self and Identity, 8, 131-146.