Thinking and Doing
There seem two ways to act in the world, via thinking or
doing. In thinking we see problem solving, use of rules, its conscious,
thought based, and focuses on one thing at a time, it uses propositional
knowledge and logic. In doing we see an engagement with the whole
and is seen with complex tasks like driving, playing
tennis or giving therapy. It’s a knowing how to, its intuitive, instinctive and
action happens via feel, via the body. When you drive your focus is light
across the environment in front of you, the road, its conditions, the engine
and its sound. As something changes in the environment, you then respond to
this, not in a conscious problem solving way but rather to continue the act of
driving.
Driving phobia
When people become anxious with driving, the difficulty
occurs because in the face of the feeling out of controllness of anxiety they
use thinking to help them, they look for the danger, the car in front, the kerb
etc. They give commands to themselves, you’re driving too fast, too close etc.
The thing is trying to perform a complex task with individual rational thoughts
is impossible, its how you learn but not how you do. In short they try to
control the danger via problem solving, possibly because this is how they
originally learnt how to overcome driving difficulties when they were learning
how to do it. The art then of working with driving phobia is to help your
client remember how to trust their instincts again and do rather than think.
