#158 The Psychology Behind Changing Your Mind with Espen Klausen, Ph.D

// Espen Klausen, Ph.D., is back on the show! In case you’re not familiar with this frequent guest, Espen is a licensed psychologist and speaker based in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

His work in public community mental health includes individuals, couples, and family therapy with clients of all ages and he conducts psychological assessments. He is the lead psychologist for several County programs. He consults for Social Services. As a speaker, he runs seminars on a wide range of subjects for professionals groups, company wellness programs, ministries, County departments, and community groups.

In this episode, we discuss how pain and discomfort can be catalysts for change, why the death of George Floyd has resulted in real change when similar situations have not, why it’s biologically more difficult to change as we age and how we can help make it easier, how hygiene is a perfect example of how changes can sometimes take generations, the difference between assimilation and accommodation and how they both impact our brains and the way we change, how your diet factors into your ability to make changes, how to know if your level in influence over someone is starting to venture into unhealthy territory, and more!

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Transcript

Andrea:  Dr. Espen Klausen, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Well, thank you, Andrea.  I’m very happy to be back.

Andrea:  Yes, I can’t even count in my mind how many times you’ve been on the podcast.  You’re certainly a frequent guest, and I really appreciate your taking the time to share your expertise with our listeners.  Thank you.

Dr. Espen Klausen:   Well, thank you for having me.

Andrea:  So, Espen and I were in a little small group conversation recently where, basically, I was asking some questions, presenting some ideas, kind of trying to get some feedback.  And some of that conversation ended up in me saying, “Wait a second, I would like to take this conversation to the podcast.”

So, Espen, let’s start here.  The United States, perhaps the world – and you would certainly have a better perspective on the global sense of where people are than I do – but the United States and perhaps the world is really in this season of stress.  And it seems to be opening the door to change – or actually, maybe it’s just kind of blasting the door open, whether people like it or not – so this door to change for individuals and institutions.

Now, I’ve talked before about the extraordinary opportunity that I believe lies in pain.  It seems like when people experience pain, they have an opportunity to grow and open themselves to new ideas.  Or what I’ve also seen is people sort of double down on their old ideas and their old thoughts.  Would you start by just giving your perspective on why pain or stress has this kind of effect on people?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Mhm.  Yes.  A big part of that is that change in itself is painful.  And not always gut-wrenching painful, but our brain making changes, our psychology looking at things differently, it puts us in an uncomfortable state of not knowing for a while.  Change means that for a while, we’ll do new things we’re not as good at.  And so anytime we’re looking at things differently or doing things differently, it will come with discomfort.  And from that comes a natural tendency of not wanting to make changes, to making things stay the same.  And what does that then have to do with pain helping?

Well, when we have pain in our life, we already have a lot of that pain and discomfort, and that opens the door to experiencing new things because we can’t avoid that pain.  The pain is there, regardless, and so we’re forced out into that mode of: “What can I do differently to make things better?’’  Oftentimes, we get stuck in that: “Let’s keep the discomfort away, and stick with what we’re used to.”

Andrea:  So, it sounds a little bit like the change is going to bring pain.  So, if pain is sort of forced on me and that pain is greater than the pain of actually changing, or maybe somewhat similar to the pain of actually changing, then maybe that opens us up a little bit to: “Okay, so this is pretty bad.”  You’re really good at coming up with examples.  Could you give us a metaphor maybe with pain in the body?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yeah, physical pain?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yes.  For example, I’ll take myself [from] some time ago.  For a while, I knew that I should be exercising more, particularly strengthening my core muscles.  But that would mean changing my routine and exercising differently and exercising more, and exercise itself is uncomfortable.  So, I wasn’t very willing to do that, but then I started having back pain.  And I started seeing a physical therapist, and he told me, “You have to do these things, you know.  You have to strengthen your core muscles.  You need to do more sit-ups, do planks, or push-ups.”  And I’m like, “Well, I’ve already been told to do those things, so what’s different?”

Well, I started doing those things because I had to deal with that pain.  I had to get rid of my back pain.  I had to get that in order.  And I already knew it was important to be healthy, but that was more like, “Oh, eventually, I’ll die of a heart attack if I don’t get healthy with exercise.”  Or “When I get older, I won’t be able to lift things.”  But that’s so vague.  That’s so far off.  But having that physical pain and wanting to get rid of it, well, that pushed me to, “I have to do it now before I keep it going.”  Yeah, so that’s a physical example.

Andrea:  Yeah.  I really appreciate that.  I think most people can relate to that.  So, let’s take that then, and can we use it with something that’s going on the world right now?  How would you relate this to what’s been happening since George Floyd’s death?

Dr. Espen Klausen:   One thing that’s been hard for…and I’m speaking as someone with white privilege.   So, again, the biggest privilege of having white privilege is that I don’t even have to think about the fact that I have white privilege.  I can bury my head in the sand, and I could pretend like it’s not an issue. Or I can go through my day and not think about it.  I can watch the news, and I see some demonstration, or I could see someone having been mistreated because of the skin color, and then I can feel bad about that.  And I can think that’s a bad thing, and I want it to change.  And if I had to take a vote, I could vote in favor of things that would help the situation.  But then when I’m done watching the news, I can go on with my day, and I have the option of it not affecting my daily life.

If I did have a different skin color, then the moment I walked into a store or I talked with potentially an employer, I would know that there’s a chance that this would actually affect me in my daily life, and I wouldn’t have the option of not thinking about it.  So, again, that’s one of the biggest factors in white privilege is the privilege to not have it as an issue.

Now, what’s so important is that when Floyd died at the hands of police officers and the demonstrations that have come, it has forced it onto the consciousness of most people in general.  

It’s harder for people these days to assume a white privilege and not have to think about it.  It gets forced, and it gets pushed.

Andrea:  And it gets pushed because we saw the video.  It gets pushed because people have gone out and had demonstrations or protests, that sort of thing.  Is that what you’re referring to?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  I don’t agree with looting or rioting, but I am very happy that it’s staying in the news so that people are forced to think about it.  There’s been so many situations before where there’s been a similar outrage, but within a week or two, it went away.  And people of color who do not have the privileges of it not having to affect their life, in a sense, they will be stuck with it.  And most people with white privilege have the option of, “I don’t have to think about it anymore, so I forget about it,” until it gets on the news again or until something else happens.  So the fact that demonstrations are continuing is making it more likely that it stays in people’s consciousness and they have to look at it.

Andrea:  So, this is that pain that kind of comes in that we’re not like saying, “Please come and make me feel pain,” but it’s here, it’s present.  And those who are keeping it in front of our eyes are… I mean, here’s the thing.  I feel like there are some people that are like, “No, stop making me think about it.  I don’t want to keep thinking about this.”

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Absolutely.  And that’s exactly the point we’re talking about here is keep thinking about it.  And one thing that’s become apparent too is – and there’s various authors talking about that and there’s a lot of truth to this from a lot of psychological research on biases – a lot of the racism that’s left in America.  There’s some overt racism.  Overt racism being people that directly would say or directly know that they believe that people of other ethnic groups are biologically inferior to themselves.  There’s some left of that, but the biggest issue we have in America now is what’s called latent biases and latent racism.  And those are the attitudes that we don’t even realize that we have because we don’t consciously, philosophically believe it.  We just have thoughts and reactions that go along with it.

I’ll give an example of that, and this is an example of where I had to catch myself.  When my wife and I were first moving to Milwaukee – we now live in Fond du Lac, but I was starting graduate school there – we had two days to find an apartment in Milwaukee.  And the research we had done ahead of time led us to a lot of bad apartments in bad neighborhoods, as in, there was a lot of crime around.  There were a lot of apartments falling apart, poorly kept up.  And we did not know ahead of time how bad most of the apartments we had looked up online were going to be.

And as we looked at all of these apartments – our criteria for looking at them had just been priced – it continued to be in primarily African-American neighborhoods, which is not a reflection of African-Americans.  It’s more been a reflection of those that had been poorly kept up neighborhoods, a lot of city policies and stuff like that we can get into, but it’s beside the point here.  But at the end of two days of really desperately trying to find somewhere to live going to grad school, we finally went to one final place.  We had finally gotten a hold of the landlord, or rather, she got back to us; an apartment had been highly recommended to us.

We parked, I got out of the car, and as I got out of the car, an African-American passed by on the street.  And my immediate reaction was, “Another bad neighborhood, another crappy apartment.”  And even though I only had a college degree in psychology by then, I’m glad I caught it because I recognized, “Huh, the only reason I assumed this was a bad neighborhood and a bad apartment was because I saw an African-American walk by.”  I do not believe African-Americans are inferior.  I do not believe seeing an African-American makes a neighborhood bad.  But after a weekend of seeing a lot of poor neighborhoods with African-Americans, it’s what my brain had seen and made a connection that’s not correct.  But I was able to catch that and like, that’s not a fair connection, but it’s the connection my brain had done automatically.

We loved the apartment.  We settled into a neighborhood.  We loved that it was a diverse neighborhood.  We had a lot of Caucasian Americans, a lot of African-Americans.  We had some people from other ethnic groups in the area too, which was fantastic and a great experience to have.  But it was an example of what’s called latent racism.  It’s the stuff we’ve seen from movies or TV and other places where we’ve had experiences that just shades those initial thoughts popping up.

And because of that, we’re all left with this latent racism.  And in order to combat racism, we have to learn to combat latent racism.  And the only way to combat latent racism is to actively be engaged in that level of thinking.  Making up our mind that, “Oh, I believe differently,” or philosophical change does very little too, that latent racism.  The latent racism can only be fought in America by people having an ongoing consciousness about it, and fighting it whenever it is there, and learning to recognize it when it pops up in their mind.

I’ll give an example of how that’s been fought.  Something that was found in many cities – I remember from Milwaukee, but it was the case in many other cities.  But Milwaukee is a strong example because historically Milwaukee – and still is – is one of the most segregated cities in the United States.  As in African-American neighborhoods are different than the Caucasian neighborhoods, the Hispanic neighborhood is a totally different part of the city.  And what was found in news bulletins is they will find an issue.

So, something we would see early on, while I was in grad school, we would see a news bulletin like, “Male in his thirties wearing a hoodie robbed a convenience store at 34th and Central last night.”  And anyone who’s listening who knows Milwaukee is going to recognize, “Heavily African-American neighborhood.”  And most people hearing that would automatically think that this would be an African-American perpetrator, even though it was not stated in the bulletin.  Actually, if you asked them the day afterward about the bulletin, many would even swear it said African-American.

But when they looked at different news bulletins, they found that in this case, the person was very much likely to not be African-American.  The reason I’m saying that is there’s a phenomenon in psychology where we naturally, in our mind, describe things in terms of how they’re different.  For example, if I do a presentation and I want to do a presentation on things like this, I will tell people that if later on you want to describe me to someone else, “Oh, I went to a presentation by that weird Norwegian guy,” or “That guy who wears pink or red pants.”  Because okay, that’s a little different about me.  They’re naturally going to describe that.  But they would not say that, “I went to a lecture with that Caucasian guy.”

However, if I had been African-American, they would probably have said, “I went to a lecture with that African-American psychologist,” because it’s slightly different than the norm.  So what they found with these news bulletins was if the perpetrator was Caucasian, the news bulletin would usually not say it.  But in many times, it would actually give people an experience of it having been done by a person of color even though it wasn’t.  And if there ever was crime by someone who was, say, Hispanic or African-American, the news bulletin would almost always say so.  And this was not due to overt racism.  They looked into this in many cities, and what they found out was, “Hey, the African-American and Hispanic journalists were just as likely to do this.”

But working as journalists, their natural reference group as well had become Caucasian.  And so they wouldn’t even realize that when they left out ethnicity when it was Caucasian and didn’t even realize it when they automatically put it in when it was not Caucasian.  The problem was, now when people are watching the news, they disproportionately gets an experience of minority crime, which creates more latent racism because people get used to associating minority ethnicity and crime.  The same news bulletin would not say, you know, “someone of likely impoverished background,” or you know, the news bulletin doesn’t say, “someone who has grown up with a poor school system or limited resources,”  or “a convenience store in an area of Milwaukee with almost no jobs and no grocery store within five miles.”  You know, those things are not included, but ethnicity naturally is.

And so this latent racism tends to get trained in all of us even when we don’t want it.  But again, it comes back to that notion of, “In order for us to start battling latent racism, we have to be aware of these issues and stay aware of these issues.”  But having the white privilege of, “I mostly get the benefits and not the downsides to racism,” it’s so easy to just push it aside and not deal with it because I could go on with my day without dealing with it.

Andrea:  Okay, that’s really good examples.  Thank you for that.  So, here’s my question. I mean, how do we decide when it is important to actually grow and change in something?  So, we’re using the example of one pain being worse than another pain, and that’s the reason why I finally, “Okay, maybe I need to deal with this.”  But it seems like sometimes people or maybe some, you know, certain people that have become more accustomed to the idea of change and growth, the openness to taking on new perspectives, that sort of thing…  I can see why some people don’t want to think too much about something that is totally different than what they already believe.  I think it can be really threatening to what you do believe.  And it’s hard to know how to handle it if you were confronted with something that is different than what you believe; then what do I do with that?  When is it important to grow and change, and when is it not?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yeah, you’re right.  Sometimes pain forces it.  Sure, we’re going to make progress a lot faster if people are willing to just look at it and “I need to change,” or  “Is it good to change,” or “Maybe I’m wrong.”  It’s going to take a willingness to be uncomfortable and then willingness to be uncertain in order to make those changes.  And for all of us, it does mean whenever we have strong beliefs about something, or we see that other people have strong beliefs about something we don’t care about or doesn’t seem that important to us, it is on us to get some education and learn more about it; to delve into it, to get a sense, “Might I be wrong, or is there something I should be carrying out about that I’m not caring about,” and actually seek out that information.

So, again, if you have a very strong-held belief, it’s important to seek out opposite views as well as moderate views to see, “Might there be any credibility in it?”  And if you see other people passionate about things, and in particular, if there’s more than a couple of people.  You see a lot about people being passionate about something that’s not important to you, that’s a call to figure out, “Why are they getting passionate about it?  What’s so important about it, and would it be good to change this?”

Another thing that helps for people to look at or is important to look at is looking at: “What do I want America or this world or my community to be like five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now?”  And then look at what attitude changes are going to need to be made.  And then purposefully see what you need to do to make those changes.  We hear a lot, particularly from an older generation, of saying, “Yes, that’s all good, but I’m too old for that.”

Andrea:  Oh, my goodness, I actually have a question about that.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yes.

Andrea:  Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to ask.  It’s just like, at what point do you not have to grow anymore? 

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Right.  And actually, that’s where it becomes very important to grow.  But what I get with it… and I think it’s important because sympathy and empathy with that is the older we get, biologically speaking, the harder it is for our brain to make changes.  Our brain naturally gets more and more rigid.  Staying intellectually involved, continuing to get education, having a lot of wide experiences, traveling, being exposed to people from other ethnic group, having ethnic and cultural diversity in your neighborhood; all of those things help keep off that rigidity.  But in general, rigidity does increase with age.  But that doesn’t mean they can’t change, but it does take more work.  But really, the older you are, the more important it is that you do make these changes.

Here comes something that may explain why we often see these differences between generations and things is there’s a lot of research in sociology and anthropology that shows that attitude changes actually take one or two generations.  And what that really means is a lot of changes in instincts and attitudes has to start with one or two generations will look at things and they recognize that, “This is not right.  We need to do things differently.  And I’m going to make myself do things differently even if it doesn’t feel natural.”

I’ll go way back just to use an example that most people can understand, and that’s hygiene.  These days, we take it for granted that after you’ve gone to the bathroom, you wash your hands.  Before you eat, you should wash your hands.  Just basic… You know, these days, that’s basic.  Not everyone does it, but it’s culturally assumed as good, and we assume it’s instinctive.  And it is instinctive, but it wasn’t.

If we go to Walmart, and we go to the restroom, and we go wash our hands, and then we see someone go straight from the toilet or the urinal and straight back out into the store, most of us will naturally feel cringy inside.  Instinctively we recognize that was wrong, but it didn’t use to be that way.  You go enough generations back, science, the medical doctors, the medical community, across many countries had recognized the importance of good hygiene and that this really matters for our health.

They started a campaign and nation after nation decided, “You know what, we need to change our behaviors.  We need to start hand washing after going to the bathroom, and we need to start hand washing before we eat.”  And you had a generation or two that deliberately chose to do this.  It was not instinctive.  It was annoying, but they decided this was important.  So, they did it deliberately, and they deliberately taught it to their kids.  Those kids and even more so, the kids of those kids again grew up with it.  So, by the time they were adults, it was instinctive.   Now, seeing someone not washing their hands would now make them cringe because it was now instinctive.  It was now an instinctive attitude change.

So, a lot of attitude changes take generations, but it usually starts with the generation deliberately choosing, “We’re going to change our attitudes.”  Their instincts may keep being wrong.  We have a generation of people that have made a decision that, “Even though I still may have thoughts popping up that, ‘Oh, African-American, I wouldn’t want him living in my neighborhood,’ I’ve had to choose, ‘Okay, I had that thought, but I’m not gonna go with that thought.  I’m gonna confront it when I can.’”

Andrea:  Like, “I don’t actually believe that deep down.”

Dr. Espen Klausen:  “I don’t actually believe it, and I’m going to deliberately fight that thought.”  And then over generations, the children are growing up with that, it now becomes instinctive.  And that’s often what we also change and see a difference too.  We often do see, for a lot of cultural issues or some things in terms of diversity, we do have a lot of kids these days – depending on what town and neighborhood they grew up with – there are a lot of kids luckily that these days are growing up where not seeing color is an actual thing.  But for most adults saying that, it doesn’t really hold water.  It has to be a deliberate thing for them.

Andrea:  Okay, so in that recent conversation that we were in, you mentioned a concept that I had studied at one time when I was doing my teaching education, but I don’t remember doing much with it.  And you talking about it really like, “Oh, yeah, that’s right.  Tell me more about this.”  So, would you tell us a little bit about the difference between assimilation and accommodation, and how that works in the brain in terms of the way that we change?

Dr. Espen Klausen:   Hmm, yes, assimilation and accommodation, which is so important for understanding not just how to teach, but also how we can also set our own mind up for making changes.  And originally, assimilation and accommodation came out of cognitive theory and cognitive psychology that just studied how our thoughts are working.  But over time, it’s become pretty clear that when we study things on the neurological level, it works the same way.  It’s not just a theory of describing thoughts.  This actually describes the neurons in our brain.

Andrea:  Okay.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  So, assimilation and accommodation are the two ways that we learn.  There’s very little learning that happens aside for assimilation and accommodation.  Assimilation is this; we have a current neurological structure.  Our neurons are connected to each other.  They form patterns which sets up for what thoughts we have.  When assimilation happens, it means that our brain is taking new information, new experiences, and it gains knowledge, expands its network simply by adding more connections and creating new neurons.  It’s just expanding.

That kind of expansion may allow us to apply things to new things we haven’t done before.  We learn new things, but it does not change any of our existing thinking.  Assimilation is great.  You can learn very quickly through assimilation, and it does not tax our brain much.  It tends to be kind of pleasurable to learn through assimilation, and it uses relatively few resources, biologically speaking, as well as patience and emotionally.

Accommodation, on the other hand, is learning where our brain actually will sever some of the connections it already has.  And it may even start letting some neurons die, and it reconnects and rewires our network.  And this means that we may actually know less.  And in that case, what we knew before probably is stuff we didn’t actually know where we thought we knew it.  Our brain is actually not just adding.  It’s rewiring, and we tend to now naturally re-evaluate past experiences and learning as we see them in new light, and we come to new and usually better conclusions.  This is when we have radical changes and lightbulb moments that have radical changes in our brain.  The difficulty is it’s resource-heavy, biologically and emotionally speaking, so our brain naturally avoids it.

Andrea:  Okay, what do you mean by resource-heavy?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  It requires better nutrition.  You know, it is more dependent on having a good diet.

Andrea:  That’s interesting.  Why is that?

Dr. Espen Klausen:   It actually has to create new connections on a wider level, and it has to do a lot more rewiring.  It’s the difference between, you know, you want better lighting in your living room and assimilation would be you add a couple of lamps.  Accommodation would be more, “My current setup with switches and stuff makes no sense and might even be a fire hazard.  I’m going to have to rewire the place.”  Needless to speak, a lot more resource-heavy.

Andrea:  Okay.  So, I mean, that just immediately brings up just another disparity in socioeconomic, you know, classes, and people’s, like, actual physical ability to make changes.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yes, absolutely, absolutely.  So, poor nutrition makes it harder to do accommodation.  Having a brain that, in general, is not very stimulated and is not used to making accommodations before has a harder time doing accommodation because it’s not used to spending those resources.  People who have longer education, in general, have a brain that’s more used to spending resources towards accommodation.  So, it appears to even be more efficient in the use of resources.

Yes, and that’s just, so far, the biological part.  But emotionally, accommodation gets difficult because temporarily, it makes us know even less, and we love to know a lot.  But while we’re doing that accommodation process, we know even less because we have to reevaluate things.  And it also takes more reflection and it takes downtime.

Andrea:  So, it feels like we know less because everything we just thought we knew, it’s crumbling.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Absolutely.  And it leaves us in limbo for a while.

Andrea:  I totally wrote a song about this, by the way.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Haha! And actually, a lot of cultural groups, including church communities, have a long tradition of doing some things in order to make accommodation easier.  And that includes things like spending a day in solitude and fasting before making major decisions.  Or if you’re going through trouble in life and you can’t figure things out to spend a couple of days at a retreat to allow our brain a chance to think things through when it doesn’t have to deal with regular life because accommodation is resource-heavy emotionally in brainpower for the brain.

You can think of it a little bit like on your phone or on a computer, you might have minor updates that just add stuff.  In that case, you may not even have to reboot the computer or the phone.  But when you get a major update, where it’s actually rewiring stuff or installing a new version of Windows, you need to leave it alone, not to use it, and it’s going to have to reboot a few times.

And so a lot of different groups have a long tradition of fasting and of solitude and retreats to aid you in able to reset your mind, think things through, and make life decisions.  Because it makes it a lot easier to use accommodation rather than assimilation.

Andrea:  So, I’ve also heard of cults kind of bringing people and isolating them, sleep deprivation comes into play, you know… some different things like mind control things that happen so that it makes it harder for them to actually, like, resist the change.  So, in that way, they manipulate the accommodation experience in the brain.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yes, and I’m going out on a limb here in a sense, but I haven’t seen research on this in cults.  But in general, principally, what the cults are doing are things that actually promote assimilation.  So, by someone joining the cult, to begin with, usually, it is because they made some kind of commitment to start… you know, to having committed to the cult.  And then the cult will tend to do these processes that make accommodation really difficult.  So one of the most important things for accommodation to be possible is good sleep, and lots of it.

If you’re going to make big changes or think things through, you need sleep and more of it.  If you limit sleep, your brain does not have the resources to do accommodation.  And assimilation will also be harder, but it’s often the only thing it can do.  And so it will stay on that track, and sleep deprivation and limited food and other things may do like that.  Again, they promote assimilation.  It also makes it harder for the person to critically evaluate what they get, and just take the information in and integrate it.

And so, now even if they get information that otherwise would have made it clear to the brain, “I have to use accommodation here,” it’s not able to.

Andrea:  I see how some cults would just sort of, like, they sort of sneak in kind of thing, by having you make these small little changes.  But then there’s unhealthy influence anyway, that can take place in the use of peak experiences.  You know what I’m talking about?  Like, I’m on the mountaintop, I’m in a hotel conference room, and my emotions are at this sort of peak.  And then you ask me to buy something from you, and so I end up spending a lot of money.  I mean, that sort of thing.  Do you know what I’m talking about?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yes, yes.

Andrea:  So would that be accommodation then, when it’s like you’ve been brought to this peak experience?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Yes, or any major experience that does not fit your existing thought patterns and neurological network.  Any major experience that are like, “Huh, this really doesn’t fit my existing precautions,” it opens our brain to accommodation, you know.  That’s when our brain is supposed to use accommodation or naturally does it.  It is when I just can’t use assimilation.  Assimilation cannot explain what I just experienced.  And when we have those experiences, our brain gets way more open to accommodation, and then gets hungry for new information that will help it create the new network.  It will naturally seek out information.

Now, it also makes us vulnerable in the sense that our brain, during that time, just wants information and is more open.  Our brain has now really been opened.  And it does not mean that the person usually is more gullible long-term – actually, it’s going to likely less gullible long-term – but with some people, whether it’s sales or joining a cult or whatever they use it for, people can manipulate them by making them make a major choice right now.

Unfortunately, that’s manipulative. But if they got that information, now the person goes home, they study some more, they look into things.  Now they have a chance for that accommodation to happen and their brain rewiring in a good and honest way.  But whenever someone’s just starting accommodation, we should not make any major commitments.  By the way, some insurance companies – they do it less – but some insurance companies used to exploit this.  Someone may have been in a traffic accident in an intersection.

And some insurance companies would call the person, you know, as soon as they could afterward – usually, this would be the opposing side’s insurance company – and they would ask, “Did you see the red light?”  Well, if we’re in a state of confusion or shock where our brain has not yet used assimilation or has not yet used accommodation or anything to integrate that knowledge – we’re still in that limbo state – our brain is highly open to suggestion.  And so the person may have no memory of the light.  But the fact that the insurance person asked, “Did you see the red light,” they may suddenly get a memory of a red light.

Andrea:  Okay, so, Espen, here’s my ultimate question.  I mean, I’m doing research for another book.  I’m really wanting to get a handle on what the difference is between healthy and unhealthy influence because I know that the people listening to this podcast are somewhat self-aware.  They know that there is the potential.  Maybe they’ve felt it in themselves before where they’ve entered into a conversation.  They know they’re really good at persuading people.  You know, I know that I mentioned to you, I know that I have the ability to help people to feel things.  And sometimes that can be used for good, but I know that there are times that could…  I don’t want to use it in a manipulative way.

So, my question is when it comes to this assimilation and accommodation, this idea of having experiences and facilitating experiences for other people in particular, how does one know that they’re doing it in a healthy way?  Or what should we be watching out for or what are our guardrails to know that we’re starting to enter into unhealthy territory?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Mhm, that’s a very good question.  And what I have to deal with on a daily basis as a psychologist… because my job is to help people make positive change, you know, in their own life, in their own thinking.  But it is not to get them to think like me.

Andrea:  Right.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Or in some ways, it’s to get them to think like me at a foundational, rational, analytical, life-functioning way.  But the content and conclusions at times may be different and it might be from they may have other moral stances.  They have a different personality, and that’s okay. 

So, I really understand where you’re coming from, and it can be challenging at times knowing you may have a strong influence on them.  So, here’s what it often comes down for me with things is, what’s our attitude to begin with for why we’re talking with the person?  And some of this goes back to the notion of servant leadership.  “Am I influencing them and am I taking a leadership role with them because I have a very specific agenda in mind for what I want them to conclude, or am I serving them?  What’s my goal here?”  And if you’re really serving them, you want them to grow and not change necessarily in a specific direction.  But the way we can help anyone grow at a foundational level is to open their brain to accommodation.

But we don’t give them everything they need in terms of deciding where they come down after having done the accommodation.  We just provide the experiences that leaves the brain open to looking at things differently.  It also means we never should ask them to make any commitments while they’re in that state of limbo.  That’s the time for them to think through past life experiences.  That’s the time for them to seek out new experiences, to figure out where they want to land.  But we should not, during that time, give them things that give them commitments, except perhaps a commitment towards working towards further change in whatever that direction takes them.

And there are other times where it will be where you are going to try to direct them down a specific path, but that’s where you, in honesty, should be aware of your basis for why you’re taking them down that path.  As a psychologist, I have a lot of training and background, and read a lot of research on what are paths or ways of looking at things that are going to be healthy.  And since I have a good research background on it and know what generally is helpful for people, I feel confident if I lead him to a point of accommodation and then help them go down a healthy path.

Andrea:  Okay, but what about somebody who really believes that their religion is the right way?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Right.

Andrea:  I mean, I experienced a lot of this when I was growing up.  You know, these kinds of mountaintop experiences or even, I guess, painful experiences, being confronted with one’s own mortality and that sort of thing, and then the call to action immediately following that moment when you’re still in that state.  And I’m calling into question how valid that is and if it’s right.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  If it’s done deliberately, knowing what they’re doing in that sense, it’s manipulative.  But I think many of them, that’s not it.  You know, many times they’re doing it because, “I want this person to be saved, and I want them to go to heaven.  So, I want to make sure that they make a commitment while they can.”  Unfortunately, it’s likely to result in a faith where not as much has changed.

Andrea:  Exactly.

Dr. Espen Klausen:   Now have I been a part of leading people towards their faith that before didn’t have a faith?  Yes.  And have I helped them come to a moment where their brain is open to accommodation?  Absolutely.  But where I find where they’re getting a genuine faith and very often a very living faith, very quickly, is when I give them the space and opportunity to not get into a state of accommodation, and then grab up onto what I tell them.  But I helped them to a state of accommodation, where now they started recalculating all of their life experiences.

And once they start recognizing, “Huh, maybe there is a God,” and they go home, and they think about it.  And they think about the life they’ve had, and they’re starting to recognize, “You know, God was with me there.”  Or, “You know, I always thought about, you know, the passing of my father in this way, but now understanding that there’s a God or that there might be a God and look about it from this way, I have a very different perspective.”  If God is real, which I believe He is, then there will be many experiences in a person’s life where God will be visible or that allows for reinterpretation.  And in that sense, using their own life experiences and their own past to see things for what they are, rather than you now make a decision and now you’re committed to it.

Andrea:  Yeah, yeah.  I just, I really appreciate your psychological perspective on this because it feels to me as just incredibly important.  And even those people in sales, I mean, I’ve been on the other end of many webinars where there is this sort of like, people are really feeling good about themselves or this answer, and then they’re told that if they don’t make a decision by the end of the day or by the end of the hour that, you know, they’re going to lose out on a bunch of opportunities.  And it just feels a little coercive, and I understand that it’s not always.  But it was kind of what I was starting to enter into a few years ago and you know, trying to decide for myself, “Do I like this way of doing business?  Is this the way that it ought to be done?”  And how many times did I, you know, sort of get to the end of another…  I don’t know, you’re in a Facebook group or something and somebody says, “Well, I can’t believe I did it, but I pulled the trigger again on this next program,” and that sort of thing.  And so I just feel like it’s really prevalent.  And I think people who want to have a “voice of influence”, we need to really evaluate the way that we are influencing, the way that we are inviting other people to take part in whatever we have to offer.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Absolutely.  And in that sense, using the sales language is also the difference between making a sale and creating a customer.

Andrea:  Absolutely.  All right, well, this has been a really interesting conversation.  Thank you, Espen, for taking time to share your expertise with us.  And any final word that you’d like to leave with us for those of us who want to be a “voice of influence”.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  If you want to be a “voice of influence”, use it to help people grow.  And sometimes when we help people to grow, they may not grow in the direction that we wanted.  But that’s okay.  They grew.  But we can give them experiences that open their mind to look at things differently.  And something we haven’t talked about today, but is so important to keep in mind as we’re being influencers… if we give people the experiences that allows their brain to open up and think about things differently, then the more often people do that, the more open they get in general, and the easier it is for them to question things in the future, make up their own mind, become independent and make good judgments based on who they are.

Andrea:  Love it.  Thank you so much, Espen.  And people can find you at espenklausen.com.  Is that right?

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Correct.

Andrea:  And we’ll certainly link to that in the show notes.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Thank you.

Andrea:   So, if you want to have Espen come talk to your group or even Zoom with your group or something like that, I’m sure he would love to do so.  Thank you again, Espen and we’ll see you soon.

Dr. Espen Klausen:  Thank you, Andrea, for having me.