The Chimp Paradox. Dr Stephen Peters
I heard about this book many years ago and immediately had to buy it, another psychology book written by a specialist. I love the analogy of the Chimp for the limbic system in the brain (the primitive, fight/flight part). I’ve written about this neurological process in my memoir and The Chimp Paradox reinforces many of the experiences I write about.
Peters gives life to the limbic system, introducing you to the Chimp, a little feisty creature within us all, that, if allowed, would run riot, making all our decisions and running amok. The author starts the book with some of the goals you can hope to achieve by investing time in the chapters. Improving your decision making, increasing confidence, reducing worry, developing leadership skills and most of all, becoming happy!
He describes the chimp management model of the brain, breaking this organ into three areas; frontal, parietal and limbic (human, computer and chimp). Peters takes you back to the womb, where the chimp and the human introduce one another, although, as the analogy proves, they rarely agree. In fact, the chimp is five times stronger than the human. Imagine, you’re in the queue at your local shop, buying some milk and bread (you do the big shop on a weekend, and anyway the prices here are ludicrous). Anyway, as your mind is busy calculating the percentage of additional cost the bread and milk will cost in comparison to your usual store (using the human brain; logic) a customer behind you pushes in.
Suddenly the chimp wakes up, from out of nowhere. Remember he or she is five times stronger than the human. The flag has been waved, here is an example of the fight between chimp and human, in the same mind. You might have a better trained chimp, better still you’ve read Peter’s book. But if not, you may find yourself feathering out your chest, jaw clenching, ready to fight tooth and nail for your place in the queue.
Familiar? It is for me, worse when I have a steering wheel in my hand and a foot on a pedal. Road rage is the biggest fight with my chimp, one that I am slowly trying to improve. Peters does talk about this as well in his book. Think back though, to the shop queue. Imagine the world we live in, the plentiful food wherever we look, takeaways at the click of a finger, fast food, slow food (if you’re in the Mac Donald’s queue) hot foot, cold food, even raw food (have you eaten my husband’s broccoli). The human, logic part of our brain would consider it a mild nuisance that someone jumped ahead of us, realising that we are not going to starve if we don’t purchase our milk and bread three minutes faster. We would also activate the empathetic parts of the brain, and consider that such a battle with a fellow human is not worth a pint of milk and loaf of bread. But remember how much stronger the chimp is.
Here lies the problem, and we can see it manifest everywhere we look, Twitter wars, football hooligans, political battles, bar fights and car parking wars. Now I am not trying to relinquish responsibility for anyone who becomes embroiled in these activities, some are of course, illegal if left to escalate. However, we could have more control over the situations, if we develop more awareness of our “chimp”.
So, the next time someone cuts you up at the roundabout, or takes your car parking space near the school gates, gently stroke the chimp, then place him or her quickly into their cage (a comfortable centrally heated one-we don’t advocate cruelty to animals) and engage your logical calm human voice. After all, if you ever end up in court, for disturbing the peace, I doubt the Judge will give you a lesser sentence if you say:
“it wasn’t me; I didn’t have time to get the chimp into its cage”.
On a more serious note, this book is also very close to my heart because the issues explored a very closely related to the concept of neuroscience, the limbic system and its involvement in Complex-PTSD. In my book, I refer many times to the conversations with my therapist about the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. This is under the control of the limbic system and the amygdala, an almond shaped structure that helps process emotions like fear, anxiety and anger. I’m sure mine is more like the size of a rugby ball.
This book is a must read, and enjoys a top place on my shelf, this review provides a fraction of what more he writes of, so introduce yourself to your inner chimp and invest in The Chimp Paradox.
