Support for University Students in Canterbury? From Surviving to Thriving.

An Introduction by Dr Stephen Gene Morris

Choosing How You Want to Live is the claim made by practitioners and advocates of Mindtraining. This might seem like a bold claim in a world where there is a growing mental health crisis. However, consider that if you are not choosing what happens to you, then who is? There are clearly limitations in how far I can control the external world, for example the outcome of job interviews, the weather or what people think about me but if I cannot regulate how I think and feel about those events then the course of life will be decided by others.

Many of the limitations we encounter in our day to day lives, inside and outside of university are unknowingly self-generated. Humans have evolved to overcome problems and grow from those challenges. However, these processes requires that we regulate mental processes that work against our goals.

Everything we experience, all happiness and sadness, our positive and negative emotions are the products of our consciousness. We can think of consciousness as the prism through which we make sense of ourselves and the world. For most of us consciousness manifests as concrete, as something real and fixed, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Many of our emotional states are transient, subjective interpretation of events that we have created. We frequently help to generate and sustain anxiety, low self esteem and depression, yet we view them as phenomena that we have little control over.

No one wants to create problematic thoughts and psychological suffering, but most of us have a hand in our own negative emotional states. Understanding how positive mental health is generated and sustained, in theory and practice, is the what I have been training in for a quarter of a century. Let’s be clear it does take some effort to regulate and control our minds, organised change and development usually requires a determination to change. In short we are dealing with cause and effect, the more you positively engage with mindtraining the greater your levels of happiness, wellbeing and success are likely to be.

Mind training is an ancient concept based on three principles consistent with reliable Western psychology. Firstly, improved psychological resilience and flexibility support good mental health. Secondly, many of us have the capacity to understand the mind training methods. Finally, the systematic application of these reliable methods can positively mediate brain function and structure, leading to improved mental and physical health.

We know, personally and scientifically, that how we think about ourselves and society is intrinsically linked to our health and wellbeing. For example, that social isolation (the sense that we are alone and uncared for) is one of the major causes of psychological suffering. One of the principles of mind training is that humans are designed to have compassion for self and other; to be positively socially engaged. We know, scientifically, that extreme selfishness or self indifference limits the quality of our lives. Because striving only for one’s own success or material wealth is unlikely to protect us from poor mental health. The solution to this problems is well known to science and traditional knowledge systems. In psychology we call it pro-social behaviour; in Buddhist training it’s sometimes described as nondual compassion. Training the mind in compassion or better still nondual compassion increases resilience and supports enables people to thrive.

Mind training is neither new nor novel, humans have been using systematic ways of thinking to increase wellbeing, happiness, and success for millennia. Meditation, a form of mind training, has been a central part of many Asian societies for thousands of years. In fact, the movement to introduce meditation and mindfulness into psychology that began in the 1970s was an attempt to improve the mental health treatments in economically advanced nations. However, research has demonstrated that in relocating traditional mind training methods from East to West, some of the health benefits of meditation and mindfulness were reduced.¹

Two terms used on this page ‘mind training’ and ‘mindtraining’ reflect the most important aspect of working with mind, a reliable systematic approach. Solving crosswords and puzzles is often thought of as being a way of improving or retaining cognitive function; these activities are frequently described as ‘mind training’. Without some understanding of how these activities work on a neuropsychological level, and what the actual benefits are, we can think of them as pastimes. Conversely if we undertake exercises that predictably change brain function and structure, are evidenced based and have a starting and end point we are referring to ‘mindtraining’.

As a Canterbury based organisation, much of our activity is based in Kent, although we also work in Essex and London. At its heart, mindtraining is a system designed to improve our quality of life and we have a long track record of success in higher education and the workplace. At Mindtraining for Life we only only uses techniques which have proven benefits to wellbeing. One of its strengths of our approach is to give clients the ability to observe, understand and resolve their own psychological limitations and challenges. However, mindtraining is not a cure all or panacea, the human condition is far too complex for this.

If you’d like to know more about how Mindtraining for Life can help students reach greater, happiness, wellbeing and success reach out through email in the first instance. Also feel free to get in touch if you’d like to book an appointment in Canterbury with a Mindtraining Neuropsychologist or to find out more about our Surviving to Thriving programme.

Reference

1. Morris, S.G., 2024. The Scientific History of Mindfulness: 1938 to 2020 (Doctoral dissertation, University of Kent,). https://kar.kent.ac.uk/106240/