Dual Selves

In Torah Sources

There are endless Torah sources about this.

Research

• In his book Incognito, neuroscientist David Eagleman describes the brain as a “team of rivals.” He writes, “There is an ongoing conversation among the different factions in your brain, each competing to control the single output channel of your behavior.” He lays out the dominant two-party system of reason and emotion: “The rational system is the one that cares about analysis of things in the outside world, while the emotional system monitors the internal state and worries whether things are good or bad.” Eagleman makes the case that because both parties are battling to control one output—behavior—emotions can tip the balance of decision making. I would say that’s definitely true when the emotion is shame. Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly (p. 76). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
• These truths about the dual self, the true self, the trance, and conflicting inner voices are timeless. Ancient spiritual traditions from all over the world, along with modern psychology, continually return to this phenomenon. In this chapter, I introduce you to your two selves in a very basic way, which you can filter through your religious faith or understand as simply a mechanism of human nature, as you see fit. I bring these concepts into the realm of addiction because they are on stark display wherever an addiction has staked its claim. Peele, Stanton. Recover! (p. 80). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.

• Look at it this way: the very act of seeking addiction treatment—indeed, reading this book!—is evidence that your healthy life force has asserted itself. You made a decision based on your best instincts and desires for wellness and acted on them. This simple, obvious truth undermines the foundation of the standard recovery model, which requires you to embrace the idea that you will always make self-destructive decisions when left to your own devices. So let’s step briskly over this recovery mythology to explore how you can begin deliberately moving in the direction of true recovery. Peele, Stanton. Recover! (pp. 80-81). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition.
• We adopted Loewenstein and O'Donoghue’s (2007) dual-process model of human behavior to conceptualize how sexual experiences feel out of control and answer our question, “Why are people repeatedly sexual in ways that are problematic?” In the dual-process model of human behavior (see Figure 3.1), human behavior is seen as “the joint product of a deliberative system that assesses options in a consequentialist fashion and an affective system that encompass emotions such as anger and fear and motivational states such as hunger, sex, and pain” (Loewenstein & O’Donoghue, 2007, p. 3). The affective system houses our potential for action in any given situation. [...] A dual-process model of human behavior is a useful model for understanding the complexities and contradictions in sexual behavior. It accounts for the central tension in OCSB: being of two minds—wanting to do one thing while doing another.