Explanations are a booby prize. When you’ve got a problem, you want a solution. Psychological explanations, so pervasive in our society, steer people away from solving problems by giving them reasons why the problem has come or why it is not solvable:

“Jimmy has low self-esteem; that’s why he is so angry.”

“I’m so shy that I’ll never meet anyone.”

“I was sexually abused, so my sex life is bad.”

“She has dyslexia – that’s why she can’t read or write well.”

One of my favorite illustrations of this problem of paralysis from over-analysis is in the movie Annie Hall. Woody Allen plays Alvey Singer, a neurotic (surprise, surprise). Soon after they meet, Alvey tells his girlfriend Annie that he has been in analysis for thirteen years. He is still clearly a mass of problems. When Annie Hall expresses amazement at how long Alvey has been in therapy without getting any better, he tells her that he knows this, that he intends to give it fifteen years, and that if he has not gotten any result by then, he’s going to visit Lourdes.

Bill O’Hanlon, Do one thing different