The Chimp Paradox: The Acclaimed Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness

by Steve Peters

Paranoid thoughts can be dealt with by first recognising that you may have an overreacting Chimp offering you ideas that are too sensitive or imaginative. This often happens because the Chimp feels insecure and also hasn’t got the facts, so it fills in the missing gaps. As a first step you can let the Chimp express its paranoid thoughts and then see if they still feel real. If they do, then the Human can search out facts and evidence not only to support the idea (which the Chimp will agree with) but also to dispute the idea. Running this evidence past a friend can help to clarify things. Often when we talk things out a few times the picture becomes clearer. The most important thing is to establish the facts and this usually means approaching the person or people concerned to clarify what is happening in a constructive way. All too often when we have feelings of paranoia or persecution, they disappear rapidly when we ask the right questions in a neutral way and listen to the answers.