How Psychoanalyst Amy Morin Teaches Through Non-Examples

In 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do, psychotherapist Amy Morin demonstrates a great teaching move: using non-examples. Whether you're teaching elementary math, high school science, community college composition, or whatever-else-have-you, this idea of teaching from non-examples is really helpful.

Now of course, non-examples can be confusing, so you've got to be clear about your teaching purpose. In Morin's book, she's after helping parents advance toward mental strength.

So what is a mentally strong person, in Morin's view? It's someone who is both self-aware and self-controlled.

• Self-aware: understanding your thoughts, feelings, values, abilities, needs, and shortcomings
• Self-controlled: in light of my self-awareness, I'm able to make decisions that lead to a happy and fulfilling life

We're not talking about light work here, are we? This is hard stuff — the kinds of things you can work toward all your life and still have room for growth on your deathbed. Hard and worthy. Growing toward mental strength helps me today, gives my life purpose, helps me help others, and so on. It's Valuable in all kinds of ways, just like the things we teach in our classes.

Given that Morin's topic is so challenging, I find it brilliant that she took the tack of non-examples — things mentally strong parents DON'T do. This lets her:

• Get specific about her learning target of mental strength (e.g., it's not being a perfectionist, but it is having high expectations)
• Use common mistakes her students make to create clarity (e.g., folks prone to perfectionism often confuse high expectations with unrealistic, anxiety-rooted expectations)
• Address common areas of struggle (e.g., determine what your child's best is and help them improve that)

So mad props to Amy Morin for demonstrating the effectiveness of teaching hard topics via non-examples. (Her approach is apparently quite popular, as she's got “13 Things” books about mentally strong women, kids, couples, and people.)

Teaching non-examples right beside you,

DSJR