Founding Rector of Üsküdar University, Psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan, was the live broadcast guest of the event organized in cooperation with the Ethics, Culture and Environment Association (AKÇEV) and Çağdaş Eğitim Koleji. Speaking under the title of “Healthy Thinking”, Prof. Dr. Tarhan said, “Just healthy thinking is not enough; very good emotion regulation is needed for thoughts to turn into behavior. It is necessary to be able to manage emotions. If we repeat our behaviors, they become a personality after 6 months.”
Making a speech titled “Healthy Thinking”, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan drew attention to the importance of healthy thinking and stated that societies that cannot achieve this are doomed to perish.
Social change does not happen without change in minds
Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said, “When there is no healthy thought, our mind goes astray, and therefore people go astray. It is very important to progress in life without going astray. Before defining healthy thought, thought is actually confined to certain meanings and words. Confucius is asked, ‘If you were given a society, how would you build it?’ He says, ‘I would start with concepts.’ Social change does not happen without change in minds. Without social change, there are no societal transformations or political shifts. Change begins in the mind. Sociological events do not happen through revolution, but through evolution. If you try to regulate society from top to bottom through revolution, the fabric will reject it. For this reason, healthy thinking is very important in this regard.”
Healthy thinking means reasoning and contemplating
Noting that human nature comprises thoughts, emotions, values, and behaviors, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan continued:
“Western societies are thought-oriented societies. In fact, there is a need for a synthesis of both. The East lost its reason; we lost thought. We cannot think healthily. Healthy thinking means to reason and contemplate. When news arrives, an Eastern thinker focuses on who said it. A Western thinker focuses on what was said. Thought is not static but dynamic; it constantly changes. The biggest reason we lost Industry 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 is that we stopped the progress of thought. Our being status quo-oriented and traditionalist eventually makes us anachronistic. That is, a society with a distorted chronology emerges. It seems to not grasp the current era, wanting to continue the past era exactly as it was. As a result, it cannot adapt. Such societies will eventually be thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The most important resource management is managing the thought resource
Making statements about types of transformational leadership, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan drew attention to the importance of thought in resource management.
Noting that there is currently a serious cultural imperialism in the world, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said, “And this is voluntary, consent-based imperialism. Imperialism changes our thoughts, either through Hollywood or by changing our emotions. Healthy thinking actually means feeling healthy, having healthy values, and then setting a healthy goal, drawing a healthy roadmap, and progressing in life in a healthy way. Therefore, all of them are interconnected. Healthy thinking alone is not enough.”
Transformational leaders transform the institution
Noting that the emotions of the other party come into play in transformational leadership, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said, “Transformational leaders transform the institution, move it forward, prepare it for new situations, set strategies, and define vision. For example, healthy thinking is different for a person with an IQ below 70, different for those between 70 and 90, and different for those between 90-120. One thinks with 300 words, another with 1000 words, and another with 2000 words. The most challenging is thinking with 5000 words… you will manage a pool of 5000 words. Managing thought becomes more difficult depending on the level of development. Therefore, healthy thinking means being able to steer properly if life is a journey. To steer properly, your goal must be clear. Then your roadmap must be clear. After that, resources are managed according to the defined goal. Resources are not just financial; there are also psychological resources. And the most important of these is the resource of thought. This needs to be managed within the logic of resource management. We can say that there is no single truth here; it varies according to society and conditions.”
To make healthy decisions, we must have a mental jury in our brain
Making statements about decision-making mechanisms, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said:
“To make healthy decisions, we need to have a mental jury in our brain. At the head of this mental jury will be a judge, a decision-maker. If you don't give the judge material, they cannot make a decision. The jury will also have four members. The first member is the scientist member, who will test whether the incoming information is real or not. This is not enough; it might be real but not useful. They need to test whether this incoming information is useful or not. The human brain needs an economist to conduct a profit-loss analysis. The third is an ethics professor. In terms of ethical values, a clergyman or a moralist is needed for ethical values. The fourth will be an aesthetician. They will decide whether it is beautiful or not. One of these decision-makers also decides whether it is safe or not. We actually live life as a choice. For all these reasons, there is a mind above our brain. The P300 wave also shows this. There is a mind above our brain. This means the brain works after making a decision. Current basic consciousness studies show that there is consciousness above our mind. This consciousness is related to the quantum universe; the human brain does not work in a closed circuit, but in an open circuit. There are the same neurons related to universal flow. Just as there are motor mirror neurons in the brain connected to the entire universe, emotional mirror neurons also work. All of this shows that our brain is an extraordinary thing.”
Very good emotion regulation is needed for thoughts to turn into behavior
Drawing attention to the importance of healthy thinking being reflected in behavior, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan said, “Just healthy thinking is not enough; very good emotion regulation is needed for thoughts to turn into behavior. It is necessary to be able to manage emotions. This results in fewer mistakes compared to behavior. Healthy thinking is not enough; it is also necessary to feel healthy. Feeling healthy is also not enough; it is necessary to react healthily, moving in harmony with each other. In fact, when we add emotion to our thoughts, the two combine to become a belief. When we repeat this, this belief becomes a habit. If we continue to repeat our behaviors, they become a personality after 6 months. That is why it is important for our thoughts to become a belief when combined with emotion. Once emotion settles, it becomes a value judgment; then a solidified thought, a thought imbued with emotion, becomes a belief. Various beliefs are like traffic signs in a person's life. Traffic signs are automatic thoughts. When a person looks at a traffic sign, they don't look at the sign itself but where it points. We have many traffic signs that we have learned since childhood. These show the roadmap. Some are wrong, some are right, and they need to be questioned. If the road has changed, if there have been some renovations on the road, then what will you do? You need to rebuild them.”
Social environment is very important in healthy thinking
Emphasizing the importance of the social environment in achieving healthy thinking, Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan stated that a person is the average of their friends. Prof. Dr. Tarhan, who said, “Life is a journey,” continued, “Let's enjoy the day we are in on this journey. When a person sets out on a journey, they think about their destination. An intelligent person thinks strategically about where to stop, where to slow down, and where to speed up accordingly. The first condition of strategic thinking is a strategic goal. You will have a strategic goal, you will make your strategic preparations, you will devote more time to some issues, less time to others, and you will say ‘earlier’ to some, and ‘later’ to others. One way to progress with a healthy thinking system is good social support, a circle of friends, which is very important in this sense. A person is the average of their friends. A good environment protects people from mistakes. For this reason, let's protect our hands, eyes, tongue, heart, and all our organs. If we can protect these, I should be fearless. It's not difficult at all, actually.”