White Bears and Pink Elephants
Meandering thoughts about knowledge erosion, autonomy & the balance of life
I was getting a medical scan today and the young zoomer technician was chatting with me.
“I don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling lately like I just want to turn it all off. You know, not look at my phone. Not even the TV. Is that weird?” she said to me.
“Oh no, not at all. I’m old enough to remember the time before we were constantly tuned in. And I’m a psychologist, so I can definitely say that tech-free breaks are important. So yeah, I recommend you try it,” I said.
I was at a Kaiser facility here in San Francisco, and I figured me naming my profession would lend credence to what I said to this young MRI tech. It makes sense that a digital native might think it’s “weird” to want to tear themselves away from the feed, from this continuous connectivity. Because they were born into this world, and they’ve never known another way.
I was getting imaging for a shoulder impingement that’s been bothering me for the past seven months. Before I started training as a psychotherapist, I used to have lots of these types of injuries and chronic pain. Back then, it was definitely my body letting me know I needed to integrate more, to listen to its signals and not just dissociate and override with my mental faculties. Once I began grad school and concurrent practicum to learn the ropes of counseling, I found my ailments quickly dissipated. I hadn’t realized how out of touch I had been—not only my body, but my emotions as well. As the floodgates of feelings and empathy were opened, it’s not surprising to me that my physical symptoms relented.
But here I was in 2025, ten years into my private practice and finding myself facing the pain again. I had thought whatever lessons I needed to learn about self-care were in the rearview mirror. But so much of life is an iterative process, isn’t it? The upward spiral of three steps forward, two steps back—revolving around our central conundrums, unique to each individual.
Indeed, I find that most learning takes place in layers. More drops of wisdom each time. So this latest issue was an overuse injury (whereas the prior injuries were structural and stress-related). I could pinpoint it to a moment when I let myself zone out and keep going with my physical exercise, trying to work my body like a machine. I remember repeating a mantra, putting myself into a trance, as I swam lap after lap in the pool.
Something similar happened not too long after the overuse incident, but with my mind. Wanting to be a good partner, I agreed to microdose to celebrate a special occasion between us. I ignored my own reservations. I emptied myself and tried to just be a vessel to achieve the sought-after outcome. Was it any wonder I ended up having a bad trip?
I realized in the aftermath of these injurious events that I needed to rebalance. Yup, my higher self will kick me in the ass if I stop paying attention. Perhaps I had lost touch of the thread by swinging too far into the idea of being a conduit, as one is in channeling; leaning too much into receiving rather than driving an experience. You know how Elon Musk wants to take away the steering wheel and just let the cars drive us 100% of the time? Imagine the kids not having such an apt metaphor for personal agency. When we lose contact with the lived experience behind a metaphor, what else are we losing? Beyond all that, I also sensed that it was about finally beginning to publish my creative writing in earnest. That there was so much energy built up around this lifelong yearning, so much momentum that needed to now slow down into greater stillness. It seemed I crashed into it just a little bit.
Back to the idea of generational knowledge erosion, I happened upon a Vulture article about a band called Arcade Fire that was a review of its new album, Pink Elephant. I don’t listen to this band but something drew me to read the first paragraph. It starts:
“‘Don‘t think of a pink elephant!’ is an impossible instruction,” psychologist Janice Morse and philosopher Carl Mitcham wrote in a 2002 International Journal of Qualitative Methods article, “for once the idea of a pink elephant is mentioned, it cannot be erased from one’s consciousness.”
What’s interesting to me is that it seems the author of the Vulture article has no idea that A) pink elephant is an allusion to the DTs aka delirium tremens, a severe form of alcohol withdrawal. Namely, that “seeing pink elephants” is a euphemism for the hallucinations associated with DTs. As a Gen Xer, I know this from having watched Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons as a kid. And B) the concept described in the 2002 study cited in the article is actually derivative of a seminal 1987 study by Daniel Wegner, “The White Bear Experiment,” in which participants were asked to not think of a white bear. The study demonstrated that trying to suppress a thought can paradoxically make it more persistent and likely to reappear. Perhaps ironic, as some music critics think this band’s Pink Elephant album does not adequately address the lead singer’s sexual misconduct allegations—the “elephant in the room,” as it were. Coincidentally, this psychological concept of increased mentalization when trying to suppress a thought is called ironic process theory (this is part of a key concept in ACT which we call experiential avoidance—the impossibility of trying to get rid of things within the intrapsychic landscape. See this Passengers on the Bus video illustration of the concept).
The Wikipedia entry states synonyms for ironic process theory as pink elephant paradox and white bear phenomenon. So we circle back to these two terms. Yet the source for the pink elephant paradox is a 2023 Psychology Today blog post which has no additional citations. I am guessing the author is basing the term on the same 2002 study. But why change it from white bear to pink elephant? This seems a confusing erosion of the original source attribution. Or maybe the older term is too… white bear supremacist?
Alright, I’ll stop before I go off the rails here. Thanks for indulging my tangents. I’m working on a new spec fic story and will post more about it later!