Mental management is a concept in the field of cognitive psychology that explores the cognitive, cerebral or thought-based processes in their different forms. Originally developed during the 1970s by French educator and philosopher Antoine de La Garanderie, mental management was developed for individuals to use their own mental activities and processes more effectively.
History
Developed during the 1970s, mental management theory has expanded on several previous academic dialogues. Having first emerged for educational purposes, the mental management approach has been developed on the research of French educator and philosopher Antoine de La Garanderie who identified distinct mental processes that support learning. His research builds on several previous theories, including the works on introspection by Jean Martin Charcot, Alfred Binet, Maine de Biran and Albert Burloud, who was La Garanderie's professor. Today, its studies are used in four domains systematically; individual functioning; education; therapy; and business.
There have been developments over the past century that have combined original and newfound scientific techniques and studies to further our understanding of mental processes and hence, improve mental management. This includes the following activities and processes to manage the mind well: attention; retrieval; comprehension; thinking; and imagining. According to him, each individual's understanding, memorising and reproducing techniques for information are differentiated. This concept can show the different cognitive mechanisms which play a part in thinking and learning, and ultimately make up mental management. Evocation is the foundation stone of La Garanderie's theory, allowing individuals to reproduce what they learn at a later point in time. There are three specific profiles of evocation corresponding to a particular channel that the child uses to imagine the information:
1. Visual evocation includes the transformation of textual information into visual information, for example drawings, diagrams and the use of colour in underlining. It rose to great importance in the mid-1950s due to the dissatisfaction with the behaviourist psychological models. The emphasis of psychology shifted away from studying the mind in favour of understanding human information processing, relating to perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness. The main concern of cognitive psychology is how information is received from the senses, processed by the brain and how this processing directs how humans behave. It is a multifaceted approach in which various cognitive functions work together to understand not only individuals and groups, but also society as a whole.
Behaviourist model vs. cognitive model
Mental Management falls within the cognitive model of psychology and needs to be distinguished from the behaviourist model, which considers mental processes to be unobservable and therefore akin to a ‘black box’. More specifically, the behaviourist model assumes that the process linking behaviour to the stimulus cannot be studied. It therefore describes the conceptualisation of psychological disorders in terms of overt behaviour patterns produced by learning and the influence of reinforcement contingencies. Treatment techniques associated with this approach include systematic de-sensitisation and modelling and focusing on modifying ineffective or maladaptive patterns.
In contrast, the cognitive model represents a theoretical view of thought and mental operations, provides explanations for observed phenomena and makes predictions about behavioural consequences. Specifically, it describes the mental events that connect the input from the environment with the behavioural output. The approach assumes that people are continually creating and accessing internal representations (models) of what they are experiencing in the world for the purposes of perception, comprehension, and behaviour selection (action). Treatment techniques associated with this approach include cognitive behavioural therapy which involves defining, observing, analysing and interpreting patterns, and reframing these as more optimal ways of thinking.
Processes of mental management
There are five different processes of mental management, which La Garanderie distinguishes as different types of mental gestures.
Attention
In psychology, attention is defined as "a state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than on others and the central nervous system is in a state of readiness to respond to stimuli." In mental management it describes the essential first step required to enable the subsequent step of retrieving memorized information. The gesture of attention is linked to the perception from our five senses and the evocation of the subject. For example, a parent or teacher can activate a child's attention with instructive phrases using the imperative tense. Computed tomography is “radiography in which a three-dimensional image of a body structure is constructed by computer from a series of plane cross-sectional images made along an axis.”