How Your Public Self and Private Self Reflects on Your Learning Behavior

Memory is divided into a long-term storage system and a procedural memory for how we do things. I differentiate between day-dreaming and fantasy. Fantasy is the sort of thinking which starts with 'When I win the national lottery I will..'. This is good fun and a splendid way to go to sleep but it is not at all a productive use of time. Day-dreaming on the other hand, can be an excellent method of forward planning: 'Tomorrow, when I go out in the boat, I will take the tide down to Black Rock under engine to recharge the batteries and then I will take the forecast North Westerly wind round St. Antony's Head and I should make Fowey by lunchtime'.

You do not have to carry out all the plans which you make in your private world but by this forward thinking you can make plans for coping with practical situations. When we come to deal with stress and anxiety, this method of anticipation will be the basis of learning coping skills for dangerous or new situations.

Personality includes every aspect of the person and this means our principles, beliefs and cultural standpoints. It is in our private world of personal thinking that we test out the effect of these factors too. Our moral viewpoint and opinions are tried out inside our heads before we declare them to the outside world. This is why it is especially diffi­cult for youngsters: so many of their new individual view­points have to be sorted out and then experimented with for the first time.