Both Keegan and Berger discuss three different adult mental complexities: The socialized mind, the self-authorizing-mind, and the self-transforming mind. The difference in these mental complexities is now evident to me at the different stages of my medical training. As a medical student, I believe I was in a socialized mindset. Believing that my future career depended on the evaluations I received, I was trapped in agreement. I sought alignment with my superiors and was a faithful follower. As I became a resident and gained more knowledge, I developed a self-authorizing mind. I learned to lead my team and teach my students. However, I was trapped by righteousness. I was overconfident and very decisive, at times believing naively that there was only right answer. As I became an attending, I learned that there are many ways to look at the same situations and to interrupt the same results. I appreciated the contradictions and developed a self-transforming mind. This had created more doubts within me and less decisiveness. I, at first, viewed this as a weakness. I interpreted my indecisiveness at this more advance stage as a sign of regression and failure. Now I realize, it is a sign of growth. A sign that I am understanding the complexity of the world more. I noted this pattern with many of my colleagues: Faithful aligning students to deceive overconfident resident to problem finding attendings. Instead of fearing the contradictions and the problem finding phase, I am now learning to embrace it. I wonder however, if some revert to a self-authorizing mindset. As attendings advance in their careers, some become trapped by righteousness and ego and leave no room for interpretation. How can we be more intentional about keeping a self-transforming mindset? Is it beneficial to have one mind complexity over another? Or is the awareness of our own mental complexity sufficient?
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