As part of a course I am currently doing I have lately been brushing up on my understanding of various approaches to counselling and psychotherapy, and the other day I found myself reading a chapter on CBT.

Now, CBT not being one of the approaches that sits best with me for a number of reasons (at least not as a stand-alone approach), I soon allowed my mind to wander off elsewhere. Like a good pseudo-student I was still reading, I just sort of didn’t really put my heart and soul into it. I jotted down the odd comment here and there, but really, I was basically skimming, rather than studying. While I was doing this I began tapping the back of my pen against the desk and soon enough I had got into a rhythm of sorts.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Icelandic wunder woman Björk decided to join in my little game of playful study-distraction. Naturally not in a literal sense, as this was all happening in the comfort of my own home, and Björk rarely happens to drop in on me, but a melody began playing in my head. (You know what it’s like; suddenly you get a tune in your head, and it just keeps playing on repeat.) At first I couldn’t quite make out which one of her songs it was, so I started humming along (as quietly as I could, as I severely lack in musical talent and wouldn’t want to frighten my unsuspecting house mates), half-singing, half-saying the words, as I happily tapped away.

I wasn’t paying any real attention to what I was doing, it was just one of those semi-automatic things that you find yourself doing and it wasn’t until several minutes later that I realised what it was I was actually singing..

“.. oh, and there is no map.. and a compass wouldn’t help at all.. there’s definitely, definitely, no logic.. to human behaviour..”

Now, if that’s not irony, I don’t know what is. Reading about cognitive behavioural theory, while internally stating to myself over and over that there’s definitely no logic to human behaviour.

xx

Lyrics from Human Behaviour © Björk