The Narrative Fallacy describes our tendency to find meaning, connections, and causal relationships where they do not necessarily exist.  In this episode, Dr. O'Leary had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Alexey Tolchinsky.

He recently published a paper called “Narrative fallacy and other limitations of psychodynamic case formulation.”  Dr. Tolchenski did not invent the idea of the Narrative Fallacy, but he is working to apply this idea to his own clinical practice. We could all benefit from recognizing the ways that Narrative Fallacy plays out in our lives.  The great thing about these ideas is that they are so generalizable.  The Narrative fallacy is not limited to medicine or science, but can be applied, for example in how we explain to ourselves why our neighbor seems to hate us.

Tolchinsky, A. (2023). Narrative fallacy and other limitations of psychodynamic case formulation. Practice Innovations.

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/znxs5

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