Office of Medical Communications

Psychiatrist Robert Emmons, M.D., a volunteer clinical faculty member at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine

(JANUARY 4, 2023) Psychiatrist Robert Emmons, M.D., a member of the volunteer clinical faculty at UVM’s Larner College of Medicine who has taught in the fields of professionalism, ethics, and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, penned an opinion piece about New Year’s resolutions and conscience in the (Killington, Vt.) Mountain Times.

As a way to deal with habits, New Year’s resolutions are typically framed as moral imperatives: “I promise to myself …”  If we accept the premise that an unhelpful moral algorithm lurks beneath the surface of every habit, then we can see that adding yet another rule is unlikely to cure the problem of too many rules, Emmons writes.

A year-end review might be used more productively to evaluate the library of algorithms, in order to delete the ones that do not serve personal well-being. Let’s call this method “pruning the conscience.”

Regular pruning of the conscience frees up mental bandwidth so we can live more happily and effectively with our families, friends, and neighbors. That moves us toward a world with a lot fewer rules, less blame and punishment, and a lot more flexibility, tolerance, and compassion.