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It appears to be human nature to occasionally think and act against our best interests.

In this way, our minds can become a sort of poison that negatively impacts or lives.

Limiting this process involves thought acceptance rather than suppression.

In 1845, Edgar Allen Poe wrote about a phenomenon that I see nearly every day in my clinical practice. In a short story of the same title, he wrote of The Imp of the Perverse. As his prose is far superior to mine, this is his understanding of it.

“Examine these and similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetuate them merely because we feel that we should not.”

“Examine these and similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetuate them merely because we feel that we should not.”

Poe was not a psychologist, but it is fair to say that he had a remarkable understanding of the human mind and human behavior, especially the darker forms of each. Nearly all his stories include psychological underpinnings that are just as relevant today.

One such concept is the Imp. How this manifests today is through self-sabotage and the tendency to think or act against our own self-interest. It is also the 3 a.m. anxiety attack telling us we........

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