Author champions the rejection of self-deception

Cortney S. Warren’s book is about the lies we tell ourselves — the ways in which we deceive ourselves, sometimes consciously but usually not — and the havoc self-deception can cause in our lives, our relationships and our careers.

But even before writing the book, Warren caught herself indulging in a bit of self-deception of her own. And that’s when Warren, then an associate psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, followed her own advice.

Just two years after receiving tenure, Warren quit her full-time job at UNLV. The reason: She decided that the career goals she had spent years working toward weren’t really what made her happy and that she’d rather spend more time raising her 18-month-old daughter.

It’s no judgment on working mothers or stay-at-home moms or UNLV or academia, she notes, but merely about a truth she had to face in her own life.

In her book, “Lies We Tell Ourselves: The Psychology of Self-Deception” (Insight Publishing, $14.99), Warren examines the ways in which we lie to ourselves, why we feel compelled to do it and how we can begin to live authentic, truthful lives.

Warren says the book is the product of an invitation she received to present a short talk about psychology at UNLV. The book, she says, is an expanded version of the TEDxUNLV talk she presented in April.

According to Warren, self-deception is, at its most basic level, fooling ourselves into believing something that isn’t true or, conversely, not believing something that is true.

“In general, when I talk about self-deception, I really mean it’s unconscious lies that we tell ourselves,” she says.

We can resort to self-deception to protect ourselves from painful emotional truths or to rationalize away behaviors that we’re not proud of. The problem, Warren says, is that, “in the long run, the consequences of self-deception are much more negative, because you will end up creating chaos in your life based on things that aren’t true.”

In her book — she also has a companion website at www.choosehonesty.com — Warren discusses the varieties and underpinnings of self-deception and how it can manifest itself in our lives. Much of her own research is in the areas of eating disorders and body image, and it’s there, she says, that some of the most common manifestations of self-deceptions live.

“Most of us can’t be honest about how much we eat on a daily basis,” she says. “We use all kinds of lies to justify our eating behaviors.”

Acknowledging self-deceptions can be painful and facing them down takes work, Warren says, but the goal is to “make choices in the present that are based in the truth.”

This past spring, Warren completed her final semester as a full-time tenured UNLV faculty member. She says she’ll continue at UNLV on a part-time basis to work with graduate students and will continue to teach medical students from the University of Nevada School of Medicine. But, she says, her new schedule allows her to spend more time with her daughter.

Leaving a tenured position is “definitely not the most typical trajectory of an academic,” Warren notes.

She likes research. She likes teaching. “I wanted to advance the field at some level,” she says, and “I wanted the respect and the notoriety of people in my profession. I care, to some degree, about status. But I also wanted to spend more time with her, and that would require me quitting.

“I had to sit myself down and be very honest about what I needed to do to live the most fulfilling life for me, and it came down that what I needed to do for myself is spend more time with my kid.

“I don’t believe this is the right answer for everybody,” Warren adds. “But self-deception would have cost me a great deal psychologically, because I would have stayed, doing something for the wrong reasons.”

So how’s it going so far?

“I could tell you, I definitely think it’s the right choice,” Warren says. “I feel incredibly liberated, and I know that if I had not quit, I would regret it. In that way I feel very liberated. I also, however, am somewhat anxious to see what my career actually evolves into.”

Divesting ourselves from self-deception isn’t easy, Warren says. But, “I think it’s worth it and I really do think the more people embrace honesty, the more fulfilling their lives will be.”

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.