Managing your own thoughts and emotions is a skill. This model helps us to understand how to manage ourselves during conflict and in the workplace.

1. The Chimp
Mind Model
Edited from the book The Chimp Paradox by
Professor Steve Peters
Consultant Psychiatrist
Undergraduate Dean at Sheffield University
Medical School
Resident Psychiatrist with Sky Pro Cycling
Consultant Psychiatrist at Liverpool Football Club

2. Developing
Yourself
• Managing your emotions and
thoughts is a skill
• You always have a choice in
life. Recognising this and
making your choice is critical.
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3. Your Brain - Simplified
• The model is based on complex science
• The human brain is complicated several brains working together
• We will only look at 3 of these brains: Human (frontal), Chimp
(limbic) and Computer (parietal)
• The model approximates as an easy working model

4. The 3 parts of your brain
• The Human is you and you live in your frontal lobe – logical thinking
and working with facts and truths. The Human’s agenda is to achieve
self-fulfilment.
• The Computer is a storage area and automatic functioning machine.
• The Chimp – is an emotional thinking machine given to you at birth
that lives in your limbic system and thinks independently from you.
It is not good or bad. It is just a chimp. It works with feelings and
impressions. It is your best friend and your worst enemy. Its purpose
and agenda is to ensure survival and the next generation.
• The human and chimp are two separate thinking machines that
interpret our experiences.
• Both the human and chimp can put information into the computer.
• Either can take control or they can work together. Although these
brains try to work together, they very frequently get into conflict and
struggle against each other to gain control, with the Chimp often
winning!

5. The battle within
• You can recognise the difference between your Chimp thinking and Human
thinking without understanding any of the science. How many times have
you talked to yourself, reassured yourself or had battles within your own
head?
• Often you have thoughts and feelings that you do not want and even carry
out behaviours that you know at the time are not really what you want to
do. So why are you doing this? How can it be that you don’t have control
over what thoughts or emotions you have and what behaviours you carry
out? How can you be two very different people at the same time?
• Brain scanners show the blood supply in your brain going to the area being
used. If you think calmly and rationally, then we can see blood going to your
frontal area, the Human in your head and you become the person that you
want to be and who you really are.
• If you become emotional and somewhat irrational, especially when you are
angry or distressed, then we see the blood supply go to your Chimp and
you would usually say that this is not how you want to be and that you don’t
want this. The truth is your Chimp, an emotional machine, that is
overpowering your Human mind.
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6. Exercise 1
• Try to improve your ability to
recognise when your Chimp is
hijacking you with thoughts,
feelings and behaviours that you
don’t want to have.
• By doing this you are learning to
recognise the difference
between yourself and your
Chimp - and who is in control at
any point in time.
• This will make it clear that there
are two brains operating within
your head and only one of them
is you.
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7. Event
Interpretation
Chimp Human
Feelings/Impressions Facts and Truth
Emotional thinking Logical thinking
Plan of action Plan of action
Both processes can be healthy but they lead to different
interpretations of what is happening and how to deal with it.

8. Strength of the Chimp
• The Chimp is 5 x stronger than you, the
Human.
• There are 2 distinct personalities in your head; you
and your Chimp. They operate via 2 different
brains which are trying to work together.
• When you disagree, the Chimp is the most
powerful and therefore gets control of your
thoughts and actions.
• However, if you recognise what is happening and
have strategies for managing this, you will gain
control of your thinking and then you can act in a
logical manner.

9. How the Chimp Works
• Why do I sometimes become so irrational in my
thinking?
• The answer may now be clear. It is not you
thinking at all, but your Chimp taking over and
thinking for you.
• The solution is therefore to understand how your
chimp thinks, recognise when it is taking over and
intervene.
• What you are experiencing when you have strong
emotional reactions is very natural and the sign of
a healthy mind.
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10. Different laws of operating
Chimp: Jungle
• Instincts (FFF)
• Drives
• Vulnerable stance
• Male vs female
Chimps
• Body language
Human: Society
• Honesty
• Compassion
• Conscience
• Law-abiding
• Self-control
• Sense of purpose
• Achievement &
satisfaction
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11. Chimp Survival Modes
• Freeze
• Fight
• Flight

12. Best friend and worst enemy
• The Chimp and Human can work effectively
together. The Chimp can keep us safe and
healthy. It can tell us when you eat and sleep
and warn us or danger and how to deal with
it, or when there is something it would like to
engage in to fulfil its own desires.
• Problems arise when the Chimp gives us a
suggestion that is not appropriate and we
then allow it to control us and don’t know
how to stop the Chimp from dominating us.
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13. Exercise 2
In order to implement changes in your life
it is important to recognise the differences
between the Chimp and the Human and
their agendas and ways of thinking and
operating.
Look back at situations that have
happened and revisit them and work out
the different ways that the Chimp and
Human could have handled them.
For example, consider a common scenario
where someone may have said something
that disturbed or troubled you and how
you responded to it. If you later thought
that your response was unhelpful, think
through how the Human could have
responded. Remember that the Human will
choose to establish the facts and then gain
perspective before reacting. Relate the way
your Chimp reacted to typical Chimp
operating and then consider how a Human
response would have been more
appropriate.
The amount of time you spend
reflecting on how your mind is
operating, the more likely it is that you
will improve your future functioning.
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14. Chimp
Management
• Having a Chimp is like owning a dog. You are
not responsible for the nature of the dog but
you are responsible for managing it and
keeping it well behaved.
• This is crucial to success and happiness in life.
“Managing your impulsive, emotional Chimp
as an adult will be one of the biggest factors
determining how successful you are in life”
Prof. Steve Peters.

15. A 3-step process
1. Recognise who is in charge: the Human or
the Chimp
– The golden rule is that whenever you have
feelings, thoughts or behaviours that you do not
want or welcome, then you are being hijacked by
your Chimp.
2. Understand the rules of how the brain works
and accept these
– All information goes to the Chimp first who
decides if there is anything to worry about
3. Nurture and manage your Chimp to get the
best results for you
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16. You can’t control your Chimp
• The Chimp is more powerful and acts more quickly than the Human.
• It’s no good trying to control a Chimp with willpower. Don’t arm-
wrestle the Chimp!
• When you go about your daily routine, the Chimp continually scans
for danger and if it perceives any threat, or gets worried or
concerned, then it refuses to release control of your thinking. The
Chimp will always win the battle!
• A crucial step in mind management is acepting your Chimp’s
fundamental drives do not change.
– You can’t change the nature of the Chimp you are working with.
– It is an emotional machine that is never going to be programmed
differently.
– Your Chimp will always act on drives and, according to its nature with
emotions and actions such as aggression, anxiousness or impulsivity.
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17. Who’s in charge?
• Either you or your Chimp will make the decisions in your life.
• If you both agree then there will be peace.
• When you don’t agree with the Chimp then it typically attacks you and this
can be emotionally very painful!
• The Chimp interprets what is happening and then offers the Human an
emotion and a suggestion of how to deal with the situation. The Human
then makes the decision on whether to accept the Chimp’s offer or reject it.
• If the Human agrees with the Chimp’s offer and accepts, then there is no
problem – and we act on our emotions.
• But if the Human decides to reject the Chimp’s offer then we have a
problem because the Chimp will kick off and refuse to behave.
• It will then create havoc emotionally until either it gets its own way and
hijacks us or until we learn how to manage the emotion without
acting on it.
• The Chimp is merely making an offer not a command. You do not have to
follow your emotions, you have a choice.
• Chimp Management is a skill and takes time. 17

18. Smile, relax and employ Chimp
Management!
• Accept and work with the drive rather than trying to battle it
• Nurture your Chimp before you manage it
– Recognise the drive is present and then find a solution that will
make the Chimp feel fulfilled and happy in a way that is socially
acceptable
– If your Chimp is aggressive and dominating, doing something
simple like playing a sport can be a socially acceptable way to
fulfil this primitive drive of dominance
– If your Chimp is insecure, then make it feel secure
• E.g. If your Chimp is telling you it feels insecure because it doesn’t know
its role (territorial drive), then it’s your duty to go and establish this role
with your line manager and make sure that you are happy and the
Chimp is feeling settled. Otherwise the Chimp will become insecure and
start acting out because you haven’t looked after it. Once you have
established your “territory” at work then your Chimp will calm down and
feel secure in its part of the “jungle” as it sees it.
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19. Managing your Chimp:
The 3 techniques
Exercise
Box
Bananas

20. Exercise
• Let your Chimp release emotion or opinion
• Say exactly what you think, no matter how irrational and for as long
as it takes
• Then let the Human select the sensible things and ignore the
nonsense
• Most Chimps will take less than 10 minutes
• Occasionally they will need a 2nd exercise
• Chimp will then calm down and listen to reason or go to sleep
• Don’t exercise your Chimp in public!
• Choose the right person (someone who recognises it’s your Chimp,
not you)… most Chimps want someone to hear what they have to
say and to understand them and to console them or agree with an
opinion
• Don’t interrupt the Chimp when it is exercising – it will get more
agitated
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21. Box
• Address it’s fears and concerns by speaking to it using facts,
truth and logic
• The truths will only settle the Chimp down if they are
significant to it so you need to find the truths that are
meaningful and powerful to your Chimp
• If you do this well you will find that you are training your
Chimp to understand there are rules for it to live by and that
you, the Human are making those rules.
• It may take several repeat episodes of exercising the Chimp
for any one problem before you can box it
• You may also need to keep putting the Chimp back into its
box several times for any one problem before it goes to sleep
• (You may be able to get your Chimp to go straight to box
without exercising)
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22. Bananas
• Not a very powerful way to solve problems but can be effective in
certain circumstances – particularly short term, in order to get things
done
• Distraction Bananas:
– Don’t give your Chimp time to talk to you
– e.g. getting up in the morning without time to think
– e.g. occupying yourself while waiting
• Reward Bananas
– Can be surprisingly powerful
– e.g. promising yourself a coffee when you have dealt with 5 emails
– Engineering situations where your Chimp will get praise, recognition or
approval from others
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23. Take Away
Remember NEAT
• It’s NORMAL to have Chimp
outbursts
• You should EXPECT this to
happen from time to time
• ACCEPT that you are not
perfect and your Chimp is
very powerful
• TAKE CARE of the outburst
e.g. by apologising, or
forgiving yourself
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24. Remember
Your Chimp
offers you its
feelings and you
have to decide
what to do with
them