Pavlov’s thoughts on my bike

My bike was stolen yesterday.

It’s definitely not the first time; I think I had 3 bikes stolen during my time in London and God knows how many in Uppsala! Unfortunately I had locked the bike in the front wheel only. Rocky mistake according to my partner who said I might as well have put up a sign for the thieves.

The thief kindly left my front wheel behind

The irony is that the bike was stolen outside the venue of my psychotherapist course, on the exact day of the Pavlovian Theory lecture. You know the guy who discovered dogs could be conditioned to drool at the sound of a bell.

The thief kindly left my front wheel

We discussed how a victim who suffered an assault could develop a phobia of for example balloons if balloons were present at the time of the assault. Classic conditioning. But apparently I cannot learn that a poorly locked up bike in an urban environment is likely to be stolen. I assume the level of pain involved could be a factor but we didn’t get that far in the lecture.

I’m only on day 4 of the course and I hope it becomes clearer!

If I finally learnt how to lock my bike up remains to be seen.

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