484. Brain Science + Heart Knowledge = Sustainable Change

Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D.

Susan-Peirce-Thomspon, psychologist, weight-loss

A former straight-A student who wanted to go to Harvard, Susan found herself in a crack house, where she’d been for four days. “I had a moment of clarity when I saw who and where I was. I knew if I didn’t get out of there—right then—that’s all I was ever going to be.”

Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D., is a psychology professor, a brain and cognitive scientist, and an expert in the psychology of eating. She is President of the Institute for Sustainable Weight Loss and CEO of Bright Line Eating Solutions, a company dedicated to helping people achieve long-term, sustainable weight loss. Her program utilizes cutting-edge research to explain how the brain blocks weight loss and every day she teaches people how to undo that damage so they can live happy, thin, and free.

How Did You Start Using Your Talents?

I had no idea what I wanted to major in. Leafing through a college catalog—Architecture, Biology—I got to the C’s and saw Cognitive Science. It was a brand new major, an interdisciplinary major involving psychology, philosophy of mind, a computer science course sequence leading up to artificial intelligence. There was a course in neuroscience to learn how the brain works, and in education dealing with how to train the mind, and anthropology. I said, Oh, sign me up for this!”

The Most Impactful Turning Point?

“It was on a Tuesday, August 9, 1994. The day started in a very seedy hotel room. I had been there smoking crack four days continuously. I had a blonde wig because I had a shaved head, and piercings in all kinds of places. A couple kicking heroin, shaking and quivering, was at my side, and a few other people were in the room. There was still crack rock on the table and a bottle of Jack Daniels on the counter. In a moment of clarity, I saw who and where I was. I knew if I didn’t get out of there—right then—that’s all I was ever going to be. I picked up my jacket and walked out the door.”

The Most Powerful Lessons Learned?

“It is goose-pimply, bone-chillingly outrageous how much the universe has conspired to prepare me for this mission. When I look back on my life, all the little things that didn’t make any sense when they were happening in terms of any consistent pattern or mosaic, all make sense now.”