Too Much Is Not Enough

There are many kinds of depression. When the symptoms come “out of the blue” the depression is likely to be biological in origin. However, the origin of most people’s depression is abstract rather than medical.

There are good and talented people who perceive things in ways that depress them, and, consequently, the quality of their performance. They criticize themselves for being depressed and not performing better, which depresses them. Being depressed about being depressed is an example of a recursive trap.

Self-Confirmatory Bias
Self-confirmatory bias is a component of many recursive traps associated with depression. Of all the negative beliefs that one might accept, some are special in that they motivate the person to act in ways that confirm the original belief.

Barry is a 31 year-old engineer who views himself as socially awkward. Given this knowledge about Barry, what is your prediction when at an office party a co-worker makes a joke at his expense. Will he respond with a clever comeback, or feel frozen and be inarticulate?

From the clinician’s perspective, the pain that Barry feels when he ruminates on past social failures is just the insult; the real injury is that the self-consciousness and demoralizing expectations that this kind of thinking promotes, impairs his social performance. Barry’s trap: His pathogenic beliefs about his self-worth or social desirability elicit motivational states that impair his social performance, and thereby confirms the pathogenic belief.

When he is in the right state of mind Barry can be very funny and quick witted. Whether or not he can use this talent depends, to a large extent, on his subjective reality at that moment. His retort is more likely to be clever if he sees himself as a quick wit, than if he is in his “I’m a loser” trance.

Cognitive events such as the appraisal, “I’m a loser,” or the expectation, “I will respond with a clever retort” exist only in Barry’s mind not in the objective world! However, the subjective reality that Barry experiences has a considerable influence on how he performs in the objective world.

It looks different than it feels. From our dispassionate perspective, we can appreciate Barry’s trap in a way that Barry cannot (a big advantage in working with a therapist). The details of your trap may be quite different than Barry’s, but it is likely to share this recursive structure.

If you don’t get what you want you are disappointed, but if you don’t get what you need you will die. Food, water, and oxygen are examples of needs, while respect, love, and being right are examples of wants.

The fight-or-flight reaction is an exquisite orchestration of biological processes, which makes an organism physically stronger so that it will be able to fight powerfully or flee quickly when its life depends on it. If you ever encounter such a situation, you will be glad you have it. This power, however, comes at a price; during a fight-or-flight reaction the body is sacrificing everything else—including digestion, immune response, and higher cognitive faculties—to be physically strong now. But some people react to trivial stressors as though they were life and death. This costly error exhausts the body, making it vulnerable to disease, and exhausts the cognitive resources needed to override the influence of local stressors and temptations.

Rational Emotive Therapy
Dr. Albert Ellis described a useful way to defuse excessive emotionality: When you experience a fight-or-flight reaction, ask yourself, “Is this about something I want or about something I need?” If you don’t get what you want, it is disappointing but not a matter of life and death. Indeed, it is often advantageous to be cool and calm in the midst of a crisis. Sadly, some people destroy what is genuinely important to them because of their fight-or-flight reactions to trivial slights.

According to Dr. Ellis, traps of emotional over-reaction result from attachment to outcomes that are not of vital importance.

Stoicism
If your boss falsely accuses you of some sin you did not commit, it is indeed frustrating but it is not a matter of life or death. Even if you lose your job over it, it is still not a matter of life and death. The Stoic, Epictetus, observed: “A beggar doesn’t have a job, but he is alive.”

Epictetus preceded Dr. Ellis by about two thousand years, and his philosophy produced heroes. Consider an archer who strives to shoot excellently and will not be disappointed if he shoots well, even if he doesn’t win the competition. Winning is desirable, but there will be times when an excellent archer shoots well and still—for reasons beyond his control, such as a sudden gust of wind or an extraordinary performance by an opponent—is not awarded first place. A non-stoic archer views this as a failure because he did not achieve the intended outcome; whereas, a stoic archer views it as a success because he shot well. The stoic is focused on performing well, not on the outcome of the performance.

In Epictetus’ words:

On the one hand, there are things that are in our power, whereas other things are not in our power. In our power are opinion, impulse, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is our own doing. Things not in our power include our body, our possessions, our reputations, our status, and, in a word, whatever is not our own doing.

Straightaway then, train yourself to say to every unpleasant impression, ‘You are an impression, and by no means what you appear to be.’ Then examine it and test it by asking whether it concerns things that are in your power or things that are not in your power, and if it concerns something not in your power, have ready to hand the answer, ‘This is nothing to me.’

Remember that, on the one hand, desires command you to obtain what you long for, and on the other, aversions command you to avoid what you dislike. Those who fail to gain what they desire are unfortunate, whilst those who fall into what they seek to avoid are miserable.

A person’s master is the one who has power over that which is wished for or not wished for, so as to secure it or take it away. Therefore, anyone who wishes to be free should neither wish for anything nor avoid anything that depends on others; those who do not observe this rule will of necessity be the slaves of others.

When you are about to undertake some task, remind yourself what sort of business it is. If you are going out to bathe, bring to mind what happens at the baths: there will be those who splash you, those who will jostle you, some will be abusive to you, and others will steal from you. And thus you will undertake the affair more securely if you say to yourself from the start, ‘I wish to take a bath, but also to keep my moral character in accordance with nature.’ Do likewise with every undertaking. For thus, if anything should happen that interferes with your bathing, be ready to say, ‘Oh well, it was not only this that I wanted, but also to keep my moral character in accordance with nature, and I cannot do that if I am irritated by things that happen.’ Say to yourself, ‘This is the price for peace of mind, and this is the price for being free of troubles. Nothing can be had without paying the price.’

Remember that the insult does not come from the person who abuses you or hits you, but from your judgment that such people are insulting you. Therefore, whenever someone provokes you, be aware that it is your own opinion that provokes you. Try, therefore, in the first place, not to be carried away by your impressions, for if you can gain time and delay, you will more easily control yourself.

According to Epictetus, the traps of emotional over-reaction result from attachment to outcomes that you do not control.

Attachment to outcomes hinders ongoing performance:

• Emotionality: If the archer needs to win, the prospect of failure is threatening and produces a biological reaction, nervousness, which undermines the steady hand required of the task.
• Distraction: The archer will perform best when his attention is focused on shooting to the complete exclusion of everything else. To the extent the archer thinks of winning rather than shooting, the prize divides him, and the need to win drains him of power

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According to Chaing Tsu, the traps of emotional over-reaction result from attachment to outcomes.

Psychology is the discipline by which the Psyche (the soul) seeks to understand the Psyche. While the study of experiential phenomena is interesting in its own right, some people become psychologists because they seek to relieve the Psyche’s suffering. Paradoxically, incentive use disorders, the cause of much of the Psyche’s avoidable suffering, is maintained by the Psyche’s motivation to relieve its suffering.

Negative emotional states are not necessarily pathological. Fear, for example, is an adaptive motivational response to threat. The bio-psychological changes that result from an encounter with an objective threat, a dangerous animal for example, are adaptive in that they prepare the individual for fight or flight, and, importantly, the emotional reaction dissipates after the threat has passed.

The fear evoked by worrying about events that may occur in the future is different. Here the emotional state was evoked not by an objective threat, but by the worrier’s predictions about a potential threat. The fearful emotional state does not dissipate with time because there are always potential threats in the future. Rather than energizing adaptive behavior, the emotional state evoked by thinking this way depletes the very resources required to deal with objective threats.

Depressed individuals tend to see the world through negative filters and react to environmental challenges with negative expectations, an orientation that may interfere with good performance. Anxious individuals have a different set of perceptual biases and response tendencies, but their emotional reaction also hinders their ability to cope with challenges. The fact that individuals continue to react to events that happen in ways that make them miserable suggests that they are not learning from their painful experience.

Subjective Reality
Some of life’s problems are self-correcting. You catch a cold, and the body’s immune system learns to recognize the pathogen and defeat it. A child learning to ride a bicycle may fall a few times but will eventually get it. People who have fallen into a neurotic trap may never get it, because their pathogenic beliefs cause them to act in ways that confirm these beliefs. For example, the belief that you will not be able to cope with a challenge may impair performance and produce the unwanted outcome.

We assume that our experience is a natural reflection of objective reality. In fact, the limitations of our sensory apparatus filter what comes through from the objective world to our conscious awareness. The subjective reality we experience is a creative construction of our nervous system. Everything looks different when we expect success than when we expect failure. We appraise environmental threats and our abilities to cope with them through one set of lenses when we are confident and through another when we are anxious. Because the lenses are invisible to use, we assume that we see the objective truth despite the continual shifting of lenses as our state changes from one situation to another. [For more about state-dependent perception, please click here].

Recursive Structures
Suicide bombers and corporate executives are made of the same biological material, but are biased by different beliefs and hence experience different subjective realities. There are many ways to misperceive, but some distortions are special: They have a recursive structure and so can maintain themselves indefinitely.

Blushing is an example of a recursive structure. If blushing is embarrassing for me, then any feedback that I am blushing enhances the physiological reaction. The more obvious the blush, the more embarrassed I feel, and the more embarrassed I feel, the more I blush, and so on.

Consider how a self-sabotaging recursive structure can continue to diminish the quality of life throughout an individual’s biography:

Barry, a 31 year-old engineer, has low self-efficacy regarding his social skills, and worries about making a fool of himself at the Friday office party. Thinking about it evokes emotions, appraisals, and behavioral tendencies that impair his social skills. In fact, Barry can be very funny and quick-witted when he is in the right state of mind, but when a co-worker made a joke at his expense at the office party he was inarticulate. Although he would have loved to respond with a clever comeback, his expectation of humiliation determined which state-dependent talents and abilities were available to him at the critical moment.

Barry’s story illustrates the cause-and-effect relationships that tend to evoke self-confirmatory bias. Barry’s belief that he is socially inept impairs his social performance, which confirms his handicapping belief. His social life is continually influenced by his expectation of social failure, and the objective evidence that Barry does, in fact, perform poorly in social situations continually validates this expectation. Because it has a recursive structure, it can persist indefinitely and continue to have a negative impact on Barry’s actions and how his life unfolds. Fortunately for Barry, he had the intellectual gifts to appreciate how this trap works and to change the cognitive structure that maintained it.

Self-Reference and Reciprocal Feedback
Recursion, in mathematics and computer science, is a method of defining functions in which the function being defined is applied within its own definition. The term is more generally used to describe a process of reciprocal feedback; for example, when two mirrors face each other a recurring sequence of nested images appears in each.

One kind of reciprocal structure is the Circular Chain, which, like a snake swallowing its own tail, has no end and so may repeat indefinitely. Self-sabotaging sequences that have this structure are particularly destructive because they can continue indefinitely. Low self-efficacy and dependence on external agency have a reciprocal relationship of this kind. For example:

H has become dependent on alcohol because it helps him cope with the difficulties of his life. He seeks a solution to his problem from an intensive treatment program. He does fine while in treatment but does not develop the coping skills required to manage high-risk situations independently. Soon after the external supports provided by the program fade away he relapses. The relapse is demoralizing and supports his belief that he is powerless and must depend upon an external agent to help him cope. Sadly, the mind set of powerlessness prevents him from developing the procedural skills required to finally escape this problem

Positive Feedback
When mirrors are parallel, the nested reflections do not go on forever because real mirrors are not perfectly reflective. Pathogenic structures have no such limitation. In fact, some produce amplification or positive feedback—analogous to a microphone that has gotten too close to a speaker causing a rapid and relentless magnification of the sound to the extreme. Panic attacks are produced by positive feedback of the fight-or-flight response: Specifically, the symptoms of anxiety, such as rapid heartbeat, are perceived as threatening, which results in the secretion of more fight-or-flight hormones, and so on.

Positive feedback can cause bingeing in much the same way. In the example below, the payoff—escape into mindless eating—is used as a method to help an individual cope with a negative emotion. The suffering produced by the choice amplifies the motivation to escape.

Desiree hates being fat and feels shame whenever she thinks about her obesity or sees herself in the mirror. She has also discovered that she can escape her self-critical monologue and feelings of shame by becoming absorbed in the pleasurable experience of mindless eating. The self-loathing caused by her failure to restrain her eating amplifies the bad feelings she has for herself, which increases her motivation to escape into the warm comfort of mindless eating. In this case, her emotional reaction to the failure is the amplification mechanism: The worse she feels, the more she is driven to eat, and the more she eats, the worse she feels

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Ruminative Self-Focus
A particular kind of reciprocal feedback forms the core structure of pathological depression, anger, and anxiety: Ruminative self-focus is a thinking strategy in which the focus of attention is the self, how one feels, and why one feels that way. It is ruminative in the sense that one goes over the same thoughts and images without achieving a resolution or plan of action. It masquerades as a problem-solving orientation, but very little problem solving actually takes place. As a rule of thumb, when the content of the rumination is the past, a depressive disorder is the diagnosis; and when the future provides the content, the rumination is called worrying and shows up as generalized anxiety disorder. Because of its recursive structure, ruminative self-focus maintains itself and can diminish the quality of an entire biography.

Julius Kuhl’s research on conditioned helplessness shows that when people fail, their focus shifts from figuring out how to be successful (problem solving) to perseverating thoughts about themselves, how they feel and why they feel this way (ruminative self-focus). This turns out to be a poor strategy because the rumination consumes cognitive resources that are then not available for problem solving. Kuhl found that conditioned helplessness appears to be maintained by the reciprocal relationship between failure and ruminative self-focus: Failure leads to ruminative self-focus and ruminative self-focus impairs performance, which increases the likelihood of failure.

Recent research on depression and the quality of social performance shows that negative mood leads to self-reflective rumination, and self-reflective rumination leads to negative mood. Moreover, the ruminative self-focus and the depressed emotional state it engenders are found to impair subjects’ social problem-solving abilities and to decrease their self-efficacy regarding their social skills, both of which impair social performance. Poor social performance, in turn, may result in loneliness and other negative consequences, which set up higher level recursive structures.

As you may have already guessed, any attempt to improve the self carries with it a trap that is especially debilitating to individuals who become emotionally attached to outcomes, or who are judgmental toward themselves.

The belief that “now I’ve made up my mind, so acting as I intend to act will be easy” is an example of the Soul Illusion. Have some respect for the challenge of acting as intended during crises. This is a difficult task. To perform effectively during crises, requires that you interrupt the recursive sequences that can deplete your cognitive resources. For some ancient solutions to these traps, please click here.

I am a psychologist who works with those who can afford my fee. My clients tend to be impressive individuals who generally accomplish what they set out to accomplish; they typically develop the necessary skills and work industriously until they achieve their goal. But when it comes to controlling their use of a particular incentive [e.g., alcohol, food, sex, gambling] they perform less well, astoundingly less well.

Perseverance and Self-Efficacy
In contrast to ordinary language in which a word may mean different things to different individuals, a technical term has a single definition. Self-Efficacy refers to the expectation that one can master the challenge. “I can fix any computer problem” is an example of the confident expectation of a person with high self-efficacy in that domain. That same person may have low self-efficacy in another domain: “I am a nerd and will probably be socially awkward at the party.”

As you would expect, self-efficacy influences performance: People with high self-efficacy can tolerate physical discomfort and surprising amounts of frustration, and yet they persevere, creatively solve problems, and stay the course until one way or another they accomplish what they set out to accomplish. In contrast, people with low self-efficacy tend to abandon the effort after minor discomforts or frustrations. “I’m not going to succeed anyway, so why suffer more than necessary?” is an example of the demoralized attitude of a person with low self-efficacy in a particular domain.

Achieving a worthwhile outcome often requires that you tolerate some discomfort or frustration. A mountain climber would never achieve the intended outcome if [s]he abandoned the task at the first sign of discomfort or frustration. It is persevering in the face of challenge that is part of the adventure of mountain climbing. But discomfort and frustration do not evoke a heroic reaction from people with low self-efficacy. Instead of triggering resolve and creative problem solving, setbacks and discomfort often elicit negative emotional reactions such as hopelessness, guilt, or self-loathing, which may motivate them to abandon the effort. People relapse because they misperceive the nature of their challenge and underestimate what is required to achieve good outcome.

A Peak Experience
Mountain climbing is a metaphor for a difficult but surmountable challenge. It would be foolhardy to attempt a serious climb without proper preparation or without the understanding that you will probably encounter physical discomfort and difficult challenges along the way. Despite the dangers and obstacles, most people who set out to climb a mountain successfully achieve their goal and remember their adventures as peak experiences. Mountain climbing is hard and often painful, but people take it on voluntarily without financial compensation because it’s fun to experience the enhanced self-efficacy that results from mastering a difficult challenge. In fact, when competent individuals have realistic expectations about the nature of their challenge, they tend to perform responsibly, and persevere—despite the physical and mental discomforts they encounter—until the goal is achieved. The difficulty of the challenge is in fact an essential part of the story, and the whole enterprise—including the discomfort—is often remembered as a positive experience.

In contrast, the vast majority of people who resolve to change their relationship with an addictive incentive do not have realistic expectations about the nature of their challenge. Consequently, they relapse, become demoralized, and lose faith in their ability to overcome their problem. The resulting diminishment of low self-efficacy makes future failures more likely, which in turn lowers self-efficacy, and so it goes.

It is important to distinguish between process and outcome. The mountain summit is the nominal or outcome goal of the mountain climber’s efforts. Performing well is the process goal. For the climber, the real goal of going mountain climbing is the peak experience that results from engaging the challenge. The function of the summit is to provide a focus that gives structure to the activity and later to the story the climber will tell friends, family, and self. If, for example, a storm developed during the climb and the team performed brilliantly by getting everyone off the mountain with no injuries, the climber would feel successful despite failing to achieve the outcome goal.

Major life accomplishments emerge over time as you systematically solve the problems encountered along the way. In domains in which you are successful, it is likely that you focus on the task rather than on self-evaluation. Actual success is encouraged by an attitude that permits you to competently and consistently perform all the actions required to achieve your goal, the pleasant ones as well as the unpleasant ones. Ironically, low self-efficacy often causes people to focus more on outcomes than process. Understand this: Good outcome is a byproduct of good performance.

Self-Efficacy Research Highlights

Individuals who have high self-efficacy are willing to tolerate physical discomfort and psychological frustration without abandoning the path to their goal.
• Individuals with high self-efficacy tend to employ an action oriented thinking style—that is, they focus on how to solve the problems.
• Action oriented thinking makes success more likely.

Individuals with low self-efficacy tend to abandon their goal in the face of even minor obstacles
• Individuals with low self-efficacy tend to employ a state oriented thinking style—that is, they focus on how they feel and why they feel that way.
• State oriented thinking makes failure more likely.

For a discussion of self-efficacy, social anxiety, and depression please click here.

Thought Experiment: Efficacy Enhancing Imagery.
Consider an area of your life in which you are usually successful—athletic, artistic, occupational, social, etc—and imagine what it feels like to be you when you take on a challenge in this domain. Elaborate this imagery until you experience the confident state associated with high self-efficacy. Now, imagine that you are presented with an impressive new challenge in this domain: What is your attitude toward it? How would you expect to react to the discomforts and frustrations you encounter

The Problem of Immediate Gratification [The PIG] is a defining feature of Incentive Use Disorders. So, naturally, those suffering the negative consequences of their excessive appetites want immediate gratification of the desire to be free of their problem. Overeaters want quick weight loss, but weight loss is not a cure for obesity! The vast majority of the participants of diets and weight loss programs will weigh more a year later than they did when they began their program. One- and two-year outcome research for substance abuse, gambling, and other addictive disorders shows similar patterns of short-term behavior change (while the individual is under the influence of the program) followed by an increasing likelihood of relapse with time from program completion, typically reaching around 80% within the first year after treatment.

There is no external salvation from dependence on an external agent. To the extent an external agent—a treatment provider, program, support group—was responsible for the behavioral control, relapse is likely when the salience of the external source of control diminishes with time.

The Nature of Your Challenge
An alternative to admitting powerlessness over a disease and turning responsibility for outcome over to an external agent is to admit you have freewill and accept the responsibility to develop the faculties required to act as you intend despite the influence of local conditions.

Volition is a controversial topic and many people believe that willpower is a destructive illusion. Most everyone with an excessive appetite has tried what they call willpower—”white knuckling it”—without success. [The "brute force" method may, perversely, provoke counter-regulatory motivation.] However, if willpower is defined as acting as intended despite the influence of local conditions, then the term describes a faculty worth developing. Simply stated, you have a two-phase challenge: First, you must decide how you intend to act when you encounter high-risk situations. Second, you must get yourself to act in accord with that decision, despite the influence of the local stressors and temptations.

You learn to exercise will during your encounters with a wide range of high-risk situations. At these critical moments, you have the opportunity to observe the cause-and-effect principles that govern your actions when exposed to stress and temptation. An important component of exercising will is to shift from an emotional trance to a dispassionate trance. This shift in perspective can enable you to become aware of your core motivation and act accordingly.

Addictive traps are easy to fall into and hard to escape. No escape plan works for everyone, because each trap is unique. An external source, such as a book or generic program, cannot show you the way to good long-term outcome, or even tell you what good long-term outcome means in your particular case. To act in accord with your interests and principles, you have to first define what they are. No external agent can do this for you; the path to self-determination is for your steps alone. Experiential invitations designed to encourage contemplation will enable you to focus your cognitive resources on how you want to use the remainder of your lease on life—your core motivation.

Appreciating what you want and doing what it takes to get it are different challenges. Acting as intended despite the influence of local conditions that would motivate you to lapse defines the “exercise of will.” This kit has the ambitious goal of enhancing your power to intentionally influence the course of events.

An Efficacy Enhancing Treatment Strategy
The strategy of this kit is strikingly different from that used by programs based on the 12-Step model of Alcoholics Anonymous. According to the latter view, incentive use disorders are diseases. Treatment emphasizes getting the patient to admit powerlessness over the illness and to comply with the plan developed by a treatment provider. Rather than encourage you to accept powerlessness, or recommend that you turn your problem over to a higher power or treatment provider, here are tools and methods to enhance the power of your will.

Preventing relapse requires that you are able to make good choices in real time, which turns out to be much more difficult than it sounds. In your fantasy, you will respond heroically during your future encounters with stress and temptation. When you are in the midst of a crisis, performing mindfully will not be as easy as it now seems. To follow your path of greatest advantage rather than yield in the direction of least resistance requires the exercise of will.

The challenge ahead is among the most important and the most demanding of your life. It takes more than wanting it to achieve the benefits of good long-term outcome. Preventing relapse demands that you act as intended during the critical moments of crisis when your energies and cognitive resources are depleted or otherwise occupied.

Exercising will is a heroic undertaking. The text and other media contained in this kit provide conceptual models, concrete tools, and experiential invitations that will strengthen your ability to act in accord with your interests and principles, rather than yield in the direction of least resistance.

A major advantage of a self-directed approach is that it encourages the development of the faculties required to exercise will.

Consider Mr. Hasslebring who has been clean and sober during his stay at a 30-day rehab program. Sadly, the content discussed in the psycho-educational groups was of little value during the critical moments of the actual crisis he encountered in his home environment, and the program staff and structure were not available to help him.

The vast majority of the graduates of inpatient and intensive outpatient chemical dependence and weight loss programs relapse soon after the influence of the external agent disappears. Evidently, their treatment left them insufficiently prepared to cope with the high-risk situations they actually encountered. Good long-term outcome is the byproduct of good performance during high-risk situations.

Question: Why is it that the thing you are trying to find is always in the very last place you look for it?
Answer: Because once you have found it, you can stop looking.

We are each dealt a particular biology, psychological history, and current social environment. From these parts emerges a new entity—the Psyche—with attributes that did not exist before. Even the neuron, as remarkable and complex a structure as it is, does not possess consciousness. Experiential phenomena emerge from the activities of many neurons. Opinions, actions and will are properties of the Psyche but do not exist within any of its component parts. Some individuals have good cognitive abilities and are able to predict the likely outcome of making one choice versus another. Nevertheless, they may knowingly choose a less rewarding alternative over a more rewarding one. The technical term for this perverse tendency is impulsivity.

Dependence occurs when the individual becomes unable to control incentive use despite its obvious destructive consequences. There may be sincere attempts to quit or cut down; nevertheless the individual predictably relapses and encounters again the scolding voice of self and others: “Don’t you have any willpower?”

Willpower
Free will refers to the idea that we have the ability to influence our actions intentionally. The contrasting view, Determinism, holds that we actually have no free will because all of our decisions and actions are completely determined by cause-and-effect principles, though they may be unknowable to us; the experience that we have free will is merely an illusion.

Unlike turkeys, whose behavior is determined by specific aspects of their immediate environment, some humans are able to set long-range goals, develop plans, and make adjustments to their plan until their goal is achieved. They appear to have an intentional influence over the course of their life. Advocates of freewill argue that a new phenomenon emerged with human cognition, which makes us fundamentally different from turkeys. Alternatively, determinists argue that it may just seem that way because we are so much more complex than turkeys.

We cannot resolve the free will debate by simply asking people whether they intended to do something or not, because we cannot be sure whether the intention led to the behavior or the behavior led to the experience of intention. The subjective experience of free will is not evidence for its existence. We can never be sure that A causes B, as there could always be a third variable C that causes both of them. While it seems that our intentions cause our actions, there may be causes of which we are unaware that produce both of them. In fact, there is evidence that even before we are aware of the intention to perform an action, the neural precursors of the action have already occurred.

There is a middle position: Libertarianism. This view holds that human behavior is determined by many causes, including biological factors, psychological conditioning, and current social pressures, but this very causality provides the opportunity for us to have an intentional influence on how things play out. The more we discover about the cause-and-effect relationships, the more power we have to impose our will upon the world. Even if willful control of our immediate behavior is an illusion, you can use your appreciation of cause-and-effect relationships to intentionally change the course of your life.

Willpower—overriding the path of least resistance to follow your intended path—is taxing. You cannot intentionally guide behavior every moment, because you often need to focus on other things. Following the path of least resistance is often a good thing because it frees up cognitive resources; the default path is harmful when it leads to relapse. Acting as intended at those moment when the cognitive resources required to exercise will are otherwise occupied requires training. Like a martial artist you can rehearse the intended coping responses so you can perform them automatically during stressful moments.

Rational processing is a gift, but it is important to appreciate when it is available, and what it can and cannot do:

• Rational processing can produce rapid change (e.g., “I used to believe in the tooth fairy, but then I realized that it was my mother and since then have never relapsed to the earlier view.”) This is contrasted with the many repetitions required to change a habit.

• Rational processing can influence future behavior through a variety of means including: pre-commitment, rehearsal of desired performance, or modification of environments.

• Rational processing is only possible when there is a surplus of cognitive resources. It is not available when cognitive resources are otherwise occupied by complex cognitive demands, strong emotional states, or diminished by fatigue or intoxication.

• Rational processing is too slow to influence behavior in real-time. Performance, to be smooth and responsive to a changing world, requires a rapid, holistic processing. Typically when you try to consciously control ongoing behavior, you disrupt it.
Procedural Skills to Exercise Will
Operating the bio-psycho-social system you inhabit is a bit like driving a car. To operate the motor vehicle, you must appreciate that pressing the accelerator makes it go faster, turning the wheel steers it, etc. Once you learn how it works, it becomes a matter of practice with some guidance from dad or a driving instructor to achieve competence.

Those who live in cold climates are forced to develop additional skills to cope with icy roads. While it seems unfair that northerners have an extra burden to bear, fairness is irrelevant. Northerners and southerners must each cope with the reality they are presented. As partial compensation for the additional demands, northerners get to be better drivers in icy conditions.

Your relationship with the incentive has created dangers with which you must now cope. Success depends upon your ability to respond competently to a particular set of challenges. You are bound to encounter certain high risk situations again and again. Each one is an opportunity to practice responding as intended. I suggest to my clients they look at these crises as sparring partners that are part of their training. The martial artist may not like receiving pain from his sparring partners, but accepts it as part of the price to achieve his goal. Of course, it does not matter whether you like it or not; you are bound to encounter high risk situations, and you will either adhere to your commitments and make yourself stronger or follow the path of least resistance, thereby causing yourself and others unnecessary suffering.

Mindful responding during a crisis is rare because most people don’t recognize they are in a crisis until it’s too late. You will have to recognize that you are at risk of relapse and awaken yourself so you can perform intentionally. Be aware that at first it will be quite difficult to execute the coping tactic during a crisis, because the cognitive resources required to behave mindfully will be occupied by whatever is going on at this high risk moment. With practice, the intended response becomes easier to perform.

To get a child to trade something of genuine value for a trivial incentive is so easy that to do so is considered immoral and, in some cases, illegal. Some adults remain as vulnerable to state-dependent phenomena as they were when they were children, and for them provoking a relapse is as easy as taking candy from a baby.

A predisposing cause of relapse is the mentality of childhood. Children assume that their state-dependent perceptions and beliefs are accurate reflections of objective reality. They label their appraisals in ways that crystallize these experiential phenomena into “things” that have an independent reality. For example: “Mommy is bad,” carries with it the tacit premise that “she really is bad and it’s not just that I’m cranky.” The dispassionate observer understands that the child’s cranky state influences his current appraisals, and mommy won’t always seem bad. Later, when the child is in a different emotional state, his appraisal will be influenced by a different state-dependent filter. Naturally, the child is always unaware of the Soul Illusion and in each situation believes that he sees things as they really are.

When a child experiences fear—say in the doctor’s office just before the inoculation—her emotional arousal comes with the tacit premise that the fear is based on a real threat and its intensity is related to the awfulness of the situation. Some children experience such strong emotional states that they must be restrained by adults, even though they are told, “It will just sting for a moment.” Likewise, children often believe that the intensity of their desire for a certain incentive correlates with the degree of pleasure they will actually receive from it.

Many grown-ups continue to think that their perceptions, expectancies, and appraisals are undistorted reflections of a permanent objective reality [see The Soul Illusion]. An important developmental milestone is the appreciation that subjective experience—including cravings, negative thoughts, and anxious feelings—is merely a temporary, state-dependent phenomenon, which exists only in the mind of the beholder. The objective world is populated with events; it is only within your subjective reality that beliefs, emotional reactions, and the story that gives it all meaning exist. The technical term for this realization is, Meta-Cognitive Awareness.

Operating the vehicle you inhabit so that it follows the path of greatest advantage rather than drifting in the direction of least resistance requires the ability to shift from the perspective of the vehicle, whose actions are determined by cause-and-effect principles such as the PIG, to the perspective of the operator of the vehicle, who is sensitive to your core motivation.

There is an ongoing battle for your attention and the winner gets to influence your subjective reality and hence how you will perform in the objective world. Whether or not you are able to exercise will during a particular crisis often depends upon how certain conflicts play out.

 When there is conflict between ruminative self focus and real-world problem solving, exercising will involves shifting your attention from the more abstract rumination to the more concrete problem solving in the here and now.

 When there is conflict between local incentives and your core motivation, exercising will involves shifting your attention from the more concrete local payoff to the more abstract principles and interests described by your core motivation.

The Exercise of Will
During high-risk situations, it is critical that the rational processing system, which is sensitive to your core motivation rather than to local conditions, is the entity operating the vehicle. For this reason, the necessary first component of the exercise of will is alerting the operator. Exercising will at the critical moments is analogous to the demonstration of musical and athletic virtuosity: The apparent instantaneous and effortless reactions result from considerable effort expended in preparation and practice.

The steps below describe this process in excruciating detail so that it may be understood intellectually. However, this is a procedural skill, which, when executed successfully, takes almost no time to perform.

1. Recognize a warning sign that you are in a high-risk situation [see Chapter 5.4].

2. Make the meta-cognitive shift from the state-dependent perspective of the creature (the experiential processing system) to the dispassionate perspective of the operator who appreciates your core motivation (the rational processing system).

3. To make the meta-cognitive shift, dissociate from your local trance and assume the perspective of a kindly observer, who is aware of your thoughts and emotions and understands that these state-dependent phenomena always feel valid and permanent but are merely the experiences of this biological creature at this moment. (Some clients personify this procedure by imagining me, the kindly therapist, eavesdropping on their thoughts and pointing out thinking errors).

4. Initiate this process by doing something concrete such as taking a deep breath, shifting your posture, or using the reminder card, which was specifically designed for this purpose. (It is critical that you make this shift in time. The window of opportunity to escape an unfolding trap is tiny.)

5. Exercise will by guiding the bio-psycho-social vehicle along the intended path, rather than the trajectory that would have been followed by a driverless vehicle.

Preventing relapse requires effort because local conditions that promote relapse tend to be more salient than local conditions that promote responsible behavior. To exercise will you will often have to shift your attention from highly salient stimuli to less salient but more meaningful stimuli. Willpower refers to the strength that it takes to over-ride the pull of highly salient stimuli and aim your attention to stimuli that promote your intended actions.

There are many benefits to developing the faculties required to exercise will, but the most important one is to avoid what will happen if your don’t. One way to cope with the challenge presented by an enemy who can capture your attention with highly salient stimuli is to develop your faculty of selective attention. To complete the passage to self-determination you will have to develop the procedural skills required to stay cool and awake so that you can perform as intended during high-risk situations.

Resistance training metaphor – The forces of nature pull the bio-psycho-social creature along the path of least resistance, and the power of your will pulls you in your intended direction. Just as you would strengthen your muscle power by lifting weights against the downward pull of gravity, so can you strengthen your willpower by aiming your attention to a particular target and keeping it there, despite the pull of distracting stimuli. This exercise is called meditation.

Thought Experiment: Counting Your Breaths. Tonight, when you go to bed, turn off the lights, and close your eyes, instead of going to sleep you can exercise your faculty to aim your attention. Visualize or sub-vocalize the number “1” during your first exhale, the number “2” during your second exhale, and so on. You will find that your attention tends to wander to more salient thoughts, images, or sensations. The exercise is to gently escort your attention back to the intended target. Sound easy? The PIG bets that you don’t make it to “4″—your mind may drift so far away that you may forget what number you are up to (if you do, just begin again with “1″). Now that you have been tipped off, the PIG might raise his estimate—but not by much. This is an effortful task, which is why it is an exercise. The creature’s attention is bound to be captured by the most salient stimulus at any given moment. The exercise is to use your will to re-direct your attention back to your intended target. Each repetition of returning your attention to the target is analogous to lifting a dumbbell. The goal is to exercise your ability to purposely aim your attention, so that when you encounter a highly salient stimulus that would evoke a pathogenic trance, you will have the strength to override its influence and direct your attention in the most advantageous way.

If meditation is analogous to lifting weights, then hypnosis is analogous to working out with a personal trainer. The high-risk situations you encounter are your sparring partners that give you the opportunity to practice responding to the challenges you seek to master.

Meditation: Training the Puppy
Meditation refers to thinking in a controlled manner. Through the practice of meditation, you can transcend the ways of thinking you learned as a child. By learning to respond mindfully to provocative events you can enhance your ability to resist the influence of urgent local conditions that would motivate you to relapse.

Meditation is like puppy training because repeated but gentle redirection is required for good outcome in each case (in both cases, harshness has unintended consequences). Just as the puppy is not born with a set of rules about where to pee, you are not born with a set of rules about how to react to stress and temptation. Just as it would be counterproductive to beat the puppy for a lapse in the learning process, beating yourself for a lapse in thinking would only slow your progress. In both cases, the creature learns as a result of the trainer noticing the lapse and gently correcting it. When you meditate, you notice when the mind has wandered and gently return your focus to the intended target.

Perception, motivation, and other subjective phenomena are continually present, and so we take them for granted. Typically, we experience them passively, rather than work to actively manipulate them. The meditation exercises described below will give you the opportunity to observe subjective phenomena from different, perhaps novel, perspectives. Working directly with experience is the first step in learning to utilize and modify subjective phenomena intentionally.

Thought Experiment: Meditating on a Mantra. A mantra is repeated over and over until you become habituated to it and no longer attend to it, which has the effect of clearing the mind of mundane thought, and thereby freeing it for transcendent experience. Some examples of a mantra: Whisper the word, “one,” each time you exhale; whisper the phrase, “calm and tranquil” on each exhale; on alternating exhales whisper the sound, “mmmm” (a sound of coherence like, “Om”) or the sound, “sssss” (the sound of chaos like white noise). As you continue repeating the mantra, you may notice some interesting transformations taking place. For example, as the mind quiets down, mental images become more vivid, and you may be able to hold them in mind for longer periods.

Thought Experiment: Tolerating Discomfort. Eat an amount of hot sauce or hot pepper that produces a slightly greater reaction than you are used to and focus on the sensation of pain. Simply investigate the experience of pain and how you react to it. Later, after the hotness recedes try it again and see if you can push your limits while maintaining a clear, focused mind. Important note: don’t cause tissue damage or hurt yourself; be compassionate and only push the limits to the extent that you can do so without being self-punishing. You can also experiment with a cold shower, or alternate the shower temperature between a bit too hot and a bit too cold. A goal of these exercises is to experience the sensations while maintaining a clear and focused mind, and without tightening up mentally or physically.

The point of these exercises is to learn to accept thoughts, emotions, pleasure, and pain for what they are—passing subjective phenomena. You will discover that learning to tolerate whatever comes up is more important than attempting to control what comes up. While you often have little control over objective reality (the events you encounter), you can develop the ability to appreciate and accept what you do not control.

Thought Experiment: Tolerating Desire. When you encounter the experience of desire, label it by silently saying something like: “Ah yes, there’s desire again.” No need to judge the experience, analyze it, or try to change it. Just label it as soon as you’ve identified it—nimbleness is important. What does desire feel like? What are the mental and physical changes that are associated with desire? Notice how the experience changes with time. Does it seem to occur in a series of waves of greater or lesser intensity? Are there thoughts that suggest you give in to the desire? The key, of course, is to observe the experience of desire without being taken in by it. You may find it helpful to assume the perspective of an anthropologist observing the strange customs of a primitive society without taking their beliefs and experiences too seriously.

How long does desire last? When you are experiencing it, desire seems to last forever. Intellectually, you understand that desires and cravings, like all subjective phenomena, have finite, typically brief, life spans. In real time, however, it is difficult to detach from the immediate experience and recognize that your state-dependent perceptions, motivations, and response tendencies are temporarily biased by local conditions. Exercising will by shifting your perspective from “I want that” or “one won’t hurt” to “Ah yes, there’s desire again,” can be eye-opening. For more about “wanting” please click here.

During the passage to self-determination you will encounter high-risk situations. These crises are at once moments of danger and moments of opportunity. You will either move in the intended direction or be led astray by local conditions. It is at these moments of decision that your will exercises its influence on the objective world. These are the moments that demand attention.

You are most vulnerable when you are “asleep at the wheel,” and an autonomous behavioral sequence is unfolding along the path of least resistance that leads to relapse. The general form of an implementation intention is: When I recognize a warning signal I will perform a coping tactic. Ideally, the eye opening realization that you are in a high-risk situation—and are likely to be asleep at the wheel—will provoke you to awaken the operator, who appreciates your core motivation and hence your path of greatest advantage.

Self-awakening is inherently paradoxical: When you are asleep at the wheel, you would not appreciate that now is the time to awaken, because you would be asleep at the time. Working with this paradox demands further resolution of the concept of “operating the vehicle” and an operational definition of the phrase “asleep at the wheel.”

When an individual is following an autonomous path to relapse, the rational processing system is not necessarily asleep; it may, in fact, be engaged in problem solving some local crisis. The person is “asleep at the wheel” in the sense that the vehicle is not following the course that would serve core motivation, but instead is following a course dictated by local conditions. When the person who resolved to prevent relapse follows a predictable path to relapse, a knowledgeable observer would conclude that the operator must be “asleep at the wheel.”

Mindfulness & Awakening
Mindfulness, involves paying attention to your experiences in the present moment and accepting whatever that experience is, without evaluation or the motivation to change anything. This is not your usual way of relating to experience, and like any other non-automatic response, it requires training to override the more familiar judgmental orientation.

When dealing with the world in real time, your attention naturally and automatically parses the stimulation it receives, categorizing it so it can be used in the service of problem solving. Perceiving sensation in a way unfiltered by automatic problem solving perspectives allows you to awaken from the recursive traps that emerge from attachment and self-evaluation.

Mindfulness exercises the skill of disengaging from bad trances along with their state-dependent filters and response tendencies, and awakening to the unfiltered experience of the present moment. By intending to experience the present moment with acceptance, you cannot help but become aware of the continual shifting of attention from moment to moment and the tendency for some of these shifts to produce emotional reactions.

Everyday life will give you many opportunities to practice your intended reactions to high-risk situations. The mindfulness approach to pathogenic thinking patterns is to recognize and disengage from self-focused rumination and simply experience in an unfiltered way the present moment, and accept the experience without trying to change it even when it is unpleasant.

Students of mindfulness are taught to allow, as best they can, thoughts, feelings, and sensations to come and go as they experience the present moment. The intention is to notice, without judgment, how the mind tends to become attracted to pleasant experiences and to avoid or want relief from unpleasant experiences. The skill we are seeking is to purposely let go of problem solving and instead to observe the data of experience dispassionately.

Thought Experiment: Making the Meta-Cognitive Shift. Shift from the perspective of the individual experiencing thoughts and emotions to the perspective of the observer of the individual who is experiencing the thoughts and emotions. You may note that, like sounds, experiences such as thoughts and emotions come and go—some are pleasant while others are unpleasant. Observe experiential phenomena such as thoughts and emotional reactions from the perspective that they are merely passing events in the mind that arise, become objects of awareness, and then pass away to be replaced by the next experience. Subjective phenomena are not permanent, and are not necessarily valid representations of objective reality.

For more thought experiments please click here.

Consider a time when you were driving your automotive vehicle along a familiar route, and you were so absorbed in your thoughts—planning some future activity or ruminating on a current concern—that you didn’t notice passing a certain landmark along the way, or the music from the vehicle’s sound system, or the feel of the steering wheel in your hands. Even though your conscious mind was so completely preoccupied that you didn’t notice all these things, a part of you was driving the vehicle and operating it perfectly safely.

Since your conscious mind was preoccupied with its thoughts, who was operating the vehicle? It must be a part of you of which you are not conscious. This unconscious, experiential processing system is capable of guiding complex performance while making little demand on your finite conscious resources [see Two Minds]. Indeed, most of the time you are not consciously operating the bio-psycho-social vehicle you inhabit, because your attention is focused elsewhere, or not at all.

By contrast, “mindful driving” means being fully present in each moment, consciously aware of sights, sounds, thoughts, and bodily sensations as they arise, so you can respond intentionally rather than follow the path of least resistance. When mindful, you can act in accord with your interests and principles despite the influence of local stressors and temptations that would promote relapse.

The Karma of repeatedly exercising the behavioral sequence that leads to incentive use is that it gets progressively stronger until it becomes autonomous. Once that happens it requires willful effort to interrupt the sequence of events leading to incentive use.

The Path of Least Resistance
The path of least resistance describes the predictable, cause-and-effect sequence of events that a biological creature would follow if it did not have an operator aware of its core motivation, or if the operator was asleep at the wheel. Getting this creature to follow an intended path in the face of local conditions that would promote incentive use requires an operator capable of exerting will to override these local forces.

Real life demands substantial cognitive resources. Investing these dear resources to intentionally guide behavior at each moment is not a realistic strategy. Will has its greatest impact when exercised during the critical moments of a crisis. From my perspective as the therapist rooting for good outcome, I want an operator who appreciates the client’s core motivation in the driver’s seat at these critical moments. If only I could follow my clients around and alert them—in a kindly, non-judgmental way—when they are in a high-risk situation, so they could wake up and operate the vehicle mindfully. Of course, there will be no external voice to tip you off.

A major part of the passage from dependence to self-determination is developing the capability to shift from the perspective of the biological creature, which must obey cause-and-effect principles (such as the PIG), to the perspective of the operator (who has a particular destination and route in mind).

The metaphor of the operator and the creature is a bit misleading, because it implies a separation between the two. In fact, the state of the creature affects the motivation, perception and other state-dependent attributes of the operator. The ability to operate the creature requires an appreciation of this recursive relationship. Perhaps the primary responsibility of the operator is to protect the creature from strong emotional states and other local conditions that would compromise the operator’s abilities.

Getting a mortal creature—driven by desires and fears—to act as intended requires the power to override these primitive motivations. Exercising will, like exercising muscle power through resistance training, is a discipline that demands some dedication and patience. The thought experiments and trance formation media provide opportunities to exercise the faculties required to override the influence of local conditions and behave as intended.

These exercises share the commonality of inviting you to experience a particular phenomenon by getting you to focus your attention on a particular stimulus. Your ability to experience phenomena intentionally depends upon your faculties of concentration and imagination. Like muscles, these faculties grow stronger with exercise and atrophy with disuse.