chapters

Dependence & Slave Mentality

Whatever has the power to give you happiness or take it away
will be your master

 —  Epictetus

There are different kinds of dependence, and all diminish the quality of life.The major developmental challenge of adulthood, and the ambitious goal of this course, is to develop the capability to act in accord with your interests and principles rather than be dependent on external sources of control.

  • The Stoic approach to becoming free of dependence is to appreciate how the world works and what aspects of it you actually control. Once you understand, you can focus your energies where it matters. The Serenity Prayer offers an eloquent summary of this perspective.
  • The Socratic approach to escaping slavery is to Know Yourself! Once you understand the cause-and-effect principles that determine how you react to the things that happen, you can focus your energies where it matters.

Experiential Invitations

When you are calm and free of distractions, behaving as you intend to behave is easy, but during a crisis it is difficult . Strong emotional states distort your perceptions and appraisals and can turn any event into a crisis. The ability to manage your emotions so that you can act in accord with your interests and principles is the key to preventing relapse.

Everyone has some ability to influence their experience. However, individuals gifted with imagination, intellect, and the ability to focus attention can develop their skills rapidly. With some practice you will be able to cope with challenges that previously may have evoked stong emotional states and that would put you at high-risk of relapse. To become free of dependence Exercises to enhance your ability to cope with high-risk states are presented throughout this course to prepare you for the wide range of challenges your future has in store for you.

If I do a good job describing the experiential methods, and you do a good job exercising your mental faculties, something extraordinary will emerge from our collaboration: liberation from the corruptive influence of an Incentive Use Disorder.

Our Challenge

Have respect for our challenge. Your part of the collaboration is more difficult than mine — executing the intended coping response during crises is truly heroic.  However, my part is not trivial: It is not easy to use abstract language to communicate meaningfully about subjective experience.  Each individual experiences a different subjective reality and uses a different vocabulary to describe it. To cope with the limitations of everyday language, I have used metaphors, stories about specific clients, and even technical jargon liberally throughout the text.  

Different people can perceive the same event from different perspectives. The same person can perceive an event from different perspectives. During crises of stress or temptation, your perception, motivation, and other subjective experiences will be filtered differently than they are now. Your ability to successfully cope with these high-risk situations largely depends upon your ability to manage your emotional states. To supplement the text describing the cause-and-effect principles that pertain to subjective phenomena, a wide range of thought experiments, hypnotic inductions, and other state-altering protocols are included to promote experiential familiarity with altered states of consciousness and intentional trance formation. The first thing to appreciate is that things are not always as they appear.

Since you are unique, your path of greatest advantage is different than anyone else's. Learning about yourself and how you react to a wide range of crises so that you can follow this path is an impressive undertaking. There is so much to consider and so many skills you need to develop that starting out can seem overwhelming.

As a rule of thumb: First, learn about the cause-and-effect principles that influence your actions during high-risk situations. We do not understand how your addictive trap works yet, and so we do not know which tools you will be the most useful to help you escape it.

There are alternative ways of conceptualizing your challenge, as well as tools to help you resolve it. To meet the needs of a range of users, I have included more content than you will personally need, Self-tests and navigational tools are included to help you get access to the materials you will need quickly enough to keep you ahead of your challenge.

Be aware of the need for timely action, and you are the best judge of where to focus your energies. You may find it helpful to spend a little time lightly browsing through the course to get an idea of the kinds of tools that are offered and where they are. There are many ways to navigate through this material. This page will help you choose an efficient path. Please read through the whole page first, then decide where to go next.

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