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Negative emotional states are not
necessarily pathological. Sadness and fear are the natural reactions to
loss and threat. The emotional reaction elicited by an encounter with a
poisonous snake, for example, is bound to an objective event, and so is
adaptive and tends to dissipate with time.
The
negative emotional states produced by Mood Disorders are different; they are
self-generated, and so are not adaptive and may persist indefinitely. The
anxious mood experienced by the person who worries excessively is
self-sabotaging, because it is unrelated to objective threat. Instead of
energizing adaptive behavior, it burdens the body and the mind.
Our
emotional reactions are dependent upon our perceptions, and our perceptions
are dependent upon our emotional reactions. Because of this recursive
structure certain distortions are self-maintaining. They do not require
external validation, and so develop a life of their own.
Blushing is an example of this 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.
While blushing is fairly benign, it illustrates the recursive structure of
Mood Disorders. Specifically, certain pathogenic beliefs produce negative
emotional states [e.g., depression, anger, anxiety], which result in
outcomes that validate or enhance the pathogenic belief.
Self-Confirmatory Bias
Consider how the following beliefs are likely to produce consequences that
are not only self-sabotaging, but, perversely, reinforce the belief:
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“Nobody would want to date
a loser like me,”
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“What if I were to have a
panic attack in front of all these people?”
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 with Mood Disorders never get it, because the filters that bias their
perception are, necessarily, invisible to them, and so they are unaware of
their bias – although it may be quite obvious to others.
A
suicide bomber may think he is morally good; a depressed person may think he
is morally bad. It would be equally difficult for a therapist to change the
perceptual bias of either, because each believes that his beliefs are true
and the therapist is biased, or doesn’t understand. In both cases the
person’s beliefs determines what information they will take seriously and
hence what information is available to influence subsequent beliefs.
For
the depressed person the little setbacks of daily life are: “Further
evidence of my failure,” while the daily successes are discounted; he finds
it hard to take a compliment, but easy to find a fault to attend to. Like
the rest of us, he is not seeing the world as it is, but through lenses that
create subjective reality from the chaotic input of real time experience.
There
are many ways to misperceive the world, and people make all kind of errors.
But certain distortions are special: They have a recursive structure, which
enables them to perpetuate themselves and thereby entrap a person in a Mood
Disorder.
Two Recursive Structures:
Circular
Chain - This knot is like a snake swallowing its own tail. It has no
end, and so may repeat indefinitely. Examples:
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Jim’s
belief that he is unworthy influences his social behavior when around women
he is attracted to. To the extent that they are turned off by withdrawn and
defensive behavior, his self-appraisal produces outcomes that confirm his
self-appraisal.
o
Attempting to lose weight by following the preposterous diets and commercial
programs currently available is a nearly certain path to failure. Each
failure confirms my belief that I am weak and incapable of long-term
success. Rather than causing me to abandon the strategy of depending on a
program or diet to free me from dependence on food, the failure diminishes
my self-efficacy. My belief that I am incapable of managing my own behavior
has once again been validated, which strengthens my motivation to find an
external source of control. As a result, I am vulnerable to promotions
promising effortless [I can’t fail for lack of effort], or guaranteed [I
can’t fail for any reason] results. The result, of course, will be failure,
and the snake swallows its tail.
Positive Feedback
- When a microphone gets too close to a speaker, the sound system amplifies
itself producing loud annoying output. Experiential phenomena are also
subject to self-amplification. Some examples:
o
To a
person with Panic Disorder, the symptoms of anxiety are themselves perceived
as threatening. The perceived threat results in the secretion of additional
“fight-or-flight” neurochemicals, which, in turn, increase the symptoms of
anxiety, resulting in greater perceived threat, etc.
o
The
best response to Depression is to lead a life filled with activities that
involve pleasure and/or mastery. Unfortunately, depressed people are
motivated to avoid such activities, and instead feel like drinking alcohol,
thinking depressing thoughts, or watching TV - each of which exacerbate the
disorder.
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Individuals who have become dependent on alcohol, drugs, food, etc. are
often motivated by desire to escape the pain of negative emotional states.
While the indulgence may produce immediate gratification, there is often a
delayed negative reaction – e.g., self-loathing – which motivates a desire
to escape the pain, and engage in more addictive behavior. The entire
relapse episode is demoralizing, which, along with the other consequences of
the relapse, is painful and motivates a desire to escape from the life one
has created. How best to escape?
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It is
often possible to discern a structure to people’s difficulties in which
internal states and external events continually recreate the conditions for
the reoccurrence of each other." -
Paul Wachtel |
