Pathology: The Study of Paths 
How to Solve Your Puzzle
Choose Your Path 
The Direct Path 
The TranceFormational Path 
The Path to Awakening 
The Final Destination Miscellaneous Entrapment Mechanisms
“Today I escaped anxiety.
Or no, I discarded it,
because it was within me,
in my own perceptions— not outside.”
—-Marcus Aurelius
The understanding that all of my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are mental processes created by my nervous system is called Meta-Cognitive Awareness. Those who lack Meta-Cognitive Awareness are more certain of their interpretations than they should be, and so are vulnerable to recurring patterns of self-sabotaging emotions [Neurotic Disorders] and appetites [Addictive Disorders]. Consider how the examples of a neurotic and an addictive trap described below look from the Meta-Cognitive perspective as compared with the first-person perspective of the individual caught in the trap:
I. Viewing your circumstance from a poignant perspective is touching by sabotaging
Bad things happen and feeling depressed when they do is not indicative of a mood disorder. However, the tendency to parse negative events into a touching story of the unfairness of the world, or luck so bad that it defies the laws of probability seem designed to arouse pity or sorrow in an audience that consists primarily of the narrator and perhaps a few confidants.
To the narrator, the poignant story seems to be an accurate to description of the events in her life. She is not trying to arouse pity and, in fact, may not share it with anyone else. From her perspective, she is telling it like it is. However, as seen from the therapist's perspective, her touching narrative is a cause— as well as an effect— of her melancholia. This is a seductive trap and those who have become comfortable in it resist changing their poignant narrative. [To explore a fresh narrative: See Detachment from Outcomes].
II. The Puzzle of Addiction: Why don't those caught in an addictive trap benefit from their expensive education? They continue to repeat the sequence: Expectation that a lapse will have positive outcome->lapse->negative outcome->intention to change. But despite their sincere intentions, even promises, to change they repeat the same error again and again.
The predicament of a problem drinker, described below, illustrates how the same event [a first lapse] is appraised differently before it happens than in retrospect. Ernest sincerely intends to control his drinking, but he later thoughtlessly violates it. The familiar sequence leads to self-loathing and a sincere intention to control his drinking next time.
Escaping an addictive trap
To make a long story short, Ernest recognizes that he has a drinking problem and vows to quit drinking. Several weeks after making this commitment he has a fight with his wife and relapses. After he sobers up, he feels terrible about relapsing, claims he has learned his lesson this time, and sincerely vows to never make that mistake again. If you are familiar with the challenge of controlling the use of an incentive such as alcohol, drugs, food, pornography, etc. you would not be surprised to learn that Ernest has relapsed after vowing not to many times before and will continue to follow this disastrous pattern until he solves the puzzle of how to get himself to adhere to a commitment made during one motivational state [the desire to be free of his destructive relationship with alcohol] when he is in a different motivational state [the desire for the pleasure or escape from stress that intoxication offers].
Extricating yourself from the trap of an Incentive Use Disorder is such a tricky puzzle that many conclude that it is impossible to solve. Individuals caught in this trap are advised to admit powerlessness over their disease and turn responsibility for the recovery from the problem over to a higher power [Deity, treatment provider, support group]. Most treatment for Incentive Use Disorders in the United States is based on the 12-Step approach of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is quite different than the approach described here.
Choosing a strategy of change that is best matched with the attributes of the individual receiving it is the most important treatment decision. For readers contemplating treatment for an Incentive Use Disorder, click this link: Strategy of Change Matching Self-Test.
Earnest's vow to quit drinking was in accord with his local motivational state. Since he was unaware that motivation is state-dependent, he assumed that he would always appraise the costs and benefits of drinking as he did at that moment. Despite his previous experience, he assumes that it would be easy to adhere to this vow and so does not bother figuring out how he will cope with the high-risk situations that he is bound to encounter. His history of repeatedly failing to adhere to his vow is not due to stupidity or a disease, but is the result of being taken in by the Soul Illusion. His current bias [either the motivation to drink or the shame of failure] is always invisible to him and he assumes that he sees things as they really are and will always see things as he does now.
Problem drinkers are notorious for appraising the wisdom of a first drink differently before it happens than in retrospect. This perverse pattern of vowing to change and then relapsing, illustrates two corollaries of the Soul Illusion.
- Illusion of Sate Permanence: The fact that he has made this same mistake many times and each time believes that he has learned the lesson this time, and will never make this mistake again illustrates the
- The Illusion of Certainty is illustrated by his willingness to make the vow with little attention to how he will get himself to adhere to it. He is so certain that he has learned the lesson that it will require no effort to get himself to act in accord with it in the future.
III. The Imp of the Perverse: Motivation to violate restrictions [including your own]
We hate restrictions— especially of those freedoms we already have. Reactance refers to the motivation to react or rebel against restriction. In one study, two-year-old boys accompanied their mothers into a room containing equally attractive toys. The toys were arranged so that one was easily available to the child while the other stood behind a transparent Plexiglas barrier, out of reach. Naturally, the little boys wanted the one they could not have. Reactance is one explanation for the observation that: Forbidding something increases its desirability. [Click here for an invitation to experience this phenomenon personally].
Moreover, rigid rules, once broken, lead to disinhibition. If you want to become fat, go on a weight loss diet. There is a high likelihood that trying to restrain your caloric intake will will eventually result in overeating [To experience perverse motivation personally click the link above or, if you think you can get away with it, the link at the bottom of the thought experiment below.]
Ernest intends not to drink
Intoxication produces both pleasure and pain; Ernest wants the pleasure of drinking but also wants to avoid the pain (The Pig says, "The pleasure comes first and so is more influential]. This predicament is called an Approach-Avoidance Conflict, which he conceptualizes as a conflict between drinking and not drinking. This conceptualization invites the Imp of the Perverse into his mind to do its evil magic. Here's how it works: Drinking is represented in Ernest's mind as a concrete image, which elicits the desire to drink. Not drinking is derivative and abstract—there is no concrete image of not drinking. Ironically, the only way Ernest can represent not drinking in his mind is to imagine drinking which elicits the desire to drink. This ironic process, responsible for catastrophic relapses, has a straightforward solution: Always state your intentions in the positive—commit to what you intend to do, instead of what you intend not to do.
If you have not already done the thought experiment to personally experience this perverse phenomenon do not click here. You missed your chance and now that experience is forbidden to you.
IV. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The Recursive Trap known as a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when the expectation that you will fail has performance-impairing consequences that, naturally, confirm the pathogenic beliefs. Acting as if a negative self-appraisal — such as, "I am socially inept"—provides the premise for the handicapping suggestion.
Barry's belief: "They are not going to like me" causes him to be socially withdrawn and show less interest in others, which promotes outcomes that confirm his prediction. These speculations exist only in Barry's mind and one is no more objectively true than the other [they are both assertions about something that has not yet happened]. The reality will be determined by how Barry performs at the party. Acting as if an alternatively the belief, for example: "they are going to like me" is true would also exert a self-confirmatory bias on the way things play out— but produce more desirable outcomes for Barry.
Naturally, neither premise is valid. The people at the party have not met Barry. There is no truth to any beliefs about what they think of or want from him. True, they will have an opinion of him by the end of the party, and if he acts as if his self-defeating beliefs were true his performance will indeed produce outcomes that confirm his prophesy.
Attribution Theory and Implicit Suggestion
The appraisal of yourself as a failure carries with it implicit causes for your failure. According to Attribution Theory, individuals who attribute their failures to internal, stable and global causes are more vulnerable to clinical depression.
- Global versus specific— My failure is global: "I am a failure through and through."
- Stable versus changeable—The cause of my failure is stable and so is not going to change: "Whatever caused me to fail in the past causes me to fail now and will cause me to fail in the future."
- Internal versus external—"The cause of my failure is within me; it is not due to circumstance, task difficulty, or other external factors."
The irony of internal attribution for failure
People who attribute their failures to causes within themselves are right. Indeed, their history of failure is not due to an external factor such as bad luck, nor is it a consequence of an external source of control that manipulates them into under-performing. The cause of their recurring failures is within each of them, but it is not what they think. [Typical internal attributions for failure include: lack of talent, attractiveness, motivation, or some other stable attribute]. Rather it is acting as if these performance-impairing fictions are true that makes their failure more likely. Fortunately, it is within their power to free themselves from these fictions and sample performance-enhancing fictions instead.
From our detached perspective as observers, we appreciate that there is no most valid appraisal of Barry's worth. Despite his certainty that he is a worthless failure, it is obvious to anyone who knows him that this appraisal reflects Barry's bias not reality. He would do well to replace this judgment of himself with one that is equally valid but of greater utility.
From our observer's perspective, we can see how Barry's emotional reaction is the product of his interpretation of the triggering event. If he could shift to our observer's perspective, he would also see the relationship between his interpretations of the things that happen and his emotional reaction to them.
Thinking about how you think or examining your thought processes for logical errors are Meta-Cognitive activities. Likewise, researching your experience requires that you shift to a perspective outside of the experience you are researching so you can observe it. From this Meta-Cognitive perspective you can see that your subjective experience is the product of a set of causes.
Understanding what causes your unwanted reaction to the things that happen is the key to escaping these recurring patterns. The Meta-Cognitive Awareness that emerges from the personal research you'll be doing in the next section is also the prerequisite to intentionally change how you react in the future [the focus of the subsequent sections].
Becoming familiar with shifting from your default first-person perspective to the researcher's perspective is critical to our goal of governing yourself because you have to do your work from "outside" the causal mechanisms you are intending to change. Steering is a meta-cognitive activity.
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