You are not in control

[andrewducker]

Over here there's an article on self-control, and how hard it is.  It uses the idea of first and second-order preferences, where your have both preferences and preferences _about_ your preferences.

I have a first-order preference for cakes, sweets, and other miscellaneous sugary delights.  I have a second order preference for healthy eating, which is a preference _about_ that first-order preference.  I know, however, that second-order preferences are a hell of a lot weaker than first-order ones.  It takes a huge amount of effort to modify a first-order preference, sustained over a long period of time.  Unless the rewards are high and the pressure is sustained, it's incredibly likely that the first-order preference will be unchanged.

This is why diets don't work.  You want to be skinny, but this is merely wishing, whereas your body _craves_ food, in a much stronger way than you wish you were thin.

The article neatly ties into neatly into a discussion I was having along similar lines with is_not_well recently - about the way the unconscious is largely in charge of our decisions. The unconscious is what makes most of our decisions, it contains our cravings, our wants, our demands and our first-order preferences. Most people think of their conscious mind as being in control, but largely it sits there as a top level, observing what goes on. There are plenty of studies out there that show that the conscious mind actually finds out what we're going to do _after_ we've decided to do it.

This is a pain, especially as the conscious mind is the only bit that can actually apply logic to a situation. Not that logic is always the most useful way to approach something, but sometimes it is, and when we need to attack something deductively it actually takes up huge amounts of the brain's processing power, as the conscious mind wrests control of the decision-making power for a few moments. Only, frequently, to have it wrested straight back, as the subconscious decides that one more biscuit would be an _excellent_ idea.

The mistake most people make, especially control freaks, is in thinking that they can bludgeon their subconscious into submission, and force it to do what they want. This normally leads straight into all sorts of neurotic behaviour, as the unconscious mind uses all sorts of defence mechanisms to get its way.

The only way to get long term results is to train the subconscious. Think of it like a child, or an animal, or a neural network (whichever one seems like the better metaphor to you), and correct it slowly, giving it constant feedback of the correct kind to encourage it in the right direction. You can't retrain an animal quickly, and there are some things you can never train it to do, but given time, persistence, patience and from learning what methods work best with your particular pet, you can do a lot. And generally it works a lot better than shouting at it, and then sulking when it doesn't instantly learn what you want from it.

Comments

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I love the concept of "emotional experience".

I still can't define this properly.

However I like to think about it in my terms. You learn from experience, and emotional experience. You maybe learn that arguing is a positive experience because it gets things aired, or maybe you learn its hurtful and pointless. This means in the future when you argue with say a work colleague, emotional experience will teach your emotions how to react, and how much to react.

[andrewducker]

I think it depends on who you're arguing with :->

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

hmm, unfortunately i don't think emotional experience is a great way of learning things hehe.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Isn't this tied in with schemas? Or is that old news?

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Schema theory is still about! Usually its tied to memory though as a method of integrating information. Also its tied into self-identity, I think its called something like "self-schema". The example given in textbooks about Schemas is what usually happens in restaurants. There's a clearly defined step by step process of what happens (you go in, you're seated, asked if you want a drink, you pcik off the menu, they bring the food, you eat, you pay etc), and once you've been a few times, this gets integrated into your memory.

I was meaning in a more "pop psychology" sense, but I suppose it does link into schema's. I was thinking personally along the lines of things that I would have been nervous about several years ago, but I'm no longer, because I've had years of "emotional experience", and what I meant was, this isnt a "sentance" or a cognition going through my head, its more of a learned "feeling". I tend to think of schemas being a little bit more cognitive or conscious though than in the unconscious.

I also have the opinion that as people get to the end of their 20's and into their 30s they're no longer affected by the crap that would normally drive them crazy from say age 18 onwards (having had the emotional experience). However, I'm yet to fully test this theory yet :)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

the understanding I have of it is that (possibly slighty out of date) CBT is indeed about consciously, cognitively, trying to change schemas - but the schemas *themselves* are very much about experiential, emotional and generally unconscious learning - like if you have a bullying negative father you're likely to recreate that relationship with other men - hence yr reaction to men will be very different than if you have a kind supportive one - but this is not reasoned , conscious - no one thinks "because my father was scarey all other men wil be too " because this is obvoously irrational- it feels "instinctive" even. I *think* one of the issues for CBT is indeed to train the unconscious as well as the conscious - which is why psychodynamic therapy still gets customers even tho it's hit rate's not as god as CBT overall? (I can tell myself all I like that men aren't scary but my subconscious just ain't buying it..)

I don't actually know enough about this subject...

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I don't have a good *academic* grasp of CBT, however from my knowledge of it, however I would agree that that's one way to describe it. I know CBT using slightly different terms, focusing on emotions and cognitions rather than drawing in the conscious and unconscious, although it could be depending on how/when/the approach the therapist learned. I imagine the flavour of CBT is going to be different if a psychologist take a course as opposed to a social worker (thats an interesting topic!). I wonder if they tailor the explanation of it to each patient/client?

I know someone who went through psychoanalysis and found it much MUCH more useful than CBT because it started to pull out the real reasons for things. I find CBT to focus on the here and now "here is your problem, your automatic negative thought" you do some experiments and you create evidence to show that your "automatic negative thought" is wrong, and remind yourself of this every time the thought crops up. Which actually would support Andy's post.

[andrewducker]

I *think* one of the issues for CBT is indeed to train the unconscious as well as the conscious

I remember Vincent making a post on pretty much this topic, saying that in his opinion the B part of CBT was more important than the C bit - change the behaviour and the cognition will eventually change to match it (if change is possible).