Posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Psychology In Trouble saga continues.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Not that I am one to tell you so, but I told you so.....
For the past year, I have been sharing my concerns--which should be your concerns-- respective of the people who need mental health the most and the fact that they are the very people being left out. For example, the new DSM-V will offer more generalized diagnoses for behavioral issues. Come on, get real! This move will deepen the pocket's of the insurance companies who support such wonderland labeling. I wonder who is in bed with whom? Now insurance companies are showing their blatant disregard for citizens who struggle, not much unlike the big CEOs who continue to draw unimaginable salaries after having their organizations bailed out by big brother.
Not that I am a fan of hers, however U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently released a report on health care in crisis and the fact insurance companies are reaping the rewards while raping the cititizens who need it the most. Check out their latest move:
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/02/20100218b.html
Please, share your perspectives and I will ask you to allow me to include them in my series: Psychology In Trouble.
Not that I am a fan of hers, however U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently released a report on health care in crisis and the fact insurance companies are reaping the rewards while raping the cititizens who need it the most. Check out their latest move:
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pres/02/20100218b.html
Please, share your perspectives and I will ask you to allow me to include them in my series: Psychology In Trouble.
Friday, February 12, 2010
At our own cost, we validate fear
"We want to be "liberated" from our drivenness and the prison we have either consciously or unconsciously created as our 'window of perception' on the world."
In terms of emotional conditioning, the want to be "liberated" from our "driveness" fits perfectly well with the work I have been doing to further my understanding on the human condition. In fact, I have discovered there are many of this world, at least my world, who have created for themselves self-imposed incarcerations; as you wrote, "prisons" to their emotional distress and despair out of their discrepancy between want and need for liberation.
Indeed self-awareness is key to perceptually transcending a self-defeated outlook. Of course "relief" like "liberation" is a relative word which is often directly related to one's perspectives of control over one's drives. For many, helpless and hopeless to their own creation, they wallow in the abyss of emotional emptiness. Void of functionality they flat-line in ambition, passion, and enthusiasm, and as the rest of the world stands and watches. They emotionally isolate and reach out to what they think brings relief; never once embracing the potential to their emotional intelligence.
In terms of emotional conditioning, the want to be "liberated" from our "driveness" fits perfectly well with the work I have been doing to further my understanding on the human condition. In fact, I have discovered there are many of this world, at least my world, who have created for themselves self-imposed incarcerations; as you wrote, "prisons" to their emotional distress and despair out of their discrepancy between want and need for liberation.
Indeed self-awareness is key to perceptually transcending a self-defeated outlook. Of course "relief" like "liberation" is a relative word which is often directly related to one's perspectives of control over one's drives. For many, helpless and hopeless to their own creation, they wallow in the abyss of emotional emptiness. Void of functionality they flat-line in ambition, passion, and enthusiasm, and as the rest of the world stands and watches. They emotionally isolate and reach out to what they think brings relief; never once embracing the potential to their emotional intelligence.
What is anger management
Anger management is like putting a puzzle together. You start off with the idea that something is wrong. What is wrong? Well we all have an idea of how we want to live our lives; sort of like the picture of a scene on a puzzle on a box.
How do you pick out a puzzle? You do so by the pictures, complexity of pieces, and of course number of pieces. You look at the box, the picture looks good, you take it home. Home, you dump the puzzle out on the table and what do you have? Certainly not the picture perfect on the box. Instead you have a pile of mixed up, disorganized pieces. This pile of a mess is kind of like a person's emotional life. So what do you do, well, if you try to fix it yourself you are just going to get further frustrated. So you reach out to someone for help. That person then helps you to step back and evaluate the problem. Then you come up with a plan, and the plan is to look for the straight pieces that form the boundaries. Starting with the four corners of you begin to shape the area of concern. Once together, the time consuming job of discovering which piece fits where comes into play. But this task too has a plan. You segregate compartmentalize the like pieces and begin to form small patterns within the large picture. Generally speaking, there are four patterns within each puzzle. The key is to discover those four patters. A good place to start is the four corners. By the way, the four corners are the four steps to SEA-CAP.
How do you pick out a puzzle? You do so by the pictures, complexity of pieces, and of course number of pieces. You look at the box, the picture looks good, you take it home. Home, you dump the puzzle out on the table and what do you have? Certainly not the picture perfect on the box. Instead you have a pile of mixed up, disorganized pieces. This pile of a mess is kind of like a person's emotional life. So what do you do, well, if you try to fix it yourself you are just going to get further frustrated. So you reach out to someone for help. That person then helps you to step back and evaluate the problem. Then you come up with a plan, and the plan is to look for the straight pieces that form the boundaries. Starting with the four corners of you begin to shape the area of concern. Once together, the time consuming job of discovering which piece fits where comes into play. But this task too has a plan. You segregate compartmentalize the like pieces and begin to form small patterns within the large picture. Generally speaking, there are four patterns within each puzzle. The key is to discover those four patters. A good place to start is the four corners. By the way, the four corners are the four steps to SEA-CAP.
Psychology In Trouble
Register for updates on my monograph series: Psychology In Troube. http://psychintrouble.blogspot.com/
I swear......
When it comes to assessing for future at-risk behavior regarding drunk driving there is an inherent problem in the assessment process. Practically speaking, alcohol and drug use evaluations focus on past and current behaviors of alcohol and drug use. Current assessment tools include the Drug Abuse Screening Test, Michigan Alcohol Screening Test, Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Tool, Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-3, and Driver Risk Inventory, and many more. None of these assessment tools address the motivation for use.
In the State of New Hampshire, when a person drinks and drives, is caught, arrested and prosecuted, and found guilty, that person is required to attend an Impaired Driver Intervention Program (IDIP). Generally, these programs follow the dynamics of the Minnesota Model of programming which includes education upon the biopsychosocial effects of alcohol in conjunction with 12 Step participation. Upon completion, the participant is then referred to a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LADC) for further evaluation and recommendation(s). The above assessments are then applied, the participant’s reoffending risk level is then rated and he or she is further provided recommendation(s) which are shared with the referring IDIP. Successful reinstatement of New Hampshire driving privileges is necessitated by the participant receiving a low risk rating by both the referring IDIP and referred LADC.
Currently, there are two inherent problems with this system of intervention. First, the participant generally has one motivation and that is to have his or her driving privileges reinstated. Second, assessment is on past and present behavior. Given these two points and considering the fact that all the above assessments are based upon self-reports, program compliance is the mitigating issue. In my twenty years of experience, I have never witnessed a person state: “I do not want to have my driver’s license returned to me because I have a drinking problem.” The outcome is quite the opposite. It is for this reason the most effective assessment process should include evaluation of the participant’s: 1.) propensity to disinhibit, 2.) impact of desensitization, and 3.) influences of social reinforcement. For example, a person has his or her license reinstated, after a period of time, the burden of past loss of license and finances will have little residual impact on that person (desensitization). As often the case, this individual finds him or herself in a social setting where alcohol is involved (social reinforcement). Not wanting to be anti-social, the involved is motivated to “fit in and have a good time.” Once alcohol is consumed, the biochemical substance (ethanol) interferes with logic, rational, and reason. Now the person who swore up and down he or she will never drink and drive again has to get home, and his or her car is parked out front. What do you think happens next?
Unfortunately, in order to be versed in assessing for the three outlined interpersonal risk factors, requires more than focus on the substance and behavior. Currently, this is beyond the scope of practice for most Licensed Alcohol Drug Counselors.
Peter Stone, MA,CPT,CART,CAS is a certified alcohol & drug addictions specialist with the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders, a nationally/internationally recognized credentialing organization developed by the Harvard School of Medicine – Division on Addictions.
In the State of New Hampshire, when a person drinks and drives, is caught, arrested and prosecuted, and found guilty, that person is required to attend an Impaired Driver Intervention Program (IDIP). Generally, these programs follow the dynamics of the Minnesota Model of programming which includes education upon the biopsychosocial effects of alcohol in conjunction with 12 Step participation. Upon completion, the participant is then referred to a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LADC) for further evaluation and recommendation(s). The above assessments are then applied, the participant’s reoffending risk level is then rated and he or she is further provided recommendation(s) which are shared with the referring IDIP. Successful reinstatement of New Hampshire driving privileges is necessitated by the participant receiving a low risk rating by both the referring IDIP and referred LADC.
Currently, there are two inherent problems with this system of intervention. First, the participant generally has one motivation and that is to have his or her driving privileges reinstated. Second, assessment is on past and present behavior. Given these two points and considering the fact that all the above assessments are based upon self-reports, program compliance is the mitigating issue. In my twenty years of experience, I have never witnessed a person state: “I do not want to have my driver’s license returned to me because I have a drinking problem.” The outcome is quite the opposite. It is for this reason the most effective assessment process should include evaluation of the participant’s: 1.) propensity to disinhibit, 2.) impact of desensitization, and 3.) influences of social reinforcement. For example, a person has his or her license reinstated, after a period of time, the burden of past loss of license and finances will have little residual impact on that person (desensitization). As often the case, this individual finds him or herself in a social setting where alcohol is involved (social reinforcement). Not wanting to be anti-social, the involved is motivated to “fit in and have a good time.” Once alcohol is consumed, the biochemical substance (ethanol) interferes with logic, rational, and reason. Now the person who swore up and down he or she will never drink and drive again has to get home, and his or her car is parked out front. What do you think happens next?
Unfortunately, in order to be versed in assessing for the three outlined interpersonal risk factors, requires more than focus on the substance and behavior. Currently, this is beyond the scope of practice for most Licensed Alcohol Drug Counselors.
Peter Stone, MA,CPT,CART,CAS is a certified alcohol & drug addictions specialist with the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders, a nationally/internationally recognized credentialing organization developed by the Harvard School of Medicine – Division on Addictions.
Friday, February 5, 2010
PSYCHOLOGY IN TROUBLE
Emotion:
1. Why would an inappropriate emotion be triggered?
2. Can we erase an emotional trigger completely?
3. Can we change our emotional reactions so that we become amused or
contemptuous rather than angry?
4. Can we at least weaken angers power so we don’t react inappropriately?
These are the questions that I am going to be addressing in the next few weeks as I continue my research on Psychology In Trouble.
1. Why would an inappropriate emotion be triggered?
2. Can we erase an emotional trigger completely?
3. Can we change our emotional reactions so that we become amused or
contemptuous rather than angry?
4. Can we at least weaken angers power so we don’t react inappropriately?
These are the questions that I am going to be addressing in the next few weeks as I continue my research on Psychology In Trouble.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Emotional Inteligence & SEACAP
One of the tenants to Select Emotional Alternatives Cognitive Application Processing (SEACAP) is: "It is not so much what happens to me, it is more telling of me how I respond."
What happens to us is experienced as Select Emotional Alternatives (e.g., disgust, affection, anger, intrigue, et cetera). How we respond, expresses what we perceive as happening to us. What we perceive is our Cognitive Application Processing (e.g., what thoughts we filter our emotions through).
No truer statement exists beyond: “People do what they know, and through this perspective, we all teach people how to treat us.” As in the concept of intelligence, it is not what you know in terms of content, rather how you process moment-to-moment information to gain what you know. After all, no one, absolutely no on is all knowing and void of insecurities. In other words if you are fixated upon this, you cannot DISCOVER that. This is a functional perspective. With this point made, in any given situation, I suggest, we all learn how to learn to validate, negotiate, and compromise what we know in order to maximize your opportunity at power OF control.
Another tenant to SEACAP is: "Whatever we experience allow happen." What we allow to happen is our experience of either lost power OF control or embrace power OF control. We decide, we decide through the validation of our emotional and cognitive capabilities we select from or alternatives capabilities to experience comfort and discomfort. For many, lost power OF control may very well be the fanciful fictional impressions of intimidating insecurity anchoring them to dysfunction (“Why me…I can’t…I will never…”). Alternatively, we may embrace power OF control and excite ourselves in the functional impression of empowerment to make emotional change happen. It all depends upon what we, you validate, negotiate, and compromise upon as real vs. ideal (e.g., wanting).
And of course the most basic tenant to SEACAP is: “The human condition is a wanting condition; wanting by need of competence and independence.”
To validate is to get real with ourselves in relationship with our worlds and appreciate the choice is ours. To negation, is to facilitate personal responsibility to maximize that which brings us toward our challenging, functional, healthy goals. To compromise is to hold ourselves to make emotional behavioral change happen in our lives. No one can do it for us.
With these points made, we all should learn to learn how we respond to any given situation and then we will DISCOVER what we select, validate as emotional (what happens to us). Through validation we present ourselves with the opportunity to DISCOVER the perspectives through which we operate. Do we validate lost power OF control in our selves in relation to others? This is anchoring. Or do we validate power OF control in ourselves in relation to others? This is empowerment. In either case, what we validate necessitate how we respond. The simple truth underpins all of our perspectives. “We are our best friends and our worse enemies.” This is the core of our emotional intelligence. The question to you is: “Do you negotiate and compromise your perspectives in primary relationship with yourself and the world you live?”
What happens to us is experienced as Select Emotional Alternatives (e.g., disgust, affection, anger, intrigue, et cetera). How we respond, expresses what we perceive as happening to us. What we perceive is our Cognitive Application Processing (e.g., what thoughts we filter our emotions through).
No truer statement exists beyond: “People do what they know, and through this perspective, we all teach people how to treat us.” As in the concept of intelligence, it is not what you know in terms of content, rather how you process moment-to-moment information to gain what you know. After all, no one, absolutely no on is all knowing and void of insecurities. In other words if you are fixated upon this, you cannot DISCOVER that. This is a functional perspective. With this point made, in any given situation, I suggest, we all learn how to learn to validate, negotiate, and compromise what we know in order to maximize your opportunity at power OF control.
Another tenant to SEACAP is: "Whatever we experience allow happen." What we allow to happen is our experience of either lost power OF control or embrace power OF control. We decide, we decide through the validation of our emotional and cognitive capabilities we select from or alternatives capabilities to experience comfort and discomfort. For many, lost power OF control may very well be the fanciful fictional impressions of intimidating insecurity anchoring them to dysfunction (“Why me…I can’t…I will never…”). Alternatively, we may embrace power OF control and excite ourselves in the functional impression of empowerment to make emotional change happen. It all depends upon what we, you validate, negotiate, and compromise upon as real vs. ideal (e.g., wanting).
And of course the most basic tenant to SEACAP is: “The human condition is a wanting condition; wanting by need of competence and independence.”
To validate is to get real with ourselves in relationship with our worlds and appreciate the choice is ours. To negation, is to facilitate personal responsibility to maximize that which brings us toward our challenging, functional, healthy goals. To compromise is to hold ourselves to make emotional behavioral change happen in our lives. No one can do it for us.
With these points made, we all should learn to learn how we respond to any given situation and then we will DISCOVER what we select, validate as emotional (what happens to us). Through validation we present ourselves with the opportunity to DISCOVER the perspectives through which we operate. Do we validate lost power OF control in our selves in relation to others? This is anchoring. Or do we validate power OF control in ourselves in relation to others? This is empowerment. In either case, what we validate necessitate how we respond. The simple truth underpins all of our perspectives. “We are our best friends and our worse enemies.” This is the core of our emotional intelligence. The question to you is: “Do you negotiate and compromise your perspectives in primary relationship with yourself and the world you live?”
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Recovery Happens
I recently saw a banner set in place for Recovery Month that read: “Recovery Happens.” My question is, “What is implied here?” Words have meaning, and when those words are demonstrative of a process to behavioral change, people either simply disregard, are motivated, or intimidated by what they perceive, think about the process. For this I call for a Matter of Perspective.
Matter of Perspective: My Perspective
In the field, we all know change is a process and not an event. With the advancement of the addiction field, today, we have the Transtheoretical Model of Change outlining the process of change through stages (e.g., precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, et cetera). To facilitate this stage approach, we have Motivational Interviewing as an application to overcome the Mental Masturbation and vacillation that manifests ambivalence to change. Even so, there is something more fundamentally missing. Missing is a perspective on change it’s self. From the most basic molecular structure, we are always changing. Substance and other abuse is the active participation in defiance to this natural process. Substance and others abusive behaviors are counter to the human condition; or are they?
Missing too is the appreciation of the human condition to seek, to need competence. It is this very human condition that outcomes addiction. No one embraces the experience of helplessness and hopelessness as they wallow in despair. In my 19 years of study and practice, I have never met a person who experiences competence in their life way of addiction. I have met hundreds who long for competence, a longing for competence to fill a selfless void.
In many cases, despair is the foundation to substance and other abuse. Even so, like the outcome of addictions, helplessness and hopelessness are outcomes to perceived failed attempts, or as I suggest, “Sittings In The Shit”. For many, that is what they do, they Sit In The Shit, don’t drink, and wait, hope, pray for “Recovery to Happen”. Recovery does not just happen, people have to role up their sleeves, wipe themselves off and discover what they are choosing, allowing to happen.
Discovery over Recovery
The reality is, at any given moment, whatever we experience, we allow to happen. Let’s get real, this implies choice. Within the recovery framework, there is no choice for those involved as they are helpless. I do not like this perspective. It is choice, actually the power thereof that necessitates responsibility. Within the preposition of Discovery, it is the responsibility of those who seek change to discover a life not lived over a life once lived. With the perspective of Discovery over Recovery, the anchoring effect of looking at life lived through eyes of regret as manifest in self-defeated despair has no footing.
Because we are never satisfied, driven toward maximizing competence, people of addiction run, hide, avoid, and escape through their actions, through their addictions. Many have labeled this motivational drive as guilt or shame. Regardless, it is a perspective of one’s self-defeat, it is a human construct. It is what a person thinks of an emotional response.
With the need to gain competence, control, people embrace the safety and comfort of Sitting In The Shit. Experience this enough and it becomes familiar, and through familiararity comfort zones are established. Comfort zones are boundaries to expectations. Expectations not met are limitations, limitations to what a person “thinks” he or she can’t do. Self-imposed limitations debilitate the opportunity to maximize competence. Self-imposed limitations are platforms of defeat as experienced through a haunting void of purpose, direction, substance. Ya, so let’s call Sits In The Shit (SITS) the experience of substance-less.
Whenever a stage is reached or for that matter contemplated, it is a person’s perspective of change that motivates. For example, “Recovery Happens.” For some, their perspective is, “If I don’t drink I will experience recovery, after all, it just happens.” This is the wrong perspective. It is for this reason I rarely present to my client’s the ideal of recovery. My clients rarely want to recover their lives, rather they want to Discover and embrace the life not lived. Sure there is a platform for recovery, and I suggest that platform ends when the substance is out of a person’s system. But in order to gain a healthy perspective for what once was, and through that perspective separation, it is my opinion that the involved best serves him or herself with a perspective of Discovery.
The point here is humans are never satisfied, we are always wanting. The underpinning to our wanting is our innate drive to need competence. There is a challenge here, and that challenge is to convince me as to how continued growth can be achieved through the continuous recovery of what once was as one expects change to happen?
It matters little if the goal is to achieve interpersonal skills, overcome what I call the In-Group (e.g., In-security, In-adequacy, In-feriority, In-significance), or a fit from some anchored, haunting trauma, people need to embrace competence. Competence is the underpinning to all learning. With this, we all share a natural propensity to learn, and with that propensity Discover. Discover compliments that natural progress of change.
Think about it, how many people do you know and have helped who continue to struggle even though they have quit their addictions? For me, such clients are card-carrying-members of the Grateful Dead. They are grateful for not drinking and will yell that from the roof tops, but when it comes to living well, comfortable, confident, and inspired by their life way, they are emotionally and interpersonally dead. This is not a good place to be. This is not a good mind-set, for they are only one synaptic connection from relapse. Dishearten, I know of sponsors within 12 Step Programs who are of this sort and actually fulfill their need for competence through the power of control they experience over those who they think “worse off;” kind of shadenfreudistic (i.e., getting off on other peoples misery). They, as many others espouse and present themselves as the success stories to recovery. The only success they experience exists in their fanciful fictional impressions of change. What do you think: does Recovery Happen?
Matter of Perspective: My Perspective
In the field, we all know change is a process and not an event. With the advancement of the addiction field, today, we have the Transtheoretical Model of Change outlining the process of change through stages (e.g., precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, et cetera). To facilitate this stage approach, we have Motivational Interviewing as an application to overcome the Mental Masturbation and vacillation that manifests ambivalence to change. Even so, there is something more fundamentally missing. Missing is a perspective on change it’s self. From the most basic molecular structure, we are always changing. Substance and other abuse is the active participation in defiance to this natural process. Substance and others abusive behaviors are counter to the human condition; or are they?
Missing too is the appreciation of the human condition to seek, to need competence. It is this very human condition that outcomes addiction. No one embraces the experience of helplessness and hopelessness as they wallow in despair. In my 19 years of study and practice, I have never met a person who experiences competence in their life way of addiction. I have met hundreds who long for competence, a longing for competence to fill a selfless void.
In many cases, despair is the foundation to substance and other abuse. Even so, like the outcome of addictions, helplessness and hopelessness are outcomes to perceived failed attempts, or as I suggest, “Sittings In The Shit”. For many, that is what they do, they Sit In The Shit, don’t drink, and wait, hope, pray for “Recovery to Happen”. Recovery does not just happen, people have to role up their sleeves, wipe themselves off and discover what they are choosing, allowing to happen.
Discovery over Recovery
The reality is, at any given moment, whatever we experience, we allow to happen. Let’s get real, this implies choice. Within the recovery framework, there is no choice for those involved as they are helpless. I do not like this perspective. It is choice, actually the power thereof that necessitates responsibility. Within the preposition of Discovery, it is the responsibility of those who seek change to discover a life not lived over a life once lived. With the perspective of Discovery over Recovery, the anchoring effect of looking at life lived through eyes of regret as manifest in self-defeated despair has no footing.
Because we are never satisfied, driven toward maximizing competence, people of addiction run, hide, avoid, and escape through their actions, through their addictions. Many have labeled this motivational drive as guilt or shame. Regardless, it is a perspective of one’s self-defeat, it is a human construct. It is what a person thinks of an emotional response.
With the need to gain competence, control, people embrace the safety and comfort of Sitting In The Shit. Experience this enough and it becomes familiar, and through familiararity comfort zones are established. Comfort zones are boundaries to expectations. Expectations not met are limitations, limitations to what a person “thinks” he or she can’t do. Self-imposed limitations debilitate the opportunity to maximize competence. Self-imposed limitations are platforms of defeat as experienced through a haunting void of purpose, direction, substance. Ya, so let’s call Sits In The Shit (SITS) the experience of substance-less.
Whenever a stage is reached or for that matter contemplated, it is a person’s perspective of change that motivates. For example, “Recovery Happens.” For some, their perspective is, “If I don’t drink I will experience recovery, after all, it just happens.” This is the wrong perspective. It is for this reason I rarely present to my client’s the ideal of recovery. My clients rarely want to recover their lives, rather they want to Discover and embrace the life not lived. Sure there is a platform for recovery, and I suggest that platform ends when the substance is out of a person’s system. But in order to gain a healthy perspective for what once was, and through that perspective separation, it is my opinion that the involved best serves him or herself with a perspective of Discovery.
The point here is humans are never satisfied, we are always wanting. The underpinning to our wanting is our innate drive to need competence. There is a challenge here, and that challenge is to convince me as to how continued growth can be achieved through the continuous recovery of what once was as one expects change to happen?
It matters little if the goal is to achieve interpersonal skills, overcome what I call the In-Group (e.g., In-security, In-adequacy, In-feriority, In-significance), or a fit from some anchored, haunting trauma, people need to embrace competence. Competence is the underpinning to all learning. With this, we all share a natural propensity to learn, and with that propensity Discover. Discover compliments that natural progress of change.
Think about it, how many people do you know and have helped who continue to struggle even though they have quit their addictions? For me, such clients are card-carrying-members of the Grateful Dead. They are grateful for not drinking and will yell that from the roof tops, but when it comes to living well, comfortable, confident, and inspired by their life way, they are emotionally and interpersonally dead. This is not a good place to be. This is not a good mind-set, for they are only one synaptic connection from relapse. Dishearten, I know of sponsors within 12 Step Programs who are of this sort and actually fulfill their need for competence through the power of control they experience over those who they think “worse off;” kind of shadenfreudistic (i.e., getting off on other peoples misery). They, as many others espouse and present themselves as the success stories to recovery. The only success they experience exists in their fanciful fictional impressions of change. What do you think: does Recovery Happen?
Domestic and Workplace Violence
When are people going to get real? When society reads in the newspaper or catches on local news channels the headlines: Murder-Suicide, Domestic Abuse Homicide, or Workplace Violence, they are intrigued out of the common interest that everyone has been frustrated in a relationship at home, work, and within their communities. It is from this realization people find themselves captivated in their wonder of why: “Why would a person go to such extremes as to purposefully destroy a life, family, or organization?”
In their ignorance, people don’t realize there is no answer to “why,” for “why” requires proof and justification to the reasoning behind such instances of violence. Indeed, there is no “proof” to substantiate such transgressions, nor is there reasoning to support “justification,” there is only human distress and in its wake insurmountable misery.
For example, a person at work experiences an incident of humiliation and self-denigration. Seemingly unable to do anything about his or her distress, the person mentally beats him or herself up over the unfairness, while for some they become very quiet and for others explosive in isolation. Miraculously the day ends without incident, at least on the surface. Driving home in a 4ooo pound machine the mental masturbation, or the beating up on oneself mentally continues: “Who do they think they are…? I don’t need this shit!” Experiencing the exhilarating power and control of the machine, maybe the person feels a bit empowered, “Look at that asshole driving so smug, I’ll show him!” He or she speeds up and cuts the person off. Continuing the drive, thoughts go from, “Screw them, I’ll quit…, to …supper better be ready when I get home.” Gets home, supper is not ready, seeks out the person who will cower the most and all hell breaks loose. Screaming at the objectified pawn (e.g., person) he or she yells, “Why did you make me do that?”
Why did “you make me” do that? With this scenario in mind, really, can anyone state with confidence “why” this person forced him or herself upon his or her partner? If you think you can, go ahead and try. But rest assured--I will prove you wrong. I will prove you wrong because you are looking for proof and justification where there is none to be found. Actually, in your best attempt, you are just pointing your finger and speculating. Of course there are influences, but you cannot point your finger as to “why.” By the way, most revealing of this scenario is that last statement: “Why did you make me do that!”
No there is no proof or justification as to “why” a man would sit alone in his living room and wait for his wife and three children to fall asleep. Then, as they slept, one by one strangle them to death. There is no answer to “why” a woman would position herself outside the door of her place of work, wait, think, and feel only to shoot a bullet into the face of her co-worker. Nor is there reason as to why a person would beat his or her partner to death and then take his or her own life. What you could state with a high level of confidence is that in each of these instances, the perpetrators all validated the wrong thoughts, but “why” they thought the way they did, there is no proof or justification.
People cannot look upon an incident after the fact and state with accuracy “why” a person did what was done. People who represent that they can are stroking their own egos. No, there is no proof or justification; there is only the human condition. Rather than asking why, the better question is, “What possibly could motivate another to destroy life?” To understand “what,” we all must be educated upon the human condition.
Human condition
Human motivation is the drive behind the human condition we all share. The human condition is the want to minimize experienced emotional conflict with the goal to maximize personal competence. As strange as this may read, this is the human condition. The human condition is wanting. People are never satisfied, and as never satisfied, we all can relate to frustration in our wanting. We all can relate to the struggle of realizing our wants. What we can’t relate to is the human condition escalated to need. Needs are dictated by demands, and conversely, wants are dictated by preferences. It is from this division of wants and needs that we experience frustration, and from frustration comes the extreme of rage.
Rage is the heightened form of frustration; it is the feeling of desperation driven by the physical emotion of avoidance and discomfort. Frustration escalates to rage by the unique expectations people embrace as their needs in protection of their comfort zones. Comfort zones are intrapersonal expectations in relation to others and the world lived. We all have a sense of who we think we are in relations to others, and it is these relationships that constitute our zones of comfort, or our expectations. By the way, if the idea of rageaholic pops into your head, dismiss it. There is no such experienced outcome as “rageaholic.” What there is, is an incessant overwhelming demand that people conform, live up to their expectations, comply with their “self” developed fixated superior zones of comfort, superior in their own perspectives of centrality and deservedness. In life, these zones of comfort are necessitated in the games people play. However, fixated superior zones of comfort are no game, they are interpersonal traps.
The games people play
Recall as a child the times you played games to entertain yourself, well as a child, this is what you did to nurture your comfort zones. You were too young to formulate expectations as to how you fit into the world and how the world was supposed to relate to you. Nonetheless, this is what you knew, and as you grew, as you experienced life, what you knew became more complicated as your life experience and expectations became more complicated. Even so, no two people experience life as the same, nor for that matter no two people share the same expectations. As John Locke once said: You cannot put your foot in a flowing stream twice in the same spot. The point here is people operate, behave from what they know, and what people know constitutes their comfort zones. It is for this reason that different situations affect people differently. I take this one step further: The uniqueness of comfort zones is in the matters of perspective relative to a person’s insignificance, inferiority, inadequacy, and insecurity, what I call Ingroup-protected. When faced with any given situation, it is from comfort zones that people seek to maintain control, to protect their Ingroup. In varying degrees, we all do this for the practical reasoning that we all experience matters of perspective relative to our Ingroup; in other words, we are motivated through our human condition to maximize comfort.
The ideal of comfort is relational. It is the interplay between who I think I am in relation to how I want the world to respond to me. In order to maximize this potential, we all then interact with the goal of teaching others how to treat us. For some, when we are treated badly, zones of comfort or expectations are threatened, and they are driven to maximize competence, or at least a sense thereof. This is a matter of perspective that is unique to the individual involved as pebbles on a beach. By our very nature, we all are in conflict with our sense of self in relationship to other people and the world we live. In short, our sense of self is always the experience of inadequacy, inferiority, insignificance, and insecurity, and no one openly admits their Ingroup. If you find fault in this, then I challenge you to listen to that internal critique that exists in your head when faced with conflict. Your critique, as in all peoples critique is that voice of influence protecting you from taking those calculated risks that are outside of your comfort zones, the very zones protecting your relational Ingroup.
Get real, think about it, you are not adequate, significant, or secure in all aspect of your life. If you were, you would not be wanting of any other life-way or goal. Reflect, review over your life, are you absolutely satisfied in all areas, aspects, and achievements? If you answer yes, you are only fooling yourself, for you would have to be a finished product. As a finished product, there would be no room for goals, and a life without goals is a life lived in stagnant water where nothing grows. I call this life-way: Sitting In The Shit ( SITS ).
Matters of perspective: How you see the world
As long as a people behave in context with what they know, their matters of perspective are in control. Matters of perspective are played out in workplaces, homes, and in communities all over the world. In any given situation at home, work, or in community, once perspectives are threatened, people are motivated to regain control, and if that conflict is a threat to perceived control, frustration is escalated to rage. A few words on what I mean by a “threat.”
A “threat” is a relative word. In the context that I use the word, a threat is any situation that triggers conflict. Now conflict is a part of life. Actually the first experience of all life was indeed conflict. It is conflict to go from 98.6 degrees warm, floating in an embryonic sack, to a cold, hard, dark world of say 72 degrees. From this point, all of life is a ball role bouncing from comfort to discomfort. For example, the bills we receive are a threat to our credit. The longer we hold off on paying our bills, the greater the threat. Of course this is at one end of a spectrum; at the other end is the threat to well-being. In this context, wanting to pay bills on time is a mild threat; however needing to pay bills on time is a greater threat. When control is threatened and competence is demanded, mental masturbation follows, events are taken personal and blown out of proportion, and when the threat is perceived as external, rage is projected to intimidate and eliminate the threat. But how does frustration from getting a bill become rage toward another person?
Only two emotional experiences
Think of all the words you can to describe a feeling. Now, think for a moment, do those feelings actually exist, or are they mere words we as humans ascribe to what we “think” we are experiencing emotionally? Right now, as I write, I feel good. All this basically means is there is no physical emotional experience going on within me. But what if my computer crashed? Here, I think you can relate to the point that I would then be experiencing a threat to the loss of my work. This threat is discomfort, and in all discomfort, I am motivated to avoid, eliminate the threat that I “think” or attribute as the cause. In order to do so, I immediately go to what I know and put all of my behaviors into action. Alternatively, let me say while correcting this document, I discovered by left clicking my mouse three times I can highlight a word, and by clicking four times I can highlight a paragraph. This makes correcting easier, or in my strange world, comforting. Now, as I go about correcting, I am motivated to approach the necessary correcting task at-hand with more enthusiasm. Wow, I discovered something new: Yeah! Of course emotion is much more complicated than this; however the practicality of this makes perfect sense. After all, the body can only produce what the body can produce.
• Fact, indeed the body can only produce that which the body can produce, and the body does not, cannot produce fifty or so unique different feelings.
• Fact, the body does produce two unique emotional responses to events, and those are comfort or discomfort.
Given these fact, we are driven by our innate need of competence to both approach and maximize what we evaluate as comforting, or avoid and minimize what is discomforting. With this fact, we as humans then immediately evaluate, assess, and think about what we are emotionally experiencing. I call this thinking about emotion: Select Emotional Alternatives, which produces a “SEA” of feelings to validate or ignore. In a nutshell, Select Emotional Alternatives, or the thinking about what is being experienced emotionally is the habitual perspective of responding to what a person perceives, evaluates as comforting or discomforting. For example, the behavioral outcome of “rageaholic,” which is just another human contrived word to explain, makes sense of a pattern of responding to situational distress or discomfort. What do we call a habituated patter of responding to situation comfort: “loveaholic?” The point is, we all create networks of automaticity whereby given any event that comes close to the learned experience, is in fact experienced with similar intensity, duration, and frequency. The difference is whether we evaluate the situation as a threat or not. It is not rage, anger, frustration, annoyance, or disappointment that is the problem, for these are varying degrees of intensity born of a perceived threat that triggers discomfort. It is however the automatic thought processing—what one knows—which gives emotional rise to rage. In this context, why don’t we call it “rageism!” There is no emotional experience as rageism, but what the heck, psychology needs more titles and diagnoses to fill the cracks of those who fall through.
So, as you sit, you are void of emotion. Someone comes running into the room yelling and screaming, you immediately perceive a threat, and your first response is a physical emotional experience. Immediately you evaluate: “Get out, avoid, you are in emotional distress, discomfort, you need to minimize the threat.” Simultaneously, you are further evaluating the threat based upon what you know. It is through this evaluation process that you either validate or ignore. Any validation will produce feelings, and as pointed out, feelings are thoughts about what you are physically emotionally experiencing. In one case you may be mildly upset for being bothered, or thankful for being warned. Alternatively, your thoughts maybe of self-denial, degradation, and destruction, and as you catastrophize, emotional intensity increases, without realizing, you physically alter the chemistry of your brain. All of your perspectives of the threat are processed through this higher level of intense ordering of distress. You go into a red-out, filled with intense emotion, you lash out. What are you lashing out at? Impulsively you distress over whatever options are available to you. At this point, you are not rational or logical, you do what is available. If this were a situation where you were physically trapped in a building, this emotional intensity could possibly save your life. However, if this were a situation where you were mentally trapped, this emotional intensity could possibly destroy a life, a life not your own.
Do you have any idea of how many people, by their own choice, are seemingly “locked,” in unfulfilling relationships and jobs? Millions! How many of these millions do you think realize whatever they are experiencing they are allowing happening, and from this platform, they continue to go about teaching people how to treat them. What if the person being taught did not listen, missed the lesson, or didn’t care…? Given what I have shared, do you have any idea of the potential threats that are out there just waiting to happen behind closed doors, at work, or in your local grocery store in the quick-check-out-isle? Ever hear of the proverbial straw. Well, it is time to go beyond “why” and start addressing, educating upon, developing the necessary skills, that is right: SKILLS, to functionally manage oneself emotionally, physically, and of course mentally. After all, the way out is the way in: Select Emotional Alternaives Application-Processing.
Peter Stone is an expert in the field of Anger-Based Lost Control, Intimate Partner Violence, and Addiction. Unlike students and practitioners of general counseling psychology, for the past 20 years, his study and practice has been specific to compensatory cycles of emotional and behavioral lost control. Beginning with his graduate research, he had as his case study the life-spans of individuals who committed intimate partner homicide in contrast to individuals who violently offended within their communities while under the influence of alcohol and other drugs of abuse. As a result of this in depth contrast study, he gained unprecedented and unparallel insight into the acquisition, actuation, and maintenance to cycles of emotional distress expressed through anger-based aggression, domestic abuse, and addictive behaviors. Peter holds a Master of Arts Degree from Norwich University, Vermont. His concentration of study was Counseling Psychology specific to Addiction Theory and Intervention Applications. He is a Certified Personal Fitness Trainer specializing in Stress Management through the National Federation of Professional Trainers. He is a Certified Anger Resolution Therapist and Staff Consultant for the Anger Management Training Institute, and a Certified Addiction Specialist with the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders. In addition, Peter is Rostered by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services as an Alternative Provider, member of the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, the International Society for Mental Health Online, On-line Mental Health Action Committee and CEO/Managing Director to MyDiscover, Inc., a New Hampshire based nonprofit organization, where he can be reached directly at: peterstone@MyDiscover.org.
In their ignorance, people don’t realize there is no answer to “why,” for “why” requires proof and justification to the reasoning behind such instances of violence. Indeed, there is no “proof” to substantiate such transgressions, nor is there reasoning to support “justification,” there is only human distress and in its wake insurmountable misery.
For example, a person at work experiences an incident of humiliation and self-denigration. Seemingly unable to do anything about his or her distress, the person mentally beats him or herself up over the unfairness, while for some they become very quiet and for others explosive in isolation. Miraculously the day ends without incident, at least on the surface. Driving home in a 4ooo pound machine the mental masturbation, or the beating up on oneself mentally continues: “Who do they think they are…? I don’t need this shit!” Experiencing the exhilarating power and control of the machine, maybe the person feels a bit empowered, “Look at that asshole driving so smug, I’ll show him!” He or she speeds up and cuts the person off. Continuing the drive, thoughts go from, “Screw them, I’ll quit…, to …supper better be ready when I get home.” Gets home, supper is not ready, seeks out the person who will cower the most and all hell breaks loose. Screaming at the objectified pawn (e.g., person) he or she yells, “Why did you make me do that?”
Why did “you make me” do that? With this scenario in mind, really, can anyone state with confidence “why” this person forced him or herself upon his or her partner? If you think you can, go ahead and try. But rest assured--I will prove you wrong. I will prove you wrong because you are looking for proof and justification where there is none to be found. Actually, in your best attempt, you are just pointing your finger and speculating. Of course there are influences, but you cannot point your finger as to “why.” By the way, most revealing of this scenario is that last statement: “Why did you make me do that!”
No there is no proof or justification as to “why” a man would sit alone in his living room and wait for his wife and three children to fall asleep. Then, as they slept, one by one strangle them to death. There is no answer to “why” a woman would position herself outside the door of her place of work, wait, think, and feel only to shoot a bullet into the face of her co-worker. Nor is there reason as to why a person would beat his or her partner to death and then take his or her own life. What you could state with a high level of confidence is that in each of these instances, the perpetrators all validated the wrong thoughts, but “why” they thought the way they did, there is no proof or justification.
People cannot look upon an incident after the fact and state with accuracy “why” a person did what was done. People who represent that they can are stroking their own egos. No, there is no proof or justification; there is only the human condition. Rather than asking why, the better question is, “What possibly could motivate another to destroy life?” To understand “what,” we all must be educated upon the human condition.
Human condition
Human motivation is the drive behind the human condition we all share. The human condition is the want to minimize experienced emotional conflict with the goal to maximize personal competence. As strange as this may read, this is the human condition. The human condition is wanting. People are never satisfied, and as never satisfied, we all can relate to frustration in our wanting. We all can relate to the struggle of realizing our wants. What we can’t relate to is the human condition escalated to need. Needs are dictated by demands, and conversely, wants are dictated by preferences. It is from this division of wants and needs that we experience frustration, and from frustration comes the extreme of rage.
Rage is the heightened form of frustration; it is the feeling of desperation driven by the physical emotion of avoidance and discomfort. Frustration escalates to rage by the unique expectations people embrace as their needs in protection of their comfort zones. Comfort zones are intrapersonal expectations in relation to others and the world lived. We all have a sense of who we think we are in relations to others, and it is these relationships that constitute our zones of comfort, or our expectations. By the way, if the idea of rageaholic pops into your head, dismiss it. There is no such experienced outcome as “rageaholic.” What there is, is an incessant overwhelming demand that people conform, live up to their expectations, comply with their “self” developed fixated superior zones of comfort, superior in their own perspectives of centrality and deservedness. In life, these zones of comfort are necessitated in the games people play. However, fixated superior zones of comfort are no game, they are interpersonal traps.
The games people play
Recall as a child the times you played games to entertain yourself, well as a child, this is what you did to nurture your comfort zones. You were too young to formulate expectations as to how you fit into the world and how the world was supposed to relate to you. Nonetheless, this is what you knew, and as you grew, as you experienced life, what you knew became more complicated as your life experience and expectations became more complicated. Even so, no two people experience life as the same, nor for that matter no two people share the same expectations. As John Locke once said: You cannot put your foot in a flowing stream twice in the same spot. The point here is people operate, behave from what they know, and what people know constitutes their comfort zones. It is for this reason that different situations affect people differently. I take this one step further: The uniqueness of comfort zones is in the matters of perspective relative to a person’s insignificance, inferiority, inadequacy, and insecurity, what I call Ingroup-protected. When faced with any given situation, it is from comfort zones that people seek to maintain control, to protect their Ingroup. In varying degrees, we all do this for the practical reasoning that we all experience matters of perspective relative to our Ingroup; in other words, we are motivated through our human condition to maximize comfort.
The ideal of comfort is relational. It is the interplay between who I think I am in relation to how I want the world to respond to me. In order to maximize this potential, we all then interact with the goal of teaching others how to treat us. For some, when we are treated badly, zones of comfort or expectations are threatened, and they are driven to maximize competence, or at least a sense thereof. This is a matter of perspective that is unique to the individual involved as pebbles on a beach. By our very nature, we all are in conflict with our sense of self in relationship to other people and the world we live. In short, our sense of self is always the experience of inadequacy, inferiority, insignificance, and insecurity, and no one openly admits their Ingroup. If you find fault in this, then I challenge you to listen to that internal critique that exists in your head when faced with conflict. Your critique, as in all peoples critique is that voice of influence protecting you from taking those calculated risks that are outside of your comfort zones, the very zones protecting your relational Ingroup.
Get real, think about it, you are not adequate, significant, or secure in all aspect of your life. If you were, you would not be wanting of any other life-way or goal. Reflect, review over your life, are you absolutely satisfied in all areas, aspects, and achievements? If you answer yes, you are only fooling yourself, for you would have to be a finished product. As a finished product, there would be no room for goals, and a life without goals is a life lived in stagnant water where nothing grows. I call this life-way: Sitting In The Shit ( SITS ).
Matters of perspective: How you see the world
As long as a people behave in context with what they know, their matters of perspective are in control. Matters of perspective are played out in workplaces, homes, and in communities all over the world. In any given situation at home, work, or in community, once perspectives are threatened, people are motivated to regain control, and if that conflict is a threat to perceived control, frustration is escalated to rage. A few words on what I mean by a “threat.”
A “threat” is a relative word. In the context that I use the word, a threat is any situation that triggers conflict. Now conflict is a part of life. Actually the first experience of all life was indeed conflict. It is conflict to go from 98.6 degrees warm, floating in an embryonic sack, to a cold, hard, dark world of say 72 degrees. From this point, all of life is a ball role bouncing from comfort to discomfort. For example, the bills we receive are a threat to our credit. The longer we hold off on paying our bills, the greater the threat. Of course this is at one end of a spectrum; at the other end is the threat to well-being. In this context, wanting to pay bills on time is a mild threat; however needing to pay bills on time is a greater threat. When control is threatened and competence is demanded, mental masturbation follows, events are taken personal and blown out of proportion, and when the threat is perceived as external, rage is projected to intimidate and eliminate the threat. But how does frustration from getting a bill become rage toward another person?
Only two emotional experiences
Think of all the words you can to describe a feeling. Now, think for a moment, do those feelings actually exist, or are they mere words we as humans ascribe to what we “think” we are experiencing emotionally? Right now, as I write, I feel good. All this basically means is there is no physical emotional experience going on within me. But what if my computer crashed? Here, I think you can relate to the point that I would then be experiencing a threat to the loss of my work. This threat is discomfort, and in all discomfort, I am motivated to avoid, eliminate the threat that I “think” or attribute as the cause. In order to do so, I immediately go to what I know and put all of my behaviors into action. Alternatively, let me say while correcting this document, I discovered by left clicking my mouse three times I can highlight a word, and by clicking four times I can highlight a paragraph. This makes correcting easier, or in my strange world, comforting. Now, as I go about correcting, I am motivated to approach the necessary correcting task at-hand with more enthusiasm. Wow, I discovered something new: Yeah! Of course emotion is much more complicated than this; however the practicality of this makes perfect sense. After all, the body can only produce what the body can produce.
• Fact, indeed the body can only produce that which the body can produce, and the body does not, cannot produce fifty or so unique different feelings.
• Fact, the body does produce two unique emotional responses to events, and those are comfort or discomfort.
Given these fact, we are driven by our innate need of competence to both approach and maximize what we evaluate as comforting, or avoid and minimize what is discomforting. With this fact, we as humans then immediately evaluate, assess, and think about what we are emotionally experiencing. I call this thinking about emotion: Select Emotional Alternatives, which produces a “SEA” of feelings to validate or ignore. In a nutshell, Select Emotional Alternatives, or the thinking about what is being experienced emotionally is the habitual perspective of responding to what a person perceives, evaluates as comforting or discomforting. For example, the behavioral outcome of “rageaholic,” which is just another human contrived word to explain, makes sense of a pattern of responding to situational distress or discomfort. What do we call a habituated patter of responding to situation comfort: “loveaholic?” The point is, we all create networks of automaticity whereby given any event that comes close to the learned experience, is in fact experienced with similar intensity, duration, and frequency. The difference is whether we evaluate the situation as a threat or not. It is not rage, anger, frustration, annoyance, or disappointment that is the problem, for these are varying degrees of intensity born of a perceived threat that triggers discomfort. It is however the automatic thought processing—what one knows—which gives emotional rise to rage. In this context, why don’t we call it “rageism!” There is no emotional experience as rageism, but what the heck, psychology needs more titles and diagnoses to fill the cracks of those who fall through.
So, as you sit, you are void of emotion. Someone comes running into the room yelling and screaming, you immediately perceive a threat, and your first response is a physical emotional experience. Immediately you evaluate: “Get out, avoid, you are in emotional distress, discomfort, you need to minimize the threat.” Simultaneously, you are further evaluating the threat based upon what you know. It is through this evaluation process that you either validate or ignore. Any validation will produce feelings, and as pointed out, feelings are thoughts about what you are physically emotionally experiencing. In one case you may be mildly upset for being bothered, or thankful for being warned. Alternatively, your thoughts maybe of self-denial, degradation, and destruction, and as you catastrophize, emotional intensity increases, without realizing, you physically alter the chemistry of your brain. All of your perspectives of the threat are processed through this higher level of intense ordering of distress. You go into a red-out, filled with intense emotion, you lash out. What are you lashing out at? Impulsively you distress over whatever options are available to you. At this point, you are not rational or logical, you do what is available. If this were a situation where you were physically trapped in a building, this emotional intensity could possibly save your life. However, if this were a situation where you were mentally trapped, this emotional intensity could possibly destroy a life, a life not your own.
Do you have any idea of how many people, by their own choice, are seemingly “locked,” in unfulfilling relationships and jobs? Millions! How many of these millions do you think realize whatever they are experiencing they are allowing happening, and from this platform, they continue to go about teaching people how to treat them. What if the person being taught did not listen, missed the lesson, or didn’t care…? Given what I have shared, do you have any idea of the potential threats that are out there just waiting to happen behind closed doors, at work, or in your local grocery store in the quick-check-out-isle? Ever hear of the proverbial straw. Well, it is time to go beyond “why” and start addressing, educating upon, developing the necessary skills, that is right: SKILLS, to functionally manage oneself emotionally, physically, and of course mentally. After all, the way out is the way in: Select Emotional Alternaives Application-Processing.
Peter Stone is an expert in the field of Anger-Based Lost Control, Intimate Partner Violence, and Addiction. Unlike students and practitioners of general counseling psychology, for the past 20 years, his study and practice has been specific to compensatory cycles of emotional and behavioral lost control. Beginning with his graduate research, he had as his case study the life-spans of individuals who committed intimate partner homicide in contrast to individuals who violently offended within their communities while under the influence of alcohol and other drugs of abuse. As a result of this in depth contrast study, he gained unprecedented and unparallel insight into the acquisition, actuation, and maintenance to cycles of emotional distress expressed through anger-based aggression, domestic abuse, and addictive behaviors. Peter holds a Master of Arts Degree from Norwich University, Vermont. His concentration of study was Counseling Psychology specific to Addiction Theory and Intervention Applications. He is a Certified Personal Fitness Trainer specializing in Stress Management through the National Federation of Professional Trainers. He is a Certified Anger Resolution Therapist and Staff Consultant for the Anger Management Training Institute, and a Certified Addiction Specialist with the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders. In addition, Peter is Rostered by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services as an Alternative Provider, member of the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, the International Society for Mental Health Online, On-line Mental Health Action Committee and CEO/Managing Director to MyDiscover, Inc., a New Hampshire based nonprofit organization, where he can be reached directly at: peterstone@MyDiscover.org.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Lets Get Real, A Matter of Perspective
When we are talking about addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or the superiority of power AND control, we are talking about the experience of sitting in total dysfunction. There is nothing functional about the experience, and as such I call it as I see it. Sitting in the experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or the superiority of power AND control is SITTING IN THE SHIT, or for those who are offended, SITS. What constitutes this experience is the process of mental masturbation people validate as real.
Whatever people are experiencing, they are allowing happen, and in the experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or superiority of power AND control, people allow themselves the experience. In so doing they validate their despair through the mental masturbation of self-reflection as they validate their distress through the mental masturbation of self-projection. Both are anchoring perspectives of self-defeating fanciful fiction.
Reality exists in the now, now is the moment, and in the moment there is absolute control; there is power OF control. Blink, and that moment is gone. By anchoring oneself to mental masturbation, the now is experienced as intimidating because NOW represents the power OF control to implement change. This is the same power OF control lost to the experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or the superiority of power AND control.
By not implementing, realizing the power OF control people have over their lives, they create emotional bank accounts. Forget what you have read or heard, in variation of frequency, intensity, and duration there are only two EMOTIONS, comfort and discomfort. The emotional bank account of discomfort is experienced as helplessness and hopelessness, and the emotional bank account of comfort is experienced as unabridged excitement.
As human we are driven to maximize comfort through the validation of our needs for competence and independence, which equates to the human condition, a condition never satisfied. Any conflict to validation of comfort constitutes a threat and is experienced as discomfort. Discomfort then triggers the mental masturbation of THINKING about what is being experienced emotionally; in a word: FEELINGS.
Feelings are the thoughts about what is being experienced emotionally in comfort or discomfort. As there are many different thoughts, there are many different feelings. Reframe the thoughts of what is being experienced emotionally, and the feelings gone. And yet for those who lost, surrendered, or ignored their power OF control to step out of their experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or the superiority of power AND control, the feelings are real; hence: SITS. From this MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE expectations of Inadequacy, Inferiority, or Insignificance (the Ingroup), anchor the involved to intimidating insecurity while allowing the cycles continue.
Please, share your perspective.
Whatever people are experiencing, they are allowing happen, and in the experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or superiority of power AND control, people allow themselves the experience. In so doing they validate their despair through the mental masturbation of self-reflection as they validate their distress through the mental masturbation of self-projection. Both are anchoring perspectives of self-defeating fanciful fiction.
Reality exists in the now, now is the moment, and in the moment there is absolute control; there is power OF control. Blink, and that moment is gone. By anchoring oneself to mental masturbation, the now is experienced as intimidating because NOW represents the power OF control to implement change. This is the same power OF control lost to the experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or the superiority of power AND control.
By not implementing, realizing the power OF control people have over their lives, they create emotional bank accounts. Forget what you have read or heard, in variation of frequency, intensity, and duration there are only two EMOTIONS, comfort and discomfort. The emotional bank account of discomfort is experienced as helplessness and hopelessness, and the emotional bank account of comfort is experienced as unabridged excitement.
As human we are driven to maximize comfort through the validation of our needs for competence and independence, which equates to the human condition, a condition never satisfied. Any conflict to validation of comfort constitutes a threat and is experienced as discomfort. Discomfort then triggers the mental masturbation of THINKING about what is being experienced emotionally; in a word: FEELINGS.
Feelings are the thoughts about what is being experienced emotionally in comfort or discomfort. As there are many different thoughts, there are many different feelings. Reframe the thoughts of what is being experienced emotionally, and the feelings gone. And yet for those who lost, surrendered, or ignored their power OF control to step out of their experience of addiction, irrational anger-based aggression, or the superiority of power AND control, the feelings are real; hence: SITS. From this MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE expectations of Inadequacy, Inferiority, or Insignificance (the Ingroup), anchor the involved to intimidating insecurity while allowing the cycles continue.
Please, share your perspective.
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