Do you smoke?

[worm]

habit... addiction... physical or emotional

what you call it makes no difference if you're not going to get to the root of it

[worm]

in this instance I'm not trying to do anything... we know what happened. She was depressed and was prescribed a highly addictive drug for it

[worm]

the way an addiction is caused is irrelevant.

[worm]

I mean just calling it an addiction doesn't help.

the root of the cause is all that matters (if you want to understand it - the addiction - any better)

it was depression

as I say...

the cause of her depression wasn't considered for a second... just give her some pills

any help?

[feral chile]

Right. Here's the diagnosis:

Problem - addiction

Addictive behaviour - drug use

Desired outcome - Overcome addiction in process of person's decision making

It's from here that a therapist would then look at the level of the dependency, the associations between physical and emotional triggers and the prevalence of addiction in the decision making process. Where Feral and I diverge is in how we deal with this. Feral would look at it in terms of the above, as she is a behaviourist. Contrastingly, I would look at the personality of the person to analyse what drug use means to them. Feral ssumes this, as wanting to get rid of the drug addiction is the only rationale that is required and the role of the therapist is to get rid of the addictive behaviour (and its logic).

Edited March 12, 2011 by feral chile

[worm]

I wouldn't be looking at personality because that implies a holistic cause. And to me, personality is just a short cut term expressing the probability of a certain type of behaviour. I'd be looking at environmental factors, as the environment is paramount to a behaviourist. So in theory, a behaviourist would try to change the environment in order to change the behaviour (depression).

Edited March 12, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

That's not CBT. CBT would also look at the cognitive process that leads to benaviours, such as schedules of behaviour and the like. I think you've over-simplified your stance a little, just as you've simplified personality amalysis by implying that it doesn't look at environmental factors. The environment is an agent packed full of symbolic referents relating to identity.

For instance, someone, such as a boxer, may have a different relationship with violence than to, say, a nurse. However, they may also have a pre-existing problem with addiction that is incurred once they stop training, thus transferring the positive addiction of working out to the negative addiction of drug use. We need to have an idea of an underlying psyche and its drives so that we can de-tangle it from all of these experiences that have led to the current manifestation of drug dependency.

[worm]

oh of course CBT would look at cognitive processes, cognitive processes are behavioural processes. That's why I don't really see what personality theorists have to add - a behaviourist would look at how the environment (including other people) has shaped behaviour (including cognitive processes). As far as i can see, personality theorists do exactly the same thing. Though they may diverge as to how they'd go about changing that.

Edited March 12, 2011 by worm

[worm]

the addiction wasn't a problem though. She asked for help and was provided with the drug that made her an addict

the original desired outcome got lost in the flood

Edited March 12, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

That's not CBT. CBT would also look at the cognitive process that leads to benaviours, such as schedules of behaviour and the like. I think you've over-simplified your stance a little, just as you've simplified personality amalysis by implying that it doesn't look at environmental factors. The environment is an agent packed full of symbolic referents relating to identity.

For instance, someone, such as a boxer, may have a different relationship with violence than to, say, a nurse. However, they may also have a pre-existing problem with addiction that is incurred once they stop training, thus transferring the positive addiction of working out to the negative addiction of drug use. We need to have an idea of an underlying psyche and its drives so that we can de-tangle it from all of these experiences that have led to the current manifestation of drug dependency.

[feral chile]

the addiction wasn't a problem though. She asked for help and was provided with the drug that made her an addict

the original desired outcome got lost in the flood

[worm]

All addiction is to me is a strongly conditioned behavioural response. I'm confused by this analogy though - if a boxer becomes addicted to drugs, wouldn't you look at the circumstances around the addiction? All you seem to be telling me there is that the boxer has been previously positively reinforced by the adrenaline rush of training, and now is positively reinforced by the chemical rush of the drug?

What does that have to do with psyche? And why do we need to go back to it?

Are you looking at addiction as a personality trait?

[worm]

Are you looking at addiction as a personality trait?

[feral chile]

I'm saying that to be a boxer you're required to have a type of personality, and in becoming a boxer you extend your type of personality through experience. There is a social context to your problem, which includes the person seeing whatever it is as a problem rather than a personality trait.

[worm]

OK. Someone who you'd think of as a dependent person, a person who needs a lot of support and isn't very self-reliant, an underachiever, gets hooked on drugs.

A person who is a high achiever, considered a success in their line of work, gets hooked on drugs.

Now whether you're looking at it from a personality point of view or from a behaviourist perspective, you're going to be looking at why these people have turned to drugs.

[feral chile]

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! You just can't get out of these behavioural examples can you.

It's not about what I think. It's about what they think. A person has come to you saying that they have a problem. You have to assess why that is a problem to them and that begins with understanding their personality.

If a smoker wants to smoke then there's no problem. If someone likes fighting in a boxing ring then there's no problem. If someone is not coping with their life because they keep taking drugs against their will then there's a problem. Getting to the root of that problem requires looking at their personality (who they are, what they relate to, what they like, who they want to be, what they've been etc....).

You can't just think of them as some rational being in need of getting rid of some behavioural problem that's in the way. You need to know why the behaviour is a problem to them.

[worm]

why they think the behaviour's a problem to them might be relevant, why the therapist thinks the behaviour is a problem, or especially whether the therapist thinks the behaviour is a problem, isn't.

Edited March 12, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

That's what I was talking about.

I mean in terms of categorising their personality. A 'high earner' and an 'under-achiever' are behavioural distinctions in that they say nothing of their personality. The 'under-achiever' may not have the aspirations that the high earner has. They may not care for money.

A violent person. An intimate person. An adventurous person. An eccentric person. An introverted person. A funny person. A sexual person. An enthusiastic person.

You can be in psychological torment because you are an introverted person in an extroverted job. Therefore, what you are is not what you do. Hence, psychological torment. Hence turning to drink. Hence, getting over the addiction is not getting over the cause of addiction.

[worm]

aha! Now I'm with you! When your cognitive behaviour doesn't match your observable behaviour.

Edited March 12, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

Oh, ffs!

You see how personality is important though. You can't just assess someone in terms of their job or in terms of their condition. You have to know how it relates to their psyche and get a sense of what that psyche can take.

All theory is born from intuition.

Or..........get a different job!

Capitalism.

And yes I did.

Ah yes. 'Unreliable' meaning liar.

I had the same, but I just explained that I had supreme confidence in my sexual prowess and that my only failing was my over confidence.

Edited March 12, 2011 by feral chile

[worm]

Hmmph! My failure was because I said I wouldn't smuggle goods through customs if I had a fool-proof way to do it. And because I said I didn't dislike anyone.

But that was a symptom of extreme neurosis, not dishonesty. Because I'd still be worried that I'd get caught, give myself away etc. And I'd be too anxious over how I'd upset someone to consider disliking them.

Just goes to show how these tests are based on presuppositions though.

[feral chile]

No, I agree with you there. Mine was that I never feel nervous around attractive members of the opposite sex. I don't, unless they imply that they're attracted to me.

Quite.

It's more psyches that I'm interested in. Self and identity and the composition of one's self within a narrative. That sort of thing. As I keep saying, personality literally means 'pertaining to a mask', so I consider it as a mental image or projection one has of one's self. Just as I consider a person as an outward image of themselves.

I suppose its because I believe that its not about what you're like, but about what you like. This is where I enter the old post-modern tag in that we are the experience of an art in progress, which requires an artist, an imagined picture, a subject, a developing canvas and a director out of our sight. We often forget the latter, but they all need to be sought to understand who someone is.

[worm]

Well, I think behaviourism and personality theory have some failings. Like I said before, I'm the only one who still thinks I'm shy. So I must have a double mask, one for myself and one for everyone else. And I go through phases where I'm totally extrovert. Inside and out. So why does the mask then not fit?

I don't know what either theory would make of that, because it would be quite difficult to predict. Personality's too static a label, but behaviourism doesn't really explain abrupt changes in behavioural repertoire either.

Edited March 13, 2011 by worm

[feral chile]

Static labels are what I'm writing against with the importance of personality. I'm not talking about labelling someone and their condition, I'm talking about relating to someone in the therapuetic process.

Take the humanistic approach for instance. It has core conditrions that relate to the therapy session, rather than to the person's condition. Psychoannalysis has this too, with transference, projection, denial, repression, regression and so on. These are all things that happen between the therapist and the client in various ways during a therapy session. Whereas the humanistic approach uses the core conditions to establish a respect between the two so that the mask comes down revealing the vulnerable human beneath, psychoannalysis looks to see how the mask is being used and where it is causing the client problems. This is what I mean by personality. I'm not talking about applying a methodological framework based upon personality factors.

The problem with behaviourism is that it sees the client as a rational person and puts their problems into a logical methodological framework for the benefit of the therapist. There is no acknowledgement of the relationship between therapist and client. It's simply a case of if you think and behave like this instead of that you'll be better. But this in itself is leading to subordination and an identity to being in need. I know you've read conformity studies, so you should realise the immensity of such assumptions. But even with that aside, it is guilty of taking the client at face (mask) value and therefore undermining its role as an expert field in psychology. Psychology should by nature look beneath what the person is saying.

[worm]

This is what I'm afraid psychoanalysis does. Transference, projection, denial, repression, regression all are value laden terms to me. transference, projection, denial, repression of what? regression to what? from what?