Category Archives: Therapy Topics

The First Task of Life: Survival and Our Quest to Be Loved

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The First Task of Life – to Be Loved

Love is the most compelling force for our species – not survival. Babies do not survive without love. Food, shelter and food are not enough. Children actively seek a love-bond with their caregivers and there is nothing more frightening to us as children than the possibility that we would not be loved or accepted by significant persons in our lives. We know we need it to survive and our sense of physical safety is intrinsically linked to our sense of emotional safety. These emotional drives shape most behaviors and are associated with our core fears of rejection, inadequacy or abandonment.

Built-in Safety – Early “Survival-Love Maps”

Born with a burning curiosity, we yearn to know everything there is to know about ourselves and about our world. Learning is one of our key attributes of human beings and a healthy brain is almost always in “learning mode”. We are wired to struggle, to learn, and to engage in processes that make us feel vulnerable, and yet, expand our capacity to grow.

Our first learning, however, was through mirroring our parents. Messages about what they needed from us, whom they thought we were, and what they thought the world was like, were etched in our brains and formed our first sense of self. If our parents were scared and insecure, upset or anxious, regardless whether their anxiety was directed at us or some other person or event, it activated our own survival response. We “knew”, without concepts, that there was danger. We learned to feel the same, thus forming a set of instructions or “rules” that can endure throughout life (Dr. Daniel Siegel). .

These early survival-love maps allowed us as children to subconsciously distort our responses to the environment to feel the level of emotional safety we needed. Subconsciously, we “decided” or “learned” certain rules that best ensured we would receive some measure of “good feelings.”

But by the time we reach adulthood, this map has outlived its usefulness to us. No longer the solution, it becomes part of the problem instead.

Unless we break free of our automatic responses to these early survival rules, we are destined to live an unfulfilled life. These love-maps can block the ability to form healthy intimacy and relationship bonds in adulthood.

Signs of an Ineffective Love-Map

  • Do you have a hard time connecting inwardly to get to know yourself and others intimately?
  • Are you dependent on others to love and value you – before you have learned to love and value yourself?
  • Do you rely on sources outside of yourself to feel normal? For safety, strength and happiness?
  • Is it hard to remain calm, confident, and centered when you feel stressed or triggered?
  • Do you feel more vulnerable than you actually are?
  • Do you find it difficult to identify what you are feeling? To know what you want?
  • Do you often act as though other people’s needs are more important than your own?

 Life is not about the destination; it’s about the process.

It has never been about getting our parents and others to unconditionally love us. Rather, it’s about the lessons, and what we learn about ourselves and life along the way. As an adult, who you want to put in charge of the power you have to make life-shaping choices? Will it be you as a conscious agent and choice maker of your life – or your subconscious survival-love map?

Here’s the good news. Human beings are resilient – the human brain has the capacity, known as neuroplasticity, to heal and change the limiting reactions created earlier to cope with life.

Part of the Work of Change could include:

  • Begins with a life long commitment to choose to live authentically and honestly in relation to self and others.
  • Involves understanding how our brain works, and the power of our thoughts and emotions in shaping behaviors.
  • Requires courage to become more aware, present and reflective of our mind and body, our inner experience and of life around us.
  • Involves a willingness to face our fears and transform them into courage.

 

Adapted from an article by:  Athena Staik, Ph.D.

The First Task of Life? Survival and Our Quest to Be Loved | Neuroscience and Relationships.

Why Do People Become Addicted?

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why do people get addictedWhen discussing an addiction or dependency, most standard beliefs center around the continued repeatability of use of a substance and/or behavior, in which the user loses site of the ramifications of his/her actions. The user can become so attached to substances or an action (pornography, gambling) that the instant gratification of the moment far overrides the consequences.

It is like having a little voice on your shoulder telling you everything will be fine–go ahead–just one more. Someone who is fighting an addiction or dependency is fighting both urges from the outside world and a battle with voices inside of themselves.

Negative Reinforcement: I am Worthless Because You Say I Am

Many of my clients have suggested their addictive behaviors began with the need to escape or numb from the world around them. They understood the consequences of their addictive behaviors, but the pain—through either anxiety or depression—was so intense they could not seek any other alternative.

To someone overwhelmed in the moment, long-term recovery seems as difficult and tedious as climbing a mountain. On the other hand, their addictive behaviors can be instantly satisfying.

All of the judgment and opinions from friends and loved ones in fact become reinforcement to continue. To a certain extent, it is socially acceptable to use alcohol, gamble, or shop when emotionally stressed, as long as you don’t cross certain social norms. When a user does violate those norms, the reaction of others reinforces the feelings of weakness, worthlessness, and being out of control. So, he thinks, I might as well keep using.

As Robin Williams once stated in Weapons of Self-Destruction: “As an alcoholic, you will violate your standards quicker than you can lower them.”

When talking about any kind of addiction, it is important to recognize that its cause is not simply a search for pleasure, and that addiction has nothing to do with one’s morality or strength of character. Experts debate whether addiction is a “disease” or a true mental illness, whether drug dependence and addiction mean the same thing, and many other aspects of addiction.

Pleasure Principle: This is Your Brain on Drugs

 The brain registers all pleasures in the same way, whether they originate with a psychoactive drug, a monetary reward, a sexual encounter, or a satisfying meal. In the brain, pleasure has a distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a cluster of nerve cells lying underneath the cerebral cortex. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so consistently tied with pleasure that neuroscientists refer to the region as the brain’s pleasure center.

All drugs of abuse, from nicotine to heroin, cause a particularly powerful surge of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. The likelihood that the use of a drug or participation in a rewarding activity will lead to addiction is directly linked to the speed with which it promotes dopamine release, the intensity of that release, and the reliability of that release.

Even taking the same drug through different methods of administration can influence how likely it is to lead to addiction. Smoking a drug or injecting it intravenously, as opposed to swallowing it as a pill, for example, generally produces a faster, stronger dopamine signal and is more likely to lead to drug misuse.

Is it a wonder that a depressed individual would seek out this pleasure—any form of relief from the darkness that surrounds their soul?

Diagnostic Criteria for Addiction

Based on the criteria by the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV) and World Health Organization (ICD-10) an addiction must meet at least three of the following criteria:

  • Do you use more alcohol or drugs over time?
  • Have you experienced physical or emotional withdrawal when you have stopped using? Have you experienced anxiety, irritability, shakes, sweats, nausea, or vomiting? Emotional withdrawal is just as significant as physical withdrawal.
  • Limited control. Do you sometimes drink or use drugs more than you would like? Do you sometimes drink to get drunk? Does one drink lead to more drinks sometimes? Do you ever regret how much you used the day before?
  • Negative consequences. Have you continued to use even though there have been negative consequences to your mood, self-esteem, health, job, or family?
  • Neglected or postponed activities. Have you ever put off or reduced social, recreational, work, or household activities because of your use?
  • Significant time or energy spent. Have you spent a significant amount of time obtaining, using, concealing, planning, or recovering from your use? Have you spent a lot of time thinking about using? Have you ever concealed or minimized your use? Have you ever thought of schemes to avoid getting caught?
  • Desire to cut down. Have you sometimes thought about cutting down or controlling your use? Have you ever made unsuccessful attempts to cut down or control your use?

Many people with addiction issues who I have spoken to shared how they had a high tolerance, and could drink more than peers when in their early stages of drinking. At the time, one who could chug the beer and down the shots and still be able to stand was regarded in high esteem. Many clients have told me, though, as life went on, having a high tolerance for booze became a curse as it became a thirst that could not be quenched.

Relapse and Recovery

Symptoms of addiction include tolerance (development of resistance to the effects of alcohol or other drugs over time) and withdrawal, a painful or unpleasant physical response when the substance is withheld.

Many people who are addicted deny it. They often emphasize that they enjoy drinking or taking other drugs.

People recovering from addiction can experience a lack of control and return to their substance use at some point in their recovery process. This faltering, common among people with most chronic disorders, is called relapse. To ordinary people, relapse is one of the most perplexing aspects of addiction. Millions of Americans who want to stop using addictive substances suffer tremendously, and relapses can be quite discouraging.

To appreciate the grips of addiction, imagine a person that “wants to stop doing something and they cannot, despite catastrophic consequences,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “We’re not speaking of little consequences. These are catastrophic. And yet they cannot control their behavior.”

Many in the addiction recovery field suggest that it takes more than just “not using” to fully recover. Recovery needs to come from the heart and the way one perceives him or herself.

The following are important points your clients in recovery should know:

  • Check into your values; what’s important to you. What are the things that mean more to you than remaining addicted.
  • Develop and practice the skills you need to manage your life without relying on your addiction
  • Learn how to control addictive urges through mind management techniques
  • Find and appreciate the rewards that come from a “sober” (non-addicted) lifestyle
  • Build and appreciate personal relationships and turn to positive communities for support and companionship
  • Find your purpose and plan a future that leads to accomplishing your life goals
  • Mature into a new, non-addicted you — a person who simply and naturally rejects addiction in all forms

“I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world…I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest. I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness…Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help. I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape. There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn’t matter anymore. I am thawing.” Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls 

Image courtesy of Naypong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net       Why Do People Become Addicted? | Psych Central Professional.