Pathology and the Study of Paths

To follow the path of greatest advantage
rather than yield in the direction of least resistance

- George Bernard Shaw

This online course is about volition. A study of the cause-and-effect principles that govern how creatures such as we react can enhance your ability to act in accord with your interests and principles, even when local conditions would motivate you to defect.

Like learning how to drive or earn a living, acquiring capability to exercise your will is part of the developmental passage from childhood to adulthood. An addictive disorder complicates this passage. If you have become dependent on a substance or activity, exercising your will becomes deceptively difficult and the penalties of failure for you, and those who love you, are serious.

The Power of a Will

Volition is the faculty that separates humans from more primitive life forms. The actions of animals and young children are determined by bio-psycho-social principles in the same way that the principles of hydrodynamics determine the watercourse way. Paradoxically, the more you understand about the cause-and-effect principles that influence the reactions of the creature you inhabit, the greater is your ability to exercise your will.

Needless to say, the point of exercising your will rather than yielding in the direction of least resistance is that the payoff is greater. As far as we know, you get one shot at life, and it would be a shame to miss out on the big payoffs because you wasted you life stuck in an addictive trap. To restate this in goal-oriented language: To get the big payoffs you want out of life, it is important that you know what your core motivation is, and that you have acquired the ability to act in accord with it, even when doing so is difficult.

Two course objectives:

  1. Discovering or creating your path of greatest advantage — that is, appreciating, at an intellectual level, what you really want and how to get it.

  2. Training the creature you inhabit to act in accord with your interests and principles, despite the influence of local conditions that would influence you to defect.

Our Collaboration

The ability to over-ride local influences and act as intended is called willpower. The text includes some perspectives of classical philosophy and reviews of cognitive and neural science that will help you appreciate what needs to be done and how to do it. As you may suspect, intellectual understanding is not sufficient to bring about the irreversible changes required to change the course of your life. The key to good outcome is developing the competence to manipulate experiential phenomena. A wide range of exercises and thought experiments will give you the opportunity to explore and intentionally manipulate your subjective experience.

My contribution is to present the material in ways that maintain your interest and help you acquire the competencies quickly enough to cope with the challenges that come up. Your part of the collaboration is far more heroic. You will have to Exercise Your Will during the critical, high-risk moments when doing so is particularly difficult.

This course will not spare you the effort required to free yourself from your addictive trap . However, the adventure is not without its own rewards. As one client put it, "You can't buy the feeling you get from accomplishing something you did not think you were capable of."

This self-guided approach is not for everyone. Your first responsibility is to decide if this strategy of change, rather than conventional, 12-Step oriented treatment is best for you. If you are not sure, please take the Treatment Matching Self-Test.

Creating Your Path Starts Now

Since you are unique, your path of greatest advantage is different than anyone else's. Developing this path is an impressive undertaking. There is so much to consider and so many things that need to be done. Beginning can seem overwhelming.

As a rule of thumb: First, learn about the cause-and-effect principles that influence your actions during high-risk situations. We do not understand how your addictive trap works yet, and so we do not know which tools you will need to help you escape it.

This course describes alternative ways of conceptualizing your challenge and many tools to help you resolve it. To meet the needs of a range of users, I have included more content than you personally will need, Self-tests and navigational tools are included to help you get access to the materials you will need quickly enough to keep you ahead of your challenge.

Be aware of the need for timely action. You may find it helpful to spend a little time lightly browsing through the course to get an idea of the kinds of tools are offered and where they are. There are many ways to navigate through this material. This page will help you choose an efficient path. Please read through the whole page first, then decide where to go next.

Some possible starting points.

  • You can use this web site as a conventional book and proceed in a linear fashion from beginning to end. The navigational bar to the left lists the chapters in sequence down the page. Alternatively, you may step sequentially through the course by clicking the link at the bottom right of each page. If it is not urgent that you take immediate action you can develop a good conceptual foundation for the challenges ahead by following this default path.

  • Studying what happens to people as their addictive relationship matures offers a cheap education about the challenge facing you. The Stages of Change model will give you an overview of the stages of this passage, as well as tools to help you through each one. If you have any ambivalence about ending your relationship with the incentive, this is a good place to begin.

  • While each addictive trap is unique, there are some common entrapment mechanisms. To get a feel for how your trap works, complete the Trap Detector Self-Test. The trap with the highest score is likely to be most urgent. Strategies and tools to help you understand and solve the trap are provided.

  • If you are in an emotional crisis now, emotion-focused coping may be your first priority. Negative emotional states including Depression, Anger, and Anxiety are implicated in a large proportion of relapses.

 

Navigational Options

Considering my current circumstances as well as what I know about myself, the best use of my attention right now is to:

  1. Study the cause-and-effect principles of addiction and its resolution - The Default Path

  2. Learn about the stages of an addictive relationship, and which stage I am in.

  3. Take the fastest path to to action: What is my addictive trap and how can I escape it.

  4. Emergency Emotion Management - If you judge emotion management to be your most urgent need, follow the links to relevant tools in the box below:

    5.  


    Do you have a dual diagnosis?

    Addictive and Mood Disorders are highly correlated. The self-tests below provides a rough gage of the severity of your symptoms:




    If you score in the moderate or severe range on either test, you probably meet the diagnostic criteria for a mood disorder that requires treatment in its own right. Failure to address the mood disorder will make the already difficult task of preventing relapse much more difficult. If you are not currently working with a clinician, please feel free to contact our office to discuss how best to cope with moderate or severe negative emotional states and possible underlying Mood Disorder.

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