What good is trying to be accomplished? A second example of the sanity and logic that underlie problem behavior, in this case, wanting to stay in bed in the morning.
Threads: Getting unstuck, breaking up old patterns
Relevant recent posts: 2/12/2013 When old strategies become problems: Part 1
8/23/2011 Getting unstuck: Part 2
5/13/2011 A frame for how we learn
2/14/2011 Unconscious Learning
It’s easy to support a curious, interested child learning something new.
How will you be as generous with yourself as you solve this problem?
-to a client, frustrated with their own behavior
A new client often arrives with a problem behavior they hate. No matter how crazy, weird, counterproductive, or self-sabotaging the behavior seems, I have learned there is likely some past circumstance in which the behavior was learned and adopted to accomplish something good. Although the behavior persists in its attempt to accomplish something good, it may no longer fit the current circumstances—it is now a problem.
What’s the behavior trying to accomplish that’s good?
When a client can see and appreciate the problem behavior as an old strategy on behalf of their well-being that can be refined and updated, it often helps change the behavior. Because of this, I immediately become curious: What’s the behavior trying to accomplish that’s so important that it has resisted the client’s every effort to change it?
Example 2
I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning
A client I’ll call Matt, in his thirties, is competent and resourceful. His parents recently moved from across the country into the town where he and his family live. Their proximity has triggered some of Matt’s old childhood feelings and prompted him to seek therapy. The following vignette, drawn from work with Matt and used with permission (see “Footnote: About this example,” below), exposes the sanity which can underlie a problem behavior.
During our work to change the nature of his responses around his mother, Matt said he often didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I asked, “How does it go? What do you think or feel that is a part of not wanting to get out of bed?”
He said, “It’s easier to stay in bed if there’s nothing pulling me out of bed.”
Me: “Where do you imagine you learned this? What circumstance have you been in where it really was easier to stay in bed if there’s nothing pulling you out of bed?”
Matt: "Growing up around my mother. It felt like anything I’d do would set her off. Then she’d yell at me and be mean. I could never tell what I’d done wrong, so I didn’t know what to do differently.”
Me: “So, if nothing was pulling you out of bed, like having to go to school, it was easier to stay in bed.”
Matt: “Yeah, so I won’t do something wrong around Mom.”
Me: “Ah, makes good sense.”
Matt: “Yeah.”
Me: “That’s a pretty good strategy, staying in bed, to avoid the risk of setting her off.”
Matt: “Yeah, I never thought about it that way.”
Me: “Where you live now, with your wife and son, do you feel at risk of doing something wrong and setting either of them off?...”
Matt: [laughs, shakes head ‘no’].
Me: “So, you believe now it might actually be okay to get out of bed in the morning…?
Matt: [nodding ‘yes’]
Me: “This strategy of staying in bed to protect you from upsetting your Mom has been persistent for decades, so it’s probably not going to drop away just because we’re talking about it. But we can add something to it. Would that be okay?
Matt: “Yes.”
Me: “So, on those mornings when you wake up and it still might happen that you have that experience of it being easier to stay in bed… see how it feels to say, ‘Thank you for being so persistent in trying to protect and take care of me. I know it’s okay now for me to get out of bed. Thank you.’”
Matt: “Huh. Yeah. [pause] I can do that.”
Me: “Only if you really know it is okay for you to get out of bed, that it is different now than it was growing up around your Mom.”
Matt. “Yeah, I know that, it is different. I can say that.”
There was more
Matt went home and the next morning, when he felt it was easier to stay in bed than to get up, he said, “Thank you for being so persistent in trying to protect and take care of me. I know it’s okay now for me to get out of bed.” Then he got out of bed and began doing his morning things. In a few minutes he started feeling anxious—tight chest and stomach. By mid-morning he realized he was feeling like he used to as a little boy when he got out of bed. By ignoring the old strategy of staying under Mom’s radar, and instead, getting out of bed, Matt triggered the old feelings he would have had as a child when getting out of bed: Anxiousness and at risk of setting Mom off.
He was able to realize this while it was happening. He stayed with his experience throughout the day and his anxiousness gradually lessened.
I understand this as a work in progress: As Matt continues to refine and update old learnings he acquires more options for how he responds now than were available to him as a child. He grows.
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Your comments are welcomed.
Footnote: About this example
Stories and therapy vignettes that are inspired by my clients’ coming to change are used with permission, are always altered to protect client anonymity, are not intended to accurately portray therapy, and are often fictionalized syntheses written to make clear some point.
All are offered with gratitude to my clients—all of whom teach me that our capacity for intelligent and life-affirming responsivity and change exceeds conscious imagining. And all are offered in support of people making enlivening change in their own lives and in support of those of us who, in turn, support others opening to more options for being alive and vital.
The underlying logic and sanity of problem behavior rooted in old learning.
Threads: Getting unstuck, breaking up old patterns
Relevant recent posts: 2/14/2011 Unconscious Learning
5/13/2011 A frame for how we learn
8/23/2011 Getting unstuck: Part 2
“I’d like to take it out behind the barn and shoot it!”
client, referring to their fear of flying
In this and the next two post we explore the logic that underlies three different problem behaviors involving snakes, getting out of bed in the morning, and vacation adventures.
Example 1
The old learning: All snakes are dangerous and to be feared
For years I understood my reaction to snakes was phobic: Snakes seen close up or at a distance, garter snakes, teeny six-inch baby snakes, dead road-kill snakes—all triggered a strong startle response and paralyzing fear.
Identifying my response as phobic, while descriptive, obscured more than it revealed. As a child I loved spending time with my Grandmother. I remember being in the backyard with her when she saw a garter snake. She rushed to get her garden shovel and with a look of horror and repugnance, chopped the snake into pieces!
Given the wisdom and knowledge of The World that I granted to Grandma, from that time on, I intuitively understood snakes were to be feared and destroyed. It is no surprise that my mother also had learned to fear snakes; growing up, I had no adult to show me a different way to relate to snakes. Although the fear part persisted, I never felt compelled to harm them.
The old learning becomes a problem
Throughout my adult life I have liked to hike, particularly in the deserts of the Southwest and have had plenty of encounters with these creatures. My old learned response was not fun; whenever I saw a snake on a hike, it was an unpleasant act of will to keep going.
Seeing a problem behavior differently
I learned much from working with my clients as they made changes in their old patterned reactions—and it gradually became clear to me: My own habitual and strong response to snakes could be understood as an attempt to protect me from danger. I never consciously decided to have this protective response. It’s as if the part of me that learned and subsequently managed this response was entrusted with protecting me and, for decades, it earnestly persisted in its efforts—despite my conscious attempts to overpower or otherwise defuse it.
Responding to my own behavior differently
My attitude shifted: When I felt the familiar startle of spotting a snake (or a snake-like twig in the path, which would do it too), I said, as if talking to my unconscious: “Thank you for being so persistent in trying to protect me. I’m okay.”
The old response began to shift
I did this over and over and became aware of how many times the old circuitry triggered while on a hike. I thanked it every time. Gradually it triggered less and less and the startle and fear lessened. One way to frame this change: The old childhood learning was being refined and updated.
Making sustainable change often involves a number of shifts
Seeing an old behavior as an outmoded attempt to accomplish something good is often supportive of change… and likely only part of a larger body of entwined old learnings that need be addressed and untangled as part of the process of making sustainable change.
For example, I suffered a number of frightening traumas as a child. For me, snakes became a trigger not only for the fear associated with seeing my Grandmother kill one, but also for the fear associated with other frightening childhood events. I had to address those first before having a clearing in which to begin to change my response to snakes.
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Unconscious learning
We learn many things—walking, talking, attitudes, how to respond in various situations, what to avoid, or what a snake is and how to respond to it—without knowing we have learned them. I call this unconscious learning (see post Unconscious learning). What is learned reflects both the circumstances in which we learn it and our understandings and resources available at the time.
In other words, in the past, what we learned about how to be and behave, how to act, how to think, how to respond—was the best learning we could do at the time. In my case above, given my circumstances, learning to strongly fear snakes can be seen as a sane and self-protective response.
The old learning can become outmoded
When we learn something unconsciously—like our attitudes and strategies towards adventures, snakes, or getting out of bed in the morning—it functions on autopilot (see post A frame for how we learning). The upside: We can function based on that old learning without having to consciously think about it. The downside: As we change, or as our circumstances change, our functioning doesn’t change to reflect the new conditions… which may be okay… or it may generate a problem.
The old learning can be refined
In other words: As we change and as our circumstances change, an old learning may no longer fit our circumstance and, as a consequence, can become a problem. In my case, as an outdoor-loving adult, I was able to refine my old learning about snakes in a way that now allows me more ease and comfort while still taking adequate care of myself.
In my story, above, and in the subsequent examples in the next two posts, hypnosis was used as support for refining the old, constraining learning.
More in the next two posts.
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Your comments are welcomed.
Footnote
Humans may be born with a self-protective fear of snakes. David Haskell describes this in his book “The Forest Unseen”:
“My fear of predators was likely imprinted on my psyche by millions of years of natural selection…. Like all other living creatures, I am the descendant of survivors, so the fear in my head is the voice of my ancestors whispering their accumulated wisdom”
Refining and updating my response to snakes likely involves striking a balance between an old childhood learning of intense fear and dysfunctional paralysis and an even older wisdom of self-protection.
The quote is from David George Haskell (2012). “The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature.” Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, p137.
