Tuesday 14 May 2013

Ambivalence to Addiction by Prof FT

Higher Order Systems versus Lower Order Systems.
Can we train our HIGHER ORDER SYSTEM?
The higher order might need to energise the lower order too.

Imagine the woman who is married to a drunkard. She is forced to have sex with him. She has a higher level intention that overrides the disgist of the lower level.
The wanting goes up and the liking remains much the same.
Sometimes it works the other way around. A happily married couple never get around to sex but enjoy if they ever get around to it. They no longer wat each other but like each other.


Id of Freud is wild and constrained by the super ego. And Skinner discuessed basic reinforcement issues.

Ambivalence

"I had prayed to you for chastity and said "Give me chastity and continence but not yet." For I was afraid that you would answer my prayer at once and cure me too soon of the disease of lust which I wanted satisfied, not quelled."
St Augustine, Confessions Book VIII. 7

Conflict between wanting to stop and be different but then not in a way that others might suggest. I wanted change but on my terms.

Some people talk about acting on instinct and this might suggest that the lower system or the older system within the brain is in charge. So when does it occur that reason and logic, the more evolved part of the brain can override the wild side, the side that wants to be satisified in terms of St Augutus?
What was the point for eample when I'd had enough even though I didn't know what it was that I had had enough of or what I needed to do? When was it that I gave in to AA for instance and let this programme support or develope the supposed missing evolved side of me?

An instincutal murder as opposed to a serial killer which is premeditated urder such as Ted Bundy. Vincent Tabak however, was this premeditated or unplanned as suggested by Prof FT. He murdered a girl in Bristol. He watched violent pronography it was discovered. He saw a smile as a come on sign and followed that up somehow. In her presence perhaps he was replaying the fantasies that seemed to take over. This seems to be the conclusion the police made. Bandura certainly produed evidence that would suggest that behaviours can be learnt or indeed inspired through mimicing others and in fact the censoring of TV programmes for children was based on this evidence. I think this was in the 70's it really started. There is a separate argument perhaps for the removal of choice perhaps weakening the self-censorship that might come through experience. There will be the percentage of people I am supposing that will never develop a self-censorship and perhaps that links in with addiction. Again I am not sure at what point I knew that I couldn't go onin the way I was going. It was destructive and I was so very unhappy. Despite desperately seekig the feel good factor I was simply getting to under normal which was better at least than despair. But it wasn't enough.

MOTIVATION theory

Biopsychosocial -
lures bring us on like magnets to certain behaviours. The fundamental drives being hunger, thirst, lust. Satisfied with food, drink and sex.
Incentives pull on our behaviour. And this seems to be general across all motivations.

The combination of the physical stimulus and the cognitive representation, for example imagination, that can stimulate behaviours or in other words underlie motivation.

I can so identify this with sex addiction. Just yesterday talking about the fantasy of M/s with G was stimulatig. I did not have to have any physical stimulation to feel desire purely based on memories and imagination. I was aroused and wanted G to play along. However, there is another side that is developing withi me. Instead of being animalisitic, instinctive or level 1 of the system, I also recognise how that draw, that lure can be dangerous. I can see how it removes from the two people just as they are. The role play can become the relationship and something is lost. It becomes all about sex. I could feel it happenig in a sense and then where would G and I be in that situation again. I could feel the pull though. And last night I was tempted to take a look at SL. I signed into the website and thank goodness noone was logged on that could have been a further lure. It is there within me. I fell into the cyber sex routine so easily with LW and felt the shame and also he disappointment within me that I had been disloyal to G despite myself. It is a strong and powerful driver of my behaviour counter to my spiritual principles that I value so highly. Gosh!

Skinner developed his box drawing on the natural motivation of hunger. He showed that the rat would "learn" to press a lever to get food. A behaviour that would not necessarily be a natural behaviour
And so incentive motivation theory - based on homeostasis, the tendency of the body to keep the body stable.
Homeostasis however is not the dominant drive, the incentive is shown to be the stronger drive.
Ie when intravenously injected with water this wasn't enough to create the learning in the rat - ie the lever injection pairing.


Some addictions can be mutually supporting because they share a bit of common brain machinery. Sex and drugs, alcohol and gambling for example - basically describing what I see call cluster addictions.


Drugs hijack biologically-adaptive processes.
They cheat the system and use the system - lure with the incentive for their potent consequences.
There is no advantage to survival to using drugs but lure on their changed effect.

Dopamine out of alignment casue catastrophe. It is used only in a small number of areas in the brain.
It is believed to be a part of the seeking out - the incentive activity in the brain.
It seems to make life seem good - excitation of the dopaminergic system.

Incentive salience - dopamine turns life into magnets that draw us in.

Tolman and Bowls Bindra - 3 giants in the research of addiction.

There is  specific brain pathway that seems linked with the magnet behaviour, the lure to the outside world.
Change is key in this area of the brain. Coolidge Effect - wanting uncertainty and change. It excited dopamine. Las Vegas research is full of people with uncertainty, machines maximising on uncertainty.
Dovovyetsy, The Gambler - was suddenly overcome by risk.
Uncertainty drives for more and more of it.

The nearer to the target the more intense the pull of the magnet. Motivational myopia. Strongly motivated means that consequences get ignored i.e. ignore the effect on waistline when wanting to eat
Discounting the future.

Differences in brains shows that stimulated by sex or food and the pathway activity with individuals meant that the researcher could predict their behaviour in connection with food and sex.

Measuring cravings - some people are craving at the image of food for example. Some people are strong cravers and others not. It's triggered by cues.
Common dopaminergic centres - this could spill over into making another incentive attractive. Sex for example is used to sell other things - cars, smoking etc.

Ian Huntley - perhaps it was not planned and happened on impulse. He thought he was on to a good thing but discovered he wasn't and something spilled over into his aggression.


Addiction
Dopamine underlies our wanting of the addiction.

Dopamine medication shows that it spills over into the wanting pathway and [eople develop an addiction.
People like drugs and alcohol and sex etc. Liking is driven by the opioids in the brain.


Rat pups protest when taken away from their mother. Injected with morphoine their distress is greatly reduced. Soothing.

Nicotine is one of the most difficult to give up of the substances.
Thene tere are behavioural addictions - there are natural opioids in the brain. If injecting opioid for example the brain is artificially stimulated then.
Life is not broken down anymore into physical or psychological. Now they are known to be both.

All addictions serve the end to bring up the level of opiods. Short term pleasure for long term pain is the trade off.

Even with all the misery the addict believes that life is better than without despite the long term pain.

If shown the trigger cue there is low level dopiminergic activity. ie show a sex addict pornogrpahy then the craving is triggered. And the drive to get the person and the craving gets stronger when the possibility gets more probable.

There is an example of flight crew who are smokers - one short haul and one long haul team. The short term crew craved the closer they got to Berlin but the other crew didn't start craving strongly until approaching Japan.

Smoking however don't get a high rate as do cocaine addicts for example. It's not a massive noticeable rush.

Want what we like and like what we want.
Liking can come down though. A dissociation can occur as they are two seperate bases.
ONe dopamine and one opioid.

An addict will approach cues.

Control and motivation come together - how to weaken the influence of system one.
Preemptive action - Homer - he knew he'd given in to temptation but he knew that he needed to take preemptive action - ie. could resist the lure.
Food TEMPTATIONS - if you feel you may give in and value your waistline take your own food and don't wait as in the "hot" state you will give in.
Gamblers often put themselves on the banned list as if they get there they will give in to the temptation.
Some are good at restraint some are not.
Wilde - I couldn't help it I could resist everything but temptation.

There are differences in people with regard to temptation. It shows in rats as well.
Some rats will engage more vigorously than others - there is a large amount of incentive salience.
Both incentivised in the same way but some are more intrigued than others.
Thre seems to be a tendency towards the low level control and the high level control but whats the difference.
The ones that are vigorous have a high level of dopamine in the brain - they have certain traits and things become a positive reinforcer in their own right.
Is it the same in humans?

Love Prof FT who is so proud of his photo with Skinner.

Skinner was the father of operant conditioning. Reinforcement - we do them because we get reinforced.
There were two students who challenged this - they talked about the misbehaviour ...
Misbehaviour can be a priming word in cognitive explanations.
They trained animals to work for food. They would pick up a coin and earn food that way.
Thigns went down hill and behaviours degenerated. Aniumals did anything but deposit the coin.
The conditioning gave the token enormous incentive salience.
Dovovetsjy talked about the racing heart as he neared the gambling hall. Fetishes are usually a male phenomenon - and could be linked with similar to high incentive atttributions to the fenmal attire is underdriven by dopamine.

Addiction is a stronger than normal system 1 and weaker system 2.
The prefrontal brain is damaged with certain drugs.

relapse - predictive lures will weaken the resolve to quit.
Vietnam War was an example that only some are actually addictive. The expectation was theat there would be an increase in drug addicts. There wasn't the levels returned to the same as they were.

There is more and more addiction in society - not just substances but behaviours too. It is suggested that there is dislocation driving addiction. People are torn from their social norms.
Opiates reduce distress of separation - a social alienation might underlie addiction.

Is biology the issue or is it sociology? I don't think it can be extricated as a separateness.
Of course it's both. The fact that the environment changes is also linked within internal environmental changes.
Both are crucial to each other.

As a species we are most able to predict the future and yet discount this with addiction.

Why do we vote the way we do?
Is it appearance? - Kennedy was tanned, taller and more attractive
Evidence suggests that its not just issues that people vote on
Dispassionate vision is one level - Passionate vision - people are moved by what is illicit in the person
2 systems? They co-exist and we make up our mind based o appeals to system 1 or system 2?
Bush for example appealed more to system 1 ie he could get on with people.
Those who were attracted to the more cignitive canditate may have been stronger on system 2.

Balance - Obama- appealed to both.
Clinton seemed to appeal to both. He did get out of kilter. But his speeches were genius.
Consumer society produces an excessive level of wants.

System 2 both needs to energise and restrain ie ie the driver and the horse. The driver needs to get the horse going but also slow it down when necessary.
If the horse takes control the drive is being disengaged.
It will operate then at a very low level - prediction and awareness are removed.

Politicians. How well bealanced are system 1 and 2.
Bush appealed to system 1 - TWICE.
What drives the politician. Driven by system 1 and 2 in combination.
There may be a bias towards system 1 - does a psychopath have a higher drive by system 1?
Gore or Kerry work on system 2 and appeal to system 2 people.
Clinton is a textbook case of getting the balance of the two systems.
Highly intellectual but incredibly affable.

Approach and avoidance - the control of active behaviour ie moving towards or avoiding and aversive situation. If the animal avoids a shcok to its foot then that pathway is activated.
There is a pathway that seems to characterise depression. Three is a distinction b etween wanting and liking
Some people just don't want but if can get out of bed do enjoy what they engae with ie the liing is till therre. Some people can not want nor like

Smoking- manage to quits. Some people will stay awayfrom addictions - is system 2 more dominant?
What a dread for the good question. There is no answer to this question.
Yes the system 2 seems to become more active if they manage to quit.
Why do some people get this inspiration to swtich off the habit totally - does chock treatment trick system 2 into activity?
Nicotine only ever takes away the distress of not having it. Possibly.
ALEXANDER SAYS THAT THE DISLOCATION OR DISPOSSESED TURN TO ADDICTION.
Not everyone smolking is dislocated or dispossed but it creates a craving for itself.
It doens't bring any great hedonism expect the alleviation of the craving
Why do some people kick the habit?

Nicotone is only addictive for 3 days - the habitual side is the difficulty afterwards.
Change things and behaviours around the smoking and it starts to break the addiction cues.
A 60 a day smoker was given some support and given some suggestions. There was something about not being told and believed the persona dn followed the suggestions.
Belief is therefore important in people deciding to follow the path of change.

Influence could be key in giving up.











Bliss




 

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