Posted by 64Bowtie on March 22, 2004, at 17:23:10
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by DaisyM on March 22, 2004, at 14:23:41
>Discontentment comes in often when there is a disconnect between you philisophical leanings and your reality.
>
<<<(You said this in your post...) All philosophy aside please... Discontentment is acted out much the same way as dissatisfaction, would you agree? (no trick questions here...) The neuro folks are not being sneaky-philosophers when they state that along with fear of loud noises and fear of falling, we are hard wired to avoid and overcome dissatisfaction, from birth to death. (we're born complaining, and we die complaining) Most philosophers probably don't know this fact.
You bring conflict into play. Thank you. Many folks might everyday find a conflict between what they think, and what "is". (don't you just love "isness") I'm here all the time asking people to please look at conflict!!! There in lies the aligory of our sanity (or lack of it).Its accepted that it is insane to claim that something isn't when it is there clearly for all to see. Insanity is also accepted diagnosis for someone doing something over and over again hoping for a different outcome, only to repeat the same dissastrous results. Denial gets a bad name when wacky people do this. (actually a well deserved and overdue bad name)
bhc dropped a post in over a month ago about a stanford research project implying that induced forgetting can be significantly more powerful than just forgetting by chance. We can force ourselves to forget better than we can forget by time-and-tides.
What glares out at me in this whole train of thought is, we can't forget to avoid dissatisfaction, only mediate its effects with drugs or hard work. If I am driving down the freeway and some jerk cuts me off in my lane, endangering all the lives around them, I immediately lament that, "There's never a cop around when I need one!" as if the cop is mandated to arrest my upsettness. I'm no longer a two year old, yet for that instant, I act like one. I look for a big person to set things right. "Do your job and arrest that jerk!" grumble, grumble.
Please, (((Daisy))), hang in there. I'm still learning how and when to say stuff about this. Luckily, you and bhc shared on the same thread, so I'll try it again.
The dissatisfaction urge is very powerful and can't be forgotten; it's hard wired into us at birth. The diagnosis of "poor impulse control" is rooted in this urge. Crime is directly related. "Poor conflict resolution strategy" is the mental health diagnosis when folks go from incidence to violence without thought; the dissatisfaction avoidance urge is powerful and compelling. Even coercion takes a little planning.
It sounds like I could go on and on, because I could about something so pervasive and so denied. Ultimately, when we change our habits to those that produce aesthetically pleasing results, we then can find mediation. Before that, we wallow in dysfunction that is protected by denial, and our indecision blocks our understanding.
None of this is subtle or philosophical. We have a thinking disorder that mitigates our bad behavior. Philosophy cannot guarantee a remedy for a thinking disorder just because both have something to do with thinking, especially one so hard wired. Time for CBT or DBT to step in and help if the disorder is toooo severe or chronic.
Rod
PS: I have been trained to counsel for this senario, but I'm only one of a handful so trained. The environment was working with chemical and person abusers assigned by the courts. Then David Peck died without resolution...
poster:64Bowtie
thread:326975
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040321/msgs/327114.html