Posted by alexandra_k2 on December 20, 2005, at 17:37:39
In reply to Re: emotional encapsulation » alexandra_k2, posted by Dinah on December 20, 2005, at 16:17:15
> Maybe the spider thing is partly that the choice of which thought to challenge isn't correct. Maybe the internal thought isn't "It's dangerous" but rather "It's a spider" so all the thinking in the world that it's not dangerous doesn't alter the very true fact that it's a spider. Probably a fair number of people who are afraid of spiders aren't afraid of danger at all.
well... fear is supposed to arise in response to a stimulus that poses a danger / threat or in response to a stimulus that is perceived as posing a danger / threat. by definition. it is thought... that that is simply what fear *means* and that conceptual analysis of the meaning of the word 'fear'... tells us about the *real nature* of fear.
it is a funny approach.
philosophers are moving away from conceptual analysis and are having an increased respect for sciences ability to have us revise our concepts.
a lot of that has to do with... Kripke's causal / historical theory of reference. Where the appropriate reference of natural kind terms (eg fear and belief and spider and tree etc) are thouht to be... determined by science rather than by a-priori conceputal analysis...fear...
has an evolutionary function...
to prepare for flight.
when all goes well, the proper function of fear is to prepare us for flight when the stimuli actually poses a threat to us.some people... well... it is better to have a false positive (ie run from something that does not pose a threat) rather than a false negative (ie not run from something that can hurt you very much) so their nervous systems are wired up in such a way...
and some people... in their history... associations were learned...
vomit.
i wonder what that means to you Dinah.
and i wonder... what associations that has for you.
of course the associations... may lie in your past and may not be accessible to consciousness.taste aversions tend to result from someone experiencing nausea upon trying the food for the first time. later... all they know is the food tastes / smells 'yuk'. they can't remember the nausea... yet it is in virtue of that that the taste aversion developed...
> ...But *vomit* contamination can't.
Ever?
Do you really believe this...
Wouldn't that conflict with other beliefs you have about disinfectants etc?
Are you confabulating an explanation when other people (or even when you) REQUIRE a rational explanation of your feeling of fear / aversion?
Everybody does this.
I think...
When therapists (especially) REQUIRE us to give a rational explanation for our emotional responses...
That is what leads people into contradiction.
People do confabulate under those circumstances. When we are required to explain something we do not know and the explanandum is OUR thoughts or whatever...
Confabulation under those circumstances is NORMAL.And that...
Seems to be what gets us into trouble...So the CBT therapist is in a win win situation...
OF COURSE people endorse contradictions / irrational beliefs when they experience intense emotion...In the attempt to explain something that cannot be explained via inferential relations (because of encapsulation) people are led to confabulate to endorse contradiction / irrational beliefs.
Make 'em worse in order to help 'em?
I dunno...A little validation...
poster:alexandra_k2
thread:590579
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051216/msgs/590752.html