Doubtdispelled wrote:babel wrote:That is also true of many other things, Babel.
Just out of curiosity, could you tell me what other things require the right mindset in order to work?
Things that require the 'right mindset' either of one, or of both the practitioner, and the patient, or practicee, for want of a better word?
We could go through the alphabet, although it's a sure thing I won't be able to think of something for each letter so I'll go for just a few.
Acupuncture. CBT. Chiropractic. Hypnosis. Learning. NLP. Osteopathy. Psychotherapy. Zen meditation.
Which are real, and which are woo? All apparently require the participants to be in the correct frame of mind for success. The human brain is a strange and mysterious place that as of now we understand very little. Some things work for some people, and not for others. Some people think that Chiropractic is woo, but I was relieved of severe pain in three sessions by (what I came to think of as) a very skilled practitioner. Did I just 'believe' that she could take away the pain I had suffered for months? Who knows.
Uh.... yes and no. I can't help but feel that your use of the term "correct frame of mind for success" is conflating two different and distinct meanings. Claiming that say, CBT and chiropractic both require the "correct frame of mind" to succeed is like saying both medicine and homeopathy require the "correct chemical composition" to succeed. Whilst true, this omits the fact that the "correct chemical composition" for doctors is finding an empirically verified drug that has been demonstrated to help treat some specified illness, whereas for the homeopath the "correct chemical composition" is one that requires the discovery of a form of water that retains the memory of ingredients that have long since been removed from contact.
In other words, it's true that CBT, learning and psychotherapy require you to be in the "correct frame of mind", the difference is that this frame of mind is "being conscious and able to follow instructions", whereas in the other cases it means succumbing to confirmation biases and placebos in order to ignore the fact that they clearly offer no possible causal mechanism in which to work - and this is why they can't ever be demonstrated to have any more effect than doing nothing at all.
Doubtdispelled wrote:I know a man who, suffering from severe difficulties in his intimate life, refused to go for therapy because he said he knew he would 'fight against it.' Was he right not to go, already anticipating failure, or should he have gone anyway, not realising that the 'wrong mindset' would guarantee failure? And then the therapist could claim it was his fault, and correctly at that.
The great thing about CBT and other things in life that have a real world effect, is that even if you go there not really willing to give it a try, you will still notice
some effects. This is because it works independent of whether you pray to fairies or believe old men with needles can cure asthma by stabbing your chi line. So if you are depressed and CBT makes you feel a little less depressed, then you are most likely going to give it a more concerted effort which means you'll follow most of the instructions given to you by the therapist and you'll show substantial improvements.
Getting more on topic though, the problem with overcoming addiction is a basic mathematical one. If we just look at self control, there is one thing that anybody who has had any kind of addiction (ranging from heroin addiction, to having a really bad craving for chocolate cake) knows which is the fact that, ignoring all extraneous influences like family support, nicotine patches etc,
our self control weakens over time. On a slightly more complicated level, we know that the reason we feel our self control 'weaken', is the fact that time affects the value of any given thing according to a hyperbolic decay.
- Exponential vs Hyperbolic graph.jpg (17.88 KiB) Viewed 752 times
In this graph, the top panel shows what really happens and the bottom panel shows what should happen according to the economists' idea of the rational agent and an exponential discounting decay. In very simple terms, the bottom panel assumes that the value of two things (e.g. the left bar being a smaller, sooner reward like "a cigarette" and the right bar being a larger, delayed reward like "sobriety") decreases at the same rate. So the relative difference in values at Time 6 is the same as at Time 0, Time 2, etc etc.
However, like I said, this isn't what happens. Instead what happens is that the value of each item decreases at
different rates and this means that although at a distance (Time 0) you can accurately judge the values of the two items, as time increases and you approach an opportunity to, for example, smoke a cigarette, the value of this item increases so much that we get a
preference reversal (approx. Time 5 on the graph). Self control researchers compare the situation to looking at two buildings from a distance - whilst you can accurately judge which of the two is taller, as you get closer to the smaller front one you can no longer see the building behind it and fail to accurately judge the relative differences in height.
The importance of knowing about preference reversals is that since we know why they happen (or in other words, why we sometimes act impulsively whilst knowing what the better option should be) is that we can manipulate these curves to our advantage. One of the problems with quitting an addiction is that since "sobriety" is a reward that is offset so far into the future (i.e. basically till the day you die), the value of it is effectively negligible when we are faced with a daily opportunity to engage in the smaller, immediate reward. The key then, is to set up numerous rewards that counteract the effects of the smaller reward - for example, if you were health conscious you could maybe set up monthly checkups to watch how your health improves after quitting smoking, or even simpler just set up a chart on the wall where everyday you give yourself something like a smiley face or a tick for not smoking, and if you go a whole week without having a cigarette then you reward yourself with something you enjoy like a bottle of wine, a nice slice of chocolate cake etc. It obviously all depends on what you enjoy and what works for you.
The other, and perhaps more controversial, approach is the suggestion that sometimes complete abstinence is not always possible and at least not when starting out. The idea is that the aim should be a
reduction in engaging in the addictive substance, rather than a complete removal of it. A lot of people will tell you that this doesn't work but this is because they don't structure and monitor their intake. Instead of reducing your intake by simply having the odd one every now and then (which will inevitably lead back to the full level of addiction you were previously at), the recommended approach is to set up a designated time in which you are "allowed" a cigarette. For example, you could say "I am allowed one cigarette before work, and one after 6pm". The trick is just getting into a habit where this is normal, and you no longer instinctually just reach for a cigarette whenever you are outside, or with friends, or having a drink etc. The drawbacks of this approach is obviously that you don't quit - but sometimes a reduction is the best outcome for some people, and perhaps with time you'd be able to limit yourself to one cigarette before work and nothing else, then only one cigarette on a Friday evening, etc.
by 
