Addiction is a disease

SirPhilip said:
The communication is lagging because you don't make any damn sense, or write anything with the intention of clarification, but the opposite. The entire purpose of your responses is to make as little sense as possible. Science's ("empiricism") relationship to addiction is simply pharmacology. Behaviorism is psychology, it's just a reductionistic approach to human behavior. Human behavior isn't however, robotic. Human behavior sometimes does become robotic and predictable when there is clear motive for it, for example yours. Nothing I said conflicts with this. See how easy that is? Millionth time, what the hell is your point.
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Perhaps I errored in not spelling things out for you.

When i offered refutations of what you think are obvious things, i did not realise that you didn't understand why they were refutations. I will fill in the blanks from now on. I apologise again.

Rehaviorism, except for radical behaviorism, assumes that people have free will and are capable of making choices to change their behavior.

I will try to find a source to spell it out for you.

Stomp your feet if you wish.
 
SirPhilip said:
Thanks for making that clear, in any case. It doesn't happen often. You happen to be having an exchange with someone who enjoys the challenge of making sense out of ambiguous issues and topics. A discussion requires someone else with the same intention. That clearly is not your intention. Your intention is to antagonize. This isn't an ambiguous topic either. The reason a mess exists isn't because I'm not checking my statements, the context of them, or because I'm even disagreeing with you, but because you are a textbook case of "I lack the maturity to admit when I'm wrong, so I'm going to make a big mess..". In fact, anyone can click back and can see the common theme: cleaning up your mess, putting you back on context, summarizing your statements. Why am I doing this? You simply refuse to make sense. The more I tick you off, which is your own fault, the more visible it gets: you ask braindead, retarded, completely idiotic questions (evidence Sade was a sex addict, evidence anorexia having something to do with an aversion to obesity), the motive being obvious. In fact, you just created a separate, braindead thread with my name in it. Oops.

You did however, accomplish several goals:

- Rendering yourself undefeatable.
- Making me look foolish for taking you seriously. I'm not really perturbed as there are still otherwise smart people taking David Jay Jordan seriously.

You are also giving me a headache. Which is something of an accomplishment considering my interest in meditation. Now, please, go away.
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Now that is an interesting response to the words

"I apologise".
 
customer reviews of Feeling Good on Amazon.com


calebprime here: There are around 175 customer reviews on Amazon.

This is the first one with much substance, or perhaps the first one I liked. It has that ambivalence I seem to like so much....




I'm pasting it in here in full. Maybe that's too much for copyright...


15 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

Overmarketed, but somewhat worthwhile, July 22, 2006


By Janet Harper - See all my reviews

As I read this book, it was hard for me to forget that psychiatrists, as a group, are one of the highest paid groups of people in the world. Most of the ones I've had the privelege of visiting have been attractive, well educated, well paid, and have a high degree of personal autonomy. Which is why, after the boating accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down, and with some injury to my brain, I had a hard time believing that any of them could possibly understand what I was going through, in spite of their obvious intelligence (and I still can't understand why more people don't see how ironic it is that these are the people we turn to for help).

Which is why, when someone presented my with this book (a psychiatrist) and I read that the cause of my misery was cognitive "distortions" I felt like visiting Dr. Burns house and giving him some "disortions" for my own, if you know what I mean.

I'm only kidding about the house visit, of course, but I did have some hesitation knowing that the person who was claiming that the cause of my problem was my lack of "clear tinking" was someone who had full use of legs, and his arms as well!.

But after I had read a substantial portion of the book, and tried out some of the ideas, I realized that I did feel a bit better than before. Maybe not as much as the cover predicted I would, but some. Furthermore, I realized that at no point in the book did Dr. Burns say he he was utterly confident he would be able to follow his own advice if placed in my situation. At that point, I began to see him as more human. Now, I am still capable of envying him without hating him or resenting him so much.

I believe that all of us, when confronted with adversity, can find strengths we didn't know we had, but I don't want to go overboard on this. Dr. Burns encourages us not to magnify our problems, or discount the positive; but no matter how much positive thinking I use my life is still not going to be as good as it was before and I have no problem admitting it. I have no desire to be a hero in public because I know that behind the scenes it would always be a different story, at least for me.

I am also someone who believes that, as a disabled person, and as someone who has dealt with depression for a very long time, that I am the one who gets to choose my ultimate fate, and nobody else. I would never suggest suicide as the answer to anyone, especially when you consider what can happen when it isn't done right, but I do think that in the case of someone who has dealt with A LOT of adversity and can see no end to it, isn't necessarily irrational for wanting to pulll the plug on their life. They shouldn't have to listen to others (especially sanctimonious ones who have never been in the same situation) who tell them that they are just being "irrational" or that they will go to hell because they are rejecting the life their creator gave them, or any such insults.

This also applies to "distorted thinking". While there is a chance your thinking is distorted, maybe it really isn't. But I do think you should at least give therapy a chance. Some of these well paid, able-bodied people with plaques on their office walls, houses on the beach and so forth (ok, maybe its exaggerated) can, whether we like it or not, turn out to be our best friends.
 
Dancing David said:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2626267&postcount=391

"Narcotics like cocaine and pu opioid receptor agonists, despite being the most effective antidepressants in existence," You are right you didn't says morphine , you said cocaine and pu opiod receptor agonists here.

research, evidence and data
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David, you relentless fountain of incoherence, morphine is a (the!) pu opioid receptor agonist. Cocaine and pu opioid receptor agonists are also arguably the two most powerful 'mood' altering substances in the world. Now, cheer me up and contest this.
 
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Dancing David said:
Perhaps I errored in not spelling things out for you.

When i offered refutations of what you think are obvious things, i did not realise that you didn't understand why they were refutations. I will fill in the blanks from now on. I apologise again.

Rehaviorism, except for radical behaviorism, assumes that people have free will and are capable of making choices to change their behavior.

I will try to find a source to spell it out for you.

Stomp your feet if you wish.
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No, by all means. Those apologies and short paragraphs, you've turned a new corner. I can play stupid, certainly.
 
SirPhilip said:
David, you relentless fountain of incoherence, morphine is a (the!) pu opioid receptor agonist. Cocaine and pu opioid receptor agonists are also arguably the two most powerful 'mood' altering substances in the world. Now, cheer me up and contest this.
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Allright so now you agree that you stated morphine is a way to treat depression as in an anti-depressant. I suppose you can find some way to demonstrate that somebody else shares that belief. So where is the citations and documentation? That morphine can be used as an antidepressant?

I had assumed that there were other pu opiod receptor agonsits.

And perehaps you mean mu-receptor agonist and that morphine was the first one that was found to bind to the mu-receptor site?

You claim it is an antidepressant, who else agrees with you?
 
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SirPhilip said:
No, by all means. Those apologies and short paragraphs, you've turned a new corner. I can play stupid, certainly.
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So can you show me any research that says 'situational depression' can not be treated with anti-depressants?

I won't haul out a laundry list. We can take them one at a time.

I am on the same street as always, perhaps you will actualy respond with more than just personal opinions.

I don't think yiou play stupid, I just didn't realize that i would have to connect the dots for you. But then you can always return to baseless assertions without evidence. I hope you don't.
 
Dancing David said:
...Rehaviorism, except for radical behaviorism, assumes that people have free will and are capable of making choices to change their behavior...
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I don't know any psychological scientists that buy into "free will". Determinism is a general assumption of behavioral science. Why waste your life trying to study the causes of behavior if it has no cause?
The only school that postulates "free will" is the Humanistic one associated with Maslow and Rogers.
 
Jeff Corey said:
I don't know any psychological scientists that buy into "free will". Determinism is a general assumption of behavioral science. Why waste your life trying to study the causes of behavior if it has no cause? The only school that postulates "free will" is the Humanistic one associated with Maslow and Rogers.
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Most human behavior could be, in theory, reduced and rough determinations about future behavior made, but only roughly. Hence a degree of "free will". Humans behavior isn't computer code - behavior stems from emotional motivation, which is fundamentally abstract and ephemeral in nature. An astronomer for example, isn't born more intelligent - they develop an emotional interest in the subject. When someone has a strong impetus, their behavior becomes predictable. Some people are so disordered and constrained by this, they cannot even control their behavior. Let's keep some perspective though - these types of profiling aren't even applied to potential leaders of the free world yet.
 
Ignorance of the causes of behavior doesn't imply "free will". It merely implies ignorance.
 
Intuition As Equation..

Jeff Corey said:
Ignorance of the causes of behavior doesn't imply "free will". It merely implies ignorance.
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My point was it's intractable - it's very easy to make seemingly valid associations that aren't real causes. Freud frequently did, and made more humor than sense. I doubt it is possible to accurately organize general behavior at all. Even the DSM doesn't approach it (possible exceptions being NPD and ASP). Criminal psychologists and market analysts constantly attempt to do this.
 
Jeff Corey said:
I don't know any psychological scientists that buy into "free will". Determinism is a general assumption of behavioral science. Why waste your life trying to study the causes of behavior if it has no cause?
The only school that postulates "free will" is the Humanistic one associated with Maslow and Rogers.
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Really, cool!
This sounds a lot like the random thing in Mijo's evolution thread. When I say free will I do not mean that there are not causal determined relationships. I mean when confronted with a stimuli that humans seem to be capable of making choices other than the ones that they are conditioned to make.
Such as in this thread: when an alcoholic sees a beer commercial on TV and self identifies that they had the thought "I should have a beer, I should go buy some" and then they do something other than buy a beer.


But then I should have said the illusion of free will.

Just out of curiosity if there is no free will (ability to make choices) how then does one change cognition trains in CBT?
 
Jeff Corey said:
Ignorance of the causes of behavior doesn't imply "free will". It merely implies ignorance.
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True it also depends upon the nature of the word determinism, I have noted two uses on this board.

Determinism when used by scientists: there are causal relationships which can be found to underlie complex and simple events. These events can be controlled and tested to determine the causal relationships.

Determinism as used by philosopher: determinism means that if one was to go back in time and reset an event it will run the same way each time. The future could be predicted if one had enough data. Very similar to Calvin’s predestination. Events are constrained to always end up the same way. Robotics as it were. (A robot without chaotic behavior).
 
Dancing David said:
...Just out of curiosity if there is no free will (ability to make choices) how then does one change cognition trains in CBT?
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A pigeon or a lab rat has the ability to make a choice in a two response (multiple schedule) operant conditioning experiment. Herrenstein;s Matching Law can predict their behavior. Do they have "free will"?
And I teach Applied Behavior Analysis and have no idea what a "cognition train" is or how to change one, except maybe at the Jamacia Station. Does it have anything to do with Ellis' RET?
 
Jeff Corey said:
A pigeon or a lab rat has the ability to make a choice in a two response (multiple schedule) operant conditioning experiment. Herrenstein's Matching Law can predict their behavior. Do they have "free will"?
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Do they? Is it probabilistic?
Are they trained to press the bar?
Can we count anything outside of the bar press and record if they stand on their hind legs (rat) and if they scratch their ear?
And again I should have said "apparent free will"; you could have the ability to make choices outside of the loop (to new stimuli) or choices that impact the outcome.

But I don't know if rats or pigeons have free will. I worked with rats, I think they have a small measure of the illusory free will.

I don't know I believe that I operate as though I have free will.
And I teach Applied Behavior Analysis and have no idea what a "cognition train" is or how to change one, except maybe at the Jamacia Station. Does it have anything to do with Ellis' RET?
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Sorry, sloppy speech I am sure. One of the things I used to hear and use at work in social services.

Especially in Linnehan's Dialectic Based Therapy we used to talk about chaining of cognition and at some point somebody started using the term entrainment. And in the Linnehan model you use the standard model that you use in many forms of behavior modification (I think I first encountered it when I was trained about JPT (Juvenile Perpetrator team). There they used a cognitive/behavioral flow chart when someone said something like "I don't know how it happened" or "It was their fault".

Then they start at the point where they dropped accountability, "What did you do before you stuck it in?" and they learn to identify at least ten steps prior to the act
10. Use left hand to hold down victim while inserting.
09. Removed wrapper off of that to be inserted (IE clothing)
08. Unzip pants.
07. Watch and coerce victim into removing clothing.
06. Tell victims they must remove their clothing.
05. Check to make sure room is secure and private.

And so on until they identify at least ten choices they made prior to the moment of penetration.

In theory the perp learns that they make choices that lead to the consequence of their perpetration.
In DBT people who might be living with Borderline Personality Disorder do it concerning perisuicidal acts.

The person who wishes to change their behavior, maps out the chain, or webs of cognition and behavior. then they set goals to change that behavior, first through self monitoring, second setting a goal to change a precursor behaviors, recording incidence of trigger cognition or event, records actual behaviors in response to trigger. Something like that. Except they have therapy (individual) and group psycho education and therapy, as well as a comprehensive [plan with all participants to cooperate with the b-mod program.

At some point the people around me started talking about the "trains of cogntion","the trains of behavior","entrainment","derailing","switching tracks" and other things that came from the idea of "entrainment" (which may be Ellis and RET, one of the substance abuse guys running groups was big on RET) and "trains of thoughts and behaviors".

Sorry, it may have been a thing that was just being used in central Illinois in the central Illinois mental health community; I also heard it at trainings out side of work and with other agencies and "experts".
 
SirPhilip said:
Humans behavior isn't computer code - behavior stems from emotional motivation, which is fundamentally abstract and ephemeral in nature.
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When you say "abstract" and "ephemeral", what are you saying, exactly?

Regarding computers, there are some programs designed to make them perform "randomly" this is called fuzzy logic. You might be interested in the subject.

I also agree with DD in that there are not "psychological causes" and "physiological causes" for depression. The first category does not exist, if the organism reacts the cause its physiological.
 
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