(This blog was originally posted on May 23, 2014)
It’s
10 p.m., and your presentation for work is still not complete. This is your
last chance to make a positive impression on your employers since your last two
projects were abject failures and lost the company money. But rather than doing
a final edit of your work or even double-checking the facts you plan to discuss,
you are cleaning the break room. Or, you spend time and even money you don’t
have to prepare and bringing meals to a friend who has recently lost his job while
one of your siblings is also out of work and would also appreciate your help. And
my favorite, albeit most extreme, example on this theme: Anthony Hopkins’
character in the 1993 film, The Remains of the Day
continued to work, serving a fancy meal at a manor while his father is dying
nearby. Each of these scenarios is an example of the lengths to which people
are willing to go to avoid or even completely remove ourselves from a
distressing situation or emotions.
According to John Kappas, Ph.D.’s Theory of Mind, each person
is subconsciously motivated to maintain and/or restore a known physical and emotional status of comfort and security. From
the moment we are born, we start to accumulate and associate experiences in the
context of two types of subconscious knowns: positive (pleasure)
or negative (pain). The SCM is
motivated or even programmed to seek the pleasure stimuli; not only do these
experiences and stimuli not hurt (pain), this absence of pain also comes to represent
comfort and security (pleasure). Even when a person’s “usual” behavior or
belief system does not produce a “pleasurable: feeling or association, his or
her SCM will seek stimuli (environmental, physical body) that reinforce the
positive known or association. Even when this known causes physical and/or
emotional discomfort, this is the status to which a person will return because
this is where the SCM is most comfortable.
Each
of the behaviors described in the above scenarios are examples of the ways in
which the subconscious mind does whatever it can to help a person remain
comfortable. It will even employ avoidance behaviors such as procrastination, projection
identification and emotional withdrawal to avoid experiencing emotional,
physical and/or spiritual discomfort (pain) associated with the circumstances. Maybe
you are cleaning the break room because this is a task you are confident you
can do well, while there are no guarantees that the new project will even get
off the ground. Also, it is possible that since your previous projects have
failed, your SCM has created known associations with this status (failure) and
it is trying to maintain this known for you. In the second example, you feel
more comfortable supporting your friend because you worry that you could easily
be in your sibling’s position (out of a job), and you want to distance yourself
from that situation (projection identification). This association could be even
more uncomfortable for you if you are highly motivated to succeed. Finally,
Anthony Hopkins’ character literally withdrew from the emotional pain of his
father’s death by focusing on his job to the extent that he could physically be
“removed” from his father when the other man died. If the men did not share an
emotionally close relationship, we can see how Hopkins’ SCM was simply
following an already-established mental script; any behavior changes at this
stage of his life would be painful.
These
types of avoidance behaviors all share the following characteristics. They are
unconscious, self-deceptive, contain elements of denial, and distort
reality/thoughts/actions. Hypnotherapy can help people work through these
behaviors and associated belief systems.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a
certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with
honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more
information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
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