How counterconditioning and systematic desensitization can help us achieve almost anything we want.

If you’ve been on this planet for any amount of time, you’ll realize that sometimes getting yourself to do the things you want to do can be a major pain in the ass.

Why is it so hard for humans to get themselves to do what they want. It’s sometimes like we don’t have nearly as much control over our behavior as we would like. It’s almost like our minds are working against us sometimes.

Well, in a sense, it is. This is because there are very different parts of the brain with very different agendas. Our neocortex is very logical and rational. But our limbic system is the complete opposite. It runs almost completely on emotions. At the most simple level, all it cares about is pleasure and pain. It runs toward pleasure and runs from pain.

Why is it so hard for us to just make a decision and go for the things we want. Why is it easy for John to go get the mail, but Jeremy has a hard time talking to that girl (or boy) he finds cute.

Well it’s simply that these two parts of the brain are not in harmony. The logical neocortex wants something, but the pain avoiding limbic system will ultimately override what the neocortex wants. And when these two parts communicate and the brain associates a stimuli with a negative or positive feeling, we call that conditioning.

Imagine you’re a dog. Your owner gets you a new invisible fence. It’s one of those collars that delivers a small shock whenever you get near the perimeter. At first, you don’t know what’s going on. You go about your day and as time goes on, your yard gets boring to you, and you want to travel into the neighbor’s yard. You wonder over, passed the little invisible fence flag and ZAP. You get a shock. You get a small punishment for trying to cross the flag. The next day you try it again, near a different flag and ZAP, you get a shock. Now this has happened 5 times, and you unconsciously realize that flags = pain. You think “I’ll be damned if I go near those asshole flags again! All they do is bite me!” (Nobody said dogs have a very realistic view of really.) And after eating bitten by these flags numerous times, your owner removes the underground system that delivers the shocks, sells it on eBay and takes off your collar, but you’ll be damned if you go near those carnivorous flags. You’re not getting tricked again. Even if someone told you that nothing would happen, the memory would still remain and the fear would stop you.

Now humans are much smarter right? We can’t trick humans the same way. Well let’s take Jimmy for example. Jimmy sees a pretty blonde girl he’s attracted to, and starts to walk over to her. But all of a sudden a feeling comes over Jimmy that maybe it’s not a good idea. He really wants to, but something just stops him in his tracks. He don’t consciously know where this feeling is negative coming from, but it’s just a mental block that tells him not to do it.

Now if we dig deeper we realize that this feeling originated from when Jimmy was in 8th grade, he went to go talk to Jane, a pretty blonde girl he had a crush on, tripped over his shoelaces, and landed face first into a tray of Spaghetti-O’s. Needless to say, Jane didn’t find Jimmy’s Spaghetti-O attire too attractive and he got the nickname Chef Boyard-weeb.

Now his traumatic Spaghetti-O experience has no relevance today. Jim now owns his own business, owns his own house, and the bar he’s in doesn’t even serve Spaghetti-O’s. Yet an experience from over 20 years ago is preventing ‘ol Jimbo from doing the Mattress Mambo with Stacy over there. The associated pain outweighs the possible pleasure.

This type of conditioning affects us in business, sports, love and every aspect of our lives.

Originally, this type of fear response was meant to keep our ancestors from danger. And while it’s helpful, sometimes it prevents us from doing the things we want.

Almost all moderately complex creatures learn the same way. The organism comes into contact with pain, the brain records it so that next time that organism comes near contact with the same stimuli, it’s warned before it gets Spaghetti-O’s in it’s hair again.

It works by etching emotional memories into our consciousness. If a gazelle is attacked by a lion, and happens to escape, all the stimuli that happened prior to that event will be etched into it’s neurons forever. It may have heard rustling in the bushes or seen a moving shadow. Now, the next time that gazelle hears rustling bushes, it’s body will be pumped full of stress hormone and adrenaline putting it into Fight or Flight Mode.

This is the basis of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Someone may start freaking out when they hear a certain song. But upon further examination we may find that 10 years ago they were in a very serious car accident and that was the exact song playing at the time.

Obviously being afraid of a song serves no good purpose to an organism’s survival. But natural selection doesn’t demand perfection, it just demands “good enough.” Evolution is sometimes like a 1st grader’s paper mache project. You think it’s incredible that it was created in the first place, but in reality, the finished product kinda sucks.

So why is it so hard for us to do the things we want sometimes?

The reason we don’t do the things we need to do is because somewhere deep down we have negative feelings associated with those things.

This may be the most important thing you will ever learn.

Humans are programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Our logical mind may want something, but if our primitive, emotional mind associates it with pain, fear or negativity, it will make it difficult or impossible for us. Anytime our mind associates more pain than pleasure with an action, it will not allow us to do that action.

Many people wish they could quit smoking, or start a business. But the truth is, if their mind associates more pain than pleasure to what they want to do, their mind will not allow them.

But what if we could erase the pain associated with the actions we want to take? What if we could tip the scales in our favor. What if we could remove these mental blocks, where your brain stops you, and associate pleasure with it instead.

Well we can. Through a process called counterconditioning.

Now before we get into the exact technique, we have to learn how systematic desensitization works. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that since you’re reading this blog, you know about Pavlov’s Dogs. If you don’t, the shot version is: Pavlov had dogs, rang a bell, brought steaks and after a while the dogs started to salivate at the sound of the bell, whether steaks were there or not. This is conditioning.

The gazelle hearing a rustling in the bushes got paired with the feeling of having the lion’s claws of death 6 inches deep in it’s ass.

That’s conditioning.

And once the stimuli and emotional response is paired, counterconditioning is removing the emotional response from the stimuli. It’s removing the fear of starting a business. It’s removing the fear of Spaghetti-Os.

How do you remove it? You simply pair it to something else. You pair it to an incompatible emotional state. One common state is relaxation. You put yourself or the client in a very related state and have them think of that stimuli or emotion again. Do it a few times and the idea of talking to the pretty blonde women is no longer paired with fear, it’s paired with relaxation. All of a sudden the pleasure outweighs the pain.

If you want a little extra oomph, you can pair it to a positive emotional state. Think of the stimuli, then think of your favorite food, or anything else you enjoy.

Put on your favorite song and think about the stimuli.

One common phobia treatment is you give the client their favorite food, then gradually introduce them to the thing they’re afraid of. You start with pictures, 30 feat away, then 20, 10, then the real thing and eventually the fear object is repaired with the enjoyable food.

I knew a neuroscientist who loved Jellybelly Jelly beans and he used to eat them while doing taxes so that he would associate enjoyment to doing taxes.

Now back to the action you want to take. Imagine yourself taking that action. Notice the feelings that come up. Notice the fears, the anxieties. Note how they block you. It’s likely that it’s more than one fear. It’s somewhat abstract, but the trick is to turn the fear or negative emotion into a visual abstraction. Turn it into a picture. And the desensitize. Anything you find, use the Counterconditioning on. Dig deeper. Try to figure out where the fear originated. Remember that scenario. Countercondition it. Visualize the fear. See it as a cloud. See what color it is. See what pictures and memories from your past they remind you of. Countercondition them. While you see the cloud of fear, relax yourself. Or, with your eyes closed, you can look up. Looking up is representative of a positive emotional state, and will counter condition negative emotion. Or think of things you find enjoyable. Really we’re trying to find things incompatible with negativity. Think of scenarios from different angles. The more junk you find, the easier it will be to take action. Once you remove all fear, anxiety, pain and negativity, benefits will outweigh the costs and action will be effortless and natural.

One other trick is, to try to find beliefs. These are mental rules. “It’s not socially appropriate to _____,” “Business owners are ________,” these are all mental blocks as well. Their paired stimuli in disguise. “Business owners are _________” is business owners being paired with an emotional state. If it’s something negative and you want to start a business, having that belief will block you.

When you’re actually in a real life situation, note your emotions too. Sometimes it’s easy to leave things behind. It’s easy to overlook little anxieties and blockages. If you find more, no big deal… write them down and countercondition them later.

Every block you remove is like removing a hurdle to your success.

For more information, here’s another guide on Systematic Desensitization:

http://www.guidetopsychology.com/sysden.htm

Happy Desensitizing!