1.4: WILL & THE PSYCHE

We are each dealt a particular biology, psychological history, and current social environment. From these parts emerges a new entity: – the Psyche – with attributes that did not exist before. Even the neuron, as remarkable and complex a structure as it is, does not posses consciousness. Experiential phenomena emerge from the activities of many neurons. Opinions, actions and will are properties of the Psyche, but do not exist within any of its component parts.

Some individuals have good cognitive abilities, and are able to predict the likely outcome of making one choice versus another. They may, nevertheless, knowingly choose a less rewarding over a more rewarding alternative. The technical term for this perverse tendency is: Impulsivity.

Dependence occurs when the individual becomes unable to control incentive use despite its obvious destructive consequences. Despite sincere attempts to quit or cut down the individual predictably relapses to the scold from self or others: “Don’t you have any willpower?”

Willpower
Free will refers to the idea that we have the ability to intentionally influence our actions. The contrasting view, Determinism, holds that we actually have no free will, because all of our decisions and actions are completely determined by a set of causes, though they may be unknowable to us. Determinists believe that the experience that we have free will is merely an illusion.

There is a third, or middle, position: Libertarianism – not to be confused with political libertarianism. This view holds that human behavior is determined by many causes including, biological factors, psychological conditioning, and current social pressures, but this very causality provides the opportunity for us to have an intentional influence on how things play out. The more we discover about the cause-and-effect relationships, the more power we have to impose our will upon the world.

Consider the turkey; it doesn’t have free will yet it provides excellent care for its young. Turkeys spend much time warming and cleaning their young; but this complex behavior is triggered by one thing – the “cheep cheep” sound of her chicks. If the chick makes that sound the mother will care for it, otherwise she will ignore it. In a research project a polecat, the turkey’s natural enemy, was stuffed with a tape recording of the “cheep cheep” sound. When the stuffed pole cat was pulled by string to approach turkey she attacked it viciously, but when the taped sound was turned on, the turkey not only did not attack it, but gathered it under her to comfort it. When the sound was turned off she again attacked it.

Unlike turkeys whose behavior is determined by specific aspects of their immediate environment; some humans are able to set long range goals, develop plans, and make adjustments to the plan until their goal is achieved - their life’s course appears to be self-determined. Advocates of freewill argue that a new phenomenon emerged with human cognition, which makes us fundamentally different from turkeys. Alternatively, determinists argue that it may just seem that way because we are so much more complex than turkeys.

We cannot resolve the free will debate by simply asking people whether they intended to do something or not, because we cannot be sure whether the intention led to the behavior or the behavior led to the experience of intention. The subjective experience of free will is not evidence for its existence.

We can never be sure that A causes B, as there could always be a third variable C that causes both of them. While it seems that our intentions cause our actions, there may be causes, of which we are unaware, that produce both of them. In fact, there is evidence that even before we are aware of the intention to perform an action, the neural precursors of the action have already occurred. For example, subjects were told to note the time on a clock when they made the decision to press a button, and then to press the button. They took 0.2 seconds on average to press the button, after they decided to do so. EEG monitoring of their brain waves, however, revealed a spike 0.3 seconds before they decided to press the button. 1

Even if willful control of our immediate behavior is an illusion, we can use our understanding of cause-and-effect relationships to intentionally influence the course of events. This kit contains information and tools that can help its user change a tragic life’s course into a heroic one.

Willpower – overriding the path of least resistance to follow the intended path – is taxing, so conscious, free choice must be restricted to a small proportion of human behavior. Following the path of least resistance is the default, because it does not make demands on the cognitive resources required to consciously guide behavior. For this reason it is desirable for the intended behaviors to be expressed automatically without needing to be instigated and then guided by expensive acts of will. The limited conscious resources are better spared for those occasions when there are real options and choices of which paths to take.

To utilize the gift of rational processing it is important to appreciate when it is available and when it is not, as well as what it can and cannot do:

 Rational processing is only possible when there is a surplus of cognitive resources. It is not available when cognitive resources are otherwise occupied by complex cognitive demands, strong emotional states, or diminished by fatigue or intoxication.

 Rational processing is too slow to influence behavior in real time. Performance, to be smooth and responsive to a changing world, requires a rapid, holistic processing. Typically when you try to consciously control ongoing behavior, you disrupt it.

 Rational processing can produce rapid change, e.g., “I used to believe in the tooth fairy, but then I realized that it was my mother, and since then have never relapsed to the earlier view.” This is contrasted with the many repetitions required to change a habit.

 Rational processing can influence future behavior through a variety of means including: pre-commitment, rehearsal of desired performance, modification of environments.

Procedural Skill and the Acquisition of Control
Operating the bio-psycho-social system you inhabit is a bit like driving a car. To operate the motor vehicle you must appreciate that pressing the accelerator makes it go faster, turning the wheel steers it, etc. Once you learn how it works it then becomes a matter of practice – with some guidance from dad or a driving instructor – to achieve competence.

Those who live in cold climates are forced to develop additional skills to cope with icy roads. While it seems unfair that northerners have an extra burden to bear, fairness is irrelevant. Northerners and southerners must each cope with the reality they are presented. As partial compensation for the additional demands, northerners get to be better drivers in icy conditions than southerners.

Your relationship with the incentive has created dangers with which you must now cope. The key to good outcome is developing the competence to manage your high-risk situations successfully; after all you are bound to encounter them again.

Depletion of Willpower
According to Freud, the ego is the part of the psyche that must deal with the reality of the external world by mediating between conflicting inner and outer pressures. A Victorian gentleman standing on the street might feel urged by his “id” to head for the brothel and by his “superego” to go to church, but it is ultimately left up to his “ego” to start his feet walking in one direction or the other. Freud was fond of the analogy of horse and rider, because, as he said, the rider (analogous to the ego) is generally in charge of steering but is sometimes unable to prevent the horse from going where it wants to go. In fact, it requires some energy to control the “horse”, and recent research demonstrates that this energy can be depleted: Depletion of willpower refers to a temporary exhaustion of the Psyche’s capacity to engage in volitional action – including controlling the environment, controlling the self, making choices, and initiating action. Like muscle power, it can be strengthened with regular exercise, though it may be exhausted by trying to do too much too soon.



















Footnotes:
1. Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W. and Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in
relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely
voluntary act. Brain, 102, 623–642.

1.3: TWO MINDS

Knowing what is good for you is one thing, acting in accord with that knowledge is quite another. To explain why people act counter to their own interests, Freud proposed a Psyche motivated by Conscious and Unconscious factors. For our purposes a model proposed more recently by Epstein1 is particularly useful. Epstein posits that we, like other animals, have an Experiential Processing System through which we learn which response under which conditions produce immediate pleasure and pain. But unlike other creatures we have access to higher cognitive faculties - a Rational Processing System - that enable us to appreciate the likely long-term consequences of our actions, so that we can maximize our gratification and minimize our suffering. This wonderful resource is only available during periods of surplus, because it requires sufficient time and energy to think things through. The attributes of the two processing systems are contrasted below:

Experiential Processing System	Rational Processing System
Pleasure-pain oriented: What feels best now	Rationally oriented: What yields the greatest net benefits
Connections determined by the principals of classical conditioning	Connections determined by the principals of logic
Has a long evolutionary history and operates in animals as well as humans	Has a brief evolutionary history, operates through language
Holistic	Analytic
Encodes reality in concrete images, metaphors and narratives	Encodes reality in abstract symbols, words and numbers
Rapid processing: Oriented toward immediate action	Slower processing: Oriented toward future action
Slow to change: Change requires repetitive or intense experience	Rapid to change: Changes with the speed of thought
Experience is state dependent	Logic is independent of local state
Experienced passively, outside of conscious awareness [one is seized by one's emotions]	Experienced actively and consciously [one is in control of one's thoughts]
Certainty is self-evident [seeing is believing]	Certainty requires justification via logic and evidence

Because the rational processing system is only available in special circumstances, it cannot be counted upon to guide behavior during a crisis. In my office clients generally have access to good cognitive resources; he or she has taken an hour out of their day to focus their full attention on solving this problem. Knowing that I will point out thinking errors, most competent individuals are able to adhere to the rules of inductive and deductive reasoning. But at most other times, the experiential processing system is the default, and guides real time performance.

Ms. Lickfire has become dependent on cocaine. She is a competent woman, a well-paid attorney, body builder, and mom. In my office she develops an excellent plan – one that would certainly produce good outcomes for her and her daughters if she adhered to it. She has good cognitive skills so developing the plan is the easy part for her. The real challenge is for her to get herself to adhere to her plan when she encounters a crisis and her cognitive resources are otherwise occupied.

That this is a difficult challenge is demonstrated by the fact that L has already gone through several inpatient and intensive outpatient treatment programs, and has attended self-help group meetings on and off for years, yet she continues to relapse.

I interact with L’s rational processing system, the one to whom it makes no sense to risk everything dear to her for the trivial pleasure of a cocaine high. But there are other versions of L, and I only have access to the one who appears in my office. The L that I see has put aside all the other demands of her daily life and dedicates her best cognitive resources to the problem of acting counter to what she says are her true intentions. But during the critical moments of a high-risk situation, my office and her excellent cognitive abilities are far away.

Real-time performance is not based on deliberate rational processing – there is no time for that. The best predictor of what L will do when faced with a particular high-risk situation is what she did the last time she encountered such a situation. To behave differently she will have to override this default reaction and intentionally guide her behavior. Initially this requires will, but with practice the intentional reactions become habitual and hence easier to perform.

The process of sculpting her habit patterns is not all that different from the way L sculpts her physique. First, she used her rational processing system to figure out a possible solution to her challenge. Then she strengthens the intended coping tactics through the practice performing as intended. With sufficient practice the intended reaction becomes habitual – that is, automatic, easy requiring little cognitive resources. For both body sculpting and habit sculpting the intended reality gradually emerges with exercise.

1.2: SELF-EFFICACY

Most clients who see me privately have achieved sufficient financial success to pay for my services. These are impressive individuals who generally accomplish what they set out to accomplish; they typically develop the necessary skills and work industriously until they achieve their goal. But when it comes to controlling their use of the incentive they perform less well – astoundingly less well.

Perseverance and Self-Efficacy

Technical terms can provide a more specific definition of a concept than ordinary language in which a word may have different meanings to different individuals. Self-Efficacy refers to the expectation that one can master the challenge. “I can fix any computer problem” is an example of the confident expectation of a person with high self-efficacy in that domain. That same person may have low self-efficacy in another domain, “I am a nerd and will probably make a fool of myself at the party.”

As you would expect, self efficacy has an influence on performance: People with high self-efficacy can tolerate physical discomfort and surprising amounts of frustration, and yet persevere, creatively solve problems, and stay the course until one way or another they accomplish what they set out to accomplish. In contrast, people with low self-efficacy abandon the effort after minor discomforts or frustrations. “I’m not going to succeed anyway, so why suffer more than necessary?” is an example of the demoralized attitude of a person with low self-efficacy in a particular domain.

Achieving a worthwhile outcome often requires that you tolerate some discomfort or frustration. A mountain climber would never achieve his goal if he abandoned the task at the first sign of discomfort or frustration. It is persevering in the face of challenge that is part of the adventure of mountain climbing. But discomfort and frustration do not evoke a heroic reaction from people with low self-efficacy. Instead of triggering resolve and creative problem solving, setbacks and discomfort evoke negative emotional reactions such as hopelessness, guilt, or self-loathing, which may motivate one to abandon the effort. Indeed, most dependent individuals repeatedly relapse because they misperceive the nature of their challenge, and underestimate what is required to achieve good outcome.

A Peak Experience

Mountain climbing is a metaphor for a difficult but surmountable challenge. It would be foolhardy to attempt a serious climb without proper preparation, or without the understanding that you will probably encounter physical discomfort and difficult challenges along the way. Most climbers have fond memories of their adventurous challenges and remember them as peak experiences. People voluntarily take on difficult challenges, because it’s fun to experience the mastery and enhanced self-efficacy that result from achieving an impressive goal. Mountain climbing is hard and often painful, but people take it on voluntarily - without financial compensation – because engaging and mastering a difficult challenge can be quite gratifying.

Despite the serious dangers and formidable obstacles, most people who set out to climb a mountain successfully achieve their goal. When competent individuals have realistic expectations about the nature of their challenge, they dedicate sufficient resources to planning, and are able to persevere until the goal is achieved, despite the physical and mental discomforts they encounter along the way. The difficulty of the challenge is in fact an essential part of the story, and the whole enterprise – including the discomfort – is often remembered as a positive experience.

In contrast, the vast majority of people who resolve to change their relationship with an addictive incentive fail to achieve their goal. They relapse, become demoralized, and lose faith in their ability to overcome their problem. The low self-efficacy, in turn, makes future failures more likely, which in turn lowers self-efficacy, and so it goes. If low self-efficacy is a problem for you, it will be helpful to distinguish between process and outcome. The mountain summit is the nominal or outcome goal of the mountain climber’s efforts. Performing well on the slopes is the process goal. For the climber, the real goal of going mountain climbing is the peak experience that results from engaging the challenge. The function of the summit is to provide a focus that gives structure to the activity, and later to the story the climber will tell friends, family, and self. If, for example, a storm developed during the climb and the team performed brilliantly getting everyone off the mountain with no injuries, the climber would feel successful despite failing to achieve the outcome goal

Ironically, low self-efficacy often causes people to focus more on outcomes than process. The insecure climber may be more focused on what the other climbers think of his skills than on the details of good performance. As everyone knows, good outcome is a byproduct of good performance.

Major life accomplishments emerge over time as you systematically solve the problems encountered along the way. In domains in which you are successful, it is likely that your real time performance is guided by focus on the task rather than on self-evaluation. Actual success is encouraged by an attitude that permits you to competently and consistently perform all the actions required to achieve your goal, the pleasant ones as well as the unpleasant ones.

Self-Efficacy Research Highlights

n Individuals who have high self-efficacy are willing to tolerate physical discomfort and psychological frustration without abandoning the path to their goal.

n Individuals with high self-efficacy tend to employ an action oriented thinking style - that is they focus on how to solve the problems.

n Conversely, research shows that action oriented thinking makes success more likely.

n Individuals with low self-efficacy tend to abandon the path in the face of even minor obstacles.

n Individuals with low self-efficacy tend to employ a state oriented thinking style – that is they focus on how they feel and why they feel that way. Research shows that state oriented thinking makes failure more likely.

So, if you have low self-efficacy in this domain, switch from state oriented to action oriented thinking; that is, focus on how to solve the problem I am facing here and now rather than on yourself and how you are feeling.

Thought Experiment #1: Efficacy Enhancing Imagery

Consider a domain of your life in which you are usually successful - athletic, artistic, occupational, social, etc. Imagine what it feels like to be you when you take on a challenge in this domain. Invest the time and energy elaborate this imagery until you experience the confident state associated with high self-efficacy. Now, imagine that you are presented an impressive challenge in this domain: What is your attitude toward it? How would you expect to react to the discomforts and frustrations you encounter?

THE PARADOX OF CONTROL

Nobody wants to sell out or become dependent. One intends to use the incentive judiciously, and receive the benefits, but not to harm one’s self, loved ones, or integrity. Nevertheless, despite the best of intentions, the consequence of repeatedly exposing a biological creature to immediate gratification is to create a trap from which escape is deceptively difficult. There are many ways to become dependent; here is one:

Our protagonist, Mr. H, throws away more money than he can afford on lottery tickets. After debating with himself for many months H decides to change his ways and vows he will never buy another lottery ticket. It is now a little after midnight three weeks later, and H has just pulled into a convenience store for gas. The clerks remarks, “This must be your lucky day, I was going to close up 5 minutes ago.” H interprets this an an omen of good fortune. Under these circumstances will he buy a ticket and break his vow? If he does, that means that his behavior was dependent upon local factors rather than on his commitment

Some Causes of Dependence

Whether the lottery ticket was a winner or a loser, Mr. H lost something by failing to adhere to this commitment. When he vowed abstinence he bet the seriousness he gives to future commitments that he will not break this one. By lapsing he lost that bet, and as a result he lost some respect for his word. Dependence is a consequence of losing this wager too often [see chapter 4.1].

An other channels through which the lapse promotes dependence: Each time H uses the incentive he strengthens the sequence of behaviors that leads to the incentive. With sufficient practice this sequence becomes the default path, and once it does it requires conscious effort to interrupt the sequence of behaviors that produce the incentive. From this point on, whenever the cognitive resources required to consciously direct behavior are compromised, H tends to follow this path of least resistance to incentive use [see chapter 2.3].

Dependence is often an iatrogenic condition [pathology caused by treatment efforts] in that it may result from misattributing the cause of the relapse to a characteristic of the self, which is not going to change. A popular misconception is that once you have made up your mind it is a trivial matter to act as intended, and anyone who fails to do so must be defective in some way. While the decision to change is indeed necessary, it is by no means sufficient. In fact, preventing relapse is much more difficult than most people realize, and failure is often the result of insufficient respect for the challenge. Repeated failures lead to the belief: “I am powerless [have a disease], so I need an external agent to resolve my problem for me.

Attribution

It is possible to have an intentional influence of the course of your life, but it requires a serious investment of time and attention. But because most people underestimate how formidable a challenge this is, they engage in shallow self-management attempts. To add insult to injury, everyone – the individual as well as friends and family – believes that it should be easy to quit this self-destructive behavior, and so the relapse that results from the shallow commitment is all the more demoralizing. The failure to prevent relapse is taken as evidence of an underlying disease or character defect. Hence the responsibility for good outcome must be delegated to a responsible treatment agent such as a program, doctor, or self-help group.

In the United States the vast majority of treatment programs for addictive disorders are based on the medical model or the 12-Step model of Alcoholics Anonymous. Both view the problem to be treated as a disease over which the individual has no control – other then complying with the treatment regimen. The person presenting for treatment is given the label, “patient,” and assumes the passive female role, while the agent of change, the treatment provider, is assigned the effective male role.

Outcome research has been unkind to this approach and the vast majority of graduates of such programs go on to relapse. Ironically, the treatment failure is taken as further confirmation of the individual’s incorrigibility, and need for greater reliance on external sources of control.

True, many individuals require externally imposed structure because of psychiatric or intellectual deficits that make it impossible for them to follow a self-directed path. For these individuals, medical and 12-Step treatment programs are the only reasonable alternatives. However, some individuals who have been caught in an addictive trap are best matched with a more self-directed course, and for them accepting responsibility produces better long-term outcome than accepting powerlessness.

Escape from Freedom

Don’t underestimate the attractiveness of abdicating responsibility. Many individuals who are capable of self-direction prefer dependence on an external agent. Following a path that is already laid out for you is easier than making up your own – especially for those who have lost faith in themselves. For such folks, conventional treatment programs can and do produce short-term behavior change, but rarely lead to freedom from dependence.

Responsibility without power can be frustrating. The fact is, we don’t have complete control over events, and have only limited control over outcomes. We often fail through no – or only partial – fault of our own. But the fact that we do not have complete control over the course of events cause some people jump to the opposite pole and accept the premise that they are powerless.

People who have lost faith in themselves are vulnerable to testimonials touting the effectiveness of one or another external source of control. Testimonials are easy to get, not because they are false, but because people demonstrate a remarkable ability to be influenced by an external source of control . . . for a while. As network marketers and Al Qaeda recruiters demonstrate, it is not that hard to motivate people to do amazing things, regardless of the validity of the motivation’s premise. But independence requires more than temporary compliance with externally imposed rules.

The downside of taking on the passive patient role shows up when program participants easily commit to procedures that are unlikely to work for them; publicly accept program rules and restrictions that privately they don’t expect to follow; or are motivated to rebel against the externally imposed rules.

The Buddha’s Secret

Still, it is tempting to believe that there is external salivation from the natural consequences of our actions, as well as from other forms of suffering. Being human, the Buddha spent years seeking the secret to understanding human suffering and how to escape it. His insight was simple, and can free you of an illusion that promotes dependence. And the secret is: There is no secret.

The irony of seeking treatment for dependence on an external source of control has probably not escaped the astute reader, and this kit is designed to enhance willpower rather than compliance. While developing the ability to act intentionally in real time is demanding, there is a payoff – the change is irreversible! Rather than wear off, willpower becomes more robust with time and exercise. Among your first task is to give up the comfortable illusions of childhood and accept responsibility for what you can control.

The discovery that Santa Claus is fiction is an early developmental milestone. Development continues throughout the lifespan, and a major milestone of adulthood, that not everyone achieves, is the passage from dependence on an external agency to self-direction.

Rather than accepting powerlessness and turning responsibility over to an external agent, the text and experiential invitations contained in this kit are designed to enhance your willpower. This approach is intended for those individuals who have the intellectual skills to follow the admittedly complex subject matter, and who also have a pragmatic and self-directed temperament. The fact that you have made it this far suggests that you have the requisite intellect; what remains to be demonstrated is the pragmatism and perseverance to see this challenge through to good long-term outcome.

Incentive Motivation

Incentives that provide access to immediate pleasure or relief can offer some control over immediate experience – a great benefit for a stressful life. Alcohol, drugs, food, cigarettes, sex, computer assisted gaming, gambling, porn, and relationships are corruptive to the extent that an individual will sacrifice something of value to access it again. Corrupt politicians trade their integrity for cash; dependent individuals end up sacrificing what is truly dear to maintain a relationshiip with the incentive.

The text and other media contained in this kit are designed to help you achieve something extraordinary: The ability to intentionally influence the course of your life. Overcoming dependence on an incentive requires nothing less.

Dependence or loss of control shows up when an individual continues to use an incentive despite promises to quit or cut down. Behavior is not dependent upon the individual’s intentions but upon the availability of the incentive. The dependent individual or a loved one may seek help from a therapist, treatment program, or self-help book. The strategy of seeking an external agent to free an iindividual from dependence on an external source of control has a fundamental weakness: Relapse is likely when the external agent is not available to guide performance during actual encounters with stress and temptation.

Assuming the passive “patient” role, which demands compliance with “doctors orders,” while comfortable and familiar, is a short-term fix. To achieve good long-term outcome you will have to acquire the competencies that will enable you to perform as you intend despite the encounters with predictable and unpredictable stressors and temptations. Certainly, it is useful to have access to a coach with technical training and practical experience in helping people acquire these competencies, but the relationship must be collaborative. In my private practice, I have the easy job of advising from the sidelines while the client is the heroic member of our collaboration who performs in the arena of real time stressors and temptations.

As a user of this kit rather than a client who sees me in my office you have the additional responsibility to tailor the contents of this kit to suit your unique set of objectives, circumstances, strengths, and vulnerabilities. Instead of direct feedback from a live clinician, you have access to a range of tools in the form of text and other media that will help you to discover the causes for acting counter to your best interests, and to develop a path that you consider more congruent with yourself, and your principles.
The Psyche
Each Psyche – also known as the soul or the self– inhabits a particular biology, personal history, and current social environment. Each faces a unique challenge, and so there is no universal description of, or single solution to an addictive disorder. This kit is designed so that it can be used in different ways by different individuals.

It is difficult to communicate meaningfully about the Psyche, because the subject matter is so far from direct experience that individuals raised in different environments have developed belief systems that employ entirely different vocabularies. To facilitate communication about this abstract topic various metaphors will be used throughout this kit, beginning with the addictive traps metaphor.
Addictive Traps Metaphor:
Addictive disorders are so destructive because of their relapsing nature. It is not that difficult to quit using the incentive, the problem is relapse. Different individuals relapse in different ways, and for different reasons. Each relapse is the result of a set of cause-and-effect relationships, and each individual is more vulnerable to some of these traps than to others. An example of such a trap is reactance: Forbidding anything – especially something that is rewarding - has the unintended consequence of producing motivation to rebel against the restriction [see chapter 2.2]. Reactance is a major problem for some individuals and trivial for others.

To achieve good outcome you will have to appreciate your set of traps and develop the skills to escape or avoid them. To be sure, this is a great challenge, but your biography is the story of many challenges that you encountered and eventually mastered, and as a result you can now read, drive, and do many other things that seemed difficult before you learned how. Acquiring each of these procedural skills changed you irreversibly.

Most people remain dependent because they misperceive the true nature of their problem. They seek short-term behavioral suppression rather than the irreversible change that results from developing the procedural skills to cope with the stress and temptation. Developing these competencies is the only reliable path to freedom from dependence.

The difference between most of the skills you have already acquired, and the skill of reacting intentionally to local stressors and temptations, is that when you were acquiring the former set of skills you could ignore the difference between objective reality and subjective experience without hindering performance. Not so here! To address this problem, two types of material are presented:

Text: Summaries of pertenant resarch in the cognitive and neural sciences along with several models of how this creature you inhabit works are presented. These presentations are, for the most part, designed for your conscious, rational mind. Evidently there is more to you than rational processing; otherwise you would not repeatedly act counter to your interests, and so a major part of this kit has a different audience..

Experiential invitations: For the non-rational, experiential part of you (Freud called it “the unconscious”), other media – including hypnotic inductions - are presented, to evoke phenomena that will help you escape your addictive traps.

For personal consultation please contact our office (512) 343-8307 or email: bill@souldirected.com].