Structuring a positive experience - (part 8)
The first is this: If we structure a positive experience or experiences, so that it will compete successfully against a problem state, the competing experiences must be valued for their own sake, not in their instrumental relationship to the problem behaviors. The second is: The competing behavior must point to or promise a positively motivating future.
Prochaska’s insight points us back to value hierarchies, and once again to the awakening of positive affect as a means of re-sorting that hierarchy. It integrates with the neurophysiology discussed above as follows:
1. Wanting something passionately has the capacity to reset the preference hierarchy.
2. Wanting something for its own sake, devalues the unwanted behavior as a consequence of that resorting.
3. Because the mechanisms of the frontal lobes for wanting and avoiding are separate, it is most important to build intense, positive states and motivators in order to propel the change.
4. Because the positive points to a positive future, it can and should be structured as a path of development; a set of developing outcomes. This will have the effect of frustrating the brain’s tendency to habituate and will keep the dopamine system registering that goal as more highly valued.
A crucial technical refinement in the program regards the process of anchoring. In order to create states that are useful across contexts, participants are taught to anchor states that are, as far as possible, devoid of content. Anchors that retain contextual information have limited utility.
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