The Alarm

Russell Hoover defines what he calls THE ALARM as,

a more or less programmable involuntary action that occurs subsequent to adversity either threatened or real' (p. 39).

The Alarm is a warning sensation that alerts a person to the presence of potential or actual danger or threat of harm.

Note that Hoover's sequence ending in psychological (psychic) upset begins with The Adversity which sets off The Alarm. The intensity of the Alarm is roughly proportional to the perceived nature of the adversity.

Most cognitive-based therapies, on the other hand, begin with (what has been called) an 'Activating Event' which leads to 'automatic' (partly illogical or irrational) thoughts in the one being affected by the event. These thoughts are hypothesised to be what disturb us, not the event (or in Hoover's model The Adversity).

Until the advent of the 'cognitive revolution' in psychology--1950s to 1970s--it was commonplace to believe that adversities did directly create or lead to a corresponding mood. With this 'revolution' adversity shifted from being in the objective sphere to being a subjective experience.

I believe a superior view is to regard the process as having both 'objective' and 'subjective' sides to it. For example, humans tend to develop phobias regarding heights but not regarding tables and chairs. However, some have little fear or anxiety of heights whereas a limited number might have fears of tables and chairs (because of past history). Hence, both 'poles' of experience (object-inner response) are relevant.

Hoover believes that The Alarm, 'a central feature of any working psyche' (p. 39), has been ignored in many contemporary therapies.

He summarises the main characteristics of 'the psychological alarm' (p. 43) as:

• 'It is triggered by threat' (p. 43) focussing the threatened person's attention on the adversity. That is, it's purposeful.
• It acts according to prior experience; those with more adversity-punctuated histories tend to get 'more active alarms' (p. 43).
• It signals not only the adversity but the mood to follow the 'threat elements'.
• It is cued by potential threat as by 'events certainly forthcoming or already underway'.
• 'Its action is involuntary once the threat or injustice is perceived'.
• Its intensity is always linked to event's significance for the perceiver (although other factors such as the one's physiological state also play a part).
• Its action continues until the threat cuing it is perceived to be ended.

One thing I do appreciate about Hoover's work is the humanity of it. He underlines the fact that most of the troublesome emotions that people bring to counselling are understandable within the context of their lives and are feelings we have usually experienced ourselves. That sets the counsellor free from preconceptions about what the client should or should not be feeling or thinking. We can more readily empathise with the client because we have trodden this path of anxiety and distress ourselves.

And for me it is heartless to tell a recently sacked worker that he has to change his thinking about his situation because it is his thinking that is making him depressed. Nonsense! That is too simplistic and sets him up to be blamed. 'It's not the fact that you've been sacked that has made you this way, it's your own fault that you are feeling this way.' This merciless approach takes no account of what has happened to him and is stoicism writ large.

Rather, his negative thinking is a reflection of his depressed state brought on by the impact of losing his job which he has assessed quite rightly as a major loss in status and security.

Cognitive theory treats humans as if they are separate from life events and only joined to them by their cock-eyed interpretations. But one's job--to take the previous example--had a meaning before it was taken away and its loss will certainly impact a person swiftly after the initial shock wears off.

Next time, THE EMOTIONS.

Part One, The Mechanics of Mood: The Adversity

Under the heading of 'The Mechanics of Mood' Hoover addresses 6 sub-parts*:

The Adversity

The Alarm

The Emotions

The Compulsions [a]

The Defenses (sic) [a]

The Psychotherapies

THE ADVERSITY

Hoover's general point in this sub-part is that emotional irritation is caused by some adversity, some event that matters to us. 

We may read this as a trivial statement, a truism. But in the world of therapy it is rejected by the major cognitive-based therapies. These therapies argue that events do not cause human emotions but that human interpretation of events causes emotional reactions. 

Contrariwise, non-cognitive psychotherapeutic theory states that moods arise when something we meet is unacceptable or not okay for us. 

These adversities occur when things, events, or states we value are 'lost, damaged, upset . . .  foiled' (p. 31) or are threatened; adversities occur in actions outside our control and acts we ourselves commit both deliberately or inadvertently. Hoover challenges the reader to upset himself by something that he accepts as perfectly all right.

     Degree of Irritation

Although the adversity is the sole cause of the upset in the individual, the degree of the annoyance and irritation is dependent on both the severity of the adversity but also on the person's tolerance as well.

And tolerance level is related to both the number and nature of adversities already being endured and to one's physiological state. However, Hoover quickly asserts that one's tolerance is not the cause of emotional unrest (as Albert Ellis had asserted).

To summarise: the intensity of an irritation arises from how much the event matters, its significance; and the level of one's tolerance. The latter is understood as 'the number and size of the adversities one already faces' (p. 35); and 'one's physiological state' (p. 35). (One's physiological state could be affected by medication, alcohol and drugs, by hormonal levels, and by certain disorders such as diabetes.)

Therapy usually concerns those moods that arise out of contexts where 'enduring values' and particular 'inalterable consequences' (p. 38) occur. Therefore, quick fixes are not common because of this robust context.

Some Comments
Although Hoover calls his system 'non-cognitive' he is obviously not using that word in the sense that cognition (thinking, imagining and willing) are not involved in emotional upset. It is clear from his model that cognition is involved when we consider the words 'matter to us' about adversities. To know that something matters to us we have to judge it as such and this calls for cognition.

Second, I wonder if he could improve his model by adding to it what I call psychic preparedness (Martin Seligman): the human ability to learn reactions to certain threats, losses, poison foods, etc. almost instantaneously. This preparedness to learn emotional reactions and moods incidentally makes changing these reactions very difficult; but the preparedness dynamic is oriented to survival.

Next Time: The Alarm

*Confusing at least for me is, that in the book's table of contents, all the sub-parts are given as above as if they are all of equal weight. However, in the text they are all fully capitalised except for those above with [a] after them.

Non Cognitive Psychotherapy: Some Basics

I said last time that Non Cognitive Psychotherapy (NCP) assumes the link between adverse events and mood (complex emotional state) is informative even if the mood is unpleasant.

Hence, you are not being irrational or illogical in feeling what you do if your pet dog dies and you're in grief (sadness, anger, even fear and depression) about its demise. That's what normal people experience when they undergo significant losses. Furthermore, the attempt to disconnect relevant moods from corresponding events may lead to our becoming less functional in our lives because of the denial of reality.

In Hoover's reckoning the therapeutic task is mood replacement as well as mood reduction.

Irrationality does play a part in emotional discomfort Hoover readily concedes. But more so 'in our attempts to overcome' (p. 25) our distress. That is, often attempts to downplay our moods and the instruction they provide are irrational. (Of course we also suffer from irrational/illogical thoughts and thinking in our malaise but these are symptoms of the adversity not causes of our mood.)

Acknowledgement to Age Newspaper

So we must not attempt, he says, to change our moods in any old fashion but in ways which remain tuned to the nature of the adversities we face.  Without the ability to feel the relevant mood to (say) earthquake possibility we might become apathetic to the threat they pose if we live in an earthquake-prone area. Next time, we will move on to Part One of Hoover's book entitled, The Mechanics of Mood.

NCP: Criticisms of Cognitive Therapy

Non Cognitive Psychotherapy (NCP) has a number of standard objections to cognitive therapy (CT).

Remember CT is based on the belief that it is not events that are upsetting to us but it is what we think, belief or imagine about events that CAUSE our upsets.

To illustrate: recently, I was 'accosted' by two foreign-sounding Jehovah's Witnesses in the main street of our local shopping area. I challenged their view about the Trinity and after a little discussion they chose to leave me. Afterwards I felt anxious and blah.

Now the question is, did my thinking and imagining cause my emotional upset or did the event itself produce thinking, imagining and emotional upset?

NCP would say that my reaction is not irrational or 'unscientific' but is perfectly normal and justified! One of the assumptions behind most of cognitive therapy is that reactions such as mine to the above confrontation is irrational and illogical. The deeper assumption is that I 'should not' have been ruffled and disturbed by meeting these people who saw me as a target to unsettle and challenge.

However, to quote Russell Hoover (author of NCP) 'the way people feel is predictably determined by what happens to them, and that mood . . . is seldom the result of miscognition in the irrational or dysfunctional sense' (p.25, 2001).

Hoover accuses CT of being built on a number of 'pretenses' or 'shams' some of which include:

1. 'Upset is a certain sign of weak and unfit minds, while calmness a certain show of strength' (p. 22).
2. All humanity has a bent towards irrational thinking and emotional irritability shows you are thinking irrationally.
3. No absolutes exist in the universe and thinking in terms of absolutes is to encourage mental health problems.
4. Because no absolutes exist nothing is really bad or evil; this means that redefining something troubling as 'I just don't like it' will resolve my exaggerated response.
5. Imperative thinking (i.e., using oughts, shoulds, etc) is impaired thinking.

These pretenses seem to apply more to Albert Ellis' form of CT than Aaron Beck's but I think Hoover could readily create a list applicable to the latter as well.

Hoover's primary criticism of CT in all its forms is that it is condescending and bends the mind by indoctrination to accept the unacceptable as if the latter is simply my dislike for it or my illogical (unscientific) thinking about it rather than any inherent badness it may have.

Non Cognitive Psychotherapy Introduction

We live in a world where evidence-based treatments in medicine and psychotherapy are de rigueur. These treatments are required by governmental authorities interacting with health professionals. However, we know that in counselling at least that all therapies work and that they all work about as well as each other (e.g. Wampold et al., 1997)!

So despite the fact that much is made of the need to use 'evidence-based therapies', the evidence shows that the specific technical differences among therapies may not curative by themselves. This finding points to the importance of common factors present in all therapies being therapeutically significant.

Now I don't think this finding means that it doesn't matter what therapists do. And one thing is certain: counsellors will not help clients if they don't have some belief that the methods they are using have some efficacy. Nor will counsellors be able to convince clients that what they are doing is meaningful and helpful.

I am presently re-reading Non Cognitive Psychotherapy: Advancing Mood Management* by L. Russell Hoover (2001) mainly because the title intrigues me; it is uncommon to find a psychotherapy these days that advertises itself as 'non-cognitive'.

This author attacks standard cognitive therapy (CT) which assumes as its guiding, first principle that thoughts create moods and emotions. (I should say that at this juncture that I have little sympathy with CT and have expressed my views elsewhere on this blog.)

CT says (to put it simply) that when an adverse situation occurs it activates certain thoughts/beliefs [COGNITIONS] and these cause emotions of sadness, anger or fear which form angry, sad, fearful or depressive moods. Hence, CT tries to get clients to modify or change their cognitions so that the pain of the reaction is lessened.

In the video below, you will see the famous Albert Ellis in action with a famous client known as 'Gloria'. Ellis was one of the pioneers of cognitive therapy. He originally called his therapy rational therapy (RT) (but finally titled it rational-emotive-behavior therapy or REBT). This video should give you an idea of Ellis' form of cognitive therapy though Aaron Beck's form of CT is different in manner from RT or REBT.

* Unfortunately, I find Russell Hoover's writing style to be verbose and overladen with adjectives that add nothing to clarity and make reading his book extremely difficult. It's a great pity because as I will try to show he has something important to share about counselling.

Trust: A Crucial Ingredient in Counselling Relationships

What is trust? 

Trust is 'reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence' according to the dictionary.

  

Trust is a critical element in all human relationships. Trust is important in marriage as it is in family relationships in general because without reliance on the integrity of a marriage partner or a parent or child, relationships quickly become compromised.

Trust is also a crucial ingredient in counselling relationships because without reliance on the integrity and ability of the psychologist-counsellor little real sharing by clients of their problematic living issues will occur.

It can be said that trust (or trustworthiness) superintends two other vital aspects to the counselling relationship. These two aspects are counsellor competence and counsellor likeability. A large body of research derived from social psychology has found that client-perceived counsellor trustworthiness, competence and likeability are highly correlated with counselling effectiveness. This type of theory is an interpersonal view of counselling. (See here.)

Clients who don't trust others

In some clients, the issue of trust itself becomes the focus of counselling. Perhaps the client has been abused physically, emotionally or sexually. Such abuse often results in a chronic problem with trust. Such clients find that their primary relationships are plagued by mistrust.

Counselling can help by firstly identifying where the mistrust may have become rooted in the person's life.

And then the counselling process itself can become the vehicle for opening up issues of trust and resolving those same issues because every moment of the counselling is dependent on some trust. Counselling becomes an exercise in learning to drop out of date attitudes to trusting others and learning to develop healthy attitudes to others.