Behavior Therapy: How Constructive Behavior Therapy And Dream Interpretation Can Cure Us Of Mental Issues And Help Find Happiness
All too many people in today’s world are believed to be suffering from some form of clinical depression. Persistent fear, anxiety, apathy, anger issues, lack of concentration, low self-esteem—these are some common symptoms of clinical depression. Researches increasingly show that unhealthy thought patterns and emotional distress result from maladaptive cognitive behavior. The latter is regarded as a serious illness. As such, anybody suffering from it must take recourse to behavior therapy.
Behavior Therapy: We are less free than we think
What makes us get trapped into the vicious pattern or cycle of persistent negative thoughts, fears, etc?
Some groundbreaking research in human behavioral patterns carried out during mid to late 20th century offers us some valuable insights.
Famous behaviorist and zoologist Konrad Lorenz’s findings, for example, were key in this respect. Lorenz, who studied animal behaviors from close quarters, came to the conclusion that animals react in a number of pre-programmed ways when faced with certain situations.
In other words, their instinctive behaviors pre-define their reactions when they encounter sets of various stimuli.
He and his close colleague Nikolas Tinbergen (joint winners of Noble Prize in Medicine in 1973) went on to extend their discoveries to human behavior as well.
The scientists proceeded to infer from their primary research on animal behavior that reactions of human beings, too, are likewise preconditioned by the existence of what they referred to as behavioral programs.
In short, they considered behavior (including human behavior) a part of an animal’s evolutionary apparatus.
This means that how we behave in certain given conditions are actually pre-defined by our inner drives and instincts.
That is to say, they are much less the result of our conscious decisions or free will.
And this has little to do with the fact that we are conscious, thinking beings.
Anti-Conscience: The Existence of the Primitive in Us
Once Lorenz’s discoveries came to light, many behaviorists noted the relation they bear with Carl Jung’s theories on the human collective unconscious.
That is, the existence of sets of primary instincts and archetypes that continue to shape our behavior patterns.
Extending Jung and Lorenz’s researches, some behaviorists came up with the concept of ‘anti-conscience.’
Anti-conscience, they affirmed, is that primitive conscience that hasn’t evolved in the way the rest of the human body has.
And this violent, primitive content is extremely powerful in that it continues to occupy a large part of our brain.
As such, it plays a big role in determining our behavior.
So, regardless of how developed or sophisticated our conscious being (the thinking being) is, it cannot pose any considerable resistance to anti-conscience.
It is due to the existence of the latter that often many absurd thoughts and fears take such a great hold on us.
And as they tend to spiral out of control, this greatly endangers our mental stability and comes in the way of finding true happiness and wisdom in life.
How Behavior Therapy Can Help
People suffering from depression often take recourse to medication.
However, we firmly believe that medication doesn’t help with mental issues in the long run. On the contrary, they actually serve to exacerbate those issues.
And then they come with serious side effects.
In stark contrast, constructive behavioral therapy can cure our illnesses for good.
This is since behavior therapy helps us negate the harmful thought patterns generated by anti-conscience.
Behavior therapy that uses the scientific method of dream interpretation is one such highly effective mental cure therapy.
It can help us gain valuable insights into ourselves through interpreting our dreams. And this will eventually lead us to a life of health, happiness and true wisdom.