 | can levels in the motivation system influence eachother. For example, can an 'urge' at the impulse level be 'evaluated' as something that needs to be avoided or controled and therefore influence subs |  | 10/04/2011 |
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 | Yes. That is a good point. Anything that we can be aware, including urges can form the basis for a want or need and/or a belief. That want or need and belief can then obviously generate other wants and needs and then obviously urges and counter urges | | 10/04/2011 |
| would that imply that higher motivational elements have a potential to 'pathologize' experience of lower level elements, for example an urge may not be experienced as just an urge, but evaluated as unwanted or bad and therefore steer the motivation system toward possibly maladaptive or counterproductive coping strategies - by this I'm thinking of things like the paradoxical effect of thought suppression and the like | | 11/04/2011 |
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| Yes. That is very insightful. Quite a nice example might be religious doctrines that demonise carnal desires leading adherents to label desires as evil. | | 11/04/2011 |
| just as an afterthought, It strikes me that this acts in a feedback loop kind of way, urges evaluated as bad generate motives and impulses to control or supress urges with paradoxiacal effect. The increase is evaluated as bad and thus ratchets up the strength of motives and urges. Using the metaphor of the mind being more like a weather system, as the feedback loop intensifies, like a tornado spinning faster, might it pull other elements of the motivation system into line till it tips past a bifurcation point where the response is to just give in and drink. If this was the case, I'm wondering if useful psychological interventions might be constructed to 'let the wind' out of feedback loops? | | 15/04/2011 |
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| That is a very interesting idea and ties in very nicely with the more general idea of chreods and how to spot them early and get out of them. | | 23/04/2011 |
| Yeah, I've been thinking how this could be translated into client work. The question above related to mindfulness makes me wonder whether mindful awareness of experience may allow clients to spot chroeds early and respond in a more effective way. Also, perhaps acceptence may be one way or reducing feedback loops? | | 30/04/2011 |
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| This is a testable proposition. It should be possible to predict when mindfulness and acceptance can be helpful and when it might make things worse | | 30/04/2011 |
