Pavlov told good stories. One of his best was how his laboratory was inundated during the 1924 Leningrad fl oods, and he and his assistants had to rescue the dogs from their submerged cages in the basement. Because the kennel doors were low and the water was high, the dogs had to be dragged under water before being helped to safety. Later, however, when back in their little harnesses to perform the standard experiments on conditioned salivation, the dogs’ previous learning was disrupted and they continued to show strong emotional signs of being quite traumatized (Todes, 2000). I’ve got a good dog story too. When I moved with my family to a 100-acre dairy farm in upstate New York, our suburbanite dog made the fatal mistake of putting his wet nose against the electrifi ed fence. He proved that learning can take place in one trial and he never went near a piece of wire again; he would even shy away from wire clothes-hangers.
In these two examples we see the full range of associational experiences that change behavior. When the stimulus is discrete and somewhat familiar, such as a strand of wire, and the associated event is unambiguous, such as pain, the eff ects are tightly focused. When the situation is novel, complex, and volatile and the associated ordeal is diff use, life threatening, prolonged, and unpredict- able (fl oods, combat, rape) the eff ects are pervasive and destabilizing. Pavlov’s interest in “experimental neurosis” brings us to the very core of understanding behavior change that has the kind of intransience that must be achieved in ther- apy if therapy is to have any merit at all. Permanent change is neither plausible nor even always desirable, but there does need to be some carry-over from the therapeutic experience to meaningful change in behavior as it aff ects day-to-day living and lifestyle.
Th e integrating idea is quite simple: people benefi t from therapy to the extent that they learn two things: (1) to reevaluate and respond diff erently to events and situations—both present and remembered—that previously caused distress (what this chapter is mostly about); and (2) to acquire and use new desired habits and skills and unlearn interfering, unwanted ones (the topic of the next chapter). Th is includes learning new “habits of the mind”—highly automatic and stylized
thoughts. Learning and unlearning are the essence of planful change. You have a client who is unable to swallow solid food for fear of choking, another who can- not stop gambling despite heavy fi nancial losses, or a child who is too anxious to go to school. Even though you may not fully understand how these patterns of behavior originally developed, or even if you understand the origins but cannot expunge them, one thing seems certain: change for the client will require some sort of new learning, however that is achieved.
Learning in this context does not mean what we call in everyday parlance book learning, such as being able to recite Ode to a Nightingale or remember- ing Boyle’s Law. Th ere are occasions, clinically, when clients may need simple, clear verbal information and factual knowledge about things that are otherwise mysterious, confusing, or misleading, and these will be mentioned later in the chapter on cognitive change (Chapter 8). In the present context learning also excludes motor skill acquisition, such as learning to dance the Highland Fling. Neither does it include perceptual learning, such as recognizing a face you have seen only once before. Th e learning that is relevant to unwanted habits, emo- tional reactions, and maladaptive thoughts is the learning often referred to as conditioning: classical and instrumental. In the next two chapters I am going to explore conditioning, as we understand it in modern psychology, and try to show that it is an essential element of how and why people change.
A p p r o a c h a n d W i t h d r a w a l (Av o i d a n c e)
Before doing so, however, I want to propose a simple framework for linking together the previous discussions of motivation and personality with the topic of learning, especially emotion learning, and the concepts of reward and punishment. Th is is a theme that has pervaded psychology from the start. Th e notion is that human behavior (actually the behavior of all organisms) can be divided into approach and withdrawal (often a bit misleadingly called avoidance). For humans, with our vast symbolic capabilities and vivid imaginations, this does not have to be a physi- cal movement in space toward or away from a desirable or threatening situation. Sending a romantic Tweet to a lover is approach, as is watching an opera or peeling an orange (assuming you plan to eat it rather than throw it). Writing a “Dear John” letter is withdrawal, as is walking out of the opera in the middle of an aria or spit- ting out a red hot chili pepper. We approach or plan to approach things we like and enjoy and that are familiar (the stimuli are appetitive, they give pleasure), so these things also serve as rewards, and we escape or avoid things that we dislike or that are unusual (the stimuli are aversive, they cause pain), so these serve as punish- ments. I have already explained in Chapter 4 that three diff erent neural pathways independently regulate these two essentials of adaptive functioning.
Particular emotions and attitudes are associated with approach and with- drawal, as has been hinted at by the use of words such as liking and disliking. Signals of impending pleasure will themselves become positive, and signals of
potential pain are likely to become aversive in their own right. Signals informing you of the likelihood of a positive or negative consequence create expectations. Expectation of reward is synonymous with the emotion hope; expectation of punishment (pain, injury, loss) is roughly synonymous with anxiety, which facil- itates avoidance. (Th e actual appearance of danger evokes fear, which facilitates escape.) If we approach with a positive expectation and fail to get a reward, the emotion is disappointment (if the goal attainment is blocked, the emotion may be frustration or anger). If we escape an aversive situation or actively avoid and fail to receive an expected punishment, the emotion is relief. Th us, approach and withdrawal both have the potential to elicit positive feelings (the behavior was successful) as well as the potential to elicit negative feelings (the behavior was a failure). Th ere are nuances to this basic outline we will have to acknowledge. Approach, being a more active form of conduct, yields energizing sorts of feel- ings: positive emotions such as elation and excitement and negative emotions such as anger and guilt (guilt should motivate you to make amends). Avoidance, tending to be more passive (yes, sometimes we run for cover, but often we hide or freeze on the spot—Roelofs, Hagenaars, & Stins, 2010), yields more quies- cent emotions: positive emotions such as contentment and serenity and negative emotions such as shame (shame makes you want to hide, to cover your face, to wish the ground would swallow you up).
In human experience there are typically costs related to simple approach or simple avoidance. Most situations require elements of both: although hot, the chili pepper might make your burrito taste really delicious; the amorous Tweet to your lover might be misconstrued and result in rejection; sitting through the opera without complaint might have pleased your partner. So, as everyone knows, the majority of human endeavor consists of confl ict between approach and avoidance, balancing the desires to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain, remembering that these are not necessarily material or physical outcomes.