SEEKING OPINIONS ABOUT "LEARNED BEHAVIOUR " DOES IT EXIST ?

[SOD]

While i've been looking for answers to my life time living with depression, behavior issues, addictions, over all not fitting in to  this world , i've been told by some mental health professionals, that LEARNED BEHAVIOR ,maybe a issue with me. I understand the theory of what i've been told, but i'm unsure if it exists, or if there is any truth in this ? any information would be greatly appreciated . CHOW.

[geoff]

dear Sod, I am sure that it does exist take for example these:

 
If a child lives with fear,
he learns to be apprehensive.

If a child lives with pity,
he learns to feel sorry for himself.

If a child lives with ridicule,
he learns to be shy.

I f you want a dog to learn how to sit you then reward it with a treat, the same applies to kids as we are growing up, 'johnnie don't mess up the lounge room and if he doesn't, then you say good boy johnnie, would you like an ice cream.

OK you are going for drivers licence and if you don't a parked car etc. then you will be rewarded by getting your licence, or if you break a learned behaviour  like speeding too fast then you are fined or the car confiscated, so this does mean that you have broken this learned behaviour.

What about being so nice to your girlfriend then what are you expecting to happen, we learn that the nicer we are to her then bingo. Geoff.

[Marley]

And so the point is???

How does this help anxiety or depression?

I'd like some self help answers to both the above - don't suggest CBT.  Doesn't/didn't work for me.  There has to be other methods???

[wetpatch]

Hey Marley,

Could you tell us more about what Learned Behaviour is? Here's what it makes me think of:

I chatted with an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) practitioner, who described behaviour as a response to our intrinsic values. They said our values rarely change, but the choices available to us can change a lot. It seems repeated behaviour or thought patterns make our neural pathways for that thought/behaviour "wider", and hence, more likely to be the option chosen next time. 

For example, the person who has an irrational fear of spiders has a very wide neural pathway for the 'panic'option, but only a small chance of choosing the 'relax it's not an immediate threat' option.

So to fix it, we can work on first having more choices available to us in any situation, and second, choosing those things which are useful. There are a host of self -help options on how to achieve this, and I think the best thing is just to keep trying different ones. (Mental tricks, songs, reminders, hypnosis)

On anxiety/depression it might look like this: Person A has a bad day, and can laugh it off, and sleep fine. Person B has the same bad day, but dwells on it, and lets it affect their mood for longer. Person B recognises that they have the choice of thinking like person A or B, but are constantly choosing to think like B, and this is detrimental. So they use a trick like put a sticker on their hand, sing a song, or something, to remind themselves that in any situation, they have a lot of choices on how to respond. After a few times of forcing themselves to act like person A, that neural pathway becomes wider, and soon, it becomes easier to have a good response to a bad day.

[geoff]

dear Marley, google this 'post-existentialism instead of cbt' and see what you think.

The other point is that if a child lives with ridicule, then he has learnt that to avoid this he becomes shy, and by doing this he won't be ridiculed, then this is 'learnt behaviour'.

There are two sides to this comment, can it stop depression from evolving, maybe or maybe not, it all depends on the person.

 By becoming shy would only make you become depressed. Geoff.

[Marley]

Well I think I'm doomed because I'm definitely Person B and I WAS the shy child....

Thanks wet patch I see your point and the sticker idea actually appeals to me...I'll try that 

thanks Geoff again for your insight and I'll google that one too, I spend my life googling....looking for answers

I'd love to know what meditation is and how to achieve it, I've listened to meditation type stuff but I don't seem to achieve much....what does 'it' mean, free your mind of all thoughts?  Doesn't seem to happen either, maybe I'm trying too hard.  I give up feeling frustrated.

[jep1992]

Look up Seligmans theory of learned helplessness. It is a behavioural theory that looks at how our life events have influenced our response to stressfuleventd and howthis in turn affects our expectations and we create a learned response to stressful situations, and learn to expect the worst so respond emotionally and cognitively accordingly.

[SOD]

Hi all , my mother suffered depression, anxiety , agoraphobia , massive mood swings ,paranoia , was very verbally abusive , and spent most of her time in bed . She had  6 sisters who all had similar mental illnesses and i remember as a child visiting them at different institutions . I have been told that i might have maybe learned certain  behavioral patterns from my mother ?. This being learned behavior . I'm unsure if there is any credit in this ? . My brother and sister also  have similar issues also . My father had 3 brothers and 1 sister and whilst they all seemed to be mentally strong and successful in their careers , they all had drinking and gambling habits .  Thank you all for your feedback . CHOW , SOD .

[geoff]

dear Sod, well this is difficult to answer, well it's not really, but yes it is difficult !

It's the flip of a coin situation, it's not only learnt behavioural, but probably more important it's what you may carry in your families genes, which makes you either to carry these bad genes or you may not, let me give you an example, as I am a twin.

My twin, thank god, ( sorry Damien it's always been a common expression ) has never had depression, so he hasn't tried to commit suicide, nor does he have OCD, never had accidents that were close to being fatal before, I know that's not from the genes, nor has any of his three children have OCD, nor depression.

Where as my eldest son has OCD and my youngest suffers from on-off depression, neither of them take any medication, and the OCD is hidden, but he tells me about it, but his baby girl has helped him a lot.

None of my siblings have OCD but it skipped a generation, and I was the black sheep, rather appropriate, of the family.

Being a gambler and an alcoholic are both referred to as being an illness, well that's by professionals anyway.

All of this may not occur for you and you may be the lucky one and I truly hope so, but there's one thing to remember, don't under any circumstances talk yourself into believing that you have any of the above, you have to talk yourself out of any of these feelings, because if you give in then this dog will swamp you up.

You have to stay strong all the way, and this is with the families history, and even though you may feel down or /and depressed do NOT relate it back to what has happened in the past, such as with your mum or aunties.

If you are depressed, then this is an issue of your own, yours alone not anyone else's, and please contact us. Geoff.

[wetpatch]

Marley said:

I'd love to know what meditation is and how to achieve it, I've listened to meditation type stuff but I don't seem to achieve much....what does 'it' mean, free your mind of all thoughts?  Doesn't seem to happen either, maybe I'm trying too hard.  I give up feeling frustrated.

Meditation is simply an altered state of mind. Freeing your mind of all thoughts is one of the more difficult types, but it is a useful mental discipline exercise to attempt it. The easier types you probably do every day: Every time you daydream, concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of something else or even just breathe in deeply you are meditating. Conscious attempts to direct your thoughts - usually toward relaxing - provide health benefits vs placebo for pretty much every aspect of your wellbeing. In fact, meditation aims to harness the power of subconscious that shows up when we get placebo benefits. 

If listening and freeing your mind of thoughts is frustrating, try other stuff - visualise something in your head, aim for deep, repetitive breathing, or just aim to empty your mind of one topic by concentrating exclusively on another thing.

It is especially important in this forum to note that the main time we should not aim for deep introspective meditation is when we are clinically/chronically depressed.