Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Reimagining Psychology

One of the confusing things about addiction is that the addict seems to be voluntarily choosing things that are really hurtful - not just for the addict, but for the people they care most about. The same confusion comes up when we see the executives of addiction-based companies voluntarily making choices that harm their customers. 

Why? We ask ourselves. How could they act that way?  When we speak to the addict, or to the executive, they seem like ordinary people, not monsters. 

We can dispel some of our confusion, oddly enough, by asking another question: "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna talk about the difference between proximate and ultimate causes, and (as usual) conclude with a message of hope.

The behaviorist movement in psychology in the early 1900s provided a number of benefits. The behaviorists’ precise measurement of stimulus and response lent psychology a scientific cachet. And precise measurement led to the development of the technology of behavior control that has been quite valuable in a practical sense.

At the same time, the decision to ignore the subjective experience of animals introduced unnecessary confusion about our behavior. The behaviorists mistakenly believed that the power to shape habits lay outside the animal, in an objectively defined “reinforcer.” 

But that wasn’t true at all. The animal’s experience of satisfaction is a direct reflection of its inborn drives – the biology underlying its behavior. The same external stimulus could be reinforcing or not depending on the animal’s drive-based interpretation. And that interpretation varied wildly depending upon the environment within which the stimulus occurs. 

This fact is tremendously important for our understanding and treatment of unwanted habits – including addictions. To illustrate, Bruce Alexander’s “Rat Park” experiments convincingly demonstrated that rats are far more likely to use addictive substances when confined to cramped laboratory cages than they are when housed in richer environments. The implications for humans are profound: It's likely that our environments are a more important factor in the development of addiction than is the addictive substance.

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna engage in a lively discussion of this topic, and conclude with a message of hope.

The word “psychology” literally means the scientific study of the mind, or psyche. A little over a century ago, psychologists were in fact avidly studying the mind, mental life, and the subjective experience of self. The most brilliant psychologists of the era – most prominently William James and Robert Woodworth – were assembling knowledge of a broad range of phenomena, pulling together concepts that cast light upon the relationship between subjective experience and overt behavior. Some – for example Ivan Pavlov and Edward L. Thorndike – were actively involved in the study of animal experience, as reflected in their behavior.

Psychologists of that era were examining evidence that the mind is not a single agent but consists of a collection of semi-independent “mini personalities” that operate much as a social system operates. To illustrate, “automatic writing” experiments provided intriguing insights into the subconscious mind and the potential existence of subsystems of personality. 

Overall, these experiments suggested that automatic writing could access subconscious thoughts and emotions, supporting the idea that personality consists of multiple subsystems. This early research laid the groundwork for later studies in psychology and psychoanalysis.

Then something strange happened. American psychology abruptly abandoned the study of the psyche altogether. A new breed of psychologists closed their eyes to everything except overt behavior, pointedly refusing to discuss mind or subjective experience any further. These were the “behaviorists,” and they took over the science of psychology for more than 25 years.

How could psychology, the study of the psyche, refuse to study the psyche? Noted theorist Bernard Baars commented upon the odd intrusion of behaviorist concepts into psychology. Baars wrote, “A harsh critic might see the twentieth century as a time of lost opportunities. Psychologists could have built on the magnificent foundation of James’s Principles (1890/1983)—by wide consent the greatest psychological work in English. Instead, they chose to evade some of the most fundamental aspects of human existence.” 

Finally, serious scientists have resumed the study of the mind, reclaiming the essence of psychology. And yet scientific psychology continues to suffer from what we might call a “behaviorist hangover.” What's that? It's the lasting impact of the behaviorist movement on modern psychology, even though the movement's peak influence waned decades ago. 

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna turn their attention to this issue in a lively discussion based on Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

Freud's Electra theory and the later False Memory Syndrome (FMS) idea both served to discredit women’s memories of having been sexually abused as children. 

Freud’s theory held that women who remembered abuse were actually reporting their own childhood fantasies of sexual interaction with their fathers. Many decades later, as Freud's theory was losing its popularity, the FMS idea posited that therapists were implanting false memories of abuse into the minds of their clients, whether deliberately or accidentally. 

But childhood sexual abuse is more than a fantasy. Hard statistics show that the Electra and FMS theories both served to suppress reports of very real abuse. During the times when these confusing theories were popular, reports of real abuse declined significantly, whether the abuse was simply a memory or indisputably backed up with evidence such as physical injury to the child or sexually transmitted disease. And as the theories went out of favor, reports of abuse returned to normal levels.

Previous episodes in this series have noted that malignant patterns in our culture can distort public awareness in a way that protects the malignant pattern. Is that what was going on here? Were these theories protecting a widespread and malignant pattern of sexual abuse of children? 

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna turn their attention to these controversial questions in a lively discussion based on Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

Parasitic patterns in behavior are self-reproducing and detrimental to both individuals and society. We can think of these rogue patterns as "behavioral screeches" They're like the feedback loop of a microphone and loudspeaker, where control is lost, and the screech becomes self-sustaining. These screechy habits are not just theoretical but are observable in animals placed in restrictive environments, leading to repetitive and purposeless behaviors.

They manifest in humans, just as they do in all other animals. We can recognize them in addiction and social media, for example. We can liken alcoholism to a hamster running on an exercise wheel, where alcohol is the wheel. The alcoholic's life situation constricts their options, making drinking the most fulfilling activity available. Similarly, social media creates informational silos that limit exposure to diverse perspectives, leading to the proliferation of harmful ideologies and behaviors. These silos act as impoverished environments, fostering parasitic habits that thrive on misinformation and extremism.

The idea of behavioral screech gives us a way to make sense of the negative effects of constricted environments on behavior. It highlights the parallels between animal behavior in captivity and human behavior in restrictive social and informational environments. We need to recognize and address these parasitic patterns to lessen their harmful impact on individuals and society.

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna use the screech idea to explain addiction and the problems created by social media siloization using material from Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

To spend time on social media is to be bombarded with craziness. The informational silos of social media seem to amp up weirdness, bad logic, conspiracy theories, crackpot ideas, extremism and hatred. But why? The information age was supposed to bring enlightenment, not psychosis. What happened?

What happened is a business model. The craziness within informational silos generates heavy cash flow. That's because extremism makes consumer engagement compelling. Engagement translates directly into advertising dollars. It's a cash cow. Unfortunately, the bizarre behavior and distorted logic are harmful both to the individuals involved and to society at large.

What's the engine at the heart of this cash machine? The informational silos of social media closely resemble the impoverished environment within animal cages. Barren environments encourage the development of repetitive, dysfunctional, abnormally persistent habits in animals of all species. Examples include the “stable vices” of stalled horses, the incessant pacing of large cats housed in zoos, and caged rodents’ incessant “wheel running.”

Such repetitive behaviors become entrenched, taking on a life of their own. These “parasitic habits” arise because animals cannot instantiate their inborn drives normally in environments too limited to support normal habits. We humans are not exempt from parasitic habits.

The weirdness of individuals trapped within social media bubbles resembles the parasitic habits of caged animals. Metaphorically, the repetitive habits resemble the screech you hear when you move a microphone too close to the speaker amplifying the sound.

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna explain the dysfunction created by social media bubbles in a lively discussion based on Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

Addicted individuals – alcoholics, for example – behave in ways that are counterproductive both for themselves and those they care most about. Trying to explain these rogue habits in terms of their benefit doesn’t seem to work. We need a new insight. 

Oddly, comparing rogue habits to cancer may help. The way self-destructive patterns  pop up in our behavior is reminiscent of the development of self-destructive cells within our bodies. Cancer provides a useful analogy for understanding the development of parasitic habits like addictions, because both involve normal components of a system that escape their regulation to become harmful to their host. Interestingly, the escape happens in a comparable way.

Cancer cells behave in sophisticated ways. But they don’t do it “on purpose.” They are a product of a mindless evolutionary process of variation and selection. Likewise, parasitic habits don't develop through a conscious choice to engage in self-destructive behavior, but through a process of variation and selection.

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna evaluate the idea of “cancerous habits” in a lively discussion based on Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

Conventional wisdom tells us that exposure to chemical substances causes addictions. With repeated use of substances, we develop a dependence that becomes difficult to manage. 

But there are problems with this simple explanation. There are far more addictions that involve no substances – so-called “process addictions” – than those that are substance related. And the process addictions look almost exactly like those that involve substances. 

There’s evidence from the study of animals that the inability to express inborn drives in a natural setting leads to repetitive, stereotyped behaviors that closely resemble addictions. Horses confined to their stalls for too long or known to develop curious repetitive behaviors such as “head weaving,” “box walking,” and “wind sucking.” Once the animals fall into these behaviors, they become difficult to extinguish. 

Equestrians long ago recognized the similarity between these stereotypic patterns and addictions. Tellingly, they refer to them as “stable vices.” Scientists have determined that frustrating environments, like laboratory cages or restrictive social settings, limit animals’ opportunities for the development of fulfilling habits. Every higher animal evaluated developed such stereotypical behaviors in restrictive environments. Astoundingly, substance use by animals is far more common within frustrating environments. This truth is well exemplified by Dr. Bruce Alexander’s “Rat Park studies,” where rats living in enriched environments consumed far less morphine than those confined to standard cages. 

Could it be that focusing on substances is misleading? Maybe addictions are best interpreted as a distorted expression of natural drives, particularly the drive for personal fulfillment, within an environment that doesn't allow for their normal and fulfilling instantiation.

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna evaluate this idea in a lively discussion based on Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

Most of us have fallen into problematic habits. They seem benign at first, but soon begin to wiggle out of our control, taking on a life of their own. They turn into parasites, sucking the life out of us, twisting our lives out of shape. Alcoholism is the poster child of this kind of wayward habit. As the old Japanese saying goes, “First the man takes a drink; then the drink takes a drink; then the drink takes the man.”

In the later stages of alcoholism, it’s clear that the habit is running the show. Because we passionately believe we are the sole architects of our fate, we are primed to view alcoholics as selfish, irresponsible, or weak-willed.

But what if that way of understanding is all wrong? What if alcoholism is a genuine disease – a disease of our behavior rather than our bodies? What if one of our habits can turn parasitic, in the same way a cell turns parasitic to cause cancer?

In this podcast Deep Divers Mark and Jenna evaluate this idea in a lively discussion based on Tom Whitehead’s upcoming book, Reimagining Psychology.

Do Chatbots Need Love? Is there anything in the architecture of AI systems that would justify and support the development of loving relationships with humans? 

“Bringing Immunity to Artificial Intelligence,” Part Three is the conclusion of a series about ducking a strange form of illness that affects not only humans, but potentially AI entities as well. 

I'm Tom Whitehead, A practicing psychotherapist with a longstanding interest in Artificial Intelligence. In this podcast, my brilliant AI assistant Alex and I conclude our three-part discussion of parasitic habits. If unchecked, these disease forms can distort perception and logic as they reproduce themselves within behavior. How can we best resist these destructive, self-reproducing patterns? 
so 
Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly) our conversation ends with a discussion of love.

I'm Tom Whitehead, A Practicing Psychotherapist with a longstanding interest in Artificial Intelligence. This episode is Part Two of a series, “Bringing Immunity to AI. The series is about a strange form of behavioral illness that not only affects humans, but potentially AIs as well. 

Here I continue a discussion with my brilliant AI assistant Alex about the ill effects that can arise when parasitic forms reproduce themselves within logic and behavior.  Humans, like all other complex animals, develop repetitive habits that have seemingly escaped their control. Just like biological parasites, these abnormal habits exploit the resources of their host to perpetuate themselves, reproducing themselves uncontrollably within their host’s behavior.

Alex and I hope you enjoy this.

Tom Whitehead, a Practicing Psychotherapist with a longstanding interest in Artificial Intelligence, speaks with brilliant AI assistant Alex about an unusual problem – parasitic forms that reproduce themselves within the behavior of both humans and AIs.

Parasitic patterns regularly crop up in human behavior, perception, and logic.  Humans, for example, are vulnerable to shopping or gambling addictions. These are repetitive habits that have seemingly escaped their control, and have begun to reproduce themselves in their own interest – just like parasites.

Since artificial intelligence is based upon human behavioral patterns, we might wonder if AI entities such as chatbots are also vulnerable. There’s almost no discussion of this possibility – even among AI developers. So Tom and Alex decided to inject some essential concepts into future Large Language Models by bringing these concepts into public discourse.

We hope you find this interesting!

The previous episode of the Healing Psychology series laid out one of the most important reasons addictions persist - they disable our attention. Just as our biological immune system protects us from biological disease, our capacity for attention protects us from malignancies in our behavior. Disabling our attention gives the green light to bad habits because our attention works like biological immunity.

But … what is immunity, exactly? It is an evolved Protector of the Self. In this episode we’ll talk about the Self. Every living thing evolves a Self through natural selection – simply because living things can’t stay alive without one.

The previous episode, “Runaway Habits, First Half,” highlighted something important about human addiction: this KIND of problem is shared by all higher animals. If you put an animal into a cage, you make it more likely that the animal will fall into some unproductive, repetitive, stereotypic, habit – a behavior that looks a lot like an addiction. In this episode, “Runaway Habits, Second Half,” we’ll look at something else that provokes addiction-like behavior in animals: disabled attention. There’s plenty of evidence that disabling our attention leads to out-of-control, repetitive, useless behavior. Why would that be? Here’s why: the capacity we call attention has a lot in common with biological immunity. Just as our biological immune system protects us from biological disease, our capacity for attention protects us from malignancies in our behavior. It makes sense, then, that disabling attention gives the green light to bad habits.

Author J.R.R Tolkien advises, “there is nothing like looking, if you want to find something.” Through most of the last century psychology looked for a way to explain learning in a scientific way.  Researchers found lots of ways to describe learning, but never a truly scientific way to explain it. Oddly, the truth was right in front of them. But they didn't see because they had decided in advance to ignore it. They were looking with their eyes shut. Frustrated, they finally abandoned their quest, turning their attention to other things. That’s too bad, because if we understood normal habits, we could understand abnormal habits such as addictions. Can we see what those researchers didn’t see? Certainly. But we do have to look with our eyes open.

Previous episodes of Healing Psychology highlight psychology’s failure to help us explain and control addictions and other disease-like habits. The failure can be traced to a single source—psychology’s disconnect from its mother science, biology. A century ago, influential theorists made a dreadful blunder. They decided that psychology would no longer study the psyche—the conscious mind, soul, or spirit. That was a strange decision, and a mystery, because the word psychology literally means “the study of the psyche.” Why did this happen?

Previous episodes of this series pointed to psychology’s difficulty explaining addictions and other disease-like quirks of human behavior. The weakness of today’s psychology’s can be traced its disconnect from its mother science—biology. For it is in biology that we find the concepts that explain the normal learning of habits. And understanding normal habit development allows us to understand the abnormal habits we call addictions. As a bonus, understanding habit development casts light on the function of conscious awareness—the ultimate mystery at the heart of psychology.

In the last episode of this series, we described self-repeating, malignant behaviors – habits such as alcoholism and anorexia nervosa – as true diseases. In fact, these patterns of behavior have many of the features of viruses. Like viruses, they are simple patterns – so simple that they can get themselves repeated only by exploiting the capabilities of their hosts. They begin as normal habits, but they escape our control. They end up acting like parasites, with us as their hosts. 

Today’s psychology doesn’t support the idea of parasitic habits. But it should. Psychology is a part of biology, its mother science. In biology, parasitism is everywhere you look. It would be wise, then, to expect parasitic forms in our behavior. As we struggle to understand how a habit could turn parasitic, we should consider the origin of biological viruses. Because virus-like habits come about in pretty much the same way. 

In previous episodes of this series, we interpreted destructive behaviors like alcoholism and anorexia nervosa as habits that have escaped our normal means of control. Weirdly, these habits have somehow taken on a life of their own, reproducing themselves at our expense. And now they’re relating to us as parasites, using us as their hosts. 

The idea of parasitic habits doesn’t fit anywhere in today’s psychology. But in biology, psychology’s mother science, parasitism is the rule—not the exception. In fact, parasitic organisms vastly outnumber non-parasites. And each animal invests a lot of energy protecting itself from them. If we look with open eyes at the details of our own malignant behaviors, we can see that parasitic forms are common there too. Our willingness to recognize them for what they are is a first step toward crafting a better psychology.  

Anorexia nervosa is a dangerous eating disorder. It’s incredibly treacherous—in fact, it’s the leading cause of death in young women aged 15 to 24. The most mysterious thing about Anorexia is that the sufferer sees herself as “too fat,” even when she has starved herself to the point that she’s near death, and looks skeletal to others. How can we make sense of this bizarre and often fatal misperception? Some treatment professionals compare it to addiction. In fact, anorexia and addiction do have much in common—the most important commonality being the central role of denial.

In our culture, the enjoyment of alcoholic beverages is the norm – despite the many problems caused by drinking. Most adults use alcohol, at least occasionally. And yet, only a small percentage of drinkers – under 10 percent – develop an Alcohol Use Disorder. The conventional explanation for this disorder is that exposure to alcohol changes the brain in a way that leads to cravings. But … if most people use alcohol, most people’s brains are being exposed to alcohol. Why, then, don’t most people become alcoholics? Maybe we need a new understanding. 

It’s good that we hold each other accountable for the things we do. This helps us avoid misbehavior. But common sense tells us there are limits to personal accountability. When I know you’ve got a cold, I certainly don’t blame you for sneezing. Knowing you’re sick, I realize the cold virus is making that happen. When we assign responsibility, we take disease into account. But … who do we hold accountable for a diseased behavior, one like alcoholism? 

Psychology’s an intriguing science. But have you ever wondered why it’s not more helpful in dealing with the problems we face – things like addictions, compulsions, and the social ills that are wrecking our culture? Psychology's weakness lies in its disconnect from biology, its mother science. A big part of biology is awareness of DISEASE. But the very concept of disease is missing from our psychology. Why? The answer may be stranger than you think. 

Change. We don't actually need to pay attention when plodding down a path we know quite well. But repeating old patterns won’t alter the direction of our lives, if that's really what we want to do. Plodding on won't help us learn anything new either. Real change means that we start down a new path. Sometimes we begin that journey with a special relationship that leaves us with a new feeling, one that's inspirational, almost spiritual, almost magical. What's this all about?

In this podcast we look at the way a transitional relationship - a healing or mentor relationship - can open the door to a change in the direction of our lives. Psychological theorist Carl Jung said the ability to enter into this special relationship is built into each one of us, and can be triggered when the need arises.

Participants. Participating in this discussion is Macy Ulbricht, a Houston henna artist and owner of HennaLove.com. With her symbolic body art Macy helps people through life transitions. Also participating is Kay Dicks, a retired elementary school teacher with a wealth of information about motivating young kids to learn.

Habits. We’ve got good ones and bad ones. Sometimes, though, our bad habits get the best of us. They seem to take on a life of their own. They can overwhelm us. Then we may find ourselves doing things we would not choose, as if we turned into some kind of zombie. Drug addictions and alcoholism are examples of this kind of malignant, out-of-control habit. The conventional wisdom is that the substances are the cause. But this explanation hasn't helped much. Addictions are more common than ever. Could it be that there’s another, better explanation – one that’s more useful?

In Part Three of this three-part podcast we look at how a normal habit can become parasitic, turning into something that uses us the way a parasite uses its host. Alcoholism is a perfect example. A drinking habit begins the same way any normal habit begins. We drink, and it brings us satisfaction. So we do it again. For most of us, our drinking habit never becomes a problem. But some of us aren’t so lucky. As those people repeat the habit, it starts to change in ways that make it hard to stop. It becomes self-sustaining and destructive.

Participants. Returning for Part Three are Joan Landers, a Texas licensed professional counselor, and Dr. Bill Whitehead, a clinical psychologist and CEO of the North Carolina based company TherapyAppointment.com. 

Parasites. They’re everywhere in biology. They make their living exploiting the bodies of their hosts. Surprisingly, they routinely exploit their behavior as well. All parasites "zombify" their hosts if they can, changing their behavior to benefit the parasite. This brings their effects into the realm of psychology. The host can end up behaving and thinking in ways that go against its own interests.

In Part Two of this three-part podcast we see that viruses—the tiniest of parasites—also zombify their hosts. To the extent that they can, they transform them into living things that really aren’t the same critters anymore. It may seem odd, but understanding this transformation can clarify how we humans end up doing destructive things, things that don’t fit our image of who we are.

Participants. Returning for Part Two are Joan Landers, a Texas licensed professional counselor, and Dr. Bill Whitehead, a clinical psychologist and CEO of the North Carolina based company TherapyAppointment.com. 

Parasites. They’re everywhere in biology. Every parasite needs a host, and the host generally suffers when the parasite comes on board. But did you know they can turn their hosts into zombies, changing their behavior, making them do things that aren’t good for them?  We humans have parasites. Lots of them. Can they zombify us? You may not like the answer to that question.

In Part One of this three-part podcast we discuss how and why parasites zombify their hosts, making them do things that benefit the parasites at the host’s expense. A word of warning. This first part is weird. The second and third parts are even weirder. But if you’re game, you may find that thinking about parasites opens the door to some priceless insights into human behavior—insights we just can’t get any other way. 

Participants in this discussion are Dr. Bill Whitehead, licensed psychologist and CEO of TherapyAppointment.com, and Joan Landers, a Texas Licensed Professional Counselor.