Intellect
Intellect from a Christian Perspective
Learning
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Applications
Cognition
Thinking
Language
Applications
Memory
Memory Model
Too Little Memory
Too Much Memory
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 in Dewey’s introductory text are relevant.
(Chapter 8—Learning, Chapter 9—Memory, and Chapter 10—Thinking and Language, in Myers 8th edition are also relevant.)
The last chapter was concerned with how humans become aware of the world around them. This chapter is a different topic area of psychology, one dealing with the intellectual processes. This chapter is devoted to the areas of learning, cognitive processes, and memory. Although there is some debate whether or not any human behavior is instinctive, everyone agrees that learning and higher mental processes influence human behavior. Even innate responses, such as eating, elimination, and crying, are modified by learning and thinking.
Intellect from a Christian Perspective
Intellect fits into our Christian perspective as shown in the lower part of Figure 5:1. As with awareness, some of the intellectual processes were present in the elements that Wundt and other early structuralists discovered in the last half of the nineteenth century. They found sensations, images, and affective states, and the images were cognitions that people used as they interpreted the sensations.
Early in the twentieth century psychologists were greatly influenced by Pavlov’s findings about conditioned responses, primarily studied through his work with dogs. These same animal-like conditioned responses are also found in humans as they learn.
Psychologists were also influenced by the late nineteenth century work of Hermann Ebbinghaus studying human rote memory. This work is found in his classic book, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (1885) http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Ebbinghaus/index.htm. Such rote learning was much like animal learning.
Works during the first half of the twentieth century by the Gestalt psychologists, particularly Max Wertheimer, as well as many cognitive psychologists during the last half of the twentieth century, pointed out the importance of more God-like characteristics on memory. Therefore, memory appears in the middle as having both animal-like and God-like aspects.
Figure 5:1 Intellect from a Christian perspective.
HUMANS
Created . . . . . . . . . . . in the. . . . . . . . . Image of God
Like Animals Like God
Overt Behavior. . . . . . Definition. . . . . .Mental Processes
Understand. . . . . . . . . Goals. . . . . . . . .Make people
Creation like God
Psychoanalysis. . . . . . Systems. . . . . . .Humanistic
Behaviorism Psychology
Experimental . . . . . . .Methods . . . . . . Descriptive
Physical. . . . . . . . . . .The Person . . . . Spiritual
Immaturity. . . . . . . . .Development. . .Maturity
Sensation . . . . . . . . . .Awareness . . . .Perception
(States of Consciousness)
Learning . . . . . . . . . .Intellect . . . . . .Cognition
(Memory)
Learning
Psychologists usually define learning as a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. This excludes changes in behavior due to maturation, fatigue, drugs, injury, and so forth. They usually consider rote learning to be a much simpler process than other intellectual processes. The study of learning can be placed in our Christian perspective as shown in the lower part of Figure 5:1 (Learning- Intellect). That is, humans are very similar to animals in the way they learn many simple responses. In fact, much of the study of learning has been the study of the way animals learn, with the concepts generalized to humans. Of course, we must not forget that humans are also like God, and that this will influence even the way they learn simple responses.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning is practically synonymous with the work Ivan Pavlov (1927) did with dogs http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Pavlov/. While Pavlov was studying the physiology of digestion in dogs, he noticed that the dogs began to salivate at the sight and sound of the experimenter. He first called these “psychic” secretions but soon found that they were produced by any stimuli that regularly preceded food. Pavlov then studied this secretion of saliva under carefully controlled conditions and discovered much of what we know about this type of learning.
Although the salivation of dogs might seem to be far removed from missions, much of what Pavlov discovered is related to living in other cultures. Classical conditioning occurs in many species, including humans. Classical conditioning of humans has been most often studied using the kneejerk and the eyeblink responses, but classical conditioning is involved far beyond these simple responses, including fear conditioning.
Classical conditioning of emotions often occurs in humans. Missionaries may meet someone they immediately do not like. If the new acquaintance looks or acts like someone they dislike, the dislike generalizes to the new person. The missionary may not recognize the similarity between the people and be puzzled why they feel so negative. Of course, classical conditioning may lead to liking a person if the new acquaintance has characteristics of an old friend.
When trying new foods in the host culture, the same thing may occur. If the new food has the smell, taste, or texture of a favorite food, the missionary may immediately like it. Often with tastes people recognize the similarity and note that it tastes like ____________. Likewise, if the food reminds them of something they do not like, the new food will also be rejected.
For further information about specific topics in classical conditioning click on the following links to parts of Chapter 5 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Operant Conditioning
Although B. F. Skinner did most of his experiments on animals, he promoted operant conditioning as one of the primary ways humans learn. The most common apparatus used to study this kind of learning is the operant chamber, commonly called the “Skinner box.” This is simply a box that contains a lever or disc and a food or water dispenser so that whenever the lever is pressed or a disk is pecked, a pellet of food or drink of water is given to the rat or pigeon. Rather than making a new stimulus-response connection, operant conditioning takes a response which the subject is already making and strengthens it with reinforcement.
Reinforcement is anything that increases the probability that the response will be repeated. Whereas reinforcement increases the probability that a response will be occur, punishment is used to suppress or decrease the probability of a response. Although there has been much controversy over whether or not reinforcement is necessary for learning to take place, everyone agrees that reinforcement is necessary to bring about changes in performance; therefore it is important to look at positive and negative reinforcement.
A positive reinforcement (reward) is any stimulus that increases the probability of response when the stimulus is presented following that response. If the subject is hungry, food is a positive reinforcer. If the subject is thirsty, water is a positive reinforcer. If the person has been ignored, attention is a positive reinforcer. If the individual is lonely, social interaction is a positive reinforcer. Since most people view reinforcement as one of the most efficient ways to bring about changes in behavior, missionaries may make extensive use of it. When a national has done something the missionary wants (Bible study, prayer, and so forth), the missionary may give something culturally appropriate, such as a smile, pat on the back or a kiss. In addition they sometimes give objects, such as a bookmarks, stars, or pins.
Although people often use reinforcement as a means of trying to bring about permanent changes in behavior, the fact is that the changes produced by reinforcement are no more lasting than those produced by punishment. When the punishment is discontinued, the punished behavior reappears. In the same way, when reinforcement is discontinued, the behavior of “not responding” reappears, only we call it extinction. This view of reinforcement may force us toward a redefinition of learning because we now see that we are unable to bring about lasting changes in behavior through either reinforcement or punishment. From the perspective taken here, we would say that in our animal-likeness in learning, we respond only to the reinforcing or punishing events in the world around us, but in our God-like cognitive processes, we are able to evaluate rationally the world around us, make a decision, and permanently change our behavior, regardless of conditions around us.
Although secular psychologists are interested in changing behavior and see reinforcement as the most efficient means of bringing about the desired change, Christians see reward in terms of justice as well as behavioral change. That is, reward is given because the person deserves it for having made the response. We do not give it only to manipulate the person into doing what we want. Reinforcement increases the probability of response, but correct responses are not enough for the Christian! We can use reinforcement to bring about behavior change, but we should not give reinforcement when it has not been “earned.”
A negative reinforcement is a stimulus that, when removed, strengthens a response. Negative reinforcers are noxious stimuli, such as electric shock, which we try to escape or avoid. Humans, like animals, learn responses that remove noxious stimuli and responses that prevent noxious stimuli from being presented. Note that even though noxious stimuli are used, we call this reinforcement because its removal increases behavior.
Noxious stimuli are sometimes involved in the reinforcement of religious behavior. For example, most people consider shame and guilt feelings to be noxious stimuli, so they make responses to escape or avoid such feelings. People may witness, pray, attend church, and tithe to avoid the shame or guilt feelings they know will come if they do not do these things a Christian “should” do. If they already have the guilt feelings, one popular escape route is through confession and tears. The people vent their misery through crying and confessing some misdeeds. This leads to a temporary reduction in guilt feelings without doing anything about the actual guilt itself. This leads to a series of “weeping in confession responses,” usually during a time of spiritual emphasis. Actual guilt cannot be removed without the person’s repentance and forgiveness from God. As Christian missionaries, we are interested in dealing with actual guilt as well as guilt feelings.
In the study of learning we find several types of operant conditioning.
Reward. The most widely studied form of operant conditioning is reward learning, in which a reinforcement is given whenever the appropriate response is made. This occurs naturally when someone picks out a response we make and starts reinforcing it so that we begin repeating it. When they stop reinforcing the response, we stop making it. When children are not reinforced for making sounds, they do not learn to speak a language. When learning the language of their host culture, missionaries are reinforced each time they communicate accurately and nationals respond appropriately.
Escape. Escape learning is similar to reward learning, except that a different kind of reinforcement is used. In escape learning, the subject learns to escape from a noxious stimulus that is turned on and then not turned off until the appropriate response is made. For example, children use escape learning to teach their parents to pick them up. The children turn on the crying (a noxious stimulus to most parents) and do not turn it off until the parents pick them up. Children can cry for a long time, longer than the resistance of most parents. When the parents pick up the children, they stop crying. When new missionaries feel uneasy in groups of nationals, in order to escape those negative feelings they may leave the groups much sooner than is appropriate in the culture.
Avoidance. Avoidance learning is another type of operant conditioning similar to escape learning except that it involves acting (or not acting) before the noxious stimulus is presented. Avoidance learning may be involved in missionaries’ lives when they avoid doing things that they find uncomfortable but know they should be doing. For example, the missionary may begin by leaving groups early (escape learning), and later they may not go to the groups at all (avoidance learning). One important characteristic of avoidance learning is that it is very resistant to extinction, so that long after the noxious element is turned off, the person will still stay away. That is, even when the missionaries learn the language and culture well enough to feel comfortable in groups, they may still avoid going.
Punishment. A noxious stimulus is also used in the punishment situation, but it is not presented unless the undesired response is made. This type of learning is widely used by parents and society. Nothing happens until the children or the criminals make the forbidden response, then the noxious stimulus occurs. Although punishment can be very effective when used in combination with reward learning, we must be aware of several facts about its use.
· First, it is often accompanied by emotional side effects so that, although the behavior is suppressed, the person is angry, fearful, or resentful.
· Second, punishment only temporarily suppresses the inappropriate response. Parents who use only punishment usually have model children when they are present, but the children may be very bad when away from their parents.
· Finally, punishment suppresses the response that occurred immediately before it is given, and sometimes we inadvertently punish the wrong response.
For example, if a child comes in the house confessing that he or she just broke a window and you spank him or her, you are not likely to stop window breaking, but you are likely to suppress the confessing behavior. The next time the child breaks something, he or she is less likely to confess his or her part in it.
For further information about specific topics in Operant conditioning click on the following links to parts of Chapter 5 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Applications
Obviously the techniques of classical conditioning and operant conditioning are used in the training of animals. However, since human beings are animal-like in some ways, both of these types of learning are also used at times in the treatment of psychological disorders. Missionaries are often involved in counseling situations, so they need examples of the applications of these techniques in the treatment of disorders.
Involving Classical Conditioning. The techniques using classical conditioning are usually aimed at changing a person's emotional responses (likes, dislikes, fears) in order to change overt behaviors. The basic idea is that inappropriate emotional responses to certain stimuli have been learned and that the person must be reconditioned.
Extinction. The basic idea in extinction is to present the conditioned stimulus (such as a feared object) but not follow it with the unconditioned one (such as pain). When this is done repeatedly, the conditioned response gradually drops out, as when Pavlov sounded the bell but did not follow it with the meat. Soon salivation to the bell alone stopped. This extinction can be attempted gradually or rapidly, and verbally or in real life, as shown in Figure 5:2. Since counselors cannot control the environment twenty-four hours a day, extinction may be difficult. Family and friends may reinforce responses counselors are trying to extinguish.
Figure 5:2 Classification of therapies based on classical conditioning.
|
|
Verbal Techniques |
Real Life |
|
Gradual Extinction |
Systematic Desensitization |
Systematic Desensitization |
|
Rapid Extinction |
Implosive Therapy |
Flooding |
If extinction is attempted gradually and verbally, it is called systematic desensitization and involves three steps.
· First, patients are trained in relaxation, usually some form of progressive, systematic muscle relaxation.
· Second, patients and therapists construct a list of fear-arousing situations in a hierarchy of fearfulness. For example, people with a fear of dogs may have little fear of a playful puppy, more of a cocker spaniel, and a terror of a snarling Doberman pinscher.
· Third, the patients relax and imagine themselves experiencing the situations in their hierarchies, beginning with the least fearful and gradually moving to more fearful ones. When fear replaces the relaxation, they drop back in the hierarchy for a while. The basic idea is to extinguish the fear gradually.
Extinction may be attempted gradually and in real life, but the principle is the same. This was the technique we used when our son developed his phobia of dogs. We actually got a small puppy, which elicited only a minimal amount of fear. Soon he was able to play with the puppy without fear but was still afraid of larger dogs. It was simply a matter of time until the puppy grew into a dog, and the boy's fear of dogs gradually extinguished as the puppy grew. Fears of heights can be extinguished gradually by standing in higher and higher places, fear of closed spaces by being in smaller and smaller rooms, fear of crowds by being around more and more people, and so forth.
If extinction is attempted rapidly and verbally, it is called implosive therapy. The idea here is to arouse as much fear as possible, an inward explosion (implosion) of fear. This is done repeatedly in the safe setting of the therapist's office and the fear soon extinguishes. The therapists find out from the clients what are the most feared stimuli, then ask the clients to imagine these feared things over and over, embellished with the most fear-producing things the therapists can imagine. At first great fear is aroused, but over several sessions the fear subsides until it is gone.
If extinction is attempted in real life, the process is called flooding. Rather than imagining the most terrifying situations, patients are actually placed in them repeatedly. For example, if patients are afraid of heights, they are actually taken to the tops of tall buildings and required to look down. This obviously brings a “flood” of fear, but when nothing bad happens time after time, the fear extinguishes. If the patients have a fear of crowds, they are actually taken into the largest crowds that can be found so that the fear can be extinguished. As missionaries, we can make use of these techniques, which work so well on the phobias. Although they were developed from working with animals, we can use them because humans are like animals in many ways.
We can use these techniques of classical conditioning where they are appropriate. If the cause of the problem is a learned inappropriate response, we can use the principles of learning to get rid of the response. The use of the “healing of memories'' or “inner healing'' (to be discussed later in this chapter), so popular recently in Christian circles, is really a combination of these extinction techniques with the work of the Holy Spirit. Although many who practice healing of memories do not realize it, they are using techniques originating in animal learning.
Involving Operant Conditioning. The techniques involving operant conditioning are usually aimed at directly changing individuals' overt behaviors (behavior modification). The basic idea here is that inappropriate responses have been reinforced, and the task of psychologists is to change the reinforcement so that this will no longer happen. As with classical conditioning, this involves extinction, and it may also involve punishment.
Extinction. Behaviors that have been learned by being reinforced will soon disappear if the reinforcement is discontinued. The task of the psychologist in this case is to find the reinforcer and, if possible, discontinue it. For example, children may become real problems in the classroom because they are deprived of attention. Their disruptive behavior is then reinforced by attention from teachers and other students. The problem is solved by extinguishing the disruptive behavior by turning off the attention. Another example is children who cry when left in the church nursery or when put to bed at home. When they cry, the parents pick them up, reinforcing their crying. (Of course, we must realize that the children are using negative reinforcement to reinforce their parents' picking them up. When they turn off the noxious stimulus--stop crying-this makes it more likely that their parents will pick them up.) The way to stop the crying is to stop reinforcing it, to stop picking the children up.
Simple extinction is difficult to use because when it is first begun, the unwanted behavior occurs in much greater amounts. Ignoring the disruptive child in the classroom results in a great increase in such behavior temporarily, but it must still be ignored. Ignoring a crying child may result in two or more hours of crying, but the crying must be ignored. Another problem is that everyone involved must consistently ignore the behavior. If the teacher ignores it, but other students give their attention, the misbehavior will continue. If parents ignore the crying child, but a visiting grandparent picks the child up, the crying will continue.
Reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is currently the most widely used form of behavior modification. Many different specific techniques of reinforcement are used, but they all involve using reinforcement to increase the probability of a desired response. . Three techniques are among the most commonly used.
People in institutions are often made members of token economies. That is, tokens (poker chips, slips of paper, points on a chart) are given them when they make the desired response. The tokens can then be exchanged for candy, games, books, a better room, television time, or a weekend pass. The tokens are conditioned reinforcers because they have gained their reinforcement values from association with primary reinforcers, such as food or recreation. The psychologists have specified the desirable behaviors for each patient, and the patient must perform those behaviors to get the tokens, which can be exchanged. This procedure is also called contingency management or contingency contracting, depending on how specific the requirements are for the responses.
Positive reinforcement is often used in shaping behavior, as was mentioned earlier. People are reinforced for making responses that successively approximate the desired one. For example, therapists do not wait for withdrawn patients who have not spoken for weeks to utter a complete sentence before they reinforce them. At first, they may give candy or gum for a grunt, then for a word, then for a phrase, and finally for a complete sentence. Again, they pick the desired response and reinforce closer and closer approximations of it. We must be careful not to reinforce behavior that occurs naturally because (as we will see in chapter 11) externalizing motivation may result in a decrease in desired behavior when we cease reinforcement.
Modeling may be used when the psychologist does not wish to take the time involved in shaping behavior. In modeling, patients first come to emit the behavior by watching someone else do it. It is the old principle of monkey-see-monkey-do. Children with a fear of dogs may watch another child play with a dog, then go pet the dog themselves. Then the petting of the dog is immediately reinforced by praise, candy, or some other reinforcer. Giving the reinforcement makes this a type of operant learning, but the modeling is used to get the response made in the first place. Of course, this is a major part of our talking about being Christ-like or God-like, from our Christian perspective.
Other types of reinforcement may be used; sometimes in combination with cognitive processes, sometimes in combination with punishment. However, the main idea of reinforcement is to get the person to make the response, and then reinforce it. Missionaries can use this very powerful way to change behavior. Humans are animal-like in some ways, and there is nothing wrong with using what we know about these animal-likenesses.
Punishment. Punishment may be used to lower the rate of responding. This is particularly effective when used with positive reinforcement. In punishment the aversive stimulus is not given until the response is made. For example, problem drinkers may be given a drug called Antabuse. This is a chemical that produces a very unpleasant physical reaction if the individual drinks alcohol. Drinking is punished even if no one is present. When these people drink, they flush, their heart rate increases, they become very nauseated, and they feel very ill. Antabuse stops impulsive drinking because the drinkers must stop taking Antabuse at least two days before they can drink comfortably. Electric shock or other punishments can be used. However, many people frown on the use of these types of punishment.
One type of punishment that is more commonly used is time-out from positive reinforcement. This is much like the old practice of making children stand in the corner. When people make an undesirable response, they are removed to a place where they stop receiving reinforcement. Several important conditions must be met for this to work.
· First, the place they go must contain no reinforcers. Sending children to their rooms does little good since they can play there.
· Second, there must be clear rules to start the time-out and to stop it. For example, a temper tantrum starts it, and the child must stay there until he/she is calm for ten minutes.
· Finally, time-out must be imposed dispassionately so that the persons do not have the reinforcement of knowing they have angered their parents or the therapist. Missionaries can make use of any of these techniques of behavior modification using operant conditioning.
For further information about specific topics in applications click on the following links to parts of Chapter 5 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Cognition
Psychologists usually define cognition as all of the mental activities we use to understand, remember, and communicate. We usually consider cognition to be a much more complex process than learning. The study of cognition can be placed in our Christian perspective as shown in the lower central part of Figure 5:1 (Intellect-Cognition). Humans are very similar to animals in the way they learn many simple responses, but they are much more like God in the way they use their cognitive abilities. In this section we are going to consider the topics of thinking, language, and the application of cognition to helping persons with disorders.
Thinking
To simplify things in our world enough to think about them, we develop concepts. For example, we can say, “Sit in the chair” and people in our culture know what we mean because they have a concept of “sitting” and a concept of “chair.” Probably most cultures have a concept of “sitting,” but what about a culture which has no chairs? Missionaries often face the problem of people in their host cultures not having concepts by which one can explain Christianity.
Probably the best-known example of this is when Don Richardson ran into this problem when working with the Sawi people in Indonesia. After he learned enough of the complex language, he began to tell them about the gospel. As he told about the life of Jesus, he suddenly realized that to the people there, Judas was the hero of the story, and Jesus was a dope to be laughed at. They had no concept of a redeemer, one who sacrificed himself to save others. Only after watching two tribes try to make peace by exchanging a child, a “peace child,” was he able to talk about Jesus being God’s “Peace Child” who gave himself to redeem them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Richardson_(missionary).
We often organize how our concepts are related in hierarchies. For example, “chairs” are one concept fitting under the more general concept of “furniture.” Some cultures not only have no chairs, they may not even have any furniture. Some hierarchies are highly complex and well organized as students may have learned from studying the periodic table of the elements in chemistry or learning the taxonomy of genus and species in biology.
Thinking also includes problem solving. For example, connecting the nine dots (in Figure 5:2) with four straight lines is a problem for people who do not “think outside the box.” If connecting these dots is a problem for you, please see the solution in Figure 5:3 at the end of the chapter.
Figure 5:2. Connect the dots with four straight lines without retracing any lines or lifting your pencil from the page.
Cultures may emphasize different ways of thinking. Western cultures tend to lean toward linear thinking in which people use step-by-step approaches to solve problems. Solving a problem is similar to following the directions to assemble a bicycle. Some other cultures lean toward radiant thinking which is much more free-form and like brainstorming. Preachers from Western cultures outline their sermons beginning with a joke, three points (all with the same first letter), and draw a conclusion. Preachers from other cultures may tell stories and leave it to the listeners to come to a conclusion. Jesus came from such a culture and frequently told parables.
For further information about specific topics in thinking click on the following links to parts of Chapter 7 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Language
The language (or languages) we learn as children may influence how we think. As already noted, one culture may simply not have a particular concept, so there is no word to express that concept. Another culture may have a language that has several words to express subtle differences of a concept.
Both the ancient Greeks and current Americans have the concept of love. However, the Greeks had several words for different kinds of love, but the Americans just have one word and use an adjective to describe various kinds of love. English speakers have a difficult time understanding what is going on in John 21:15-19 where it sounds like Jesus and Peter are saying the same thing about love as they carry on their dialogue. They are not. Here is what they are saying with the “Greek” words for love inserted where the English always says “love.”
· Jesus: “Do you truly agape me more than these”
· Peter: “Yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you.”
· Jesus: “Do you truly agape me?”
· Peter: “Yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you.”
· Jesus: “Do you phileo me?”
· Peter: “You know that I phileo you.”
Just as some may not have understood what was going on between Jesus and Peter, they may not have the vocabulary to understand interchanges between nationals or between them and a national. Of course, language is more than vocabulary, and it may be that the language learned may influence the way a person thinks.
During the early twentieth century Edward Sapir and later his student Benjamin Whorf proposed what has been called the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis (or linguistic relativity hypothesis). This theory proposes that language brings with it different conceptions of reality. Bilinguals report feeling a different sense of self when speaking different languages; they may even show different personalities when taking the same personality test in different languages.
Several decades ago I was talking with a Chinese student from a traditional background studying here in America where she spoke English fluently. She said that if she was asked out on a date in Chinese, she would always decline because that would be inappropriate in her Chinese culture. However, if asked in English, she would eagerly go, that she really wanted to date (she was conversing with me in English).
To learn more about this hypothesis, click on the following links.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/supplement2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/language/whorf.html
For further information about specific topics in language click on the following links to parts of Chapter 7 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Applications
Although therapy involving cognition was relatively ignored for many years because of the dominance of the Freudian psychoanalytic theory of personality, several forms of cognitive therapy have been proposed more recently. A couple of examples from the last half of the twentieth century are those of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck who both placed an emphasis on cognition.
Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy. During the 1950s, Albert Ellis developed a method of therapy which has come to be called rational-emotive behavior therapy. Although emotion is mentioned, the emphasis is on the rational. Ellis first called it “rational psychotherapy.'' He also founded the Institute for Rational Living, the Institute for Advanced Study in Rational Psychotherapy, and the journal, Rational Living.
Ellis' idea is that emotional disturbances are not the result of objective events in people's lives, but the result of irrational beliefs used in interpreting these events. For example, when people fail a task, it is not failure itself that causes them to be depressed and depreciate themselves. Rather, disturbances occur when people interpret that failure through the belief that they should be competent, adequate, intelligent, and successful in all possible respects. Thus, it is not the failure that causes depression, but the person's belief that one should never fail. The real causes of the disorders are the beliefs of the people themselves, not what happens to them.
Ellis believed (he died in 2007) that humans are born with a potential to be rational, but that they are pushed toward the irrational by their culture, especially their family. They think, feel, and behave simultaneously, so we need to treat all these areas in therapy. Therapists should have good rapport with their clients but may use a variety of impersonal methods, including bibliotherapy, behavior modification, audio-visual aids, and activity-oriented homework assignments. The goal is not just symptom reduction, but a change in the underlying thinking that produces the symptoms. Insight into the cause of the symptoms is not enough. The individual must eliminate the irrational thinking, and this takes hard work and practice.
Practitioners of rational-emotive therapy do not just use understanding and acceptance. They may bluntly point out the irrationality of the counselees' thinking. For example, they may say, “So what if your father doesn't love you. That's his problem!” They use firm, hard-headed methods to convince the clients that they must resort to more self-discipline. For further information on Albert Ellis and his therapy go to http://www.rebt.ws/.
Missionaries may reject this method when they read some of the “irrational beliefs'' Ellis wants to eradicate. For example: “one needs something stronger or more powerful than oneself to rely on,” or “certain acts are awful or wicked, and people who perform them should be severely punished.'' Although we may disagree with his calling these particular beliefs irrational, many other beliefs are simply untenable, and people need to change them. For example, certain ideas--that we should be loved by everyone for everything we do; that we should be thoroughly competent, intelligent, and achieving in all respects; that we must have certain and perfect self-control at all times; or that we have virtually no control over our emotions and cannot help having certain feelings--are simply not true.
We can filter these beliefs through our Christian value system and use Ellis' basic approach if our counselee's problem is one of irrational thinking. Such directive techniques seem odd to Christian counselors who have been trained in psychoanalytic or client-centered approaches, but there is nothing unbiblical about being directive. Jesus himself was quite directive with many of the people he encountered.
Cognitive Therapy. In the 1970s Aaron Beck proposed that psychological problems are not the product of mysterious, uncontrollable forces, but come from faulty learning, drawing incorrect conclusions from too little or wrong information, and not distinguishing adequately between imagination and reality. Disorders can be treated by sharpening discriminations, correcting misconceptions, and learning more adaptive attitude—a process he calls cognitive therapy. This approach brings treatment much closer to everyday experience, to common sense.
Cognitive therapy consists of all the approaches to treatment that aim at correcting faulty conceptions and self-signals. This emphasis on thinking does not mean that emotion is ignored, only that one gets to emotions through cognition. Many methods may be used to help patients make more realistic appraisals of themselves and their world. The “intellectual” approach consists of identifying misconceptions, testing their validity, and substituting appropriate concepts. The “experiential” approach gives the patient experiences that are powerful enough to change misconceptions. The “behavioral” approach helps the patients develop specific behaviors that change the way they view themselves and the world.
Beck noted that some people make direct, tangible distortions of reality. These distortions may be obviously delusional or may be less obvious (e.g., “I have lost my ability to drive”) when the person has simply not tried to do something recently. Other people have not distorted reality but have illogical thinking. Their system of making inferences or drawing conclusions from their observations is faulty. They may over-generalize and think the whole house is falling apart because a faucet leaks and a light switch is broken. They may magnify the importance of minor undesirable events, selectively perceive bad events and ignore good ones, and engage in “all-or-none” thinking.
In cognitive therapy, the therapist is seen as a collaborator, rather than playing an omnipotent and omniscient God-like role. The patient-therapist relationship becomes a joint effort. Both work together to reach a consensus on the nature of the problem, the goal of therapy, and a plan to reach the goal. They agree on the nature and the duration of the therapy. The patients gather information about themselves through experiments that allow them to discover and refute their false beliefs. Together, therapist and patient discuss the patient's assumptions, beliefs, and expectations. Then they design behavioral-disconfirmation experiments in which the patient has a series of successful experiences. They may even schedule the patient's activities on an hour-by-hour basis.
Individuals are also encouraged to examine their maladaptive thoughts, which produce unnecessary discomfort or suffering, or lead to self-defeating behavior. These are automatic thoughts, which the person needs help in identifying. These thoughts take place between the stimulus and response and must be identified. The thought that comes between the sight of a dog and a phobic response may be “It is going to bite me.” These thoughts need to be recognized and dealt with, as do many attitudes similar to the ones we discussed in Ellis' rational-emotive therapy, such as: “To be happy I must be accepted by all people at all times,” “If I make a mistake, it means that I'm inept,” “I should never feel hurt but always be happy and serene,” or “I should always be spontaneous and I should always control my feelings.”
Faulty “Christian” Thinking. Missionaries can use many of the techniques and insights of the treatments emphasizing the cognitive dimension of humans. Although we cannot accept all parts of these therapies, humans are cognitive beings made in God's image, so disorders in their thinking may have a great effect on their behavior. In addition to insights from these secular psychologists, we must correct faulty concepts that Christians may have about the Christian faith.
About God. Many Christians have incorrect concepts of God. These lead to a poor relationship with him. Some come from distortions of his attributes, while others are a matter of thinking about God as people think about their parents. Frequently these individuals can give all the correct definitions or verbalizations about God, but their thinking behind these verbalizations needs to be discerned and clarified by the missionary counselor. A major part of counseling is correcting the thinking of those one counsels.
Some people think of God as a hostile God. They think of him as someone keeping a record of all of their wrong actions, just waiting to punish them. This punishment may come in the form of accidents, financial failure, disease, and so forth. When people have this concept of God, they ask, “Why is God doing this to me?” or “What sin have I committed?” when something bad happens. Although God does know about our sins, it is incorrect to think of him as hiding behind a cloud spying on us and ready to “zap” us with a bolt of lightning as soon as we make a wrong move. Although he knows all of our sins, he loves us and has taken the initial steps toward reconciliation.
Other people think of God as unpredictable. Such individuals may have grown up in a home where their parents were loving at one moment and hostile the next. This may not always be obvious. For example, many young people worry about finding God's will for their lives, afraid that they will miss his will and be punished for not doing it. They need to be asked about the God they worship. Is he a God who reveals his will to some, but not to others, and then punishes those who do not even know what he wants them to do? Their God is a capricious God who apparently will not tell them what he wants, then punishes them when they cannot guess it.
Still others think of God as a God of love who could never punish anyone. Overemphasizing love and mercy, these people believe that they can do whatever they want and God will forgive and save them anyway. They become universalists, believing that God is going to work out some way to save everyone. They forget that God is also a God of justice.
Others focus on the infinite aspects of God and depersonalize him to make him only some kind of “force,” or the “absolute,” or “energy.” This depersonalization makes him less than he is. In their attempts to keep from anthropomorphizing, these individuals have not made God more than a person, but less.
This is not a complete list of the wrong concepts of God, but it is enough to illustrate the point. We should be aware of the literature on concept formation so that we can focus on changing the concept of God in those we are counseling.
Without an adequate concept of God, people cannot have a correct concept of themselves. We must remember that individuals are made in God's image, and if we have a wrong image (concept) of God, we will have a wrong concept of who we are and who we can be. Although I want to be like God, I do not want to be like some people's concept of God.
About People. Our counselees may have wrong concepts about people, including themselves. One such concept is about unregenerate people. Christians tend to look down on the unsaved, but we must remember that they are also made in God's likeness. That is why we are not to murder other humans. James reminds us that we cannot bless God on the one hand and curse humans on the other because those humans are made in God's image (James 3:9). During the 1960s, when overpopulation and pollution were first of great concern, the term “people pollution'' came into use, meaning that the earth was becoming polluted with people (who made more pollution of other types). This was saying that beings made in God's likeness were pollution. Rather than thinking of people as pollution, God thought they were important enough to send his son to die for them.
Our counselees are even more likely to have wrong concepts about Christians. We seem to expect absolute perfection out of other members of the church. We have the concept that we should have arrived at some final state, although Scripture does not indicate this. The apostle Paul addressed his first letter to the Corinthian church to those who were sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints (1 Corinthians 1:2). Even a quick reading of that letter will reveal that that church had a lot of room for growth and improvement. We must look for improvement and not absolute perfection in the church.
Finally, many Christians have the wrong concept of themselves. Christians must not center on their sinful past or present shortcomings, but rather upon themselves as new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) with the potential of becoming increasingly like him (2 Corinthians 3:18). Furthermore, we are children of God (Romans 8:16), not merely slaves or servants.
Memory
Another part of cognition is memory. Things we have learned and thought about must be remembered. Material we have learned and thought about does us no good unless we can recall it when needed. Following is a widely used model of memory and what to do when someone has either too little memory or too much memory.
Memory Model
The most widely used model is an easily understood intuitive one which maintains that people need to encode the information, store it, and retrieve it when needed.
Encoding. The first step in remembering something is to get the information into our memories. Some encoding occurs automatically with no effort. For example, most people remember most of the major activities they did during the day and can recall the sequence in the evening even though they did not try to “memorize” each event as it happened. We also often remember “where” things are, such as knowing that a favorite Scripture passage is about a third of the way down the right page in our Bible (though we may have trouble finding it in someone else’s Bible).
Other encoding requires effort, and we have to intentionally encode it so that we can recall it in the future. Rote memorization takes much time and often results in much forgetting, so many people develop mnemonic devices to use in encoding. Some of these are presented in the “too little memory” section that follows.
Storage. The second step is that we need to retain the material in some way. Humans have several types of memory.
· First, they have a sensory memory of what they see and hear that lasts at the most two or three seconds. This is of little help for recalling things later.
· Second, they have a small short-term, working memory that lasts up to ten seconds or so. The task is for people to transfer information during that time to another memory.
· Finally, they have a long-term memory which may last as long as the person lives and has an almost limitless capacity.
People who develop skills for getting information into their long-term memories can perform phenomenal feats that amaze others.
Retrieval. The final step is to get the information out of the long-term memory. The more associations, retrieval cues, people have on the information, the more likely they are to be able to access it. For example, if they are trying to recall a person’s name, the more different things they have connected to him or her, the more success they are likely to have.
For further information about specific topics in memory click on the following links to parts of Chapter 6 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Too Little Memory
Although there are no magic formulas, those with poor memories can usually do some things to improve memory. They should learn material well originally. Such material is more resistant to forgetting than material barely learned. They can make material meaningful by using coding techniques, such as some of the mnemonic devices described below. Learning under the conditions where you will have to recall the material is most effective. When learning, try to provide yourself with retrieval cues so that you will be able to retrieve the information when you need it. Actually practice the material. After reading a section in a book, stop and recall it, or after you are introduced to someone, use his or her name several times in the conversation. Do not learn while under the influence of drugs, including alcohol. You may get state-dependent learning and not be able to recall unless you take the same drugs again.
Mnemonic Devices. In addition to the above suggestions, many persons can improve their memories by using mnemonic devices. These memory aids all serve to organize information and use information already stored in memory. Some of the most common mnemonic devices are discussed here.
The method of loci involves the use of a series of places already in memory, a series of locations that can always be recalled in order. Each place then becomes a place associated with a thing you are trying to recall. If you imagine a walk down your street, you may imagine the first object being on your mailbox, the next one in your neighbor's tree, the next one on the roof of the next house, and so forth. When you need to recall them, imagine the same walk down the street and visualize the objects in their respective places. Using this technique, almost anyone can memorize a list of fifteen words by going through them only one time, and be able to recall them a week later.
The peg system involves having a list of “memory pegs'' already known to you on which you can “hang” the objects to be memorized. For example, one is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree, four is a door, five is a hive, six is sticks, and so forth.
Then make an association between “bun” and the first word on the list, “shoe” and the second word, “tree” and the third word, and so forth. The list—bun, shoe, tree, door—can be recalled easily because each sounds like a number. Then the corresponding objects can be recalled easily.
Acronyms can be created using the first letter of each word in a series. I still recall the colors of the spectrum by remembering “ROY G. BIV, '' an acronym I learned in elementary school, representing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. A similar technique is known as narrative chaining, in which you make up a story centered on the words you need to recall. Making a rhyme helps us remember facts about given things, such as “I before E except after C'' or “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. . . .'' We know the letters and the months, but if we get the wrong ones the rhyme will not work.
For further information about specific topics in improving memory click on the following links to parts of Chapter 5 in Dewey’s on-line text.
Too Much Memory
Some may have had a difficult experience at some time in their life and its effects are still with them. This may have been something that was apparent to others present, such as physical or verbal abuse in the family. It may have been hurt that no one else realized, such as being laughed at for an answer in first grade. Sometimes people need God’s spirit to bring healing to these damaged emotions, healing of memories.
The story of Joseph, a third culture kid and cross-cultural worker, is found in the last ten chapters of Genesis. As a teenager his jealous brothers hated him so much they couldn’t even say a kind word to him, they plotted to kill him, and they actually sold him into slavery. The emotional baggage from these experiences was apparent in chapters 42, 43, and 45 where Joseph was unable to control his weeping when he saw those brothers decades later.
People may have experienced similar things at some time in their life, and the emotions related to them still influence them years later. They may have prayed about the situation and tried to forget about it, but the feelings are still there—the emotional part of forgiveness has not taken place.
Following are steps that can lead to healing of these memories. God does not give amnesia about the events; however, he can remove the damaged emotions the memories arouse. Individuals may be able to walk through these steps themselves, or they may find it helpful to have someone else guide them through them as a friend. Use these steps for yourself or others who need your counsel.
Thank God for gifts given. The first step is to thank God for the gifts he has given you. This is not an ego trip or bragging. It is simply a matter of recognizing that God has blessed you with good things in life. He may have given you athletic ability so that you can kick or throw a ball more accurately than others. He may have given you intellectual capacity to grasp abstract concepts that most other people cannot understand. He may have given you musical talent for a particular instrument or a voice that can sing beautifully. He may have given you a face that others in your culture see as beautiful or handsome. He may have given you a personality that others like to be around or the ability to relate so well that people want to be your friend. The list goes on and on.
When talking with his brothers more than two decades after they had mistreated him (Genesis 45), Joseph pointed out that God had sent him on ahead to save their lives. He noted that God had made him “father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler of all Egypt.” He said to tell their father about the honor given to him in Egypt. These were not boasting, just statements of fact. He told his brothers not to be angry with themselves because God used what they did for good in his life—and in theirs.
Think of yourself made in God’s image and thank him for making you. If you are going through these steps alone, it is best to actually write down the good things God has given you.
If someone is there with you, talk about gifts together and rejoice in what God has given. People with the most severe damage to their emotions may be the ones who most need someone else with them. These others may be able to identify gifts or blessings taken for granted—overlooked because the person is so focused on the damage.
Ask God about healing. The second step is to ask God what he wants to heal in you. Sometimes we want to be healed just to have fewer tensions or to live up to what someone else expects of us. Our motivation must be to become more like Christ, and we want to be sure that we really want to be healed—regardless of what other people think.
Sometimes God seems to delay the time of healing. Although Joseph was in charge of the prison, he still wanted to get out (Genesis 40). After he interpreted a dream Joseph asked the cupbearer to mention him to the Pharaoh when things improved. The cupbearer forgot—and Joseph waited two more years.
Sometimes God does not heal. Paul, another cross-cultural worker, asked God for something three times, and God never removed the “thorn in the flesh.” God just told Paul that his grace was enough—that God’s power was made complete without removing the thorn (2 Corinthians 12).
Share the memory with God. The third step is to share the memory with God, the painful memory that keeps you from being healed. Rather than concentrating on the current problem such as fear of people (because you were abused as a child) or difficulty speaking in public (because you were laughed at in first grade), go back to the memory of the original event causing the problem.
We have no record of Joseph doing this, but he certainly could have done so. He had those memories available as we can see in his comments to the cupbearer (Genesis 40), “For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”
Paul had had many painful memories, such as being beaten, stoned, and shipwrecked, and he shared not only with God but with believers in the church. This is recorded in the chapter just before he wrote about God’s grace being sufficient (2 Corinthians 11).
When you share that memory with God, the emotions associated with it will be aroused again. This is to be expected. Remember that you are looking for the healing of these damaged emotions. They have to be brought to the surface again even though the experience is painful.
Replace the hurt with love. The fourth step is to replace the hurt with love by forgiving those involved in the painful memory as God would forgive them. Even though the people causing that hurt may no longer be alive, you must forgive them unconditionally—not dependent on the other person’s changing and becoming worthy. When you do this, you can focus not on the hurt, but on change and growth.
By the time he revealed who he was (to his brothers) 22 years after they hurt him, Joseph had forgiven them. He told them not to be distressed and angry with themselves (Genesis 45). Seventeen years later (39 years after the offense), at the death of their father, his brothers still thought that Joseph had not really forgiven them, and they asked for his forgiveness. Joseph wept as he realized they had still not accepted his forgiveness. Showing that he had replaced the hurt with love, he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. He told them not to be afraid, that he would provide for them and their children (Genesis 50).
Replacing the hurt with love requires both deciding with your mind to forgive and letting God help you with the emotional part of forgiveness—healing damaged emotions. This is not “forgive and forget.” The memory remains, but the associated emotion changes and does not affect your thoughts and actions.
Become thankful for the memory. The fifth step is to become thankful for that painful memory. Because you believe that all things work together for good, now is the time to look for the good in this situation. For example, your abuse as a child may have made you particularly compassionate toward other abused children and made you very effective in helping them. Or being laughed at in first grade and your not speaking in public may have encouraged you to develop other methods of communication, such as writing or painting.
Joseph did this when he revealed himself to his brothers. He pointed out that God had used their hurtful act to save lives, to preserve their family (Genesis 45). He reiterated this seventeen years later when he told them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it to save our lives” (Genesis 50). If they had not sold him into slavery, they all (including him) would have died along with thousands of others in the famine in that part of the world.
This thankfulness is what Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 5 where he said, “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” We can do this with joy not only because it is God’s will, but also because we know that he works for good in all things.
Thank God for healing. Finally, you thank God for healing and go ahead acting as the healed person you are. Remember that the healing is from God, and we accept it by faith. When God has given you this gift, you can go out and pass it on to others while keeping it yourself. Since he has set you free, you can help to set others free, setting in motion grace and love to everyone.
When sending out the twelve their first time to spread the good news, Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). The root word for “gift” appears three times in this statement so that it literally says, “Giftwise you have received, giftwise give.” Since you have received this wonderful gift, you can go out and give it to others.
Some, or all, of these steps may need to be repeated as other memories surface. The Spirit may bring some of these up at unexpected times, and God stands ready to heal.
For further information on healing of memories please see http://www.missionarycare.com/brochures/br_healing_of_memories.htm.
Conclusion
The first psychologists studied the intellect emphasizing the animal-like properties. In fact, Pavlov actually studied classical conditioning using dogs, and Skinner studied operant conditioning using rats and pigeons. Ebbinghaus studied memory using humans, but he emphasized rote learning, something much more animal-like than God-like.
A few early psychologists studied thinking, language, and memory, viewing them as higher mental processes—much more like God. During the last half of the twentieth century, the majority of psychologists shifted to the much more God-like cognitive processes for most of their studies. Of course, we must remember that humans have both animal-like and God-like characteristics; therefore all studies that help us understand and use maximally our intellect are important to us as Christians.