What You Can Change . . . And What You Can't*: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement (15 page)

Ohman then showed me a picture of a python. Sort of repulsive, I thought, but I felt no fear. Twenty seconds into the picture, the same burst of shock came on. Just one pairing of shock and snake. A couple of minutes later, Ohman flashed the slide of the python a second time and I almost jumped out of my chair.

So thanks to John Garcia and Arne Ohman, we now have an accurate picture of what phobias are and what they are not. They are not instances of ordinary Pavlovian conditioning, but instances of prepared Pavlovian conditioning. They do not come about when an innocent object happens to be around precisely when a trauma befalls us. Phobias come about when certain evolutionarily prepared objects coincide roughly with danger. They are not created culturally: Man-made dangerous objects, which do not have an evolutionary history—knives and guns, for instance—condition like houses and flowers, not like dangerous objects from evolution—snakes, spiders, and scorpions.
¹⁷
Just as phobias select their objects, they also select their victims. Some of us get phobias more easily than others; relatives of people with anxiety disorders, for example, are more susceptible to phobias. Phobias lurk in each of us. They are the rekindling of dark, primordial fears.

There is a profound and global message in this account. Some of what we are—our darkest fears, for example—originated early in the evolution of our species. Often we find that other parts of us resist change, even though all that is rational in us insists we change. When this happens, our evolutionary heritage is one place to find the source of the resistance. For we are not creatures of our upbringing and our culture only.

Some of what is difficult to change ties us to the life-and-death struggles of our ancestors. And it is not only our fears that are prepared. The sexual objects that we spend our lives pursuing, the aggression and competition we have such difficulty suppressing, our prejudice against people who look different from us, our masculinity or femininity, and those recurring obsessions we can’t get out of our minds are all examples of psychological links to our biological past.

Being evolutionarily prepared does not justify something. Some of what our evolution demands of us is just a vestige of pressures that no longer exist. Some of it is morally repulsive. But closing our eyes to the biological side of our nature is worse than useless. For when we work against our evolutionary heritage, we had better be aware that we are doing so. We should know that change in this arena is never easy. Sometimes, as we will see, change is impossible, and so we must learn to live with aspects of ourselves we don’t like. Other times, change is possible, but reason alone will not usually produce change. Aided by techniques that work at levels more fundamental than reason, however, we can sometimes succeed. We have just seen two such examples. We will see more as we turn to obsessions, to depression, to anger, and to post-traumatic stress.

7

Obsessions

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship that will cross the sea. . . .
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the houses for you and me.
¹

This song is running through my mind now and has been for about two hours. It began when I was singing this jingle from my childhood to my two-year-old, Lara, as we were picking tomatoes. It won’t go away.

The jingle channel
. Everyone has a jingle channel. For some people there are ditties on it, but not everyone has music. Others have phrases repeated over and over. The words often rhyme, they sometimes have a beat, and they are always simple: “Step on a crack and break your mother’s back.” For others who are less verbally inclined, there is no audio, only video; the same images recur repeatedly: the Little Mermaid swimming toward Prince Eric, or Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby. Some people have a mixture of words, songs, and images. Left alone, the content shifts slowly, but with an external prompt, like your roommate humming a tune, it can jump.

Your jingle channel is slightly below consciousness, but once you know about it, it is easy to tune in and listen. Some people have a louder channel than others. You can sometimes tell how this hour’s contents started: a radio ad, a phrase from your boss, a new rock song on MTV.

Once you tune in, you will discover that the jingle channel has a life of its own. It is very hard to change voluntarily. When it intrudes and you can’t turn it off, it becomes quite a vexation. Mark Twain discovered this, over a century ago, when he heard this ditty for streetcar conductors and could not rid himself of it for days.

A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare.
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare.
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare
Punch in the presence of the passenjare.

Punch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare.
²

Civilization has often taken advantage of the channel. Before the modern media bombardment, poetry (epic poetry, no less), catechisms, and the Bible were probably featured. I like to think that human mental furniture was classier then. Astonishingly, psychological researchers have shown no interest in this channel. It is broadcast by an unknown and uninvestigated part of the brain.

The nightmare channel
. Much of emotional life is carried on the jingle channel. For many, the jingle channel is not a pleasant and elevating experience. Sometimes the lyrics are about loss and hopelessness. “She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone, and she’s never coming back” or “I’m a born loser” are the sort of phrases that intrude when we are in a low mood. When these kinds of jingles are dominant and recurrent, we call the listeners
depressed
, and their thoughts have been named
ruminations
or
automatic thoughts
. For others, the jingle channel is a nightmare channel, a production of Stephen King that may feature ferocious animals or poisonous insects, or scenes of humiliation. These people are called
object phobics
or
social phobics
, respectively. For others, the channel features thoughts of a heart attack or of going crazy or of losing control: These people’s problem is called
panic disorder
.

For still others, when they tune into their jingle channel, what they hear is alien, repugnant, fearful, and depressing. Worse, they have a loud channel that frequently intrudes unbidden on them during work and play. Their most common themes are dirt and contamination, checking for danger, and doubt. These people have a problem called
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
, which is named for the two elements that make it up. Their obsession is a thought or image that recurs, and their compulsion is the ritual act performed to neutralize the thought. When thoughts of dirt dominate the jingle channel, the person will wash his hands for an hour, or scrub her baby’s room from floor to ceiling three times a day, or open doors only with her feet to avoid having her hands contaminated by the germs on the doorknob.

Howard Hughes was a brilliant tycoon. Toward the end of his life he had such severe obsessions about germs that he became a recluse. He wrote a continual stream of memos to his staff worrying about contamination and instructing them in how to prevent “back transmission” of germs to him. Hughes was wealthy and powerful enough to have an entire staff to carry out his cleaning compulsions: In one three page memo he instructed his staff in how to open a can of fruit to prevent germ “fallout”:

“The man in charge then turns the valve in the bathtub on, using his bare hands to do so. He also adjusts the water temperature so that it is not too hot nor too cold. He then takes one of the brushes, and, using one of the bars of soap, creates a good lather, and then scrubs the can from a point two inches below the top of the can. He should first soak and remove the label, and then brush the cylindrical part of the can over and over until all particles of dust, pieces of paper label, and, in general, all sources of contamination have been removed.”
³

Washing and cleaning rituals can take up large swaths of the day when, unlike Hughes, you have to do them yourself. One fourteen-year-old had to wake up at four-thirty every morning in order to clean herself thoroughly and make the bed so that it was exactly right before she left for school at eight. She was plagued with the severe skin rashes and abrasions that result when you wash your hands for an hour or more at a time.

“Checkers” find themselves waking many times each night to make sure that the gas in the kitchen is off, or that all the doors and windows are locked. One man drove to a crossroads near his house ten times a day for months to make certain that there was no corpse lying there that he had run over and failed to notice on the last trip. Another woman always peered down into the toilet bowl to make sure that there was no baby in danger of being flushed away. Toilets, incidentally, are often featured on the OCD jingle channel: One otherwise successful and healthy dentist always had to flush in multiples of three—9, 27, 81, or 243 times—before carrying on. He wasn’t much fun to go drinking with.

Do you or someone you love have obsessive-compulsive tendencies? How can you tell if what you hear on your jingle channel is in the normal range or if it is in need of changing? Self-diagnosis is always hazardous, and this book is not a diagnostic manual. Rather, my intention is to alert you to a variety of problems, and if they seem to apply to you, I want to point you in the right direction for help. Some problems don’t require a lot of sophistication for you to be aware of what they are: Panic attacks and phobias are two examples. Other problems, like obsessions, require an experienced professional to diagnose. There are three problems that should alert you to a need for help:

• Are the thoughts unwelcome and repugnant, and do they intrude?
  

• Do they arise from within, with no external stimulus?
  

• Do you find it very hard to distract yourself or dismiss the thoughts?
  

In addition to these hallmarks, here is a validated test:

THE MAUDSLEY OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE INVENTORY

Jack Rachman and Ray Hodgson, two of the world’s experts on obsessions, have developed a questionnaire that can tell you if you have a problem you should act to get rid of. With their kind permission I reproduce it here.
⁴

Please answer each question by putting a circle around the “TRUE” or “FALSE” following the question. There are no right or wrong answers, and there are no trick questions. Work quickly and do not think too long about the exact meaning of the question.

1. I avoid using public telephones because of possible contamination.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

2. I frequently get nasty thoughts and have difficulty in getting rid of them.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

3. I am more concerned than most people about honesty.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

4. I am often late because I can’t seem to get through everything on time.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

5. I worry unduly about contamination if I touch an animal.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

6. I frequently have to check things (e.g., gas or water taps, doors) several times.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

7. I have a very strict conscience.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

8. I find that almost every day I am upset by unpleasant thoughts that come into my mind against my will.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

9. I worry unduly if I accidentally bump into somebody.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

10. I usually have serious doubts about the simple everyday things I do.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

11. At least one of my parents was very strict during my childhood.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

12. I tend to get behind in my work because I repeat things over and over again.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

13. I use more than an average amount of soap.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

14. Some numbers are extremely unlucky.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

15. I check letters over and over again before mailing them.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

16. I take a long time to dress in the morning.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

17. I am excessively concerned about cleanliness.

TRUE
        
FALSE
    

18. One of my major problems is that I pay too much attention to detail.

TRUE
        
FALSE