A patient's perspective of Religion as a script for affect modulation.

• PTSD by (No author), 5/24/96
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    • Positive Affect and Religion; Some Thoughts by Sue Deppe, MD, Burlington, VT, 12/11/96
      
      

I joined a christian denominational church as a solution to my need to observe strict discipline in recovery from drug abuse and sexual promiscuity. I thought the interaction with the other members in the church would be positive reinforcement which would allow me to observe the strict discipline I needed to ensure my recovery over time and prevent the same behavior from happening again. I wanted to control the script of my life but I was only able to get the positive reinforcement I needed for about two years at which time I guess the positive reinforcement was so effective at producing specifically desirable behavior that I adopted the sport of endurance running and diverged from the mainstream of church membership. I was able to learn the gospel message during the two years that I engaged in specifically reinforced behaviors. When I started engaging in behavior in endurance sports the positive reinforcement was not available however the script of the gospel message allowed me to continue to have a covert reality as a member of the church. I found that the script of the gospel message allowed me to have my own cognitive reality and as long as the gospel message was valid it was not the positive symptoms of schizophrenia that I had suffered from during my troubled early adulthood but it was adaptive. I have been able to remember a therapy session I was in at a Psychiatric Hospital and I now find that I can return to the behavior that was positively reinforced and I am so much the better off in the progress I made on my own that I can accept the script of the gospel message alone and begin to engage in behavior that is self motivated within the script of the gospel message. My affect has improved and the script of the gospel message has been able to validate it and allow me to have an internal locus of control.

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