Control Mastery Theory as General Psychology
Control Mastery (Broitman)-
Joe's Boston Talk
by Joe Weiss, 6/26/97
Control Mastery Theory as General Psychology
by Vic Comello, 7/2/97
Introduction Freud stated on several occasions that he never felt comfortable as a therapist, that he entered the profession merely to gain "philosophical knowledge" about human nature. The fruit of his quest was a theory that, not surprisingly given Freud’s interests, never accurately reflected therapeutic realities. Despite its conceptual shortcomings, however, the theory continues to influence psychological theorizing because it remains the only highly integrated and widely encompassing approach to a general psychology ever attempted. By contrast, Control Mastery Theory was developed empirically as an effective therapeutic approach, and as such is systematic in its description of the therapeutic process but becomes less so with respect to a general description of human nature. Nevertheless, by reading between the lines, I believe it is possible to find many of the elements of a general psychology within the context of CMT in its present form. This is what I shall attempt to show in what follows. I shall alternate quotes from Weiss’s "How Psychotherapy Works" with some supplemental interpretations. Humans are the most adaptable of all animals, which is to say that learning plays a greater role in our behavior than in that of any other animal, both with respect to the development of specific behaviors and the integration of those behaviors with one another. Although we humans tend to think of our adaptability in a wholly positive light, the downside is that this ability leaves us with little by way of instinctive guidance about how to live. Our adaptability means not so much that we CAN learn, but rather that we MUST learn. Accordingly, "A person's most powerful motivation is to adapt to reality, especially the reality of his interpersonal world. He begins in infancy and early childhood to work at adapting to his interpersonal world, and he continues to do this throughout life. As part of this effort, he seeks reliable beliefs (knowledge) about himself and his world. He works throughout life to learn how he affects others and how others are likely to react to him. He also works to learn the moral and ethical assumptions that others will expect him to abide by in his relations with them, and that they will abide by in their relations with him. He begins in infancy to learn about these things both by inference from experience with his parents and siblings, and by their teachings. "A person's beliefs about reality and morality are central to his conscious and unconscious mental life. These beliefs are endowed with awesome authority. They guide the all-important tasks of adaptation and self-preservation. They organize perception; a person perceives himself and others largely as he believes himself and others to be. In addition, such beliefs organize personality. It is in accordance with his beliefs about reality and morality that a person shapes his strivings, affects, and moods, and by doing so evolves his personality. Moreover, it is in obedience to certain maladaptive beliefs, here called ‘pathogenic,’ that a person develops and maintains his psychopathology." Instinctive Development A child is guided in learning by powerful instincts. He is led to identify with the parent of the same sex, and thereby imitate that parent in many ways. In doing so, the child acquires both beliefs and specific behaviors from the parent. The latter include irrational fears, interests, and certain "personality traits." So a person who grows up to find that he or she "takes after" a father or mother, respectively, would do well to not think in terms of genetic endowment as the responsible agency, but rather of the power of imitation. These imitated behaviors are evoked as a person deals with situations that are similar to those experienced in the past. So a boss who in effect assumes the role of a fatherlike authority figure will evoke in a person many of the same strategies the person used in dealing with his father. Likewise, a person upon becoming a parent will find that his early identifications lead him to treat his child in much the same way that he was treated by his parents. These behaviors arise as automatic responses whenever the person assumes the role of parent, challenging the new parent to deal with them in developing his own concept of parenthood. Another example would be the "transferences" seen in clinical practice, where a person behaviorally assumes the role of a child with respect to the psychologist. Identifying too closely with the parent of the same sex can present a dangerous impediment to the child becoming an independent adult. Accordingly, this tendency is checked by another developmental instinct. This leads the child to absorb somewhat different beliefs and behaviors from the parent of the opposite sex as part of an instinctive drive on the child’s part to compete with the parent of the same sex for the other parent’s attention and love. This two-step instinctive program would presumably work well in an ideal world populated by ideal parents who are generous with their love. In any case, the program is especially suited to simple societies where societal roles are few, making it probable that the child’s eventual role in society will be exactly that of the parent of the same sex. The program works less well in a complicated society such as our own, a type of society that is rapidly becoming the norm around the world. Here, a person may be led to cast aside certain childhood identifications in favor of alternatives that more closely represent the type of life the person wants to live. Even here, however, this could cause no significant problem if the society would foster such a quest by seeing to it that the process is explained to the child and his parents so that recriminations, guilt, and feelings of rejection do not arise. Part of this process involves the adolescent’s need to break away from his parents. So-called "primitive" societies of the past handled this situation very nicely. They addressed the need symbolically through rites of initiation that in effect said to the adolescent, you are now a new person. Vestiges of this societal approach are to be found in the Jewish bar mitzvah ceremony and the Roman Catholic rite of confirmation. "Primitive" cultures took the trouble to validate this adolescent reality even though few if any role changes were involved. "Advanced" societies, by contrast, take no steps to confirm the validity of the adolescent’s need and offer no psychological guidance whatsoever about how to become this new person, even though the societies expect the adolescent to seek new occupational identities on a continuing basis. One of the reasons advanced societies don’t do this is that they attempt to be guided by science, and the general psychology that would address this problem does not exist. We live in a world that is much better than that of our parents in many respects, but which is nearly as primitive as far as psychological awareness is concerned. So a father who has no real fear of losing his wife to his son may unconsciously engage his son in a competition for his wife’s attention, using his position as husband and father to deny the boy any needed victories. Likewise, a mother may be led to criticize and embarrass her daughter in a bid to deny the daughter rightful attentions from her father and brothers. Through these and many other avenues, a child may develop pathogenic beliefs for no other reason but that the child is only a child, and as such cannot understand subtle or devious motives. "The power of pathogenic beliefs derives from the fact that they are acquired in infancy and early childhood from parents and siblings, whom the child endows with absolute authority. His parents are critically important to him because he needs them in order to survive and flourish. His only good strategy for adaptation is to develop and maintain a reliable relationship with them. Because his parents are so important to him, he is highly motivated to perceive them as all-powerful and wise. Moreover, he has no prior knowledge of human relations by which to judge them. Therefore, when in conflict with his parents, he tends to perceive them as right and himself as wrong." As the above quote suggests, a child is led instinctively to believe that he is discovering how he and the outside world really are in the absolute. These lessons exist in the child as a set of expectations to the effect that all real men and women will act the way his father and mother do. This early set of expectations becomes somewhat broadened as a result of later experiences; however, a tendency remains to use one’s childhood perceptions as a touchstone in interpreting the actions of others. The human need to have one’s life appear to be rooted in the absolute can be seen most clearly in the egotistical beliefs held by many cultures in the past. The lawgivers who established a culture were invariably associated with the deities that created the entire universe. Typically too the center of that universe was just down the road where the society’s religious shrines were maintained, with the consequence that the earth was once home to uncounted thousands of centers of the universe. Calvary was one of these, early Christians believed. The cultural beliefs handed down by the lawgivers were also presented as remaining unchanged through time, even though they did change gradually and carefully to incorporate new realities. Unconscious Motives and Strategies The need to have our lives seem to be rooted in the absolute provides one of the most powerful motives for keeping most aspects of the developmental process unconscious, whether the beliefs and behaviors involved are pathogenic or not. We can become conscious of change only after the changes have been established and all threats to our sense of rootedness have been dealt with. Another need to keep the developmental process unconscious derives from our nature as adaptable beings. Experiences will have an inevitable impact on us for good or ill, so we need to be careful about what we let ourselves experience. This is why pathogenic beliefs can be such a damaging force in our lives. They embody expectancies that certain types of experiences will lead us to further damage our self-esteem, when in fact those same experiences are precisely what we need to progress. How is it that a person is able to recognize unconsciously that his pathogenic beliefs are placing an unreasonable restriction on his life? I believe the answer lies with our sense of shared humanity. The person unconsciously compares himself to those around him and concludes that the lifestyle others enjoy should be possible to him also. This perception leads him to begin seeking ways to discredit the beliefs. Again, one does not does not seek to discredit the beliefs consciously, because doing so would involve becoming prematurely committed to the quest, with the consequence that every failure would seem, at least for a time, to destroy all hope. We unconsciously take on problems we are ready to solve, thus maintaining a sense of optimism about the future. After much successful testing in the manner somewhat similar to that described by CMT, a person may bring himself to consciously admit that something is wrong with him, and thus be led to seek therapy, where a more aggressive program of unconscious testing can begin. CMT describes this more aggressive phase. Sleep and the Persistence of Pathogenic Beliefs How is it that pathogenic beliefs derived from childhood are able to persist in our behavior when other memories seem to quickly fade? The answer, I believe, lies with the concept of sleep I have outlined elsewhere. These old memories become evoked in our REM dreams as our sleep continues, thereby becoming constituents of the adaptations that emerge from sleep.