The uniqueness of the human being in suffering addiction
It is very common to talk about addictions, there are all kinds, among the most unique we find alcohol addiction, tobacco, drugs, sex and their variables and betting games. And every day many others appear, such as purchase addiction, new technologies (cell phone, computer, internet, video games, youtube, social networks), exercise addiction, work addiction, addiction to the calorie consumption limit (diets), addiction of spiritual experiences and all of them have in common the search for pleasure. (Ríos, 2018)
But little has been talked about addiction to suffering, and that is that addiction to suffering entails more a psychoesyritual context than clinical psychology has not entered to deepen. That is why the subject has been chosen, to know and delve deeper into the subject and because the philosophical contexts together with psychological can be applied for the elaboration of this project.
To enter in detail, you have first to investigate a bit about what addictions are and why suffering has become one of them. How can this "new" global problem be approached from philosophy and psychology?
In the past, the issue of addictions related to substance consumption was addressed. Today it is understood that, any chemical of natural or synthetic origin that enters the organism can cause a modification in the mood of a person, its brain structure, its cognition, its perception of reality and its behavior with the environmentthrough direct action on the central nervous system. (Couso, 2016)
From the psychological perspective, people become addicted due to substance abuse or in search of what generates fun, acceptance, pleasure, experiences of power and success, or the feeling of being alive. The current society and culture in its decline of values, in its capitalist model of consumption, materiality and superficiality, where each individual has to work more than 8 hours a day to have and buy that heritage that he believes will give happiness, where thepossession of external articles and objects will reassure and solve their anxieties and fears of being nobody in life. Where you buy them, they will quickly calm the feeling of not knowing what uses in life, where you have to show that it is better than others, where a drink of alcohol makes a bad day completely forget, forgetting the painand obtaining momentary and ephemeral pleasure. (Couso, 2016)
Can you make the inner vacuum aware? Can you see how frustration is not tolerated? And how is anguish a permanent state in the human being? Do you realize how you seek to sleep, neutralize, flee from pain, suffering, anxiety, restlessness, emptiness, stress, depression with simple alcohol drinks, with a few cigarettes, drugs, medications, anxiolytic, benzodiazepines, Rivotril, Prozac, Zoloft, Valium, Purchases in the Super and online, excesses of food, hours in the gym, hours at work, hours in social networks and the Internet, sex with people who do not love each other, and everything thatgenerate adrenaline, oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine? There is something beyond psychology has not been able to address in terms of addictions.
Which leads to understanding that, deep down, addiction actually seeks to feel pleasure and satisfaction, thus avoiding displeasure, pain and suffering.
Addicted comes from the Latin "addictus" which means tied, trapped, dependent. But if more deepens, this questioning can be reached, is it that the soul is attached, trapped and dependent on the mechanisms of the mind and body, so that this is what is perceived as "emptiness" or the soulis part of the mechanisms of the mind? (Couso, 2016)
Why then do it say that there are addicts to suffering? What search for pleasure is in being addicted to suffering?
Pain is human and imminent, but suffering is undoubtedly optional. People are addicted to their problems, their malicious stories, to tell the past again and again, to revive each and every one of their misfortunes, what they did to them, their wounds. The pain goes, but some remain hooked to their suffering, why?, Because with this they reinforce and feed their self-importance, they have discovered that through being a victim obtains validation, attention they need, they have learned to cover their emotional shortcomings and emotional needs through suffering. (Table, 2019)
It is not the person who needs the drama to exist, it is his false identity, his design, his psychic apparatus and archetype, his mental scheme that makes it anchored to situations and circumstances because of the importance that others show him every time he tells his stories, that by the way it does not imply that they are real, and that their arguments only exist in the distortions of their mind, using the other to validate their suffering and reinforce their victim’s personality.
The addicts to suffering suffer because they have chosen to suffer, have experienced suffering since their childhood, in their adolescence, in their marriage, in almost all phases of their life, living for them represents a danger, living is synonymous with suffering, everythingIt is pain, danger, grief and suffering, martyrs by divine design, do not conceive the idea that they have other alternatives, that there is a different way of living and experiencing life, when opportunities appear that could generate happiness and well -being they make their own conscious orUnconsciously for boycotting them, they live resigned, convinced and trying to convince others that suffering, danger, pain and fear is the only way to live their lives, always looking for situations, experiences, moments, circumstances where you can suffer, where can others be demonstrated that they are victims.
People addicted to suffering must realize that they are more than their emotions, which are more than their memoirs, more than the interpretations of their perceptions, more than their mental images, schemes and structures. It is only enough to observe within themselves, from the self-observation, from introspection and question, who within himself observes to the one who suffers? You are the observer and what was observed.
Plato, as founder of rational psychology, thought that discovering how the soul is a divine and somewhat extensive issue, but could investigate more by having the intention first to analyze the instinctive needs of the body, and then give part to what he would defineas a tripartite soul:
- Rational soul: intelligent, analytical, immortal, divine and physically located in the brain.
- Irascible Alma: Mortal, of noble passions and physically located in the thorax.
- APPLIANCE SOUL: Mortal, Source of low passions located in the abdomen.
Plato mentions in Fedón: “What a strange thing, friends, it seems to be what men call pleasure! How admirably it is related by nature to what seems to be its opposite, the pain! They do not want to present both together in man, but if someone possesses one of them, they are almost always obliged to possess the other, as if they were tied by a single head, despite being two ”. (Kreimer, 2017)
Then, it can be understood that the addict to suffering knows, in the best of cases, that its addiction to it (appetitive soul) can subtract from happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, and a life that perhaps in theFund if you want and passionate to have (Irascible soul), but try to leave your addiction to suffering and do not succeed (rational soul). It is not always possible to free yourself from addiction through reasons and logic.
It is necessary to generate the conditions for this situation to transcend. What means for the addict a change, change that is not willing to give up because that implies leaving its pain zone, to know a new "universe" a jump and expansion of consciousness, which also entails an inner, psychic, physical workAnd spiritual but that is extremely painful, every therapeutic process of psychological transformation is painful, because it implies renouncing the unknown, people do not fear what they do not know, fear to give up what already knows, because their psychic separation, their personality,His schemes are identified with their neurosis. They adhere to what for a long time has given them pleasure, yes, but also much suffering.
It is true that many things does not depend on personal actions, but there is something that, if it is held by others, and is the way of reacting to what happens to them. Even when they should opt among alternatives that they have not chosen. It is not what happens in life, but the interpretation given to what happens. It should not be sought that events happen as desired to happen, but that they happen as they happen, you can always choose the interpretations of experiences.
Perhaps yes, perhaps pleasure and suffering are part of a dualistic life, but it must be understood that this inner emptiness can only be filled with something inner, something deep. A "state of happiness" has been confused with happy moments, it is still believed that happiness will be found outside itself. In the things outside, in the material, the ephemeral. That is why it is abused, so it becomes addicted, in search of something lost, it is not going to find it observing out.
Conclusions
The Greeks make the soul connotation reflected in current psychological archetypes, that is, they speak of the soul as if they had a "mind" as if the soul had their own reasoning, desire and its own intellect (rational soul, irascible and appetitive). A duality (good and evil) within itself. This is currently representing the psychoanalytic bases (some still in force) proposedShadow proposed by Carl Jung, which can be related in the context of addictions. However, I think there is still much to explore, integrate and understand with those abstract, intangible and ineffable issues that exist between philosophy and current psychology.
Bibliography
- Couso, m. M. (2016). Final Degree Work Monographs Drug Addiction;A psychoanalytic reading. Obtained from https: // sifp.psycho.Edu.UY/SITES/DEFAULT/FILES/WORK%20FINALS/%20ACHIVOS/TFG_JOHANA_GEYMONAT.PDF
- Kreimer, r. (2017). Obtained from http: // www.philosopiaparalavida.com.ar/suffering.htm
- Table, h. (2019). Obtained from https: // ner.com.MX/News/Psychological-Adicts-Suffering/Suffering/
- Ríos, m. J. (2018). Obtained from https: // www.EASP.ES/WEB/BLOGPS/2018/03/02/Existence-Nuevas-Additions/
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