Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

April 12, 2014 By Admin

Self-Medication as Unhelpful Habit:

A Primary Source of Unhappiness

Self-medication to reduce or avoid pain and suffering is a major unhelpful habit in the United States. It is a desperate human effort to reduce pain and suffering in physical and psychological experiences. Therefore, we humans may be hard-wired for it. When we suffer and do not utilize effective wise mind skills, we are simply doing our best to improve this emotional moment. It will require skilled mindfulness practices to improve our happiness.MindfulHappiness_SelfMedicating

Self-medication was once thought to be caused by personality types and deep-seated learned emotional reaction to discomfort (fear, shame, unmet emotional needs, an array of desires, and strong attachment to craved objects). More current, evidence-based interpretations expand this view into the area of social-emotional reinforcement and conditioning. Outcomes are always negative in the long-term; the original emotional cause becomes more serious (anxiety, depression, traumatic symptoms, substance misuse, eating problems, digital addictions, anger, etc.), and the habit of self-medicating leads to “addiction” to whatever behavior improves the moment. The best one can hope for is very short-term relief from immediate suffering – only to be followed by repeated efforts to reduce and/or avoid more suffering. Since the process becomes a habit via both positive and negative reinforcement (reward and avoidance of punishment/suffering) – as well as brain plasticity in activated brain regions that sensitize the related behaviors- self-medicators tend to remain trapped between suffering and ONLY short-term relief from it. Since impulsive reactivity to reduce and/or avoid pain is part of this process, people who self-medicate tend not to possess effective psychosocial coping skills. Thus, self-medication is their very weak, eventually unhelpful coping skill.

Zen_Stones_by_kuzy62In future posts, we will investigate how self-medication works in the life-experience areas of substance misuse, depression, anxiety, trauma and anger. More later on this very harmful habitual behavior. It will become more clear that part of this problem relates to the automatic processes of the brain. It will take a mindful MIND to improve one’s happiness.

 

by  Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

Mindful Happiness | Anthony Quintiliani

Filed Under: Featured, Self Medication Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, DEPRESSION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, SELF MEDICATION

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Participate in Groups for Meditation, Problem-Solving, and Task Completion Meditation With The Sangha Among regularly practicing meditators and various meditation traditions, the sangha is the social, emotional and spiritual collective that continues to support ongoing serious practice and progress along the Path.  Given that so much has been written about the many benefits of practicing […]

Building Emotional Resilience On a personal note, right now I am suffering.  Its April 15th and I have a terrible viral infection (sore throat, chest congestion, and fever).  I feel weak and miserable.  Perhaps all that frigid air we endured in New England this Winter also kept infectious “stuff” under control for a while. However, […]

Safety:  Mindful Candle Gazing Meditation Practices Candle light and candle gazing are common in many spiritual and religious practices.  After many fire-related losses, religious organizations have found ways to maintain the practice and reduce liability related to accidental fires.  The National Candle Association is also quite aware that their products include some risk.  Therefore, the […]

Tips on Practice During These Troubling Times Some people are religious, and I am sure turn to those sources for support and hope. Others are spiritual, and I hope also pursue those sources for emotional stability and closeness to the “their” divine. Other people may  be Agnostic or Atheist; I am certain such people also […]

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation We humans have a unique way of perceiving and processing emotional experiences.  Years ago I developed a formula to understand the perception and  process of emotional experiences: CABS-VAKGO-IS/Rels.  The C stands for cognition; we spend a great deal of time thinking about pretty much everything we […]

Attitudes of Gratitude Thoughts and Applications M. J. Ryan presents some interesting practices in the book, Attitudes of Gratitude (1999).  Here are some ideas. Hope you will practice some of them soon. As The 14th Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh suggest, we should always appreciate the preciousness and miracle of human life – our own life no matter what […]

Zen Buddhist Practices – Egolessness In our practice we often inquire, and sometimes experience, the no-self and/or egolessness. What is egolessness? Who and what do we think we are? Some say that when we die the essence but not the ego lives on into new experiences. Karma and re-birth are givens in this spiritual view. […]

Use of Breathing Techniques – Do a Polyvagal Test First Polyvagal Test The polyvagal theory (S.Porges) and polyvagal functions are complex, highly important, evolutional processes with powerful influences on human survival, overall physical health, and emotion regulation.  The tenth cranial nerve (from scull base to anus) functions in various ways, the most important of which […]

Supervision and Self-Care in Trauma Therapy Today there  is an ever-increasing demand for effective trauma therapy.  Our American clinical history on this matter leaves much to be desired. John N. Briere and Cheryl B. Lanktree offer important suggestions on how to use clinical supervision and self-care in your clinical work with clients suffering from serious […]

Spirit Wars and “Spiritual Warfare” This post will discuss the topic and personal strategies.  Most content will relate to both physical realities and metaphorical meanings and categories. Since a person viewing their self as fighting a spiritual war most likely holds onto certain parts of self in this endeavor, it is highly unlikely that the […]

Gratitude Practices to Improve your Emotional Mood The following fourteen suggestions may improve your emotional mood.  One reward from practicing gratitude is that we tend to feel a little better no matter what our causes and conditions are at the time.   Here is the list. Make a habit of thanking people.  “Thank you.” Appreciate […]

Quintiliani’s Whole Person Recovery Planning To me the “whole person recovery planning” includes biological, psychological, social, spiritual, and self components and changes. To simplify – it is not simple or quick – I will simply list the core components of this comprehensive form of recovery process.  I may add more details to this process in […]

Understanding Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy? Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (or Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, hereafter CBT) has been noted as the most common evidence-based therapy approach used in the United States.  That said, the most common “therapy” approach used here remains generic talk therapy with more or less psychodynamic characteristics. Given the absolute limited level of outcome-based evidence for effectiveness of […]

Mindful Happiness Explores – The Miracle of Mirror Neurons Between 1996 and 2000 researchers (Gallese and Rizzolatti) at the University of Parme in Italy discovered what are now called mirror neurons. Neuroscientists speculate that mirror neurons (reportedly in the Broca’s area of the prefrontal cortex) activate perceptual responses for internal motor-emotional responses.  Thus mirror neurons […]

-Steps to Mind Training Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC To pacify your mind you need to train your mind. Mind training leads to liberation from brain-mind-heart-body automatic processes and reactions. A well-trained mind allows you to utilize executive functions (attention and concentration) to alter auto-reactions of the brain, body and heart. A trained mind liberates […]

The Great Mother of Gratitude Meditation Sit in silence and take a few very slow, very deep breaths in and out. Relax within your personal comfort with eyes opened or closed. If you prefer your eyes to be open, hold you head level and gently gaze down a few feet in front of you. Continue […]

Helping Professions and Emotional Balance Helping professions must practice to achieve emotional balance.  Working conditions for the helping professions have become more and more difficult over time, especially with the advent of so called “helpful technologies” and ever-increasing governmental/funding requirements for documentation.  When I started in the (behavioral health) field of clinical psychology and addictions […]

Advanced Meditations – Middle Way -Wisdom Path Between Extremes These meditation practices are advanced, and combine complex ideas from Nagarjuna (Indian Master), T’ong-Kha-Pa (Tibetan Master), and The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso).  In keeping with the mixed secular nature of my meditation center, I have decided to present these complex ideas with several of my […]

Breath, Mindfulness and Liberation J. Goldstein, (2007).  in volume two of Abiding in Mindfulness – On Feelings… brings clear focus to the infinite importance of feelings – the sensation-based associations of various emotional and physical states. Via on-going and regular practice of mindfulness and contemplation we may access the four areas of human awareness: body, feelings, heart-mind, […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

BREATHING PRACTICES MINDFUL MEDITATION MINDFUL TRAINING VERMONT ACTIVITY TRAUMA DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI BUDDHISM PRACTICE HAPPINESS SELF MEDICATION CONSCIOUSNESS THICH NHAT HANH VIPASSANA MEDITATION SELF CARE SELF ESTEEM ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER BRAIN ANTHONY QUINTILIANI MINDFUL HAPPINESS MINDFULNESS SELF VIPASSANA WALKING MEDITATION JOURNALING ENLIGHTENMENT SELF COMPASSION EMPTINESS MBSR THERAPY. ADDICTION ACTIVITIES CLINICAL SUPERVISION EXERCISES PSYCHOTHERAPY WISE MIND COVID-19 TRAINING COMPASSION SUFFERING MEDITATION PRACTICE MEDITATION MINDFUL MINDFULNESS TRAINING

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2022 · Mindful Happiness