Understanding helps us heal from our painful experiences. Understanding also helps us avoid repeating those experiences. What is understanding? Understanding is knowledge gained by our higher-verbal brain that helps it to manage our lower non-verbal brain. Understanding is, therefore, a path to our own impulse control. In the next few weeks, I am going to present a series on the science of motivation. I hope that a new understanding of motivation will help you in your quest for healing.
Where does motivation come from?
The first thing to understand about motivation is that it does not originate in our higher verbal brain (the cerebral cortex). It originates in our non-verbal, lower brain or limbic system. This part of the brain performs the functions of what Freud called the unconscious mind.
The unconscious mind is very much like wind. It is unseen yet very powerful. We know it exists because we see its effects and we can feel it. Yet, we do not know exactly where its force is coming from. Just as an experienced sailor uses his understanding of the wind to travel, one who understands motivation can use its energy to go far.
Motivation starts with the anticipation of pleasure
Motivation research began with the discovery of the fact that rats will press a bar to obtain various rewards. This discovery allowed scientists to study motivation in mathematical terms. For the first time, we had a measure of desire and therefore motivation. If a rat pressed a bar many times, he showed a strong desire for a particular reward. With these measures we discovered that motivation starts with the anticipation of pleasure. Something about pleasure is rewarding in that pleasure causes behaviors to be repeated.
We soon discovered that all the things that act as rewards and that increase motivated behavior are sources of pleasure. These things are food/water, sex, entertainment, possessions, affection, social dominance and substances of abuse. When a behavior causes us to get these things, we repeat that behavior. Thus, by some brain process, an association is made between an action and its outcome—getting a source of pleasure. All rewards influence motivation by affecting the same brain process.
Pleasure is necessary for learning an association between action and obtaining reward. This association, once made, causes behaviors to be repeated. Repeated behaviors are motivated behaviors. Pleasure, therefore, is the beginning of motivation. The things that give us pleasure are necessary for survival and we physically need them. We want and crave these things and we like them because they are sources of pleasure.
Needing, wanting and liking
There is an interesting interplay between needing, wanting and liking. For example, when a person is starving, food is much needed, and thus very pleasurable. Food becomes less needed, and thus less pleasant, for someone who has already eaten. The motivation for a particular type of reward is not constant but waxes and wanes, as does the pleasure from that reward. One piece of chocolate, for instance, can be quite tasty and rewarding. But even a chocolate connoisseur will probably only experience disgust if he or she is forced to eat two pounds of chocolate at once!
Recently, scientists trying to understand addiction have discovered something truly remarkable. That is, although pleasure is required to establish a behavior pattern, pleasure is not required to maintain that behavior pattern. Wanting related behaviors can occur in the absence of pleasure and are called compulsions. The bottom line is that wanting to do something and liking to do that something are not the same.
Cues from the environment become associated with pleasure in the early stages of establishing a motivated behavior. Later, these cues trigger wanting to do the behavior even in the absence of pleasure obtained by that behavior. Addiction is the best model for understanding this aspect of motivated behavior. Long after the addict has stopped feeling pleasure from the addictive substance, things that remind him of using trigger drug cravings and the compulsion to use. The brain pathways that are active in craving, wanting and pursuing addictive drugs are the same ones involved in all motivated behavior. This is why addiction affects all motivated behavior.
Motivation and healing from a relationship with a sociopath
Where am I going with all this psychology? I am trying to convince you that your compulsion to be with a sociopath can continue even after the relationship has stopped giving you pleasure. The sociopath knows instinctively that all he/she has to do is hook you in the initial pleasure phase, and you will continue to feel a compulsion to be with him/her. Sociopaths typically change in their relationships once they sense the other person is hooked or attached.
Just as cues trigger craving in addicts, reminders of the sociopath can trigger a longing for that initial relationship. Furthermore, just as complete abstinence is the only hope for recovery from addiction, staying away from the sociopath is the beginning of recovery.
Even though the maintenance of addiction and attachment to an undesirable person are the same, I do not believe that attachment to a sociopath is a sign there is something wrong with you. The sociopath and the substances of abuse hijack a brain pathway meant to serve survival. Once hijacked, the survival system becomes a path to destruction.
If a sociopath has hijacked your attachment pathway, start to break the compulsion today. Use your conscious mind and stay away from the person, don’t answer emails or phone calls. Remove from your life as much as possible reminders of the relationship. Distract yourself with other pleasures. Lastly, do not isolate yourself from other people. Since the sociopath has hijacked your attachment pathway, if you are “starved” for affection, your craving for him/her will only increase if you are lonely.
Next week we will discuss the brain pathways and hormones involved in the love bond.
amr asks the nagging question – how “instinctive” or not the sociopath’s knowledge is. Is it unconscious or completely calculated?
My theory is that the sociopath sees others with emotional ‘handles’ displayed – those aspects of personality that they have learned are powerful manipulative tools that can be used to steer other people.
A metaphorical example might be drawn from motor vehicles. As young children, our capacity to differentiate the various types of vehicles on the road was relatively unsophisticated – maybe car, truck, motorcycle – and we just wondered about the differences. But we soon enough learned that each vehicle has identifiable attributes that make it more or less suitable for specific uses or budgets or environments, because we can see what the vehicle is and we know how to evaluate its attributes relative to our needs.
Most of us have considerably more difficulty assessing people as effectively as we see vehicles, because their attributes are less obvious. When we engage with people, especially outside our professional environments, our own feelings contribute to the interaction and have the effect of clouding our perceptions of the other person.
Sometimes we see what we feel we want to see, or perhaps we overemphasize something that triggers a feeling of fear or similar strong reaction, or we may fail to identify the meaning of an attribute that we share with another person. Metaphorically, we are back at the childhood stage of our perception of vehicles, noticing the obvious differences but perhaps wondering more than knowing what some of them mean.
Sociopaths perceptions are unclouded by their own feelings because they have none. They gather a picture of people’s attributes much more quickly, and have probably moved on to ‘test-driving’ a candidate very shortly after “hello” compared with the rest of us.
Hence, they have learned a skill and developed it to a level that far exceeds the skill of those they choose to use for their purposes. They have an instinctive advantage that is put to calculated use.
Another point – we talk on our site about the seduction tactics of predators. Their use of mind control techniques and NLP (sold online by gurus like Ross Jeffries and Robert Greene)… many of our victims say they need to go through months of deprogramming after being involved with a predator.
The trauma, NLP and motivation factors have been controlled by someone with an agenda. Emotional rape sets in, the trauma bond kicks in and yes – brain chemistry does change.
In our opinion, far too many victims blame themselves that they should just be able to “let it go” or “move on” when they are in the throes of PTSD or unaware that they are recovering from a cultic relationship manipulated and done to them by the predator. We try to help them relieve the shame and guilt and validate them.
Maybe you can enlighten me. I just finished a relationship with a man who coercred me into having a three-way with a friend of mine that later became almost a permanent feature in our relationship. Needless to say these two are together which most upseting for me. I contiune to ask why and how and have sought solace in silence of taking time out to work on getting me right. This has been and continues to be an awful situation that i find myself in. To make matters worse there have been periods in our relationship that I did not truly feel appreciated or loved. My ex was diagnosed as Bi Polar 2 in 2004, but never really exhibited any of the characteristics of the disease. Rather he became controlling, manipulative, cunning in operation of what he wanted and when with no regard for any else. I saw examples how he pushed people out at work; he would often say “I know what people want and then I take it away from them” he would say and flick his fingers when saying it and give this smile. Suffice to say, I seen the trestment that he gave his ex, I witnessed the treatment that he gave work colleagues and I’m now experiencing this myself. To make matters wose, he instilled in me that “I had a problem” and should seek professinal help. I’e been seeing someone for 12 months and I have been through this and my therapist seems to think I don’t have a problem. I’ve read Dr. Hare’s book “Without conscience” and “snakes in suits” whilst don’t want to pathologise him, it has made things quite clear that I’ve been in a relationship with somone that was not normal. Hare’s work and others have made me realise that I was in a relationship with a sociopath / pyschopath? With this in mind I have deliberatly cut off all communicatin with him. Since, he’s contacted my Dr’s offering help. I ask myself “who are you helping” or are you just trying to save your own skin. I have since run into him at several close locations around our house and I point blank refuse to speak to him. But he still keeps trying to talk to me. I have sent him a Lawyers letter but he still refuses to acknowledge this.
What advice can you give me to end this.
Dear Jman,
Generally speaking, healing can only begin once you are no longer living together. We are all wishing the best for you.
At times I’m so get so angry with what’s happened and how I allowed this to happen. The more distance I give, the more I see and it’s only through removing myself from this pit, that I see the reality of what I’ve been in. I cry for the last 5 years, to know that I was seeking out true love (well I thought), whilst my ex was operating on a diefferent level. It’s time that cannot be replaced and that’s hardest realisation to come to terms with.
So many red flags with this man I became involved with–he might as well have been the United Nations.
Oh, the emotional abuse he put me through–mostly through email. We knew each other just over a year, met on an internet dating site, and had only three dates. But I was SO incredibly attracted to him. A gorgeous, honey voice, just simply a beautiful man. I have never been drawn to any man like I was to him. He exuded warmth. We developed deep, emotional intimacy, and it became abusive–almost entirely through email, though we also spoke on the phone. How I ever let it continue I’ll never know, except to say that I fell so in love with him–I think I just figured out the answer. I loved him deeply, but knew he was very big trouble and he kept hurting me, subtly, over and over again…he’d hook me in with a lovely email, and then make vague promises and never fulfill them. He did this constantly and we would fight and make up, or fight and tell each other good bye. Inevitably, he or I would write again, and the cycle would continue. We both knew it was a cycle, but I knew he was manipulating me and yet I let him. I thought somehow he was falling in love with me, but I knew, on a gut level, he didn’t love me at all. He might have liked me, but what he loved–if that’s what it could be called–was having power and control over me. Our interactions became more and more volatile, and I felt battered–emotionally battered–by his manipulativeness. He took complete advantage of my empathy and nurturing personality, and now I have to try to rid myself of the feelings of love I still have for him. It is terrible to admit how much I miss him, but I do believe I’ve gathered (finally) the strength to stay away from him. I’m so glad this site exists.
My ex has now resorted to stalking. I’ve “accidentily” or so he have me believe that I’ve just happen to run into 4 x over the last two weeks. I believe his worked out my daily pattern and is just trying to make contact. Further, last week I received an email saying that “I just wish we could be friends” and “I love you” etc… To make matters even worse his contacted my Therapist and GP (Dr), offering them “help”. I feel violated and have said I don’t want contact. I’m staying away from his life and have not made contact, why can’t he stay away from mine? This is unfair, so unfair that I’m even thinking of moving out of this city …the unfortunate thing is this has been my home for the last 15 years and necessarily don’t want to leave for my family….
I can finally say that my ex is really an ex, and I WILL let him be that. Ive spent the spent the past several months analyzing who I am, what I want, and how this man was just sucking me dry. I met him late last year, and it was total bliss. It was a long distance relationship ( so I thought) with us living about 2 hours away! Some how he made time to travel to see me up to 4 times weekly with work and all. I always qeustioned how he had so much free time. He told me that the kind of work he did allowed that type of flexibility,( also a lie). I was astounded at how commited he was to getting to know me. He eventually met my children and my family. They all fell in love with him. He appeared to be shy, unassuming, humble and my kids loved him( neither of their fathers are around). He came off being this big time family guy, saying he has 3 children back home in Jamaica. As the months progressed, his attentiveness started to wane. I asked qeustions on numerous ocassions if he had anything else going on , he always responded no, that I wasnt trusting of him. So I beleived him. One sunday morning while shopping in the mall, I got a strange call. It was a woman saying she kept seeing my name on her cell phone bill and couldnt figure out why. I told her that I didnt know any one in her area( which was about a half hour from me). Some thing in my mind told me to ask her, if she knew HIM. she said she did, and that he was her fiancee! I came to find out that he did not work were he said he did. He also lived in the same state as me, with her. He did not have 3 kids. He has 6!!! With 6 women. He wasnt 35, he was 40. Every thing I knew about him was all lies/or lies from half truths. I was totally devasted. His excuse was that he knew I wouldnt have given him a shot if he told me the truth. But even after I knew the truth, I couldnt stay away. She kicked him out a month later after finding out we were still together. I thought we could put that behind us and start fresh, honest. He left one month later saying that she wouldnt allow him to see their son if he was with me. It was so abrupt. I knew he was lying. He said he was staying with his mom until he saved money for his own place. I knew that something was off. He still came to see me,I even snuck to his job( I now know were he worked ) to see if was really their!! I was tiring of playing inspecter gadjet with him. Then another call. From her.Asking me if we were still toghter. I answered honestly to all her qeustions. He came home to their house while we were on the phone, and openly talking about him , and said absolutly nothing. He called me while still at their home,asking why I was on the phone with my enemy!! He called again and told me all the things she told me( her and I was on the phone for 4 hours) was lies. I told him I was tired of being a pawn in his sick game. He stated that he had to do what he had to for his son. I hung up the phone. I was done. I got a call the next day at work saying that had been violent with her all night , arguing about me. Saying I was the liar, I was despret for a father for my children. That really hurt if nothing else did…. I think about him every day, from the time I wake…. till I sleep. I love him. But Ive come to realize he is sick. I told her she was fool to stay, but I knew it would be especiialy hard because they share a child. He never loved me. And thats ok. Im glad I was able to get away from him, with my pride, dignity( alittle tarnished) .I would lie if I said that I dont miss him. But I love myself more, and thats what carrys me through …. Thanks
Please see the blog I wrote today. Sociopaths seem to bring more than their fair shair of children into the world.
Dr. Leedom,
Thank you for writing this. I had kind of worked the ‘addiction’ of it all out from a physiological stand point, shared it with Oxy… and she suggested that I email it to you. In your response, You mentioned this article blog, but didn’t find it til just now. I actually just found the link on Free Forums.
Thanks again,
loux2