To speak of behavior that facilitates healthful change
at first seems rather redundant and obvious, since healthful change usually
presumes behavior change. However,
focusing on the behavioral aspect of change is worth your consideration.
The rationale for a primary behavior focus, implicit
in Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan, is that behavior sometimes steers thought and
emotion long enough to make a healthful change happen. The psychoanalytic notion of “change of
function” (Hartmann, 1950) is one of many possible mechanisms. In change of function, one forces herself to
behave in a manner counter to her typical emotions and thoughts. Imagine, for instance, that you hate
(emotion) vegetables, consider them boring “rabbit food” (thought), and consume
virtually nothing that has been incapable of independent ambulation. Then, one day, your relatively young mother
suffers a debilitating stroke that shakes you to your core. Totally out of character, you schedule
yourself for a long-delayed complete physical examination that discloses
extremely elevated cholesterol and lipid levels. In her post-labs meeting with you, the
physician advises more vegetables and less meat to reduce your stroke risk.
You are not happy.
You try to dismiss the doctor’s recommendations, but the more you study
stroke, the more you conclude that the doctor has an important point. So, you force yourself to eat a few more
vegetables and a little less meat. You read
more, converse with more people, and experiment with ways to make vegetables
more palatable. Although you REALLY miss
burgers and steaks, you continue to force yourself along a path of reduced meat
consumption. To your surprise, you
incrementally acquire a taste for vegetables prepared your way. In time, you not only lose you excessive meat
cravings, but come to prefer some vegetables.
You have undergone a change of function: by behaving in a manner
contradictory to your norm, you have changed how you feel and how you think
about eating in general and vegetables in particular. Because your behavior no longer is at odds
with your emotions and thoughts, you have developed a powerful pro-health habit
that can endure.
Our last three blogs have emphasized how emotion,
thought, or behavior can lead us toward physical and mental health. Because our actions are determined by
multiple interacting factors, when it comes to healthful lifestyle change, one
cannot merely focus on emotion, or thought, or behavior. You must consider all three, and integrate them synergistically in ways that facilitate your best
intentions. Sometimes emotion leads,
sometimes thought, and sometimes behavior, but eventually all three need to be
aligned to produce the healthiest you.
For instance, in our current example in which a vegetable-eating
conversion (behavior) led, the individual who eats less meat should find as
many ways as possible to enjoy vegetables (emotion) and to reflect, read, and
talk about vegetable’s benefits (thought).
Hartmann , H.
(1950). Comments on the psychoanalytic
theory of the ego. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 5, 74–96.
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