Approaching a task the correct way

While both of these perspectives are understandable, neither is particularly accurate or helpful. People learn from negative consequences, and it's helpful to let them do so (within reason). On the other hand, even if you and others have been insulating your loved one from the negative effects of his behavior, swinging the opposite way to punishment isn't the best strategy either. You can suppress behavior with punishment, but this doesn't eliminate it; Withdrawing Rewards The reinforcement strategies you formulated in the last article put you in a position to reward the behaviors you want. Those exercises also supply the rewards you can withdraw in response to behavior you don't want. It's why we treat misfortune like a contagion. We don't want to be infected, so we blame poor people for being poor and sick people for being sick. Fear is why we ostracize, demonize, and shame. It hardens our hearts, points fingers, and takes things away from people who didn't have much to begin with. Saturn often gets vilified in astrology, but Saturn's not the one that brings misfortune. On the contrary, Saturn reveals how each of us becomes the author of our own misfortune by showing what fear can make us do. We do cruel things when we're afraid. We also do stupid things. Oedipus Rex is the story of a prince who was told that one day he would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified by this prophecy, Oedipus hits the road, where he encounters an angry charioteer who threatens to run him down if he doesn't get out of the way and whom Oedipus kills in self-defense. Although the phrase dark night of the soul is bandied about rather casually these days, St. John of the Cross was describing an intense, years long process of inner purification, in which a person's life is turned inside out as a preparation for a life of infused spirituality. It is a painful, difficult journey that involves confronting many uncomfortable truths about yourself, which can be very depressing.

But the promise of spiritual awakening it holds keeps the soul moving forward, first into greater darkness but then into the light. A psychological parallel is what Carl Jung first described as a crisis in midlife or later (ages thirty-five to sixty-five). Jungian psychology holds that in the first part of life (birth to about thirty), the ego emerges from the collective unconscious and encounters the world. Pulled outward by the senses and outward flow of life energy (libido), the young ego generally isn't so conscious of its deeper subjectivity and fashions a life based on family, cultural, and peer pressures. A certain degree of outward success is the reward for this outer movement, but since it has ignored the inner depths, it must eventually collapse. In midlife, the outward flow of libido ebbs and begins to flow back into the collective unconscious. The person follows this flow of life energy and turns inward, perhaps for the first time or, if not, with renewed interest in the psyche's interior. Your loved one learns that he gets your attention, for example, when he is not drinking, and he learns that he misses out on your attention when he drinks. With reinforcement strategies in place, the withdrawal of reinforcers becomes a negative consequence of substance use and other unwanted behaviors. In other words, you take away something that he likes in response to a specific negative behavior. Withdrawing a reward in response to negative behavior strengthens the power of the reward to reinforce positive behavior. A double-strength strategy combines the two: reward the behavior you want, and remove the reward for behavior you don't want. Here are some guidelines to help you select a negative behavior to target and a reinforcer to withdraw. Know what he likes. The reinforcer has to matter enough to your loved one that she will miss it when it's gone. Make it work for you. This side of the reinforcement strategy has to work for you too. Oedipus then goes on to defeat the Sphynx, a monstrous creature terrorizing the city of Thebes, and to marry the recently widowed queen, who's grateful for the assist. It's only after he becomes king that Oedipus learns that he was adopted--that the parents who raised him weren't his biological parents, that the charioteer he killed was his father and the widowed queen is his mother. Unable to cope, Oedipus gouges out his eyes and wanders the streets as a blind beggar.

The story of Oedipus Rex sounds cruel, but it's actually the story of what happens when we let fear seize control of our lives, because when we run away from the things we dread most, we wind up tripping headlong into the very outcome we were seeking to avoid. Saturn is the planet of tests. It tests us by playing on our fears. And Saturn in your horoscope shows you exactly where you'll encounter them. Maybe it's fear of loss that leads you to keep people at arm's length, fear of poverty that keeps you working a job you hate, or fear of disappointment that compels you to choose the hell you know over the heaven you don't. These are the self-fulfilling prophecies that keep you locked in an endless loop. But a test isn't the same as a challenge. The person's subjectivity and inner life come alive. This midlife reversal of psychic energy is an about-face that brings the ego into deeper relationship with its source. It's the start of an individuation process in which it's reunited with its original wholeness, the archetypal Self. This means the self must integrate its split-off aspects and confront its disowned, unconscious parts. The parts of the self that were cast aside and repressed growing up in the person's family system need to be recovered and integrated. A new order or synchronization between inner self and outer life calls forth as the old order falls apart. This culminates in a life of higher meaning, creativity, renewal of vitality, and deeper, more authentic relationships. In bringing a psychological and Jungian interpretation to the journey of the dark night, several Jungian writers show just how psychologically sophisticated St. John was in this classic work. There are some common features to this journey. The reward should feel easy, and safe enough to withdraw that you will actually follow through. Avoid picking something so charged that its removal would cause an explosion. Avoid threatening to take away something if you don't think you will actually follow through--for example, if you're not prepared to change the locks on the house, don't tell him you are kicking him out.

Make it work fast. Pick something you can withdraw during or immediately after the negative behavior occurs--the sooner the better. As with rewards, immediacy strengthens the link between the behavior and the consequence. Turn it back on. The reinforcer you would take away should be something you are willing and able enough to reinstate when the positive behavior returns. Imagine a switch within your reach: you will turn it off when behavior you don't want occurs, and other times turn it on so that light shines on the behavior you do want. Turning on the reward for the behavior you do want may require putting aside your feelings about the past, sometimes the very recent past. A challenge provokes you to act; A test, on the other hand, judges whether you are truly capable or not. Saturn is a malefic planet. It's famous for stacking the deck against you and snatching away the football right when you're ready to kick it. Saturn doesn't make things easy, and that's the point. When you come up against an obstacle to happiness and immediately admit defeat, Saturn shows you that you must not have wanted it that much in the first place because you gave up so easily. Saturn tested your resolve, and your resolve was found wanting. Saturn always tests you in the area of life you care the most about, which is why it's a constant source of anxiety and pain. It's the one problem that you just can't beat. Saturn teaches through the tedium of repetition. People usually begin this journey when they feel like they've made it in the world. There may be the two-car garage, family, kids, job, and some degree of financial stability. At midlife they may feel at the height of their powers.

But just at this moment, the rug gets pulled out from under them. In psychological language, the focus is on narcissism. That is, a prideful, narcissistic person has a vague sense of emptiness and lack, but these are consciously denied and covered over with assertions of self-worth or superiority. The irony of narcissistic pride is that outward appearances mask their opposite. The greater the person's outer show, the greater the inner emptiness. The more the person asserts superiority, the more the person feels less than. This confusion of outer appearances and inner reality is present throughout the journey. Try to stay focused on the behavior that is happening now. For maximum impact on both negative and positive behavior, you'll want to check that you're not still keeping your distance the following night, when he comes home sober, because you are still mad about the night before. You don't want to accidentally punish the behavior you want any more than you want to accidentally reward the behavior you don't want. Be specific. The reinforcer to be withdrawn should be associated specifically with the behavior you want to discourage. The more specific and targeted the better; If not talking to her is your response to everything she does that you don't like, it will lose its power to impact any one of the specific behaviors. When you brainstorm reinforcers, make a short list of more than one to apply to different behaviors. Leave the reaction up to your loved one. Withdrawing a reward is not punishment. And by making you face the same obstacle time and time again, Saturn wears you down until you get to the place where you are so sick and tired of feeling sick and tired that you will try just about anything as long as it's different. And this is Saturn's miracle moment. By withholding the rewards you seek, Saturn teaches you to draw on resources you never dreamed you had and to make the most of your limitations instead of succumbing to them.